A Discussion Thread About Racism in America

JUPITERASC said:

money buys privilege
i.e.

since you said your mom is paying your college fees
and has refused your offer to pay her back
at some future stage
then
you are not under threat
of "outrageous college tuition debts"
and ARE PRIVILEGED to have the option
of a college education

Click to expand...

Yeah, but I'm not privileged because I'm white. I'm privileged because of money.

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/09/air-force-chaplain-denounces-religious-tolerance/

Air Force Chaplain denounces religious tolerance

U.S. Air Force chaplain who ministers to thousands of men and women at an Ohio base is asserting that Christians in the U.S. Armed Forces “serve Satan” and are “grossly in error” if they support service members' right to practice other faiths

In an article posted on BarbWire.com three days ago, Captain Sonny Hernandez, an Air Force Reserve chaplain for the 445th Airlift Wing at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, criticized Christian service members who rely on the Constitution “and not Christ.”
He wrote: “Counterfeit Christians in the Armed forces will appeal to the Constitution, and not Christ, and they have no local church home—which means they have no accountability for their souls (Heb. 13:17). This is why so many professing Christian service members will say: 'We ‘support everyone’s right’ to practice their faith regardless if they worship a god different from ours because the Constitution protects this right.”

There are those in important positions in our military who view the wars in the Middle East as a sort of "Holy War" by Christians and Jews against Moslems.

david starling said:

There are those in important positions in our military who view the wars in the Middle East as a sort of "Holy War" by Christians and Jews against Moslems.

Click to expand...

or extreme religious elements - Evangelicals who denounce Roman Catholicism, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, Christian Science, Unitarianism, Eastern Orthodoxy or anything "pagan, ethnic and radical" in the Christian religion - but they can still work with them, Jews in the religious right, Muslims (Saudi Arabia is another close ally in the Middle East) and other non-Christians (most inhabitants of Communist China and economic giant Japan) if the relationship meets the bottom line in global politics and economic interest.

While the "question of racism" is a valid question in itself, I think it might be more useful at this point to ask what does enlightened society look like?

Many of us intuitively, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually "know" what it isn't. We've seen the horrors of racism in many contexts and eras. But would we know "equality" if it were right in front of us? If we suddenly had the opportunity and the resources, what would we create? What does a racially just, equal, and liberated culture look and act like?

These, I think, are the pertinent questions now.

Despite our society is more tolerant than ever before, you still will have racist bigots, just like we have murder, theft and other crimes against society, but we know most people won't or don't commit crimes because we're not supposed to because of laws, morals and ethics. Racism is seen by many people as immoral, unethical and potentially "evil", and we don't want to exhibit unfounded and inaccurate stereotypes or prejudices on others because of color or ethnicity.

It really irks me how conservative or white nationalist tries to brush off racism by saying that many nations had enslaved black people besides white people; but when it comes to discussing to the progress we achieved as humane they always attribute it to western civilization. Of course, the renaissance and the 16th to 20th era in western world made the modern day what it is. However, in my opinion, progress is an accumulation of achievement reached to by many civilizations. Heck the first people to create a civilized society were not white, they were semite. They paved the way towards progress. If it weren't for translation made by muslims, many texts of aristotle and plato would have been lost the same text that western philosophy and ideologies used to flourish. All in all it just make me sick how westerners just take credit. What we reached from achievement is a build up of achievemnt through history resulted in hard work of many ethinical groups not only white.

I don't think America is the only country that exercises racism. Many countries do. However, since the Darwin theory and Edward spencer sociologist theory for black people in addition to that the bell curve and intelligence theory really what made things worse for white people.

TheV, you have many conservatives say or claim they're not racists and the GOP or Republican party was founded by Lincoln in the 1850s, they ended slavery and didn't institute Jim Crow, it was the Democrats who dominated the southern states until the Civil Rights movement (1960s). But what conservative Republicans believe in there's "no official racism" of if so, not in the past 50 years...and Liberal Democrat policies ruined African-Americans from welfare to high school dropouts to fatherless families to low-income ghetto communities to affirmative action to promotion of rap or gang culture. They insist Liberals are racist because they believe in the "existence" of "races" contrary to what the conservatives believe: individualism, pulling your boot straps, belief in god or religious ethics, and not blaming others for past wrongs. Also conservatives said Liberals don't study history or they would know the struggles of poor whites or ethnic groups like the Irish and Jews in America in 19th century and early 20th century America, esp. before the depression/ww2 period (1930-45). And finally Liberalism in the 1800s-early 1900s was "pseudoscientific racism" based on Charles Darwin's theories on human evolution, but I don't believe Darwin was an "atheist" Hitlerian racist.

Kuntuzangmo said:

While the "question of racism" is a valid question in itself, I think it might be more useful at this point to ask what does enlightened society look like?

Many of us intuitively, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually "know" what it isn't. We've seen the horrors of racism in many contexts and eras. But would we know "equality" if it were right in front of us? If we suddenly had the opportunity and the resources, what would we create? What does a racially just, equal, and liberated culture look and act like?

These, I think, are the pertinent questions now.

Click to expand...

Your Post reminds me of something that Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder of Transcendental Meditation used to say: "If you want to arrive at clear water, why study the mud?"