Lets clear up something about race

pmills

pmills

Active member
I'm white, come from an Anglo-Saxon ancestry, my race hasn't given me any problems and i'm pretty oblivious to the benefits i receive-- i take the way things work as normal. Unfortunately because of this i'm sure there will be people out there who will challenge what i'm about to say on the basis that a white boy can't talk shit about race.

Lets start by talking about what race is-- or better what it is not: Race is not ethnicity. Ethnicity is your cultural heritage. When you say "i'm 1/2 English 1/4 french and 1/4 german" or 1/2 asian and 1/2 scottish or whatever you be-- you're talking Ethnicity.

Race on the other hand is not about where you actually came from, who your parents were, or your ethnic make up. When someone says Obama is half black, it's only a comment about his ethnicity, not his race. Race is the perception others have of you based on how you look. There is no way for you to be able to tell what percentage of 'black' someone is simply by looking at the color of their skin. What matters is that regardless of what percentage your ancestry may be, if your skin looks different people treat you differently.

The second half of this video (ildoc1) makes a second point -- start at 1:10 This applies to those who want to disregard race entirely as a means of being 'over' race. Regardless of how you react to race, others still are/will be racist, those deviating from the 'white norm' still have had to deal with race, and to disregard it ignores a whole part of one's story.

We're all super young-- none of us were alive in the 60s, i don't think

many of us really have a good idea of what racism really is. Maybe

those with a diverse background can post up some talk, share a story

about shit that's happened to them, correct some common misconceptions. When i was younger i though race was a joke, haha funny -- lets laugh at the Cadillac off a cliff joke, that was just plain ignorant. Let's try to work on what the line is -- what's appropriate, when is something too far.

thanks in advance for trying to keep this mature.
 
excellent post. i have nothing to comment on right now. youve really covered everything i feel is important. plus K. glad youre on NS bro.
 
we can't get over race, and we can't pretend that racism is over. the fact of the matter is, there are subtle scientific differences between races, whether we want to admit it or not. we are always going to group people, based on how they dress, act, etc. we can still group people based on race, and sometimes even on racial stereotypes.

making hateful comments based on race or racial stereotypes is stupid. every race has it's own stereotypes, some of them with truth, but most of them not. some of those stereotypes are good, some are bad. but the fact of the matter is, for the most part, all races are equal. so trying to make yourself seem better than someone else because of your race is stupid, because whether you want to admit it or not, there are scientifically proven disadvantages to every race.

as far as cultures go, and the mixture of them, this is something we need to get over. if somebody from asia moves to north america, they should not be discriminated against for not understanding our culture, or for theirs being different. we would not like it if we moved to another continent or country and were misunderstood, and ridiculed.

in the end, we are all human, and though we have different cultures, skin colours, stereotypes, etc., we all live here, and none of us are leaving. we need to accept that the best way to move forward as a species (now that we have mostly eliminated our own natural selection) is through cooperation. we cooperate every day with the people in our own cultures and races, and to bridge the gap between that and cooperating with other cultures and races is not a difficult task. if the United Nations can work together at such a high and sophisticated level, why can't the rest of us?

 
just because you're not racist doesn't mean that others aren't -- what you mean to say is 'racism only exists [for your self] if you think it exists' but that can't have an impact on anyone else's beliefs

peep the video, there is no such thing as post-racial
 
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