Not In My Black Heart

As opposed to back yard. lol

I'm not racist ... they are!

(CNN) -- Most Americans, white and black, see racism as a lingering problem in the United States, and many say they know people who are racist, according to a new poll.

But few Americans of either race -- about one out of eight -- consider themselves racist.

There's some discussion of the issue here at NewsBucket.

Comments

[Ay Uaxe]

If you're a realist, you can't avoid being de facto racist. Race isn't about individuals, its about gross generalities. African Americans (or just plain Africans, frankly) are, as a group, a pestilence. Individual African Americans are some of the finest people I know or know about. However, the problem of racism is not that I may pre-judge as vermin a person I should see as a good and decent human being, but that even after accepting the good and decent person, if push comes to shove between me or some even more decent Anglo and a scum criminal African, it's more likely than not that my great good African friend will follow his skin color, instead of his principles. Then two of us get to live to regret it and the third just jacks our wallets. That's racism as I get to see it every day in my majority African American city, where public schools are 99% African, junior jails because the decent African American people who are supposed to be running them prefer to defer to crooked African politicians, irresponsible African parents, and African scum underachievers. Then they all blame "whitey" and centuries of oppression for their own irresponsibility. But when I see my African neighbor--a good and decent family man--he'll complain about the knuckleheads and welfare queens; that is, until push comes to shove. As one of my all time best friends and mentors (a kind of gospel African mystic named Brother Elton--long gone to his reward, God bless him) said, it's not your black friend you've got to worry about, it's his friends, cause he'll always take their side. And they wonder why anyone would be so racist as to call them in general pests.

[Rick]

Gee, thanks. I guess.

Cordially...

[K]

The words 'racism' and 'racist' have become rather meaningless. More or less just bricks to support one's agenda. Or bricks to throw as needed.

Even fifty years ago the definitions were pretty clear - a belief that some race or races were inherently superior. And obviously others were therefore inferior.

But superior at what? That wasn't usually stated. The unstated answer was 'superior at running society and handling complexity'. More simply 'superior at thinking.' Sometimes a moral dimension was tossed in; inferior races might be 'naturally immoral and inclined to criminal behavior.'

There have been all sorts of attempts to explain why the peoples of the world live in such totally varied circumstances. And race was a natural suspect. In reality we still don't know all about the variations but race was not doing it.

Any observant person can see how words change. Liberal, Communist, Fascist, Nazi, racist. Writers say whatever sells. Politicans do too.

[themarkman]

I know I'm not racist. I hate everybody equally.

[seekeronos]

Today's "racist" and "racism" are words that have been - through great effort and much planning - politicized and re-marked to really mean something that only white people (or PC: Americans of European Descent™) are, and are routinely guilty of.

Other races, and especially blacks (or PC: African-Americans®) are never, ever racist. Ever.

Especially certain firebrand leaders such as Nation of Islam's® Louis Farrakhan, or the Reverend™ Al Sharpton™. Not a single iota of racism in those brothers.

I'm waiting for the usual band of liberals like yyy and Liberal Avenger to chime in with thier defense of this system that actually is "racism in reverse", disguised as "diversity", which works hard to eliminate the meritocracy of the talented and the efficient.

Instead, (according to "affirmative action" and "diversity" policies, and those who fight vigourously to advance them) the whites bear the guilt of being the majority race, and are automatically oppressors by nature; we must be punished for our historic oppressings by forever supporting those of other races who would be justify thier leechery of society because of "the Man".

People by nature tend to gravitate toward and defend people of similar language, beliefs, creeds, nationalities, ethnicities, and of course, race. Race is only the most obvious and outward working of this human tendency to select peers by common interest.

Therefore, it is perfect logical (although not sensible) for Ay Uaxe's scenario... almost regardless of the circumstances involved, the hardworking, productive, rational, intelligent black man will almost *always* side with another black man, even if that second black man is a complete scoundrel - against any white man whom the scoundrel is in conflict with.

Now if we reverse Ay's scenario, the rational good white man would certainly hesitate to defend one another white man if he were immediately perceived to be a scoundrel, save only for the threat of physical violence against the scoundrel.

The reasons for this are:

1) Ingrained guilt for selecting a side due to race caused by much corporate and government required "diversity training".

2) Fear of legal reprisal or remedy by *other whites* - and certainly the black community - for the act of "ganging up on the black man" regardless of the circumstances, or at the very least, for being typed as "racist", thus dumping him in the same social dustbin as the KKK or other white supremacists/nationalists...

3) The rational white man would probably actually consider of the cause behind the conflict between Scoundrel white man and Random Black Man: the white scoundrel might *actually* be in the wrong, and the raional white man would side with the black man.

A policy built upon collective guilt is not healthy for the nation. IF we are to force people to overcome thier basic tendency to view things through racist spectacles (and I hold that ALL men are inherently racist, until taught to do otherwise) - we must do so EQUALLY.

Unfortunately, I am not convinced that such a thing is easily done, given the racial hatreds that simmer not too far below the surface in all of us. The thing with the Farrakhanites and the white "nationalists" is that they are a little less afraid to admit it when they preach their ideas of racial separation.

I am not recommending that we go back to the "bad old days" of Jim Crow laws and segregated schools, but this system of institutionalized discrimination against whites should be scrapped, and a systematic inculcation of Americanism should be taught in its place. All incidences of racism - black, white, red or yellow - should be squashed with the same amount of ruthless efficiency and fanaticism (if I may borrow a line from M. Python) from the day kids set foot into kindergarten.

Lastly, watchdog groups like the ACLU, the SLPC, ADL, CAIR, and the like ought to be de-fanged and marginalized, if not forbidden, for bringing cases of obvious race-baiting into court.

Amer-I-CAN-ism - the values of teamwork, hard work, smarter work, and self-improvement and volunteerism must replace racism and other the forms of separatism we seem to spend too much time being enthralled with.

[Ay Uaxe]

My post was intended as a little shot of "on the ground" unvarnished reality to provoke discussion. With seekeronos' comment, a positive thread's begun. I think it's important to make clear, though, that I don't believe we start out racist in life or that skin color ultimately has much to do with core common interests. When I was a child, growing up in a small town in the deep south, I heard the word "nigger" a lot, but never thought it referred to Africans--I thought it was just another word for "stupid." I did sort of grow up and was and still am aghast that so many people did and still do refer to African Americans by a term that generally means "stupid." Meanwhile, as a pre-school child, I'm out playing with these little African kids, we're touching each others' hair and just taking in the differences and similarities, like any other data. The only race that matters is the one we're running. None of us was naturally racist or predisposed to exalt skin color over other characteristics of common interest. Politics and leftist social engineering taught me and those childhood and later friends that skin color came first. They made our economic and political lives hinge on color--which schools we could go to, whether we could get into a particular college or grad-school, whether we had to pay for it or not, whether we could get a favorable home loan or a government construction contract--all now hinges in very large part on skin color. Yet skin color neither has nor should have anything to do with any of those things. If we the people demand that government can not favor or disfavor anyone based on race for any reason, that we must all sink or swim on our own merit and work, we can get back to that kind of childish objectivity. If we don't, we'll continue down the "Balkan" road that only serves people like Louis Farakhan and David Duke.

[seekeronos]

Interesting. Ay mentions his upbringing as relatively free of the knowledge of racism, or specifically, the predisposition toward racism that I believe exists in humans in general.

To generalize this, let us borrow a word - "Balkanize" which is commonly understood to mean a tendency towards political division (if not outright civil war) between constituent tribal or ethnic groups within a nation-state.

I believe that children have a degree of innocence (this is more in line with my understanding of a Christian teaching that supposes that children are innoncent and without knowledge of sin until they attain the "age of the knowledge of accountability", which is a possible explanation for how God may mercifully deal with Judgment to children who die young)... therefore, the predisposition I speak of is not realized until later in life, probably in adolescence or later, as adult opinions and entrenched lines of thinking along lines of race get passed along.

Perhaps these racist memes are the culprit, but nonetheless, by inculcating strong values of our common identity as Americans (regardless of spiritual, racial, ethnic and etc. differences) - those racist memes will not be given a place to take root.

Social engineering is a bit of a necessary thorn in the side of society. The leftists, as Ay mentioned, have misused and abused a system, which might have served a greater purpose in extending civil rights to an underclassed that legimately suffered in the past, but has been perverted and perpetuated to create guilt in descendants of the former oppressor, and a sense of undeserved entitlement to the descendants of the formerly oppressed.

If we are to survive into the next century intact as an American nation, we must take action to replace Balkanising teachings and memes with that which promotes our American identity.

As a conservative, I am generally not a fan of FDR-type Big Government programs, but if we must have one, the program that we might all benefit from is a campaign to build a healthy sense of nationalism - one that restores public pride in being American, and a nation that gives the sense of optimism and hope that we have long been regarded with.

[Phoenix]

These thoughtful commentaries will be as familiar in 2206 as they are now. Some future hopeful individual will say, “I don’t want big government, but I would sure like it if they could step in and help erase this unceasing racism.” I’m all for any efforts to mitigate the problem. But it won’t happen because our Constitution demands separation of church and state. The government has no sway over religious fundamentalism, and as long as there are fundamentalists in religion there will be racism.

Religious schools treat children not as the children of Protestants, Catholics, and Muslims, et. al., but rather as Protestant, Catholic, and Muslim children. While perhaps denying children are born tabula rasa, these churches and schools assume that children have choice and thus should not be allowed to make up their own minds about religious beliefs and must adopt those of their parents. Those who want to ensure this send their children to private religious schools and this, in effect, places religious and theological authorities in substantial control of some ethnic minority and majority groups. The result is narrowed intellectualism despite what might be an excellent education otherwise; but the lasting influence is likely to be divisiveness and a continuance of intolerance.

As for a healthy sense of nationalism, how about another attack like 9/11. How sad is that. Even that ephemeral burst of nationalism was squelched by the Almighty Religion of PC.