What defines racism?

[JeffreyLebowski]

I'm at work(help desk) and a customer calls in. I ask her for the usuall, name,address,phone#. I politly ask her to repeat her name because she talks faster than the guy on the old MicroMachine commercials. When I finally understand what she is saying, I ask her to spell her name, she spells it out F-A-N-I-S-H-I-A-T-I-A and at the end says "damn". How the hell am I supposed to know how to spell that?

I get the rest of the info and ask her to hold a minute as I look up her records. We can hear what they say when they are on hold.
"I cain't believe this F--kin' white boy. I has to spell my name fo him." yada yada yada. "I ain't understand how dumber some of those persons is."

I come back and to my delight inform her that her computer is outside of manufacturers warranty, by over a year! Well for all of you that do the samething, you know this is when the customer starts saying, "So you don't stand behind your product. I never should of bought this cheap piece of $#it in the first place."

1.I don't write the warranty I just support it.
2.Insulting the product doesn't bother me. I've talked more crap about the computers than they ever will.

Back to my point. Why is it that if I White person says something like "White Power" he's a racist. If a black person says it, it's racial pride.

Also why is it that the KKK can't walk down the streets with guns yet the Black Panthers can rally outside a Texas prison with shotguns and AK-47s and not get arrested.
Why can blacks get away with rasism but not whites?

 

[DesignDawg]

Dude. Was that really her name? HEHEHEEEEEE. How did her parents come up with that one? Is there some name generator program out there?

Ricky
DesignDawg

 

[PistachioByAzul]

You can thank the Democrats.

 

[Russ]

DD,

Ditto. I LMAO when I saw that name.

Russ, NCNE

 

[Total Refected Power]

I know a nurse who tried to talk a black women out of naming her newborn babygirl:

VAGINA.

Yup, she didn't know what it meant. Just like the sound of it.

I hope they call here "GINA" at some point.

 

The KKK does hold rallies and march in parades, etc. Depends on where you live.

 

[woodie1]

As I understand it the law says only a white can be a racist.

If a Cuban in Miami goes to a car dealer and asks for a Cuban salesman it is fine. But let a beloved patriot ask for a beloved patriot salesman and he is racist.

LOL

 

[convex]

that double standard will always be there...

 

[BoberFett]

I think Jesse Jackson defines racism.

 

[Isla]

You all have heard waaayy too much from me lately, but I do have something to contribute here.

I had to put up with a lot of what I consider racism growing up. My parents had it worse. They learned to speak English when they started school in the '30's. My parents are extremely fine people, but they were denied some opportunities because of their heritage. It's a good old boy's world down here. (BTW... both sides of my family made it a point to become as highly educated as possible. Even the old ones learned to speak English. We came here to be Americans.)

Why? I'm not sure. I guess ignorance. When I was in 8th grade, this one boy used to call me a dirty Cuban. I have no idea what his problem was, he just wanted to attack me. The only dirty one was him, not me. I can only assume it was because of what his parents were teaching him.

I still have to deal with this crap. I'll stop before this becomes TMI.

The only key I know of is education. There are 2 kinds of people.... intelligent and not.

Thank you for listening.

 

[RU482]

As I white man in my mid 20's, in the year 2000, I can tell you that I will never have the "correct" answer to this question.

On another note, Ignorance (or, should I say, Stupidity) and disrespect for other people know no racial or sexual boundaries, as this call clearly portrays .

Fanishiata, hmmm, wasn't that a cartoon or something? (I guess I'm no better that her)

Isla, sorry to hear about your experiences. I think boys at that age will attack anything that is different then they are, for better or worse. And, yeah, he was probably influenced by some outside source.

 

[cryptan]

well...one thing's for sure...rascism isn't gonna go away....sigh... we're stuck in one helluva screwed up world...

 

[stomp]

The double standard does exist to an extent... and racism exists in EVERY race...

but the "not racist" people a lot of times have really buried down underlying racism that doesn't involve burning crosses. It's sad even now that i, a college aged non-white with business casual attire, will get followed around a store... or not get helped at a dept store.... its so subtle, its sickening.

I really kind of wish that the outright verbal barage happened now, because at least its easier to identify the ignorant from the fake.

 

[Impact55]

You mean Fontisha or Fantisha?? I go to a 50% black school (it's magnet and i'm white BTW). While we aren't racist or anything we are still somewhat segregated, this is one of the only schools that accepts by academic skills and race. Racism is basically ignorance like Isla said. One thing I hate is when some black people are really ignorant and act like I am to blame because their grandparents were enslaved.... WTF??!?! Did they ever stop and realize that black people started the enslaving process in Africa? I still have a lot of black friends and listen to a lotta "black" music . But all my friends except 1 (actually come to my house, I go to theirs, lalala ) are white. We are still segregated mainly due to simple ignorance and culture clashing.

 

[Impact55]

Stomp is right..... Me and my friend and his black friend went inside a department store and we could LITERALLY see the security cameras zoom in on this black male teen... this was truly sad, and he said he always gets treated like this.. TRUE a lot of the majority of crimes are committed by African-Americans ( proven by statistics), BUT they shouldn't be harassed so much, because those that committ crimes are still a very small minority.
On a similar issue (racial profiling) is real big here.... AND I live in Oklahoma. The cops don't even bother to go near the black neighborhoods, the streets in the northside suck, and their is no hospitals in the north side... I live near WombatWoman ( near riverside) and we live in a nice area, but a few miles north is some poor hoousing districts. It's really sad how the city is divided so much, are most citys this divided?

 

[BlkDragon6]

Impact55,

I really wouldn't bring up slavery unless you want to have a full on debate about it. Not sure what you mean by "black people started the enslaving process in Africa". Just a week ago in my world civ history class we learned about the slave trade during colonization period and while black people in africa did infact have slaves, they were either criminals or were captives from kingdoms at war (not to mention they didn't go through with what the slaves put up with that were shipped to the americas). But hey, maybe I'm taking what you said the wrong way.

 

[The Dancing Peacock]

BlkDragon,

I think what he was referring to was that there were Blacks who sold other blacks to the white slave traders. The whites didn't just go take slaves, they were sold by the blacks there.

Correct me if I'm wrong Impact.



late.


TDP

 

[PistachioByAzul]

More importantly, slavery has been around forever. The strong have always opressed the weak, that's just human nature.

 

[BlkDragon6]

Aye, while is true, you have to look at what was happening to Africa at the time. White slave traders looking for slaves would go to the kingdoms on the coast of africa and either take over the city, which would supply slaves, or ask the leader to trade for slaves. There were even a few kingdoms that did not want to trade slaves with the Europeans and they ended up falling because of it (Oyo and Jokof kingdom). The economy of Africa started growing dependent on the slave trade and which ended up creating a viscious cycle of african kingdoms declaring war on neighboring kingdoms for a day, and kidnapping all the people they could, just so there economy could survive.

This is all paraphrased from the notes that I took in my class, just to let you know.

 

[BlkDragon6]

EngineNr9,

While slavery has been around forever, that doesn't justify slavery being alright. Not to mention that until you really learn about it do you realize how terrible the African slave trade was. Even the church justified it by saying that Africans were inhuman, because they couldn't enslave nonchristains, but had to try to convert them.

Just for the record, I'm white, if it really makes any difference at all.

 

[PistachioByAzul]

Of course that doesn't justify it. The point is that white people are not inherently evil.

 

[BlkDragon6]

EngineNr9,

I agree whole heartedly, I'm just trying argue a vague statement about black people starting the slave trade.

 

[Impact55]

I think what he was referring to was that there were Blacks who sold other blacks to the white slave traders. The whites didn't just go take slaves, they were sold by the blacks there.


Correct. The Africans started the slave business before the Europeans could find out about it. It was mainly spread from modern day Egypt... The greedy Europeans however got their big ships and mainly got the idea from several large African American slave "corporations" and started to bring them to the Indies and some of them in Northern America (most slaves went to the islands, Barbados, West & East Indies, etc.) African - Americans, like Europeans are both greedy and will do what it takes to get money, even if it means enslaving one of their own. Heck, even Native Americans enslaved enemys caught in battles and put them in slavery for their whole life. I'm not stating that slavery as a whole was started by African- Americans, but in the African region, yes it was started by African Americans. You need to get past the barrier in your educational studies that indicates "White owner bad, Slave man good". While I don't agree with slavery, you have to learn and study every aspect of history to truly grasp the material.

 

Europeans in the early 16th century did, however, do what everyone thinks they did to the Africans to the native people in what would be America. They made slaving expeditions where they captured natives for the sole purpose of having them work in the Caribbean. This is one of the main reasons why native-americans were aggresive on sight toward any Europeans they saw throughout the time of America's exploration.

 

[goog40]

Yeah, that's like when Venus Williams' father called another player a dumb white turkey. If it had been any other color besides white used there it would have been a huge controversy.