Agreed. The thing is racists still exist. Since we both agree that racism is a bad thing, what's wrong with challenging it when it rears it's ugly head?
Racism, and racists still exist, but those are deep wounds (at least in the US) and will eventually scar over and die off IF PEOPLE STOP PICKING AT THE WOUNDS...
The problem as I see it is that continually playing the racism card is essentially like stoking a proverbial fire. If you understand that racism equals stupidity, you can simply think someone's a dumbass and move on. If you "challenge" their viewpoints, you change nothing. A person raised with racist viewpoints may become more tolerant of others but will NEVER be swayed from the mental virus that is racism...
On the other hand, if you just view racists as idiots and ignore them, eventually their voices become lower and they die off like unfed fish in a fish tank.
A person of any race can be racist, but here you kinda sound like someone who seems to think racism is in the past, like there are no longer victims of racism.
Not at all. Not for a single second would I be naive enough to believe that ignorant people no longer exist on this planet. I just have a very sore spot for people who continually make their lives about "being" white or "being" black. I figure that my own complexion might be considered white, but I'm an American, just like the other xyz million people in this country, and that's the end of it.
The struggles I go through are -- by and large in a sweeping generalization kinda way -- the same problems that every other person in this country has. I've seen both blacks and whites be discriminated against based on "equal opportunity" quotas, and under no circumstances do I believe that's -- in any way -- "ok"...
I think this is a major problem for some people. They think that for two races to be treated equally one must completely ignore that the races exist. But that's ridiculous. What's important is that they are treated equally while at the same time accepting the differences.
I can agree, and disagree with this concept on different levels. There are far more than two races in America, and each person of each race faces challenges all their own. I agree with treating everyone equally, which is what I was trying to actually get at in the first place..
(but this site is burdened with those who just LOVE to debate every turn of phrase -- which is one specific reason why we don't get new users)
You can however accept the social and cultural differences between different people without having to bend over backwards to extend compensatory privileges in any way. Right now, the system is broken, and I'm just waiting on America to start honoring holidays for special interest groups in the name of "equality".
In the US blacks suffered systemic abuse and poverty, you can't just ease up on the abuse and expect them to suddenly become white Americans with a permanent tan. I think Donald Sterling alone proves that race is still a big issue in the US and all you're doing is trivializing it.
Wow. OK. Way to close a reply there, by comparing me to a racist... 'Nuff said I guess.
(For the record, I don't expect ANYONE to become a "white American". I simply think that in 2014, (151 years after the Emancipation Proclamation) it's time to look past the most horrific time in American history... It's time for everyone
-- of all races -- to stop believing they are somehow owed anything in this life, let alone a free ride because of the color of their skin...)
Like most threads here, I'm going to now bow out of this one because it occurs to me that we on this site tend to be a little rabid about our various subjects. Even though my heart is in the right place, I truly feel like there's nothing I could possibly write here in words which wouldn't subsequently be torn apart, twisted, disassembled, then frankenstein'ed to use against me.
Racism is (and racists are) stupid. Get over them. Move on. End of point.
Wayne
