The word whitey (1960s- ) had two main meanings:
- A racist term for whites, at least when used by blacks, but way weaker than the n-word.
- Whites as a whole, especially when exercising power in society in racist ways: institutional racism.
It was current among Black Americans mainly in the 1960s and 1970s. People like Richard Pryor, Gil Scott-Heron and LeRoi Jones used it – but James Baldwin, Angela Davis and Stokely Carmichael rarely if ever did in unquoted use. Malcolm X used it on occasion.
Gil Scott-Heron in 1970:
I can’t pay no doctor bill.
(but Whitey’s on the moon)
It spread to White American English. By 1966 this story appeared on the cover of Life magazine (pictured):
PLOT TO GET ‘WHITEY’
Red-hot young Negroes plan a ghetto war
As with blacks, the word fell out of use among whites in the 1970s.
But then it made a comeback among whites in the 1990s, apparently through the “blame whitey” trope of right-wing blacks (a phrase that did not appear in Ebony magazine till 1988).
Now in the 2010s it is mainly used by whites and Rented Negroes. You see it in The Economist, Mother Jones and Time, though rarely if ever in unquoted use in the New Yorker, The Nation and the New York Times. The biggest user on my Kindle is John McWhorter. The biggest users on this blog are white racists.
Current main uses:
1. To make blacks sound racist.
Sometimes with a helping of Mock Ebonics:
Abagond, you are a racist who often spews hatred like ”Whiteyz da debill”.
When they did it to Michelle Obama in 2008 she said:
I mean, “whitey”? That’s something that George Jefferson would say.
Meaning it sounds like something from the 1970s. It is whites who so love to use racist slurs, not blacks.
2. To belittle institutional racism.
Going by comments on this blog:
- Whitey saved blacks from Africa.
- Whitey gives good things to black people, like television and clean water.
- Blacks hate Whitey.
- Blacks want to beat up, even kill Whitey.
- Blacks expect handouts from Whitey.
- Blacks would be nothing without Whitey.
- Blacks are not thankful for Whitey and have the nerve to complain!
- Blacks imagine Whitey has an evil plot to get them.
- Blacks imagine Whitey is holding them back.
- Blacks imagine Whitey is evil and racist.
but most of all:
- Blacks blame Whitey for all their own failings instead of facing up to the Root Causes.
Racism cannot be a root cause because that would mean “blaming whitey”!
Feel the paternalism: Whitey is just overflowing with goodness and kindness and gumdrops while blacks are like children:
- They depend on others (for television, clean water, handouts);
- They are ruled by their feelings (hate! kill!);
- They imagine frightening things that are not there (Evil Whitey!).
As one commenter put it:
wonder if abagond checks under his bed at night for whitey.
This is the very same racist paternalism that underlies Mighty Whitey or White Saviour films.
Note: “Whitey” is a moderated word on this blog, but for the next seven days it will not be.
See also:
- Mighty Whitey
- “blame whitey”
- Mock Ebonics
- Kindle
- Rented Negroes
- John McWhorter: Is racism over? – he says yes. He is a big fan of the word “whitey”.
- darkies
- “white is right”
- The Broken Africa stereotype
Where’s whitey when you need him, I need a new purse and matching boots! If whitey is giving out handouts I want some, now! Where would we be without whitey and his handouts? Oh where oh where would we be without good ol whitey?
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@ Herneith
LOL. More like where would whitey be without us.
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I was curious about the origin of the word “whitey” myself. I always thought it was simply a racial term invented by blacks against whites. I rarely hear blacks use it other than on tv.
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I’m with Sharina. I never heard people in life call anyone whitey. Only heard the word “whitey” on television, in the 70’s. Blaxploitation films, and Norman Lear “ghetto” humor.
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That’s what George Jefferson says.
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The only times I have ever heard whitey in real life was by white people. Other than that he was a character in the Bowerey boy movies.
https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS9l8rAoWhAQUSKo6UogA6UUrBEcZNEcwiddarBFQaaTWThkb0XBA
That’s Whitey standing beside wolfman. Slip Mahoney is the guy standing in front of them.
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I’m unsure as to how “whitey” was/is perceived to be a racist term against white USians. What exactly is racist about the word? Are we equating centuries of systematic denigration of poc, colonialism and appropriation with white folks hurt fee fees?
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It’s not as malevolent as the words used to denigrate black people.
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Abagond, you forgot the terms cracker, white boy and honky. White people love to throw those terms around and claim that they have the same effect as them using the term “ni66er” The only problem is like other people have already stated the main people who use these terms are whites. I’ve been around many Blacks and most of them don’t use the term “whitey” or any other term for that matter. Whenever someone uses that term, it makes him or her sound really dated and old fashioned.
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Whitey sounds corny, no wonder they use it nowadays, lol. We say Ws or zombies when referring to white folks in coded conversations. 🙂
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When it comes to many white racist people, including the ones who come to this blog, cause and effect doesn’t exist if they are the causes of negativity. To them there is no such thing as karma or “What goes around, comes around.” They don’t even know that they are affected by their white supremacist imperialistic, holier-than-thou mindset let alone that said mindset has affected POC in several ways.
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2520 or YT
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lol whites sure do get stuff late.Blacks have moved on from those phrases and they are just now picking it up smh.i guess they’ll be saying jive turkey next.They so two thousand and late
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@ Herneith
lol the funny thing is its kinda true whitey[santa clause] will bring your matching gucci purse and boots next christmas. all while using free slave labor…. oops i mean elves.
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Lets not bag on whitey too much i mean he did bring us out of Mother Africa,without whitey we’d still be in a mud hut and eating mud pies or gettin eaten by lions.Oh lets give thanks in the name of whitey.I shall pour some kool aid on the ground for those great whiteys lost on the confederate side during the civil war. We shall thank the great white man for all these blessings,oh and native americans yall can join in too don’t be shy.Natives yall can thank whitey for taking your land because you were too savage to know what to do with it.Yes let all the poc praise whitey and make a national holiday in his honor. Long Live Whitey.
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@ lifelearner
you call them zombies really i always thought of them as vampires since they love them so much. Black people invented zombies so i don;t think that’s right to give them that name.vampire suits them more they both are hated by the sun so vampire is more accurate.
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@mstoogood4yall
Lol, I hear ya. It’s more so an inside joke between my husband and I. He watches a lot of the sci-fi stuff and I think it has more to do with the sheep like mentality, the lack of a soul in the dealings with humanity and being pale. I’m off to get the real reason. Report back later, ha!
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@ mochasister:
This. I’ve heard some of the white people where I come from say these terms are just as hateful, and just as racist as the n-word. I’m thinking, “Yeah, right.” while giving them the side eye.
I have never witnessed any black folks, well, where I live, say “whitey” at all. I’m not saying these terms haven’t been uttered, but I’ve never heard it. As for honky, I’ve only heard that word said by George Jefferson as Mary Burrell pointed out.
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I have never heard a black person in real life use the word “whitey”. It seems like something white Hollywood screenwriters would make up thinking that black and white racism are symmetric.
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@ Siah
I call it racist because whites perceive it to be racist, like in Whiteygate in June 2008 when rumours flew that there was video of Michelle Obama using the word “whitey”.
But right, even if blacks did use it that way there is no way it could match something like the n-word. To think otherwise would be to assume black and white racism are a mirror image of each other, a common white fallacy.
Also, blacks do not NEED a racial slur for whites:
First, because blacks are not in an abusive relationship with whites that would require words like that.
Second, white actions speak far louder than any word ever could. Who needs whitey or honky or cracker when you got words like slave owner, police brutality and racist.
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Careful now, Abagond. De-moderating words is just like a neon sign for white trolls. 😛
I always thought it was silly when other white people acted like they were constantly getting called whitey or other supposed slurs. “Whitey” sounds a bit silly, not like a word that actually has a sting to it. And I’ve honestly never heard anyone use the word except in apocryphal stories of the imagined horrible abuse black people give to white people.
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Ha ha. Excellent post. And as others have pointed out, the term is WAAAAY too corny to have been invented by POC. It was probably coined by Jewish comics coming of age in the 50s and 60s, but later used with sarcasm — in the same way that you’ve used it here — by people like Richard Pryor, Gil Scott-Heron and LeRoi Jones. That’s the only thing that makes sense. Besides, everyone knows that Whitey is Beaver Cleaver’s Dennis-the-Menace-lookalike friend.
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As Louis CK outlines: POC”Hey, CRACKER” White Guy: “Darn, ruined my day, reminded me of owning land and people”
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@Grin and Bear It: That’s very funny. I was thinking the same thing. Norman Lear and people from tv land are responsible for this corny word.
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Great demonstration with evidence showing exactly how the media puts words in the mouths of the African American community. It’s hard to believe there are people out there who doubt it.
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Yea.. so I’ve never heard anyone use this word in real life…
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Michelle Malkin is another big user of the word “whitey”
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Abagond:
Bulanik:
The implication here is that pejorative language arises to serve a (perceived) morally justifiable “need”. While that can perhaps be the case (as with the historical use of the n-word), I don’t know of any reason why it’s necessary. People can be jerks without having to invoke a broader paradigm of oppression or marginalization.
I’ll bet one can discover a whole taxonomy of racist terms used between groups that have little to no history of that type.
Abagond:
My personal experience of being the target of such terms was that the speaker was a complete stranger. I suspect this is the case for most other people as well.
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@ The Cynic:
Ugh, yes, she says “whitey” a lot. Btw. she has the same background as I do. She’s what my people call a “coconut”. Brown on the outside and white on the inside. It’s disgusting how she allows herself to be the mouthpiece of white America.
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black people can be racist, too. racism isn’t just about who has power. if you hate someone else because of their skin color, that is racism, too. And don’t forget all the other ethnic clashes in every country, around the world. People just fear/hate what they don’t understand.
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Is that the excuse of individuals these days. Play the other race is racist card to avoid addressing the issue. Displacing the blame will not fix the issue. So far this blog is discussing the term “whitey.” A term rarely if ever used by blacks but has often been stated by racist whites how blacks use it. Personally I find it quite interesting that this term is believed to be a racial slang for white people. I also find it interesting how the media lies and people believe it without a shadow of a doubt.
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There was a guy in Boston known widely as Whitey Bulger.
Ok. Not funny.
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@ sam
LOL
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Here’s a song Sly Stone wrote about ‘whitey’:
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJuL-9Y00l8)
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@herneith:
Could this be a whitey? I mean the guys name is Winter and he is albino, for real.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqJOsNMhIRo)
Ok. Not funny.
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@sam… I’ve noticed black albinos have a harder time coping and fitting in then white or asian albinos. Maybe because it is such a striking contrast and they look a little more odd. But either way making fun of albinos to kiss butt on here is not cool sir. What if it were you…. alot of them are blind.
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melody (dee)
black people can be racist, too. racism isn’t just about who has power. if you hate someone else because of their skin color, that is racism, too. And don’t forget all the other ethnic clashes in every country, around the world. People just fear/hate what they don’t understand.
But who has the most power to use their hatred to create policies that would affect the people they hate in large destructive doses? If you hate someone else because of skin color, but have the power to dehumanize the population who shares the same color, THAT is racism. What you’ve described was mere prejudice and bigotry.
We can say how this part of human nature if we want to, but that is just a cop out to avoid the issue being presented.
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@dave:
Perhaps you misunderstud my intention. I am a big fan of JW and just recently my cousin met him while he was playin over here, so…
But just to clarify: I am jokin about the concept and idea of “whitey” as it is presented in various contexts. I am not jokin about albinos, black, brown or white albinos, blind or not.
As for the butt kissing, we have no such ideas where I come from. It is considered to be un hygienic.
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@sam… ok then. I thought you were using a drastic example of “whiteness” to make fun of white people to gain favor on here in jest. Guess I was wrong… sorry to you then sir.
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@sam
Ol’ whitey there looks like Elric of Melnibone!
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PS Sam…. If you are going to go with the albino brothers Winter. I would have gone with Edgar. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pEtnT40RnY)
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leigh204:
I’m no fan of Malkin’s politics or personality. Though to be fair, perhaps it’s people like yourself who are the ones actually imagining and manifesting such a “racial” divide.
Also, I think the criticism of the term “whitey” is based on its literal usage (or lack thereof) rather than as a semiotic one. Whether or not the word itself is ever used, it can serve as a functional stand-in for racist epithets and attitudes towards white folks.
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@Melody (aka dee)
You might want to refer to the “Broken Record” thread tab for valuable insight and context. Just say’n.
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@ Randy, our imaginings don’t get us passed up for jobs, followed in stores, or killed by cops. In fact it’s the other way around if you ask me, White folks imaginings are the cause of most of our ills. Yes I know Leighs ethnicity.
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@ Randy:
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Randy’s response to Leigh,
I’m no fan of Malkin’s politics or personality. Though to be fair, perhaps it’s people like yourself who are the ones actually imagining and manifesting such a “racial” divide.
This sounds like a typical “blame the victim” response. You’re basically saying that Leigh is (perhaps) at fault for point out what Malkin is.
Randy, when will you get it through your thick, white skull that it’s not POC who are the most or all to blame for the racial divide? The fact that you put those words in quotations is a hint that you are still comfortably sheltered from certain realities you can not…no, will not comprehend.
Leigh is not “making up” her conclusions based on nothing. Just because it means nothing to you doesn’t make it fact.
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I can think of several things that whites have done to perpetuate the racial divide. It amazes me how white racist society has managed to even convince some POC that the problem is other POC and not whites.
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Ofay! Now that’s a word I think was probably coined by black people — but even with that, it was never widely used except maybe by hipsters, beatniks, and serious bebop aficionados. It’s long since fallen out of favor, but I was reminded of it when I searched for that “job interview” skit featuring Richard Pryor and Chevy Chase. I seem to remember Pryor using whitey and a bunch of other derogatory terms as Chase kept hurling racial epithets at him:
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/f02d0b8cca/word-association-from-nino
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@dave: Nothing wrong with Edgar either. Saw him perform years and years ago way back.
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@ Randy
I have heard enough of Leigh’s experiences with racism to know that that is laughably untrue. Experiences you have never had to go through and therefore, as Brothawolf puts it, “are still comfortably sheltered from certain realities”.
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brothawolf:
abagond:
Leigh’s general point here is one I’ve heard in a number of contexts and seems worthy of discussion. Importantly, it’s not about whether or not racism exists.
Here it is again:
This statement appears to imply the following:
1. “White America” has a primary / singular political viewpoint which Malkin (or other non-white person in that role) advocates for.
2. This viewpoint isn’t primarily political, but rather breaks along racial lines, and therefore differs from that of say a Filipino or otherwise non-white agenda. Consequently, Malkin’s either being disingenuous or exploited in these efforts.
Both statements appear contestable.
For number 2, the claim is basically that she advocates against her own specifically racial / ethnic interests. If so, then what are those interests exactly and how do they differ?
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Bulanik:
I’m not contesting a particular person’s experience, but rather whether or not such words are in common use.
For one thing, I have personally been the target of these epithets and know others who have as well. Further, I’ve heard black people use derogatory terminology towards hispanics and asians, and asian people use derogatory terminology towards hispanics, blacks, and other asians, just to cite a couple of examples.
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@randy:
“This viewpoint isn’t primarily political, but rather breaks along racial lines, and therefore differs from that of say a Filipino or otherwise non-white agenda.”
Well, this whole blog is political and the whole issue of racism is political, as are all the opinions and expressed experiences in this context. This is real life politics, not the politic of professional politicians and/or political parties BUT real life politics which eventually will move the mountains.
One can not discuss about social ills or anything social, (and yes, that is SOCIAL, not SOCIALIST) without being at once in a political discussion. So when you say, for example, that blacks are using racist expressions too, you are making an political statement in the context of discussion about racism. And thus, you are stating your stance on the fore said issue.
From what I understand your political stance on the issue of racism is that we are all racists, no matter what the color of the skin is. That racism is not just a white thing, but everyones thing, and there fore it is wrong to say that only whites are racists. I may be wrong here.
If so, could it be, that the american society is so immersed in racism that everybody adopt it into their thinking and understanding the world? Could it be, that without the effort of re-educating oneself, re-thinking the whole symbolic and political system of the society, one is unable to escape the racism, particulary as it is in the official system everyday and on the media everyday.
Could it be that without understanding this overwhelming racists system which covers the whole society from the bottom to the top, one is doomed to be a racist simply because it is so natural part of the whole society and the life itself in that system?
Racial profiling, racial data, racial definitions which one has to do on oneself, and thus learning that race is the essential aspect of ones own identity and biology too, the constant emphasis on racial definition on the media about everyone and their mothers too; constant repetition of racial caricatyres, clishés, myths and legends via the media, in practise on going brainwashing about the race being The Thing in every aspect of ones life…
Of course it is not done in hostile or aggressive way, but very often in a subtle way, almost invisible way. It is just presented as a defining factor. If you are white, this is how you are. This is a mexican. This is a happy and relaxed jamaican. The american jew is the same as a new yorker who happens to be a jew. Latinos are like this: Salma Hayek, Antonio Banderas, Miami cubans etc. it goes on and on and on and on. In commercials, texts, songs, movies, tv shows, documentaries, books and arts.
If you are a black teen male from south side Chicago you are NOT interested in classical music and mathematical dilemmas, right? If you are an indian in New York, you drive a cab but are intelligent. Right?
Every american respects his “roots” by acting out the racial stereotypes and ethnic clishés. Right? All irish are crazy about St Patricks day and must be. They all like green color and drinks. They do not like to skate or snow board. Really? The greeks have big families and gyros pita shops and restaurants and like to talk at the same time and are very emotional. Really?
All the finnish americans live in nortern Minnesota woods, drink hard, work like mad men as loggers and such, love the sauna and fighting. Well… Not really.
All of that is political Randy. That is politics of racism.
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Why do any of you insist on arguing with Randolph? You know it won’t lead anywhere.
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Sharina
I was curious about the origin of the word “whitey” myself. I always thought it was simply a racial term invented by blacks against whites. I rarely hear blacks use it other than on tv.
When I was growing up I heard that word everyday..
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That’s just it. I don’t think blacks invented the term. Even when it was in more regular use in the 60s and 70s, it seemed mostly the main people using it were TV and movie characters — most of whom were penned by white authors. As others have noted, it’s not really a term that fits into black vernacular, unless it’s being done with sarcasm or irony. And even then, it’s use is still fairly rare. It’s like the mock ebonics that Abagond often talks about — it’s more an interpretation of how we talk rather than the reality of how we talk.
Etymonline dates the term to 1828, which pretty much confirms to me that it probably was not a black invention. Like the term “cracker,” which supposedly came about by the sound of a crackling whip, it was mostly used by whites to describe other whites — that is, it was meant more to delineate class differences than racial ones. I’m not saying that blacks NEVER used the term, but white people’s imagining that we use it is far, far greater than the reality.
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Hey Randy, were you on vacation?
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Whether or not the word itself is ever used, it can serve as a functional stand-in for racist epithets and attitudes towards white folks.
I see you haven’t lost your flair for absurdness and comical delivery. Carry on!
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mary burrell
That’s what George Jefferson says.
No, George Jefferson used the word, “honky”. Frequently.
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LOL blacks are so racist…
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Not anymore racist than u and ur kind..
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Why is it that white people like Jason A. Think everything is racist that blacks do and have a lack of ability to actually read what the blog is about?
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Cause he is incapable of logical thought, when ur raised to believe everything is about u and for u, makes it tough to engage in cogent thought.
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@deepdkchocolate; Now that I think about it I think you’re right. I stand corrected. Honkey sounds worse than whitey. Lol.
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sam:
You’re close. I’m not saying that everybody is a racist, but rather that it’s a common human phenomenon and not limited to one group or another.
sam:
That statement seems reasonable. People’s attitudes appear to be colored by the societal views they’re steeped in.
sam:
I believe you’re referring to stereotypes. They do appear to be self-reinforcing. Why is that? I’d suggest that people have a tendency to conform their behavior to that of their in-group, which can be defined in many different ways, such as by ethnicity, social class, education, region etc.
sam:
And yet I’d wager that Finnish-Americans are more likely to do these things than a completely random sample of Americans. Not noticing that such pattens exist seems an exercise in willful blindness.
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Herneith:
If you’re going to take the effort to comment, why not contribute to the discussion?
Regarding my comment: imagine that the magazine article was titled “The Plot to Get Darkie” and referred to a concern that black folks faced an organized pattern of discrimination. Would it matter whether or not the specific term “darkie” was used in common parlance? I don’t think that would be really be the point.
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Bulanik:
I think all people have a similar propensity for “groupism”. As sam points out, in America this appears to present rather prominently on racial lines. I do think it’s “natural”, but that doesn’t imply a positive value judgement. Violence is also “natural”.
Bulanik:
Where I grew up, people didn’t manifest their identity as “white”, but rather by their ethnicity: Irish, Polish, Italian, etc. Oh how the ethnic slurs flew in the schoolyard, none of it based on race.
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And none of u “ethnic” folk didn;t hesitate to call a black person from anywhere on this lanet, a n****r.
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melody (dee)
Black people don’t hate white people because of their skin color,Blacks have never undergone a radical attempt to disenfranchise and de-humanize whites , Many blacks hate whites because we know whites will never do right by us and every opportunity to interact with whites has resulted in a negative outcome for blacks.
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I don’t know what y’all talkin’ about , when I was growing up in NYC this is all we called white people..”Whitey” as in, “Here come this whitey right here.” or “Eff this whitey”.. It was a word used by black folks.. Why deny it.I used it almost every damned day especially during or after an encounter with these liberal “whites” who actually believe we couldn’t see right through them..lol..
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According to Randy on this thread:
and yet:
Racism is “natural”, yet when people of colour point it out, they are just imagining things. How nice.
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We may have a propensity for “groupism” whatever that is but certainly not racism, this came to be during the advent of white supremacy, It’s not natural nor does it constitute living in harmony with one’s surroundings. To bad ur to blind to see that.
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Abagond:
I can see where you might think those statements are contradictory, but two points:
1. You may have overlooked the key phrase “such a racial divide”, specifically the one claimed by Leigh that separates and containerizes the interests of “White America” from that of “Filipino America” or “Asian America” as represented by Michelle Malkin.
In other words, Malkin is supposedly advocating against her “Filipino interests” in favor of “white interests”. If so, what are those “Filipino interests” exactly and how do they differ?
2. The existence of racism in general doesn’t imply that it exists everywhere and in all circumstances. If one makes a claim of “racism”, one should be able to support it with evidence and not just point to the fact that it’s “out there somewhere” ergo it also has to be a”right here”.
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Kinda like whites saying bi-racial people aren’t black yet every person representing “blacks” in America is “bi-racial”..lol.
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@randy:
USA is openly racist society. It is officially racist. It is in all the questionaires, passes, indentification forms etc etc. You are not assumed to be just an american, but a representative of certain race. You are supposed to be not you, Randy, but somehow a part of racial unit which does not exist outside racism. And behind this is an ideology which separates humanbeings into racial entities. That ideology is called racism.
Yes, there are racist everywhere. In my country there are very prominent racists. But in USA the government has adopted it as a part of its being. It is official. It is in the official documents and papers. It is in the used language. It is everywhere.
What would happen if americans would stop to fill in the blanks where they are supposed to write down their “ethnicity”? Why it would be dangerous? To whom it would be dangerous? Who wants you to define yourself on racial bases? Who demands the information from you are you “caucasian”, “white” etc.? Why it must be known?
As long as the goverment and its various parts keep demanding the information about your ethnicity/race, that whole system is racist. It wants you to participate in that racism. What real use they have for this information? None, unless there is a racist motive for it. Need to know are you a black, white, latino, native or what.
I see no other reason than racial profiling. Need to define people by races. And that is racism.
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@ Randy
Right, I know, you were trying to catch Leigh in a logical error. To her credit she did not bite. You, on the other hand, are being deliberately obtuse to the holes in your own thinking.
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And God forbid if we, the oppressed, start defining people by their race.. Even though everyone else does..lol.
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Abagond:
Not a logical error, but rather (as yet) unsupported claims.
These are:
1. Malkin’s political views represent the interests of “White America”.
2. These “White America” interests differ from “Filipino America” interests.
Whereas a logical error will always remain an error, unsupported claims can become supported. Perhaps someone in the commentariat will fill in the blanks.
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@deepdkchocolate
“Why deny it”
I can deny it because I have never heard it other than on tv. I have frequently heard the term poor cr**ker though.
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@ Randy
—What Malkin says is proof of her racism. I think you should read and look at much of what she says before you decided the Leigh is being irrational. As far as what Filipino or other Asians think, I have had the pleasure of being around quite a few and so far none of them tend to agree with her. There maybe some that do, but it does not mean all of them do.
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“Kinda like whites saying bi-racial people aren’t black yet every person representing “blacks” in America is “bi-racial”..lol.”—LOL
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“Kinda like whites saying bi-racial people aren’t black yet every person representing “blacks” in America is “bi-racial”..lol.”—LOL
Moral to that story is , u listen to white people’s nonsense u’ll end up just as stupid as they r..Minus the privileges..lol..
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Why is my fine First Lady is on here? what they’ve to say now about her.
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Randy
“Not a logical error, but rather (as yet) unsupported claims.
These are:
1. Malkin’s political views represent the interests of “White America”.
2. These “White America” interests differ from “Filipino America” interests”
Unsupported claims, eh? Unsupported according to who? You?
Malkin has always been a minority spokesperson for the white right for years. She has appeared as a supporter for right wing views and policies. It is evidenced in her numerous articles, videos and books.
You see Randy, it’s one thing to say that a claim is unsupported, but it’s another to make that conclusion based on the notion of avoidance for some excuse or another. Some of the people who dropped in and dropped out of this blog have asked for proof or evidence to back up their statements which is an obvious clue that tells us that they do not take what was written seriously enough to consider at word value. And when there is some information to support it, it’s still refuted. The usual response includes the word ‘liberal’ even if such information has no political agenda.
You, it seems, uses logical rhetoric as a shield against information based on numerous facts regarding white racism, especially the systematic kind. You’ve must’ve been taught to believe in the elementary school’s version of what racism is i.e. the klan, cross burnings, nooses, etc. Since they are not as prominent in this era in the mainstream, you’ve concluded that white racism has diminished a great deal.
You are also taught to think that we are all the same and we live in such a society where that is common. It isn’t. This is not an equal society because this society fears equality so much, they’ve given it certain names: socialism and communism. The last thing they want is for everyone to get a fair shot at the so-called American Dream. And those who have achieved it didn’t get their by fear means.
White America’s interests are not the same as Filipino America’s interests because both groups are different from each other in the eyes of this racist society. One was taught they were normal and superior. The other was taught that they are…the “other”. I can’t speak for them, but I’m sure many would laugh at such an assumption.
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@ abagond:
That is true, Abagond. I did not bite. Randy has issues with me for some reason. He’s tried to engage me before in other threads particularly about comments regarding Filipinos. However, what he’s trying to do isn’t working. Nice try, Randy. Your song and dance routine of trying to place blame on others is getting old now. I see right through you, buddy. 😀
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Sharina:
My tolerance for such bombastic rhetoric is limited, but haven’t heard anything specifically racist in her commentary. Can you name one example? Also, I didn’t say Leigh was irrational, only that she didn’t support her claims.
Basically, she’s calling Malkin an “Uncle Tom”, which is a charge that goes well beyond a difference of political opinion or orientation.
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Brothawolf:
It took you to the last paragraph of your comment to even attempt to answer the question, and then what you offered was a non-specific generalization. It’s nearly a tautology.
A single example to support the claim has still yet to be offered.Not one.
Bulanik:
Disappointingly, you’ve submitted another content-free comment in lieu of advancing the discourse.
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@ Randy
The key thing is what you consider racist compared to what others consider racist is entirely different.
Now here is something that will prove my point as well as Leighs. Maybe leigh more so than mine…”In 2004, she wrote In Defense of Internment: The Case for ‘Racial Profiling’ in World War II and the War on Terror,[22] defending the U.S. government’s internment of 112,000 Japanese Americans in prison camps during World War II, and arguing that the same procedures could be used on Arab- and Muslim-Americans today. The book engendered harsh criticism from several Asian American civil rights organizations.[23] The “Historians’ Committee for Fairness”, a group of professors, condemned the book for not having undergone peer review and argued that its central thesis is false.[24][25] As a result of the controversy, the Hawaii-based newspaper MidWeek dropped her column in August 2004;[26] The Virginian-Pilot called her “an Asian Ann Coulter” and dropped her column in November 2004.[27] Malkin responded: “I’m not Asian, I’m American,” and described the comparison to Coulter as, “a compliment.”[28] Critics of Malkin’s theory attempted to get the Manzanar National Historic Site, (a former relocation and internment camp), to ban her book from its store, but failed.[29]”….Curtsey of good ole Wikipedia.
Leigh is not entitled to support her claims to you. You are not her parent. You do not own her. If you felt they were so wrong etc. then you should have looked up information to refute her. Instead you proceeded to tell her she was wrong because her thoughts did not coincide with your ideas of what racism is. I suggest you either take a further look at Malkin or continue on with your ideas of what is racist and what is not move on without constantly trying to tell others they are wrong.
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@randy:
“Basically, she’s calling Malkin an “Uncle Tom”, which is a charge that goes well beyond a difference of political opinion or orientation.”
No it does not. It is all about the politics. As for Uncle Tom: It is a political term which came around in the 60’s. You know what it means in this context. It is political term just like “Quisling” or “Tea Party”.
The issue of racism is political, Randy, You can not clean politics out of this one. It is because of the political stance of Malkin, she gets this critisism, which is political critisism. If someone would comment her hair do or looks, then it would be something else. But if one critizises her ideas, her political stance, that is politics.
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Randy,
First of all, what was the question?
Second, what kind of proof are you looking for that would make you consider in the slightest that Leigh, Abagond, Sharina and anyone else you’re debating with valid?
Again, you’re just avoiding what it presented to you while trying to make yourself sound like some intellectual who thinks he knows about a particular subject, but is really a masquerade to take this discussion apart and divert it from its real topic. How can you ask for proof to any statement and then reject it, which I have a gut feeling you will do with Sharina’s response. That is not reasonable or logical.
In any case why should any of us have to prove it to you when it shows you’re already made up your mind since day one? Like I said, when you ask for proof in a discussion about race, it shows that you are not serious about taking part in the discussion, but rather, you’re here to dismantle it. And when it comes to any form of information to back up our statements, you will reject it. You will squeeze your way out of any form of consideration for the people’s claims through holes in their arguments that you’ve made yourself.
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Sharina:
Finally, an example to support a claim. Everyone, listen up: this is how you do it. Thank you Sharina for showing the way.
As for the example itself, it’s a pretty good one though I think there’s a decently compelling counterargument worth considering. Recall that we’re discussing whether Michelle Malkin is a “uncle tom” for so-called “white america”.
Counterpoints:
1. Can an Asian person be racist against Asians?
2. To my knowledge, interning the Japanese isn’t really a “white america” view in the modern era.
3. While in Asia, I’ve heard comments against the Japanese that I’ve never heard in the US, so it’s not easy to draw a line and say that these comments represent someone being a “mouthpiece” for white people.
4. After 9/11, two polls appear to indicate that Blacks favored profiling of Arabs even more than Whites:
http://www.seattlepi.com/local/opinion/article/Look-who-s-in-favor-of-racial-profiling-now-1067731.php
Despite these, I think you offered a fine example, and furthermore demonstrated the difference between a “claim” and “evidence”.
Sharina:
Of course this is a voluntary discussion. People are free to participate or not. However, if someone makes a claim in such a forum, is it unreasonable to ask them for evidence to support that claim?
Sharina:
Leigh offered no support to her claim, and thus there was nothing to refute.
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brothawolf:
A claim is not evidence. See my comment above to Sharina.
brothawolf:
Actually, that’s how debates work. Claim – Evidence – Rebuttal – Counterclaim. It’s rather analogous to the Scientific Method.
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@ Randy
“…Actually, that’s how debates work. Claim – Evidence – Rebuttal – Counterclaim. It’s rather analogous to the Scientific Method….”
Except that sets YOU up as the judge and jury. So who appointed you for this role Randy?
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Kwamla:
No, that paradigm leaves everyone to make their own judgments.
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Er…let me guess does his name begin with R….
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@ Randy
Asians can without a doubt be racist against other Asians. I consider those that hate themselves to be just that. “I’m not Asian, I’m American,” —While you don’t consider that statement to mean much to you. It is in fact a clear sign of her dislike of herself and her own culture. malkin is highly know for defending the actions of whites, while openly disapproving of the actions of people of color. This is how she makes her money and other individuals like her make there money. She is a proud member of vdare.com. a site of group that was openly considered to be racist.
Her blogging is riddled with racist rants against minorities for little or no reason. The only whites I have known her to trash were liberals. When the Asian community was against the selling of racist shirts by Abercrombie and Fitch, she attacked the Asian community and blogged that they were greedy and that the shirts were no big deal, yet ignored the fact that the same company refused to hire Asians, blacks, or Hispanics and was facing a lawsuit for it.
4. “After 9/11, two polls appear to indicate that Blacks favored profiling of Arabs even more than Whites:
http://www.seattlepi.com/local/opinion/article/Look-who-s-in-favor-of-racial-profiling-now-1067731.php“—I don’t do statistics because a person can make a statistic coincide with anything they want and it not be true. Even in the article you had a woman who openly admitted to voting that way because she was passed up by Arab taxi drivers. The result of the poll seems to be payback rather than a legitimate reasoning to do it. I am against racial profiling of any type.
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@ Randy
Malkin defended the Japanese American internment. If that is not racist then neither was Hitler sending Jews to the Warsaw Ghetto.
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“Malkin defended the Japanese American internment.”
A lot of Italians and Germans were also interned. Interesting how no one seems to know that. I guess its just easier to find racism when you’re looking for it and easy to overlook examples that would suggest otherwise when you’re not.
I personally think wartime internment is valid to prevent espionage and sabotage — provided no one is abused and basic needs are met. Think about. You’ve already got several hundred thousand people who were drafted and risking their lives in dangerous and horrible conditions. Countless others are ordered to move and assigned to work in factories. How is being relocated to a safe area a hardship? Its not. Anyone who thinks otherwise is desperately looking for something to justify their opinions.
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@ Church
“A lot of Italians and Germans were also interned. Interesting how no one seems to know that.”–It was not the topic of discussion.
” provided no one is abused and basic needs are met”–Abuse would be inevitable and the needs would not be met. You are basically advocating putting people in a place against their will. Taking away the basic freedoms that this country goes to war to keep.
“Anyone who thinks otherwise is desperately looking for something to justify their opinions.”—What in heck are you talking about? How is not agreeing with putting people in internment camps a means to desperately justifying their opinions? Looks more to me that you are trying to desperately justify your stance.
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Randy,
“Actually, that’s how debates work. Claim – Evidence – Rebuttal – Counterclaim. It’s rather analogous to the Scientific Method.”
I don’t disagree, but I have one question to ask you, why should you feel the need to debate in a place where debates are not asked for?
This is a subject pertaining to race. Sure, you can discuss and have disagreements The problem is that those who was to debate and argue will say the say things over and over again that has been used hundreds of times for the benefit of the debater who are usually white-minded people who come and go. That’s why they’re called “broken records”.
Their arguments are all similar or the same. It’s all about the tone. It’s all about ‘Africans had slave too.’ It’s all about black-on-white crime. It’s all about racism being the fault of POC more so than whites. It’s the same arguments repeated, rehashed and recycled. And yet, people still use them as if they’re not only fact, but new no matter how many times they’ve been proven wrong on several levels.
One of them is that fact that some discussions didn’t ask for debates or arguments. So, again, who really asked for a debate?
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I’ll just add one thing to this discussion that hasn’t been mentioned….. It’s just as racist for asians to team up with American blacks against all American whites as it is the other way around. “People of color” is a new phenomenon coined by american blacks to have other races gang up on whites as a whole and it has worked to some degree.
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@ Dave
And what do you call it when whites do it? I don’t know how often I hear racist whites come in here and say “everyone hates blacks.” People of color may be a word started by blacks (if that is even true), but the phenomenon was started by racist whites.
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@ Dave
“It’s just as racist for asians to team up with American blacks against all American whites as it is the other way around.”–Who said anyone was teaming up against all American whites? That is delusional and it is a key factor in racist whites to believe that when something is pointed out bad in one white then we must be referring to all whites. Wrong. It is not racist to want to team up against and rid the world of racist whites. The issue is not nor has it ever been with all whites, but I don’t understand why you have such an issue actually grasping that part of the segment. Is it that you are in denial? Is it t hat you believe all whites have a single mind frame? That because you feel one way they must also feel that way and thus the frustrations of people of color must apply to them as well?
People of color was actually not used to form a group unity against whites (could not resist looking it up). According to Wikipedia “People of color was introduced as a preferable replacement to both non-white and minority, which are also inclusive, because it frames the subject positively; non-white defines people in terms of what they are not (white), and minority frequently carries a subordinate connotation.” It actually does not state that it was first coined by blacks at all.
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@Sharina…. It mostly doesn’t happen either way around. Most American Asians usually stay out of the fights between whites and blacks… some do not and that can go either way is all I’m saying.
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Yes well “people of color” can be used as a political term and I think that’s where some problems may arise with it.
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sharina
Abagond raised the issue of Japanese internment during ww2. You didn’t seem to have a problem with him bringing up that issue because its seen as critical of whites. But when I mentioned Italians and Germans were similarly interned you suddenly get testy with “It was not the topic of discussion.”
“How is not agreeing with putting people in internment camps a means to desperately justifying their opinions?”
That wasn’t my point. There were two points which you mistook as one. First, that internment was no more a violation of freedom than drafting people to serve in life threatening combat against their will. And, second, that japanese internment is used to portray whites in a bad light while ignoring the fact that italians and germans were similarly interned. Obviously, the internment of the latter suggests those using internment to portray whites in a bad light are mistaken.
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@ Churchs
1. So which internment camp did Joe DiMaggio go to? What about Frank Sinatra? Or Dwight Eisenhower? Well over 90% of the Japanese Americans of California were sent to prison camps. German U-boats were right off the coast of New Jersey – yet there was no round-up of 90% of German Americans anywhere on the east coast. Because as white people they were seen as individuals first, German American second, if at all.
2. It was worse than being drafted: they lost everything they could not carry: houses, farms, businesses, etc. Without due process of law.
This post is about the term “whitey”. The internment came up because one of its users, Michelle Malkin, defended the internment and one benighted soul on this thread thinks she is not a racist.
If you want to maintain that her defence of the internment is not racist, that is fine. But if you want to talk about the internment itself please go here:
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@ Church
“Abagond raised the issue of Japanese internment during ww2.”—Wrong. He did not raise the issue. In fact it was I who raised the issue as I used it as proof of Malkin’s racism (courtesy of Wikipedia). He along with Randy followed with other comments regarding the Japanese interment.
“You didn’t seem to have a problem with him bringing up that issue because its seen as critical of whites.”—How is what he said seen as critical of whites? You need to take 5 minutes a reread what he said. If that is critical to whites then whites sure get mad about any and everything.
I was not getting testy but rather stating a fact. It was not the topic of this discussion. Did you fail to read exactly what was going on or did you believe that you could make up the discussion as you so pleased? I would think that if you are going to jump into a discussion then the least you can do is have the courtesy to actually read what is going on
“That wasn’t my point. There were two points which you mistook as one”–You need to learn to separate your paragraphs if you are intent on making more than one point.
“And, second, that Japanese internment is used to portray whites in a bad light while ignoring the fact that italians and germans were similarly interned”–If you are feeling guilty about it then that is your business but I don’t feel it betrays whites in a bad light but rather America in a bad light. If it bothers whites that much to feel bad about a reminder of their wrongs then I think they need stop doing them. Although I feel that it just bothers you at this point, not all whites.
.
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Yeah, the internment camps were no big deal.
I mean, I really don’t see what the big deal was
All citizens must do their part for the war effort you know.
Besides, how bad could it be? This is America, after all.
Just follow the money trail, as usual…
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^ All sourced from Wiki under “Japanese American internment”
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@churches:
“First, that internment was no more a violation of freedom than drafting people to serve in life threatening combat against their will.”
Well, yes it was.
And yes, I would really like to see those camps were all those thousands of american italians, hungarians, lithuanians, latvians, estonians, germans, austrians, danes, finns, romanians etc. were put into during the same time.
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Sharina:
True. Good point.
Sharina:
Not necessarily. My grandparents had a very similar view upon emigrating from Italy. Consider the national aspiration of a “melting pot”. The “melting” part assumes that one is leaving behind a separate culture to join a new, common one.
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abagond:
If Malkin supported the Japanese internment, and not a broader Asian internment, then it cannot by definition be “racist”.
By the way, here is a great example of the perverse effects of the view that “racism” is a separate and special evil, and not as I suggest simply a type of groupism.
In the cases of the Japanese internment and Warsaw Ghetto, if one adjudicates that in the former case the bias was not specifically about race and in the latter case that Jews are technically “white”, then you have to grant that these events are marginally “less worse” than if it had been about “race”. In other words, you must redeem them at least slightly.
With my view, you do not. I don’t have to concede that these events are in any way less bad because the binary (and subjective) property of “race” was not determined to be involved.
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brothawolf:
In a forum such as this, the acceptability of discussion and debate is implied. Additionally, I think if one makes interesting, controversial, or inflammatory comments in most public spaces the same holds true.
brothawolf:
If someone doesn’t want to debate a topic, they’re free to not do so. But also let me reorient the question. Why wouldn’t you want one?
Your main objection appears to be regarding the “quality” of debates you’ve had on race, not that these debates exist. Ok, I’m with you.
We should strive for higher quality, and as such, communicate best practices with regards to logic, reason, and form, and encourage / hold each other accountable. Sign me up.
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@ Randy
Some white men come here to “debate” but to them it is just a game to “win”. There is no quest for understanding or truth going on. Quite the opposite in fact. You are like that.
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@ Randy
The melting pot is pretty much “whites only”. Malkin is not white.
I understand Malkin’s “I’m not Asian, I’m American”, more than I should, but the place it is coming from is internalized racism.
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@ Randy
The people who sent Jews to the Warsaw Ghetto and Japanese Americans to the prison camps saw them as part of another RACE and therefore a threat simply because of that, nothing else. That is shown by the fact that they sent children, that they used census records and not, say, police records. So does the fact that some of the Jews in the Ghetto were Catholics. And that the Japanese sent were both native-born citizens and foreign-born non-citizens.
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abagond:
Consider: if one did genuinely pursue a quest for understanding and truth, how would they behave? I think they would by necessity subject claims to the hammer and anvil of logic and reason. One ought to be merciless towards error and untruth (though collegial towards those who argue such in good faith). To me, that’s “winning”. I have no qualms about being proven wrong, rather I welcome it.
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Well, yes it was. sam
Well, no it wasn’t. We can do this all day. 🙂
‘And yes, I would really like to see those camps were all those thousands of american italians, hungarians, lithuanians, latvians, estonians, germans, austrians, danes, finns, romanians etc. were put into during the same time.”
I believe I said Italians and Germans. I never mentioned the rest of those. You must be having trouble reading again. I don’t know if the facilities where the Italians and Germans were interned are still there or open to the public. But I doubt you really wanted to tour them anyway. You just wanted to feed your flaming anti American hard on.
Texas: Crystal City, Kenedy, Seagoville
Florida: Camp Blanding,
Oklahoma: Stringtown
North Dakota: Fort Lincoln
Tennessee: Camp Forrest
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Bulanik:
That’s not the point being made. In fact, no claims about the beliefs of Nazis are proposed. You should re-read that comment.
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@churchs:
Well, all those mentioned were fighting along side nazi Germany at the time of war so I have no idea why they were not in camps. Ok, fair enouigh, italians and germans were put into camps. How many thousands and how many of them were US citizens? How many of them had to sell their businesses and homes for a dime? How many of them lost their citizenship?
“How is being relocated to a safe area a hardship? Its not.”
Well, I think few million jews might think otherwise, or few thousand japanese-americans, or few million native americans, or…
“Well, no it wasn’t. We can do this all day.”
No we can not. You go ahead. Part of being citizen is that you participate in the defence of your country, a concept which you have no idea, I guess. That means the possibility of war too. So being locked up in a prison camp AND loosing your citizen status at the same time is not the same thing as going to war for your country, like it or not. Just ask any veteran: “excuse me, do you think that your service in the army is the same thing as being in a prison camp?”.
Only if one is a draft dodger who does not have a clue about armed service or someone who has otherwise been able to avoid doing his duty, still thinking he is an examplary patriot fighting for his country, one can imagine that a prison/prison camp is a same thing as going to war. For some reason there seems to be a lot of these in the political right in USA, from the former president down.
@randy:
“In the cases of the Japanese internment and Warsaw Ghetto, if one adjudicates that in the former case the bias was not specifically about race and in the latter case that Jews are technically “white”, then you have to grant that these events are marginally “less worse” than if it had been about “race”.”
What are you smokin, bro? Holocaust was all about the race. Jews were not white. They were not even human. They were not even subhuman, They were pests according the nazis. Japanese were another race too. It was clear cut case of racism in both cases. Just check few wartime propaganda films. Listen how they talk about the Japs. Look at how they were depicting them in drawings. Just like the nazis were drawing the jews.
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@ Randy
“Not necessarily. My grandparents had a very similar view upon emigrating from Italy. Consider the national aspiration of a “melting pot”. The “melting” part assumes that one is leaving behind a separate culture to join a new, common one.”—Yet those who find themselves in American society will be faced with all type of documented paperwork that tells them they are Asian, black, or white. It completely contradicts the melting pot theory. Because we would only be calling ourselves American and we would be putting that on paperwork rather than detailing what we are.
You can clearly tell Malkin’s intent due to much of what she writes and her open feelings on the subject matter. One of my best friends is Filipino and she and her family always refer to themselves as Filipino (never Asian or American). I also met an Italian lady in the grocery story, who by the way, refers to herself as Italian. Malkin is Asian according to the racist documentation system that she defends, but because she failed to grasp just that tells me or anyone else who has had the un-pleasurable experience of listening to her dribble that she just has hatred for herself and other Asians. Like I said. Stop listening to some of the things she said and really dig deep into some of the things she truly has to say.
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The interment of the Germans were a far less amount than the Japanese Americans. And it was actually only Germans from Latin America that seemed to be put in those camps you mentioned. In the case of Italians, only non-citizens were rounded up.
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^ In both the case of German and Itlian internment, ONLY NON CITZENS were interned, unlike tha Japanese. Also many fewer people were interned. Ther were only 2 camps for Italians I the entire county.
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This guy is simply Cuckoo.
I referred again to the definition Abagond has indicated the definition of racism that he is using, ie, the belief that
How can anyone support the internment of Japanese-Americans and not be racist? The goalposts have indeed been moved outside the end zone and into another field.
@Bulanik
GREAT comeback.
So, Malkin is a groupist too. 😛
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Bulanik:
You and sam completely missed the point of my comment to Abagond.
The topic being discussed was whether or not an incident is judged to be worse if an official designation of quote-unquote “racism” is applicable, or less worse if the incident is based on ethnicism or some other “-ism”. The internment and Warsaw Ghetto events were cited as examples to explore that idea.
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Groupism, if based on racial or ethnic groups, is racism. That applies to “ethnicism” too. Please reread the definition again. Groupism and ethnicism are not actual English words, but you can use them if you define them. However, if you are referring to ethnic or racial groups, then the definition is synonymous with racism.
To illustrate, most Puerto Ricans have multiracial ancestry. Some may have more European, some more African, some might be a combination of European, African and Native American. Some could be part Asian. Some with a high perceived African phenotype might actually be more European in ancestry or visa versa.
But, yet, if you believe it is appropriate to conceive and execute methods to keep the PR spics out of your neighborhood, club, organization, school, etc., then you are being racist.
The census bureau and the US government has always denoted persons of Chinese descent, Japanese descent and Filipino as separate “races” (if you look on the form asking you to choose your race, there will be separate entries). Even state level anti-miscegenation laws distinguished between marriage of whites with people from the “Mongolian” race and “Malay” race. Asian as an umbrella term is rather recent and is just a way of grouping several groups together into a larger group for certain statistical purposes. It can be complicated, as many Filipinos are partially of Chinese descent (or even Japanese, European, Indian, Arab or Black in some cases). And how would you classify someone who is of Filipino, Chinese, Indian and German descent?
But, all of that is really COMPLETELY beside the point. However you decide to demarcate race from group (that is formed on racial or ethnic criteria), it is still RACISM. Even children that were 1/4 Japanese descent were sent to the internment camps. I suppose Ms. Malkin would find it OK if 3/4 Filipino 1/4 Japanese kids were sent to the camps.
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sam
Ok, fair enouigh, italians and germans were put into camps. How many thousands and how many of them were US citizens? How many of them had to sell their businesses and homes for a dime? How many of them lost their citizenship?
If you’re trying to play a numbers game then, yes, it was fewer for several reasons. For one, more were citizens whose families had been in the country for generations. For another, most of them didn’t live along the coast which posed an obvious invasion risk. Many did lose their businesses and homes. Particularly those from South America. A number of South American countries expelled Japanese, German and Italian citizens to the US as a pretext for confiscating their property. So some did lose their Brazilian and Peruvian citizenship.
So being locked up in a prison camp AND loosing your citizen status at the same time is not the same thing as going to war for your country, like it or not.
The Alien Enemies Act has been on the books since 1798 and its still on the books. As it should be. But no one lost their citizenship that I’m aware of. Then, again, nearly half weren’t citizens to begin with. And they WERE given the option of enlisting.
Just ask any veteran: “excuse me, do you think that your service in the army is the same thing as being in a prison camp?”.
Indeed its not. I’d much rather spend a couple of years in a civilian detention center with clean sheets than sleeping in the dirt and being shot at.
Only if one is a draft dodger who does not have a clue about armed service
Oh yeah? Well, I don’t think 6 months during peacetime makes you an expert.
“Well, I think few million jews might think otherwise…”
Well, I think few million Jews might think you’re a turd for comparing internment to Auschwitz.
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@ Sam, Jefe
The words “Japs” and “spics” are counted as slurs on this blog. In future I will delete any new comment where you use them.
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@ Randy
That is a topic of your own invention to avoid answering the question at hand: whether Michelle Malkin, fan of the word “whitey”, is racist:
Sharina and I agreed with Leigh that Malkin is racist. You demanded proof. We told you why we thought so, like that she defended the Japanese American internment. Then:
You are trying to get out of admitting Malkin is a racist. She and Hitler are merely “groupists”, apparently. But as Jefe points out, that sort of groupism is considered racist according to the (Oxford dictionary) definition I go by on this blog. Bulanik pointed out that the laws that defined what a Jew was were the Nuremberg RACE Laws.
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@ churchs
“But no one lost their citizenship that I’m aware of” “So some did lose their Brazilian and Peruvian citizenship.”
Which one is it?
“Well, I think few million Jews might think you’re a turd for comparing internment to Auschwitz.”—I want to take the time out to remind you that you made this statement…”How is being relocated to a safe area a hardship? Its not.” Nazi’s had the same thought pattern which is why sam used it as an example to show you how contradictory you are sounding.
Here is some advice. Take it or leave it. You are starting to contradict much of what you say and thus is seen as walking around in circles. I noticed most individuals intent on winning a debate do this and ignore the content on what they are saying. They end up weaving such a web of non-sense that they have no clue how to get out of it. Careful.
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@ Churchs
How odd that you put it that way. The Nazis also excused the Warsaw Ghetto in the name of “safety”.
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Adolf Hitler, quoted in Hitler, by Joachim Fest, Vintage Books Edition, 1974, p. 679-680:
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@churchs:
“I don’t think 6 months during peacetime makes you an expert.”
Six months? Did you look at that up from your Google? Wrong. I knew you were just a kid with the Net connection.
Also, I was at arms just couple miles from those Red Army soldiers you are still scared off. Actually I saw them at close during my service few times. How about you? Funny how you are still trembling and going off about them but I, who was supposed to fight them old fashioned way if it ever came to that, never was and stiil am not.
“I’d much rather spend a couple of years in a civilian detention center with clean sheets than sleeping in the dirt and being shot at.”
I guess that makes you such an expert on this issue? Well, at least it shows what and who you really are as a man/woman.
If it had been six it would have made more of an expert than you, since you prefer nice bed with clean sheets. But alas, like I hinted above, it was a bit more.
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@churchs;
“I think few million Jews might think you’re a turd for comparing internment to Auschwitz.”
Funny you just mentioned that, since I just had a conversation few days ago with jewish friend about these things. Yes, there are jewish people over here too! She was thinking Abu Graib and Guantanamo Bay and comparing them to the nazi policies. I must ask her what she thinks about the camps for japanese. If I would have to bet I think she will compare that to the nazi policies since they were both in racism.
But I guess in your books she must a commie, right? 😀
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Randy
“If someone doesn’t want to debate a topic, they’re free to not do so. But also let me reorient the question. Why wouldn’t you want one?”
Because there is nothing to debate about. You can’t argue what is fact.
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Randy,
One more thing. I agree that there are some topics that need discussing and debating. However, what I’ve seen with you and other like-minded individuals is to try and have the last word. What I find disturbing is that the ‘last word’ has been repeated and rehashed. For the majority of the naysayers that pop-up here, most of them have that white mindset, and they think that is the superior mode of thinking for them while everything else is simply wrong.
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Sharina
Churchs: “But no one lost their citizenship that I’m aware of” “So some did lose their Brazilian and Peruvian citizenship.”
Sharina: Which one is it?
From context it should be obvious that Brazil and Peru revoked the citizenship of ethnic Japanese, Italian and Germans living there when they expelled them to the US. But the US didn’t typically revoke anyone’s citizenship. Do you understand now?
Churchs: ”How is being relocated to a safe area a hardship? Its not.”
Sharina: “Nazi’s had the same thought pattern which is why sam used it as an example to show you how contradictory you are sounding.”
There’s no contradiction. You’re missing the key point that the Japanese, Italian and Germans in the US were, in fact, relocated to a safe place. There was no malicious intent and they were not harmed. That wasn’t true of Jews restricted to the Warsaw Ghetto.
“You are starting to contradict much of what you say and thus is seen as walking around in circles.”
There were no contradictions. You misunderstood what was said.
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sam
You’re dancing around the fact you haven’t actually served in combat. I wouldn’t expect anyone to be scared of a few months of peacetime service. The point is you portrayed your little mandatory service as giving you some sort of expertise on WW2. It doesn’t.
If it had been six it would have made more of an expert than you, since you prefer nice bed with clean sheets.
Most of the Japanese preferred to spend a couple of years in a civilian detention center with clean sheets than sleeping in the dirt and being shot at, too. That’s why only 6% enlisted when given the opportunity.
Funny you just mentioned that, since I just had a conversation few days ago with jewish friend…
Be sure to ask her whether she’d rather spend WW2 in a civilian facility in Texas… or Auschwitz.
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@ Church
First you say no one lost their citizen ship that you were aware of then you contradict yourself by saying……“So some did lose their Brazilian and Peruvian citizenship.” Which is why I asked you which one are you going to stick with. Either some did or no one. You contradict yourself…realize your contradiction and then try to fluff it to make it seem like I don’t understand exactly what you are doing. You have done it twice now and when pointed out you go into more detail as if that was what you were trying to say in the first place. If that were so you would have said it and not made up some later excuse to bypass your massive contradictions.
“There’s no contradiction. You’re missing the key point that the Japanese, Italian and Germans in the US were, in fact, relocated to a safe place. There was no malicious intent and they were not harmed. That wasn’t true of Jews restricted to the Warsaw Ghetto.”—What in your mind makes you think it was a safe place? Do you realize that many of the Japanese were malnourished and shot if they were even remotely considering going anywhere other than the confounds of that camp. There was no come and go as you pleased. 3 families lived in one house. Some houses without windows. People died due to the lack of cleanliness of these camps. So obviously your google searches missed some key bit of information that you failed to pick up.
“How is being relocated to a safe area a hardship? Its not.”—This comment is exactly what Nazi’s thought when they rounded up jews and put them in camps. You are contradictory in my eyes because you can sit and agree with that same treatment yet then turn around and try to say it is so bad and it was bad of sam to compare it, yet you fail to see the comparison because you want to focus on the severity. I was not comparing the severity in my comment, but rather noticing the common thought process of those that put them in camps.
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Some Germans and Italians in the US were expatriated. It was not just the Peruvian and brazilian groups.
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Sharina
The context of my first comment made the meaning perfectly clear. I thought you misunderstood but now realize you’re being obtuse as part of a tactic to confuse the issue and frustrate. That’s not going to work. The rest of your comment contains claims that although partially true were mostly exceptions and not the norm.
It was a sound and reasonable policy that I wouldn’t hesitate to support if future circumstances called for it. Its easy to be self righteous when you’re not actually facing the danger. But I don’t for one minute believe any of you would stand by those “principles”. If the chips hit the fan you’d be the first ones and the worst ones pushing for it.
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@ Churchs
“The context of my first comment made the meaning perfectly clear. I thought you misunderstood but now realize you’re being obtuse as part of a tactic to confuse the issue and frustrate”–Another excuse for why you had no clue what I was saying? You frustrated and confused yourself. I warned you that you were in fact walking yourself into a circle, but you, thinking you had it made, screwed yourself into a complete cluster f**k. Now you want to claim I am being obtuse and causing confusion because you don’t want to take responsibility for your own failure to understand. To be honest I think your mass contradictions were a means to cause confusion and perhaps some frustration. It is really sad that in the end instead of owning up to your faulty thinking you decide to use the “you would do it too” excuse. I like to call it an escape goat excuse personally because people use it to excuse their own faulty thinking and attitudes.
“The rest of your comment contains claims that although partially true were mostly exceptions and not the norm.”–If that was true then site one site that says the living conditions were nice. were fit for a human and not some type of animal. Go ahead since it was an exception and not the norm.
“Its easy to be self righteous when you’re not actually facing the danger. But I don’t for one minute believe any of you would stand by those “principles”. If the chips hit the fan you’d be the first ones and the worst ones pushing for it.”—Just because you have decided to be a self serving prick does not mean everyone else will. I would never want to sit and watch anyone suffer because it will make me safer. I hope I am dead and gone rather than live in a world where people will sell out a neighbor to live like slaves just so they can feel safe. I pray you are never one of those individuals that end up in a camp, but if you are then I can’t say I will feel sorry for you.
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sharina
You made the affirmative claim therefore the burden of proof is on you. I’m not going to waste my time looking up sources to refute claims you haven’t bothered to support yourself. If you can’t be bothered to do that then shut your yap.
As for the rest, I already told you those tactics don’t work on me. lolololo 🙂
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@ Churchs
Are you delusional? Is this not your claim “The rest of your comment contains claims that although partially true were mostly exceptions and not the norm.”—So if I am not mistaken it is you who should be proving it right?
“As for the rest, I already told you those tactics don’t work on me. lolololo”—What tactic am I suppose to be using? Considering I have in fact already won this supposed debate I don’t need a tactic. It is you who is currently scrambling to save face. Thus the lol and smiley face.
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“These Japanese Americans, half of whom were children, were incarcerated for up to 4 years, without due process of law or any factual basis, in bleak, remote camps surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards.
They were forced to evacuate their homes and leave their jobs; in some cases family members were separated and put into different camps. President Roosevelt himself called the 10 facilities “concentration camps.”
Some Japanese Americans died in the camps due to inadequate medical care and the emotional stresses they encountered. Several were killed by military guards posted for allegedly resisting orders.
At the time, Executive Order 9066 was justified as a “military necessity” to protect against domestic espionage and sabotage. However, it was later documented that “our government had in its possession proof that not one Japanese American, citizen or not, had engaged in espionage, not one had committed any act of sabotage.” (Michi Weglyn, 1976).”
Is that proof. Courtesy of PBS. http://www.pbs.org/childofcamp/history/index.html
A link….wow.
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@churchs:
“You’re dancing around the fact you haven’t actually served in combat. I wouldn’t expect anyone to be scared of a few months of peacetime service. The point is you portrayed your little mandatory service as giving you some sort of expertise on WW2. It doesn’t.”
Well, I was in the army. Have you been in any army? Noh? Well… I guess you are dancing some other tunes then.
As for the WW2, I think I’ve heard enough first hand experiences from the guys who really were there and in such places that no one ever wants to be in. Did they want to be there? No, but they were never the less. See, the difference between you and me is that you would not be. You would rather go in any prison with clean sheets than face the music. I, on the other hand, went to the army and was in the reserves untill few years ago.
As for being scared, you still are. I was not and still am not. Not the Red army nor the russian army. Strange thing, is it not?
“Be sure to ask her whether she’d rather spend WW2 in a civilian facility in Texas… or Auschwitz.”
I actually did 😀 Guess what she said? “Thats the mentality”. 😀
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Sharina
“So if I am not mistaken it is you who should be proving it right?”
No. You made affirmative claims therefore its your responsibility to prove them. Its not my responsibility to prove the converse. I need only cast reasonable doubt upon your evidence. I can’t do that until you actually provide some.
Now, in your second comment you actually cited a source… such as it was. PBS? Meh, For the moment I won’t look it up. I’ll just address the points raised.
Paragraph 1. I haven’t contested that point have I? In my opinion it was reasonable under the circumstances.
Paragraph 2. You’re using emotionally loaded terms. Whether Roosevelt called them “concentration camps” is irrelevant. The term didn’t have the same connotation until after WW2.
Most families were NOT separated. That’s why I said you’re dishonestly portraying exceptions as the norm. Now its your responsibility to either show that it was either policy or common practice to separate families or concede that it was in fact an exception when it happened.
Paragraph 3. Even today people die in hospitals “due to inadequate medical care and the emotional stresses”. But you’re talking about a time when most babies were born at home and most towns didn’t even have doctors. Not to mention shortages of doctors and medicine due to the war effort. That someone allegedly died “due to inadequate medical care” isn’t evidence of wrongdoing unless you can show wrongdoing. Can you show any of the deaths were caused by wrongdoing? And if so can you show they were a result of malicious policies rather than isolated incidents?
Neither is a handful of people being killed by guards evidence of wrong doing. Was it standard policy to shoot interns? Were they lining them up against the wall and mowing them down with machine guns? Was it an overzealous guard getting carried away? Or was it a legitimate response to a violent intern?
Am I asking unreasonable questions? No, I’m asking you to support your claims.
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sam
You lost the point the second I mentioned interns did in fact have the choice of enlisting. Most did not.
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@ Churchs
You made the claim that is was a safe area. Did you not? Should I go back and post your claims. Because obviously you are failing to realize that it is your own words that are is in fact screwing you over. At this point you are avoiding proving your own claims by insisting I prove mine. I suggest you read Randy’s comment on how this works.
“I haven’t contested that point have I? In my opinion it was reasonable under the circumstances.”—Did I say you contested that? I don’t remember specifically saying that but only providing proof of the circumstances.
“Paragraph 2. You’re using emotionally loaded terms. Whether Roosevelt called them “concentration camps” is irrelevant. The term didn’t have the same connotation until after WW2.”—You are completely missing the point here. It was not to focus on any specific emotional terms or anything of the lack. It was a copy and paste of the conditions of the camp and nothing more. You are reading far too much into and missing the actual point.
“Most families were NOT separated. That’s why I said you’re dishonestly portraying exceptions as the norm. Now its your responsibility to either show that it was either policy or common practice to separate families or concede that it was in fact an exception when it happened.”—Did I say most families were separated? Where and at what point did I make that claim? What I said was up to 3 families lived in 1 house.
I will stop at paragraph 3 because it is obvious that you missed the point. Do you realize the claim you made and the lack of proof you have provided for that claim? Do you even realize that you even made a claim? I think not. You said it was a safe area and I asked you what makes it a safe area ( a question you quickly ignored). Do you think if you and your family were living in a windowless house with tar paper walls and no plumbing that that is safe? That that is sanitary. I never said it was purposeful wrong doing, but rather due to the lack of medical treatment they endure deaths that actually could have been avoided. The paragraph actually said several people were shot not a handful. So you need to conclude what constitutes several of the individuals that were actually interned. Not several based on your dictionary meaning.
If it was in fact a safe place then you need to prove that it is. I threw out examples of what made it not safe, which I so far I have proved. You followed up with the claim that it was the exception and not the norm. So at this point you have to prove it was nothing more than the exception.
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Sharina
You made the claim that is was a safe area. Did you not? Should I go back and post your claims.
Are you really going back all the way to the beginning? To a comment that wasn’t even addressed to you??? Well, okay. If you insist. The original “claim” wasn’t about safety. It wasn’t even a “claim”. It was simply my opinion which I shall quote:
“I personally think wartime internment is valid to prevent espionage and sabotage — provided no one is abused and basic needs are met.”
It was my opinion and I stated it as such. I’m under no obligation to defend a personal opinion. You, however, made the initial claim in response to my opinion when you said:
“Abuse would be inevitable and the needs would not be met.”
And that is the claim we’ve been discussing ever since. Now you say that my rhetorical question regarding safety was the original claim. But is that what you argued in your first comment to me? Nope. You took exception to my personal opinion and made the claim that “abuse would be inevitable and needs would not be met”. And you supported that claim with allegations of malnourishment, inadequate medical care and being shot. I admitted that “your comment contains claims that although partially true were mostly exceptions and not the norm”.
Therefore it is the nature of YOUR claim being debated. Only now that we’ve reached the endgame you want to cherry pick something else for a bait and switch. Sorry chica but as you said in your first comment to me that “was not the topic of discussion.”
The question now becomes whether you are conceding that such “abuses” were exceptions, arguing that they were the norm or withdrawing your claim altogether?
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@ Churchs
And here I thought the issue was nothing more than you saying that those things I mentioned here:
What in your mind makes you think it was a safe place? Do you realize that many of the Japanese were malnourished and shot if they were even remotely considering going anywhere other than the confounds of that camp. There was no come and go as you pleased. 3 families lived in one house. Some houses without windows. People died due to the lack of cleanliness of these camps.
Was the exception and not the norm.
Now that we are at this point with evidence and such you decided that you want to refute this statement “Abuse would be inevitable and the needs would not be met.” So you are playing this round about game ??? I personally assumed that portion of our debate was over with. nothing for you to say when you decided to ignore my finally comment to you then and debate with sam. It wasn’t until I commented on your contradictions that you even comment on me again.
If I am indeed not mistaken, the comment and the opinion you were referring to present or future use of internment correct? So you want me to use the Japanese internment of the 1940s to prove that abuse would be inevitable and needs would not be met in the present or future use of internment?
So basically it comes down to I can actually provided as many links, people in the camp accounts if I choose and in the end you will decided that I made some other claim that I need to prove. You are going to continue to change what evidence I need to provide.
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@ Churchs
Now down to the blunt of things. I was referring to this statement “How is being relocated to a safe area a hardship? Its not.” It is in fact a claim you made well before I made mine. One I have actually been referring to for some time and in many cases have actually put in quotations marks for you to see what I was referring to.
Lets evaluate the definition of a claim… shall we? According to Webster a claim is to assert in the face of possible contradiction. You made the assertion in this statement that being relocated to safe area is not a hardship. Now let us take into consideration the definition of hardship, which according to Webster is a condition that is difficult to endure; suffering; deprivation; oppression: a life of hardship. Now I feel I have provided adequate proof of such but here are two links regarding conditions:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment#Conditions_in_the_camps
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/internment1.html
“Abuse would be inevitable and the needs would not be met”—Now let’s take a look at this statement in which you completely took out of context. I will do my best to try to apply this to Japanese internment. Considering there was evidence to support that none of the individuals in internment was guilty of any wrong doing it was abuse of power in itself that put them in there and left them in there for 4 years of their life. If you have evidence that a person is not guilty then why would you continue to keep them locked up? Thing about abuse is it can come in all shapes and forms. Small portions of food, no toilets (those that had toilets were few), tarpapered barracks with no windows (some with no roof). Let us not take into account those that lived in horse stalls.
If you are going to try to use my words against me, then actually take the time to read further in regards to the content of the situation. I personally do not mind that you asked me to address my statement, but I do mind that you decided to make it apply to Japanese internment when it was actually in response to your feelings on internment in present or future tense.
On top of that you still are left with making the claim that it is the exception and not the norm. I am not sure how you debate, but once someone makes a claim then they provide evidence to that claim and normally the person who refutes it follows with evidence to the contrary. If you are going to refute something someone says then you need to be able to back it up.
There is no cherry picking or tactics being played here. It is just you playing fast and loose. Any further responses will be in the Japanese internment blog because this is not the place for this discussion.
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@ Sharina
I did a whole post pointing out that the camps obviously WERE a hardship!
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@ King
Oh no. According to church they were not a hardship. LOL!
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I will end the night with this. You came in this room making the very first claim and have since failed to provided any evidence. You can spend all night picking apart every single statement I have said and search for every single claim I have made and it still will not hide the fact that you made the first claim and are now trying to bring focus to mine (which has evidence) to avoid providing evidence to yours.
You say I am cherry picking, but in fact that is what you just did. You claim I have some type of tactic but in fact you have been using some type of tactic to cause confusion. It is funny that everything you accused me of…you have actually been doing. *shakes head*
I suggest before you respond that you go back and read what is going on because you are the one getting lost here. It was fun but now it has become just sad watching you scramble for anything to keep you in the game.
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@ King
I will be fair and let the statement about it being a hardship go. You have provided your own evidence and I thank you.
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I on the other hand, will not.
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@ King
I meant to say I will be fair and let his statement about it not being a hardship go. If you did get that and are referring to that then I just hope you will not allow him to pull you into a whirl of confusion. Sadly I had to go back and read what I had said to ensure I said it and when I said it because he was switching and changing things to be difficult.
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In doing a search into the word whitey I ran into the word w**ger. Interesting enough it was a term that was used in the 19th century for the Irish. Yet when I was younger it was used to describe whites that act black. Corney none the less but still seems to carry much less hurt than the word n**ger. Interesting though is how whitey is seen as offensive by whites yet they are not offended at the word wi***er.
I guess my question is are whites really offended by the word whitey or do they use it as a means to make blacks feel guilty?
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Sharina
You made three comments to me (I really got to you didn’t I? 🙂 ) And all three avoided my question. That’s all the proof I need.
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@ Churchs
No I was hoping all of that would put a end to this mess. Guess not..Proof of what? That you are playing a game and that you lost. Yesterday it was proof for the claim I made and today I avoided questions. What will it be next I didn’t provide enough proof or the proof is hearsay.
Now if you had read what I wrote you would know it answered your question, but you refuse to accept it because you refuse to accept your flaw. The flaw that you are trying to apply a present tense statement to a past tense situation. Which puts you still in a losing position.
But if you must have it apply it was the norm. Were not all or the majority of Japanese restricted to horse stalls and camps when sufficient evidence was provided that they were innocent? Did they not get due process when in fact others that were considered white did? Abuse of power is still abuse and you my good man have officially lost this debate.
Good luck with the pity party celebration.
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@ Churchs
I will give you credit though. You are very good at avoiding and redirecting the debate to suit you. Although in the end you still lose.
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sharina
So even when you “answer” the question you still dodge it. Unfreakingbelievable. No wonder you think you “won”.
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Agabond,
Is this post about the use of a word or Japanese internment? I can’t tell.
I am also curious about when you will do a post on the psychology of Internet blog site debates in the comments section. Are these things ever productive or do they usually end with both sides thinking they won the argument?
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@ Churchs
You lost the argument a long time ago. This cat and mouse game was just a small amount of entertainment for me. Let me break this down for you:
1.You initially lost this argument the moment you declared that I did not understand. This is a true sign of individuals who have in fact back themselves into a corner and cannot truly move forward, but at the same time would like the other individual to feel as if they have somehow missed the point.
2. You used the escape goat theory in order to avoid addressing one of the main issues I actually had.
3.Since we are on the subject of questions, you have avoided all of mine. A few major questions that would clarify your position and indeed provide more proof to my point. It amazes me that you believe that I am somehow entitled to answer yours in a debate but you can ignore mine. You should be privileged I even bothered.
4.Once you get proven wrong on something you change the subject. For example you have gone from I need to prove this statement is the norm “Abuse would be inevitable and the needs would not be met” to I need to answer your question and this is only the most recent change in subject.
5.You have proved to be a loser because you at this point have no point. You quickly decided I am wrong and avoiding or not answering the question yet you have been answered twice. Not my fault if you choose to accept it. If you indeed had a conclusive win ( as you somehow feel you do) then you would have actually outlined it in detail rather than continue to play a meaningless game that has gotten you nowhere . Instead you are using a bunch of “I gotcha” statements to ensure you have the last words and with hopes of getting me upset ( trust me I find it entertaining watching you scramble).
6. You took issue with this statement “Abuse would be inevitable and the needs would not be met” yet you want to decided when and what it applies to. That is not how debating works. Take issue with it in its context.
From this point on you will do one of three things:
1.You will disappear to save face
2.You will continue ranting about how I lost without really saying how (last word tactic).
3.You will decide to change the subject yet again.
So if it makes you feel like you won something to have the last word then go ahead. You need to realize that you brought this idea of exception and norm into play. It is not my duty to prove your point right or wrong. So until you can provide something other than corny rhetoric I’m done.
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not accept*
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The Japanese internment is now off topic. I will delete all comments about it.
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@ Anne
It is about the use of the word whitey. I apologize that this has gone on this far and been taken off topic.
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@ Anne
“Are these things ever productive or do they usually end with both sides thinking they won the argument?”– Had this been a normal debate it would have been quite productive, but as you can see this is not a normal debate. If a person wants to debate then I am all for a good one. If a person wants to play a game, then why not?
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Upon the subject of “Whitey”…
Well, not sure if this goes for everyone who uses it but this is how I understand the concept of that word and others like it.
It’s not truly understood as an equivalent to other words like “nigger”(Just a personal opinion but I find calling it the “N-word” seems to just create some aura of power to the word).
Rather it’s representative of a very different concept. You see, white people know that what many of their ancestors did was in fact quite horrible and in some cases downright evil.
So “whitey” is the idea that black people aren’t going to forget about that any time soon and that regardless of situation white people as a generalized whole will not be able to escape being associated with their general past or be able to put all of that behind them any time soon.
This mindset manifests in discomfort and awkwardness when dealing with black people and in some cases perhaps even irritation for producing said discomfort.
Origin of said discomfort is likely the uneasy feeling that would be derived from the awareness that one might be being judged based upon preconceived notions of their race and the desire not to confirm any of those possible notions. And adding to that is the feeling that the visible signs of their unease could contribute to the confirmation of such notions. Which of course adds further discomfort.
Generally, I would say that said discomfort is the reason why some people would complain about “reverse racism”. It’s not because such a thing has any significant effect upon their livelihoods but rather because it gets in the way of being able to have an entirely comfortable and normal interaction with a “minority”.
Of course, none of this is applicable to all people of any category but these are just a few of my thoughts. Maybe it’ll help provide a certain perspective and maybe it’s all the same shit you’ve already heard before. Or read, considering that this is typed.
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@ Insert Name
I think that is an interesting concept. While I can’t speak for everyone, in may in fact have some level of truth to it. The thing about it (and I am basing this on other commenters) is that not many people have heard it outside of the television world. It would be those individuals that were heavily influenced by the media that would be prone to use it and be those that are in fear of minorities using it against them.
I am just throwing that out there of course.
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correction it*
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What was the context in which Michelle Obama used whitey? Was she referring tot a white person or was it something else?
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@Sharina
As far as I am aware the point isn’t as something that is commonly spoken out loud.
In my mind “whitey” is more a sign of what white people think other people think about them.
Something more representative of white people feeling blamed and categorically defined as the oppressor for actions that they feel they have little to know control over rather than the actual language minorities use to refer to whites in a derisive manner.
In other words, “whitey” is more a word white people call themselves. Or that’s how it strikes me. It’s sort of the feeling that they will continue to be judged by a history they would rather be entirely disconnected from and be treated in some way as a representative of an oppressing power.
Seriously, I doubt any white man is afraid of someone using the word “whitey”. The fear here is more that they will be seen as an oppressor to rebel and fight against simply because of their race or on a more day to day basis have their actions misconstrued because of that perception.
I have no idea what validity those feelings may hold but it seems to me that they exist and do little to ease any racial tension. In fact I would say that it’s what most of modern day racism is, the reaction to the discomfort of being seen as the oppressor even if it’s all in their head. Because as I said, “whitey” is a white concept.
And it’s almost certainly the reason why white people bring up the crimes of other cultures in arguments. It’s a reaction to their feeling of being viewed as the “evilest people ever” and their attempt to show that they aren’t the “evilest people ever” since there were other people just as evil as them.
Because for some odd reason being merely amongst the “evilest people ever” is much more comfortable than actually being “evilest people ever”.
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Whites know blacks use other racial slurs. They also know blacks haven’t said “whitey” since the 60s. If blacks still used it then whites wouldn’t be. Whites use it precisely because its stereotypical, dated and hokey kind of like saying “swell” or “gee whiz”. And they use that quality to emphasize whatever point they’re making.
It should also be obvious any whites who felt “uncomfortable” wouldn’t say “whitey”. They’d be accusing others of “white privilege” instead. Whites who say “whitey” are the ones who don’t feel uncomfortable.
And now you know.
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@Churchs
I tend to believe that “discomfort” comes in several varieties that can manifest in many different reactions.
But I suppose one element of it could be to mock the concept of old bitter black men or something.
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Insert Name
And it’s almost certainly the reason why white people bring up the crimes of other cultures in arguments. It’s a reaction to their feeling of being viewed as the “evilest people ever” and their attempt to show that they aren’t the “evilest people ever” since there were other people just as evil as them.
Interesting theory. Why do you think Abagond and his readers are so obsessed with portraying whites as “evilest people ever”?
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@Churchs
I didn’t claim anyone was actually obsessed with that. As I said it’s a reaction to “feeling” that they’re being portrayed or perceived as such.
For the most part I haven’t noticed many people on this particular site who seem to actually be obsessed with this portrayal but I’ve noted that some people on the internet do in fact go out of their way to portray white people as the evilest people ever. But you can find all sorts of extremes on the internet so I won’t go into that.
I have no real intention to justify what I am explaining but rather just making note of what I feel the mental processes involved are.
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Agabond…..one more thing…I was wondering if there is a name for a person who seems to have a need to respond to every comment by everyone on this blog. Do you think that maybe that person thinks they are accomplishing something by disagreeing with your regular readers? The Urban Dictionary calls it Comment Vomit. What do you think?
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@ Insert Name
“For the most part I haven’t noticed many people on this particular site who seem to actually be obsessed with this portrayal but I’ve noted that some people on the internet do in fact go out of their way to portray white people as the evilest people ever.”—I would say this site is quite civil compared to others I have been on. There are those in here that just do not trust whites based solely on their experiences with them.
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@ Churchs
“Why do you think Abagond and his readers are so obsessed with portraying whites as “evilest people ever”?”–What I have taken from Abagond and other readers is not that they are making whites the “evilest people ever” but rather pointing out there wrongs and double standards. The thing is most whites that do take issue with this blog tend to believe that when you say something bad about whites then you most certainly must be talking about all. This is a mental issue that they have. I say this because I have read posts were abagond has specified most or many whites ( in caps and bold face) yet you will still have a white person protest about generalizations. The very same individuals who have no problem generalizing all blacks.
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+1
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@ Insert Name
“As far as I am aware the point isn’t as something that is commonly spoken out loud.”—I guess that is where I have been mistaken. I took it for something to be spoken out loud. I personally can say that I have never heard a white person or black person say it (I doubt they would say it around me).
I kind of figure growing up with people who were born and raised in the 60s should give me more exposure to it, but not down here. Is it possible that the usage of whitey is also a regional thing? In the south you would more likely hear cr**ker before whitey.
“And it’s almost certainly the reason why white people bring up the crimes of other cultures in arguments. It’s a reaction to their feeling of being viewed as the “evilest people ever” and their attempt to show that they aren’t the “evilest people ever” since there were other people just as evil as them”—I am actually glad you brought this up because this is something I was thinking about a couple of weeks ago. I was a bit curious on why whites felt the need to bring up crimes of other cultures in arguments. In sense I felt it was a way to justify their own wrongs. Either the you do it too or the you guys are worse attitude.
I also begged the question of why the need to use so many statistics in arguments (I am not a major fan of them because don’t trust something I did not put together myself). I guess it just makes one feel better to have what most consider a trusting source to back them up.
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@Sharina
I tend to think about it this way when I analyze the mindset. If certain acts aren’t traits aren’t considered common to humanity that any population could express when under the right conditions and when not allowed to defend such an act as at the very least just a human failing… Well that can lead to the feeling that one is saying the group responsible isn’t fully human.
So other cultures are brought in to “humanize” the act or at least display the scenario as not uniquely inhuman.
As for statistics, well that would be to provide something other than “this is what I think or how I imagine things to be”. The problem however is that a lot of people who use statistics don’t necessarily understand all of the factors that might be involved.
Let’s take an example here with the stereotype of blacks as impoverished violent idiot criminals which someone could probably come up with statistics to show as common by their definition of common. But said statistics wouldn’t really explain any why here but the standard racist will just assume it’s because of their race that they’re stupid which is why they’re violent which is why they’re criminals which is why they’re impoverished or something like that and environment has nothing to do with it because apparently… Some reason I don’t really recall.
Which is really why statistics are never the only part to any serious research. As should be noted, correlation does not imply causation. But still, statistics can provide some interesting data to interpret.
For instance, this:
http://www.medicaldaily.com/articles/13789/20130107/leaded-gasoline-linked-rise-fall-violent-crime.htm
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-gasoline
And it strikes me that poorer neighborhoods would likely have a greater amount of lead contamination which can negatively effect peoples mental faculties. And it seems likely that a people who were regarded as second-class citizens until very recently wouldn’t have anywhere near the opportunities granted to white people. With less opportunity to become wealthier it’s no surprise that a large portion are poor. Which means having to live in places that are cheap, and possibly contaminated by various things. And then there are likely other factors involved I know nothing about.
Though to be honest I’ve never really encounter an idiot, poor, violent criminal black person in my life before. Seriously all of the black criminal action I personally have known about has been more or less mirrored by white people.
But I’ve heard there are places that seem faraway and almost foreign to me where sleep is interrupted by gun shots and apparently there are serious gang violence issues. Mostly in the news or when people are discussing large cities and that sort of thing.
To me I can’t really mentally categorize the black people I actually have personally encountered with… Well, whoever these people involved in violent criminal activity are. Because most Black people who I’ve encountered have just been normal people.
I’ve gotten very off-topic here but it does make me wonder, what conditions turn normal people into violent criminals?
But back to statistics. Statistics are by nature generalizations that may be lumping different groups with very different behaviors together into one whole that doesn’t accurately portray any of the groups it is composed of. But it is seen as a more compelling fact based argument than just ones own thoughts.
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Why do you think Abagond and his readers are so obsessed with portraying whites as “evilest people ever”?
It’s been said before, and it seems like it will be said again and again. Any statement regarding white racism, white supremacy and overall whiteness is automatically seen as an attack on white people. It’s funny because those who make that claim will, in a hot minute attack the black group – the general black group.
As far as history goes whites have been attacking blacks for centuries. There’s no denying that, and there is not one singular incident or series of incidents of blacks against whites that would truthfully rival that of white racism’s horrors.
As with the case of the word discussed in this topic it is light in weight compared to certain other words for those of African descent. All in all, there is no argument that is powerful enough to refute the fact that white racism is a venomous juggernaut against society.
This is not the same as saying that white people are the most evil people ever. It is not evil to tell it like it is. Why is the truth so painful to these people that it has to be considered insulting or offensive?
If anything, white people NEED TO LEARN THE HORRIBLE TRUTH. And no, I’m not talking about all white people, nor am I calling them evil. They need to know that they’ve harmed others for the goal of supremacy and that trauma is passed down and resurrected in a society that is too sick to face it. And that is not for the benefit of POC, but it’s for their own damn good.
What good is there to deny their own problem with race? What good is there to scapegoat others? What good is there in bashing others to make yourself feel good? Why should you continue to live in a bubble of myths and lies and close yourself from a reality that is moving forward? Why should you embrace not having any feelings toward nonwhites, but is highly upset when you receive the same sentiment from the ones you don’t care too much about? Why be proud of having such a mentality and spirit?
I can only conclude that those who are willing to stay in their sheltered worlds will only end up screwing themselves in the end.
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@ Anne
I am unsure of what issue you currently have with me but I respond because it is called a discussion board. If you comment then you can expect people to respond to you. If you think someone will say something you don’t like then don’t respond. You seem to be the one that has taken issue and decided to have an attitude. Not me.
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@ Anne
‘
If you are not talking to me then I will apologize.
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@ Brothawolf
“no, I’m not talking about all white people, nor am I calling them evil”
I don’t feel it should constantly have to be explained though. Often times in here I feel like I am beating a dead horse with some of the white individuals that fall into this blog. It is frustrating. We are constantly in a cycle of explaining that it is not all whites. Why is something so simple so hard for them to get? I think it comes does to they may have these secret racist feeling or thoughts and someone is putting into words that they are wrong and bad and it makes them feel guilty. The ambiance of hiding behind a computer screen makes them more bold to speak on it.
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@ Insert name
You make a very good point.
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@Sharina,
Nope. Not you that I was talking about.
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@brothawolf
The way I think about it is that a lot of people have a mental narrative and tend to see the world through its filter with things that do not fit that story being discarded.
And to be honest I think that’s one of the problems with Western Culture as a whole and not just America. Or perhaps what’s at the core of “whiteness” which might in some ways better be termed a sort of “Roman” narrative.
It’s often quite apparent that a lot of “Western” Culture and values were derived from the Romans. And when we think of ancient European civilizations and cultures it’s the Greeks and Romans we think about. The Empire “Builders” or rather the highly assimilationist conquerors as they might be better understood. Romans perhaps originating much of the European “civilize the savages” mindset that portrayed conquest as aiding the conquered. And from what I know of history it seems like they coopted Christianity from the Jews as a tool or vehicle for this Roman mindset.
But really, let’s focus now on who most Europeans actually were. They were the “Barbarians”, a word based upon how their languages sounded to the Greeks which comes across as rather offensive if you think about it. But in short it was a word that lumped a myriad of different cultures into one pile of “Ignorant savages who talk funny”.
But really almost everything we know of these people is what the Romans tell us since a lot of their culture wasn’t recorded, though we do have impressive works of art from them and these Barbarians did have cities and such things.
The interesting thing is that these people didn’t seem to be in the whole Empire business and had a rather non-Roman mindset and were dealt with the “Western” or “Roman” way. Broken treaties, peace gatherings that were intended to gather tribes in one area and ensure they were unarmed and unprepared for a massacre and generally also turning people against one another.
And the people would eventually be conquered and “civilized” or rather assimilated to Roman ideals. And as I said earlier, I believe Christianity was utilized as a tool for this with the bible itself banned from public reading and Latin becoming its Holy Language it just became another excuse for “civilizing” “savages” often by force and destroying native cultures.
The end result being not so much a Christianized Europe but rather an utterly Romanized one, one where the ideals of the Roman Empire were valued even if Germanics had been made into the royalty with “divine” right to rule which likely created its own issues.
Anyhow, the way it seems to me is that despite being rather Romanized with much of what their own culture too being devalued or lost to fall back upon, Europe wasn’t properly united this way.
In some ways I’m beginning to see Medieval Europe as sort of a collection of a bunch of Mini-Romes all working towards that highly valued Roman goal of creating the biggest empire ever. Which would of course bring them into conflict with everyone else in the same region trying to be the next Roman Empire which was what their transplanted Roman ideals valued. And all the conflicts that came about from trying to be Rome resulted in an unprecedented advance of military technologies.
Which resulted in that when these Mini-Romes looked out at the rest of world, seeing them as a bunch of Barbarians as is the Roman way, they saw savages who had not yet been “civilized” and so would be ever so much easier to conquer than their fellow “civilized” Europeans. Plus, they couldn’t let any of the other “Empires” get ahead of them or else they wouldn’t be the best Rome.
I believe I may have gotten off-topic here, but that’s more or less what I feel may have happened. And the glorification of Rome does seem central to Western Culture, as if it was the perfect ideal of civilization in some ways. And a Glorification of those who sought to conquer the world even if their empire would prove unsustainable. I have a few more thoughts on this, such as how odd it is that individuals who essentially overthrew the republics to become Emperor are portrayed as good things.
But yeah. Why would people be proud of that mentality? Mostly because Empire Building was the one of the few things people were taught to be proud of.
On further note, the use of Germanics as the Royalty granted “Divine Right” in later times probably helped produce the image of what the proper and best European was supposed to be and added a certain “Holiness” to their traits. Well that and the fact Jesus was portrayed as rather Germanic in features…
But this is just speculation. I do feel that it could be an interesting topic of study if anyone wants to bother themselves with it.
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@ Insert Name
“I do feel that it could be an interesting topic of study if anyone wants to bother themselves with it.”—I think it would and I am quite interested in other peoples input regarding the matter.
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@ Anne
Then I fully apologize. Honestly it is my own fault for being so testy.
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@Sharina
It’s just something I’ve observed along with some speculation, but European history pretty much glorifies everything about Rome and almost ignores all but a few of the “Barbarians” from whom most Europeans actually descend. And those “Barbarians” that it does pay attention to were the ones more or less associated with becoming the new figureheads of Rome.
And rarely does the history take the side of the “Barbarians”. Though for a rather undetailed example from admittedly lazy research I found this little thing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lusitanian_War
Anyhow, back to personal observations. The whole Roman-centric viewpoint seems to have resulted in various people claiming Rome as theirs. Northern Europeans stating that Rome and Greece used to be inhabited by people just like them until they all got mixed with blacks and what not despite that not particularly making any rational sense when all things are taken into account, but that’s just what I feel is expected with the Roman identity having displaced the others.
I see it as “if someone else is the true Romans than we can’t be true Romans” but the culture is set up to identify with Romans and so an explanation must be made for why the people in Rome look different from themselves. Because lets face it, if they’re different from us and we’re the real Romans than they can’t be real Romans.
Perhaps that’s an oversimplification but I’ve seen this behavior firsthand.
Honestly I would say something that could help this mindset would be to focus more upon the culture and customs of the “Barbarians” in a favorable light as to provide a less Roman background and attitude which to identify with and take pride in.
Because the way I see it is if only the Roman history is valued than only the values of Roman culture will be considered important. And generally the Romans were pretty focused upon making the biggest empire ever and “civilizing” “savages” which are the general concept behind things like Manifest Destiny and exploitation of other peoples.
To explain the reality of this mentality in perfectly honest terms, as a child I felt at times like the world would be a much better place if America just took the whole damned thing over. That is basically just how stupidly history is portrayed and I’m glad I pieced together just how naive and stupid that idea was.
But the thing is, I think plenty of people still secretly believe that sort of thing no matter how logically deficient that thought might be.
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Sharina
Anne was taking a cheap shot at me. Duh! But I can see why you thought it was about you. Even you know you talk too much. LOL!
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@ Churchs
And here you are looking for cheap shots at me. Should I add this to the list of things that still manages to make you a loser?
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@ Churchs
Furthermore long responses just is a sign that you have much to talk about in most cases, but you are the exception and not the norm. ROFL!!!
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@ Insert Name
“To explain the reality of this mentality in perfectly honest terms, as a child I felt at times like the world would be a much better place if America just took the whole damned thing over. That is basically just how stupidly history is portrayed and I’m glad I pieced together just how naive and stupid that idea was.”—I think we all think this at some point in time before we seek the knowledge to piece the puzzle together. In American society we have been brainwashed to believe one thing and very few even seek high knowledge to realize the truth.
On this blog we talk a lot about college whites playing stereotypical minorities as some type of joke (going off topic). It really comes down to them being taught one thing and refusing to seek the truth. They live in fantasy land. One they think will last forever. It is like going to Disney world. You love it and everything is great, but it sucks to have to go back to the real world where things is not happy and sweet.
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I have a riddle. How can a person understand that a message was meant for them but at the same time not be able to get the message? Silence is not just golden but often is the most efficient way to hide your ignorance.
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Gee, Anne, that’s a tough one. How?
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Dear Abagond,
I’ve noticed that some Black people online will refer to White people as “Devils”!
Now that I know this, I’ve picked up on its occasional usage in hip hop, and what the singer may be really referring to – White people.
Before I thought they meant “personal demons”, but I now know that is not always the case. In hip hop it is often used in the context of mentioning police.
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I thought devil often white devil was a term used by other minorities(atleast I have heard it from them the most). It may have been coined by blacks over time though.
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“white devil” is one of the terms used in Chinese to refer to white people, esp. in the USA or western countries. In Greater China, you more typically encounter “foreign devil:.
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Call black conservatives ra-coon.
If you say ra66ist your r-.
Rap music is all r—st, globally ..???!!!
The most perfect human shines and is a bright eh—- colour,
CRT, intellectuals, apart—-d theory, /, Bro—- of Is—-, search cults.
V clever names, the more clever they sound, lifel—-er, imtoogood/etc, rings of clever deceiving, purpose, raise hatre-s, denigrate and confuse, all, any, and feel smug and superior in the process.
Big large mansions. / Anti— ~ ~-scis-ts.
The fun and games goes on and on.
Point of my posting, 0.
Just whatch, out for the oh so obvious, once you learn the tell tale signs, provocateurs, nearly just average r-ce ha—grifters, except they have an actual purpose in mind.
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