I think you've described a different situation. What Qliphoth said was that his friends would do this in social situations with him -- like they're all sitting around playing GTA and suddely, BAM, he's excluded from the dialogue. It's at least slightly rude -- maybe worse than excessive whisper-n-giggling.
I'm struck by how much of this thread is not actually about race and racism, but about culture and cultural prejudice/stereotypes.
Yes, cultural prejudice is bad. And it is often intertwined with legitimate racism. But I think it's incredibly important to separate the two, because they are very different beasts. And I think that cultures, unlike races, should be open to criticism, and even in some cases ostracism.
I've been at friends places who have for no reason started to speak chinese to each other while i was sitting there with them, which is ridiculously rude and I've started many arguments about it.
Maybe they just wanted to talk about you and so they spoke Chinese to spare your feelings. Seems like they did you a favor, mate.
I had a Korean schoolmate with a similar problem. He couldn't stand when people spoke other languages besides Korean or English. One time he caught two Japanese girls speaking Japanese to one another so he demanded that they stop speaking it. When they ignored him, he grabbed a chair a threw it at them. He was henceforth expelled. In other words, if it bothers you so much that people are speaking a language you don't understand, why not learn that language? Or better yet, find a friend who speaks a language your Chinese friends don't understand, learn it, then have a conversation in which they can't take part. There are many other options that don't involve chair-throwing and I think you'll find them all infinitely more rewarding.
Yes because finding something rude is the same as hurling a chair at random people. And I don't have any inclination to spend a large amount of time learning another language simply to avoid a rare social annoyance.
All I'm saying is that it's a slippery slope. One minute you're finding your friends rude because they're excluding you from a conversation, which for all you know is some culturally-focused topic that may very well require the explicit use of Chinese slang and ancient Confucian proverbs. The next you're throwing chairs at people. At that rate, you'll be collecting human mammaries as trophies by the end of the month.
Um, it's rude because supposedly they've invited him over to their place for social interaction and then exclude him from said interaction blatantly and with no warning.
Um, it's rude because supposedly they've invited him over to their place for social interaction and then exclude him from said interaction blatantly and with no warning.
That's true, they should've given some notice. Otherwise it's just kind of random and out of the blue. Seriously, you don't know whether they're rehearsing kabuki or relaying sensitive intel to Pyongyang.
My biggest problem is when people who have never met me assume that all white people will be racist, and therefore act belligerent and defensive right off the bat. How can you combat racism when some people never even give individuals the benefit of he doubt?
On a completely different point, I heard somewhere (and agree) that the word 'African American' is a lot more problematic than 'black'. It's both absurd and impossible we have to refer to every person as 'the-country-they-came-from-American'. If have to deal with being called "white/whitey" all the time and personally words don't really hurt me that much.
(On a final side note, logically and technically the word "colored" is even more appropriate then "black" since the primary difference in race is the amount of melanin...which is definitely not black. But this just goes to show how touchy and hypocritical the whole world of "words-that-hurt-you" is. )
Some guy called me a "racist-ass cracka" yesterday because I wouldn't budge on a TV's price.
My response: "First of all, this is Wal-Mart, not a car dealership. Second of all, I'm not even half-white. Third, I'm not sure 'asshole' is considered a race just yet."
When I was young racist comments felt physically threatening to me. Now I respond in such a way as to indicate that I do not share the sentiment, but I do not dislike the person who expressed the sentiment. Saying, "You're wrong," will not change the person's attitude. Trying to understand why the person feels that way, and dealing with those reasons might.
I think you've described a different situation. What Qliphoth said was that his friends would do this in social situations with him -- like they're all sitting around playing GTA and suddely, BAM, he's excluded from the dialogue. It's at least slightly rude -- maybe worse than excessive whisper-n-giggling.
yeah thats pretty much exactly what i meant.
If it's every single person in the group doing it at once, then yeah I can see where you're coming from. But if it's more than 4 people, then I feel perfectly fine starting a conversation with someone in another language. If you're with 2 other people and they suddenly start speaking in another language, then that is about the same as them whispering only to each other. And that is pretty damn rude. In a group of 5 or 6 though, not every person has to aim to accomodate you. You wouldn't demand that people not talk about any topics that you don't understand or know anything about, so where do you get off demanding that they speak English all the time, just so you can understand everything?
Again, it's a question of group size and social niceties. Hell, if you were with 2 people and they spent the whole time talking about cars and you don't understand cars and they KNOW you don't understand cars, I'd agree that that would be pretty damn rude. But in a larger group, you can't expect every thing to include you at every level.
I once had "You've got SARS fuckface!" yelled at me from a window as I walked to school. I gave him the finger and went to class. This is not really that exciting.
The main thing with Asian students coming in to "Western" unis is that the Asian population is gi-fucking-normous, so you have Western-size populations competing with Eastern-size populations for Western-size school systems.
It's like if Californians were going to Rhode Island for school.
Doing a group assignment with three other people who won't/can't talk to you is pretty frustrating.
This one time I got assigned to a project with three Korean students. When the teacher announced the groups, the first thing they did (they were sitting together in a corner of the classroom) when they saw that I wasn't Korean was to go to the teacher and ask him to change groups because they wanted to work with a Korean friend of theirs, who was assigned to another group himself and from the looks on his face, was suffering.
I was disgusted and relieved at the same time. Disgusted at the racism and the teacher's tolerance for it, but relieved that I didn't have to work with them.
How do you know it wasn't just them wanting to work with their friend, rather than not wanting to work with any non-Korean?
The main thing with Asian students coming in to "Western" unis is that the Asian population is gi-fucking-normous, so you have Western-size populations competing with Eastern-size populations for Western-size school systems.
It's like if Californians were going to Rhode Island for school.
My god... almost like the first waves of a full-scale invasion force.
What does the actual point of the excercise have to do with whether the actions of the 3 Koreans was racist or not?
I don't care if they're racist or not. I just think that's an incredibly dumb thing to do, be it because of race or because they wanted to work with a friend.
I always felt kind of weird that my best friends in high school for the first couple of years were pretty much all white in a school where maybe 1-2% of the population was white.
But, what's a person supposed to do on the first day of school where he walks by table after table of korean kids talking in korean and armenian kids talking in armenian and then finally stumbles upon a table of white kids playing magic cards. As time went on though our group of friends expanded to contain more and more people, most of which weren't white. But, it did feel kinda odd for the first year or so.
I see that a lot though, where I live. Most groups of friends hanging out are entirely of the same race, though I see the most white kids hanging out with people of other races, probably because there are so few white kids. It's just annoying how insular cultures are around here.
What does the actual point of the excercise have to do with whether the actions of the 3 Koreans was racist or not?
I don't care if they're racist or not. I just think that's an incredibly dumb thing to do, be it because of race or because they wanted to work with a friend.
So... if you don't care whether or not they were being racist, what purpose does your story serve in a thread discussing racism?
What does the actual point of the excercise have to do with whether the actions of the 3 Koreans was racist or not?
I don't care if they're racist or not. I just think that's an incredibly dumb thing to do, be it because of race or because they wanted to work with a friend.
So... if you don't care whether or not they were being racist, what purpose does your story serve in a thread discussing racism?
What does the actual point of the excercise have to do with whether the actions of the 3 Koreans was racist or not?
I don't care if they're racist or not. I just think that's an incredibly dumb thing to do, be it because of race or because they wanted to work with a friend.
So... if you don't care whether or not they were being racist, what purpose does your story serve in a thread discussing racism?
It wasn't his story. Learn to read.
That's right, it's your story. Why do you think they were being racist? Because they had a friend who was also Korean and so they obviously wanted to work with him as an affront against your ethnicity? Doesn't that strike you as being just a tad provincial and oversensitive?
I still don't understand how racial slurs are offensive.
Uh, really? You don't?
Um, do you understand how someone saying they hate you and think you are sub-human and so on could be offensive? And how someone bringing up a history of oppression and hate could be offensive?
I hold my tongue, cause I live in florida, and pretty much everyone here is a racist. Every now and then, I'll catch someone else rolling their eyes, and we'll exchange the little 'where the hell do they pick this shit up?' smile, but that's pretty rare these days, particularly on the subject of Latin americans. Up here they are still all mexicans, but as you get further south they are all called cubans.
I don't know. I tend to let my disappointment show when friends do it. It's pretty rare that I mean someone who isn't racist, and they tend to be transplants. I worked with a girl for Los Angles for a while, and she was just utterly disgusted by how blatant and constant it was.
That's right, it's your story. Why do you think they were being racist? Because they had a friend who was also Korean and so they obviously wanted to work with him as an affront against your ethnicity? Doesn't that strike you as being just a tad provincial and oversensitive?
Well, either he was accusing the Koreans of being racist, or he just wanted to present a completely unrelated story of why he dislikes Korean people. Pick one.
We live in a day and age where black people tend to vote exclusively democratic and where Barack Obama is a shoe in for the nomination, but where any black person who votes for Barack Obama gets accused of racism and of voting for Obama solely because of race.
Can't speak for the poster, but I think that there's an underlying unease of seeing the "other" people form into groups, rather than staying separate and unthreatening. So for instance, it's okay to have a black president and it's okay to have black voters, but put those two together? Oh no! That's reverse racist!
That's right, it's your story. Why do you think they were being racist? Because they had a friend who was also Korean and so they obviously wanted to work with him as an affront against your ethnicity? Doesn't that strike you as being just a tad provincial and oversensitive?
Well, either he was accusing the Koreans of being racist, or he just wanted to present a completely unrelated story of why he dislikes Korean people. Pick one.
I think it's neither. It seems like ege just genuinely interpreted their wanting to include a friend as an exclusionary act against his membership. Personally I've found many native Koreans I've met to be somewhat aloof when removed from their homogeneous element and so it's probably true that they tend to feel more comfortable with other Koreans. But at the same time, I'd be remiss in leaving out the countless Americans, Europeans and Africans I see in foreign countries seeking out other Americans, Europeans and Africans.
Bottom line though, it isn't necessarily that ege couldn't relate to his Korean "aggressors," but rather that he probably would've liked to have worked with them. He likely felt as though they closed off that opportunity without even giving him a chance. Had he been excluded by fellow Westerners who simply wanted to include a friend of theirs, it's likely that he would've been equally upset but since this particular group happened to be comprised of a different national heritage, that gave him the ammunition he needed to use racism as a possible rationale for their decision.
This comment right here is what I don't like about how people view racism these days.
Racism is the act of one race intentionally being hateful to another.
But to many, racism is the act of white people being hateful to all the other races. If not, its 'reverse racism'. This is pretty telling because it just goes to show that they consider white people to be the 'default people' and the others to be 'variations'. So they think they aren't being racist when they defend these 'variations' when they are actually perpetuating a new brand of racism. The kind where non-whites are made out to be 'special' or 'not normal', and so need to be protected. Which basically makes out white people to be some sort of master race.
The mere act of bringing the issue of race to peoples attention creates an underlying racism because it perpetuates the belief that we are separate.
That's right, it's your story. Why do you think they were being racist? Because they had a friend who was also Korean and so they obviously wanted to work with him as an affront against your ethnicity? Doesn't that strike you as being just a tad provincial and oversensitive?
Well, either he was accusing the Koreans of being racist, or he just wanted to present a completely unrelated story of why he dislikes Korean people. Pick one.
We live in a day and age where black people tend to vote exclusively democratic and where Barack Obama is a shoe in for the nomination, but where any black person who votes for Barack Obama gets accused of racism and of voting for Obama solely because of race.
Can't speak for the poster, but I think that there's an underlying unease of seeing the "other" people form into groups, rather than staying separate and unthreatening. So for instance, it's okay to have a black president and it's okay to have black voters, but put those two together? Oh no! That's reverse racist!
Let's put it this way; if this were a group of white kids in an otherwise all-black/asian/whatever class that specifically requested that they only work with each other, no doubt a lot of people would think it was "racist".
That's right, it's your story. Why do you think they were being racist? Because they had a friend who was also Korean and so they obviously wanted to work with him as an affront against your ethnicity? Doesn't that strike you as being just a tad provincial and oversensitive?
Well, either he was accusing the Koreans of being racist, or he just wanted to present a completely unrelated story of why he dislikes Korean people. Pick one.
We live in a day and age where black people tend to vote exclusively democratic and where Barack Obama is a shoe in for the nomination, but where any black person who votes for Barack Obama gets accused of racism and of voting for Obama solely because of race.
Can't speak for the poster, but I think that there's an underlying unease of seeing the "other" people form into groups, rather than staying separate and unthreatening. So for instance, it's okay to have a black president and it's okay to have black voters, but put those two together? Oh no! That's reverse racist!
Let's put it this way; if this were a group of white kids in an otherwise all-black/asian/whatever class that specifically requested that they only work with each other, no doubt a lot of people would think it was "racist".
It would depend on why the class was all black or all Asian. e.g., if you had four foreign American exchange students who wanted to hang out with one another in an Asian class room that took place in China, then I doubt that anyone would find that unusual. The same if they went to a school in Africa.
Now, I suppose you can make a non-racial argument in favor of getting the kids exposed to new partners. The real question is why the teacher would pair three of the Korean kids together, but leave one out. If each kid was assigned to a separate group, then I seriously doubt that they would be asked to be brought together. But pairing 3 kids together and leaving 1 out is bound to create tension.
This comment right here is what I don't like about how people view racism these days.
Racism is the act of one race intentionally being hateful to another.
But to many, racism is the act of white people being hateful to all the other races. If not, its 'reverse racism'. This is pretty telling because it just goes to show that they consider white people to be the 'default people' and the others to be 'variations'. So they think they aren't being racist when they defend these 'variations' when they are actually perpetuating a new brand of racism. The kind where non-whites are made out to be 'special' or 'not normal', and so need to be protected. Which basically makes out white people to be some sort of master race.
The mere act of bringing the issue of race to peoples attention creates an underlying racism because it perpetuates the belief that we are separate.
And therein lies the underlying fallacy of equivocation that pretty much makes the concept of "reverse racism" completely worthless in this day and age.
When minorities complain about being the victims of racism, they're usually referring to the first definition, which I bolded.
When white people complain about reverse racism, they're usually referring to the second definition, which I bolded.
So you have a bunch of people who lump these things together and insist that they're the exact same thing, when really they're not the same thing at all. e.g., listening to white people complain about how there's a "racist" double standard where they can't use the n-word without offending people, as though it's the exact same thing as a racist situation where an employer denies you a job despite being equally qualified simply for being black.
Like they said on the Office, you can't fight ignorance with ignorance. People notice race, period. They might not even be aware of it. Pretending that you don't see race and that the problem doesn't exist is not going to make this go away. It was what I was getting at with my first post of this thread, step 2, "???"
And therein lies the underlying fallacy of equivocation that pretty much makes the concept of "reverse racism" completely worthless in this day and age.
When minorities complain about being the victims of racism, they're usually referring to the first definition, which I bolded.
When white people complain about reverse racism, they're usually referring to the second definition, which I bolded.
So you have a bunch of people who lump these things together and insist that they're the exact same thing, when really they're not the same thing at all. e.g., listening to white people complain about how there's a "racist" double standard where they can't use the n-word without offending people, as though it's the exact same thing as a racist situation where an employer denies you a job despite being equally qualified simply for being black.
Like they said on the Office, you can't fight ignorance with ignorance. People notice race, period. They might not even be aware of it. Pretending that you don't see race and that the problem doesn't exist is not going to make this go away. It was what I was getting at with my first post of this thread, step 2, "???"
Thank you - it's nice to see that other people think, too. Racism is stupid. There are lots of ACTUAL reasons to hate people based on how they act and what they say - why bother basing it on something somebody has no control over?
As far as the OP is concerned, having an immediate reaction to the first statement is jumping the gun a little, though the follow-up comments were deserving. I went to a college that was (and still is) predominantly Asian (I'm "Caucasian" - oddly, despite Asians being something like 67% of the student population, they were still considered a "minority" while Caucasians were not). Somebody pointing out that there are a lot of Asians at my school doesn't strike me as racist, unless there was some kind of underlying tone of hatred in it. And yes, I did encounter the phenomenon of not being invited to study groups because I was not also Asian. I didn't care, because I reconnected with old acquaintances there and they were all basically geniuses and we studied together anyway, but I can understand someone getting frustrated by experiencing that. That doesn't impugn "asians" though, it just impugns people who discriminated against others because they were NOT asian (and that means that they themselves WERE asian, but that wasn't what made them bad people).
I also tend to find racism hilarious in my own circle of friends, but that's because we know each other well enough that we know that there's no hatred in any of hearts for anyone based on race. We find racism ridiculous, so we make racist comments to each other that, if overheard by someone not familiar with us, would sound pretty bad but to us is just mocking racists. Since I don't encounter racism much, I forget how prevalent it is elsewhere. Similarly, someone who encounters it a lot might see it in many places where it's really not happening. As much as I hate racisim, I also hate accusations of racism that have no fair basis, because they basically insult the experiences of people who really have been victims of racism.
In high school, we were watching live footage of the devastation of a California earthquake. The news crews depicted looting and were talking about firemen getting shot in the face by looters. I commented that those people should be shot on site (meaning the people who would be so low as to try to kill people who were risking their lives to help people in a disaster, as the kind of person who would victimize other humans in an emergency like that is detrimental to the human race). A black student got all outraged, saying something like "you're talking about my people!" (ironically, the people looting on screen were obviously white and hispanic dudes). I just responded with something like "If you consider looters and people who shoot at firemen `your people' then you need to find better people." OJ getting away with murder did not "win something for black people" - it "won something for rich celebrity murderers." Thankfully, I think it will soon be impossible to define people by "race" as people will be so mixed and it will become so easy to change one's physical attributes that the point will be moot. People will have to start hating/taking pride in something that they actually have a hand in for once. I hope to live to see it.
I also had a crazy ex who went off on me for recommending the movie "Slap Shot" because she insisted hockey was racist, as there weren't many black players. I responded with a stat sheet showing how much more mediocre-to-poor black players were paid than much more talented white players, simply because the organization wanted to capitalize on the "idol factor" that says kids will be more likely to follow a sport if it has players that "look more like them." The fact that, if I was ONLY given their races for some ridiculous hypothetical reason, I would blindly choose white players for a winning hockey team and black players for a winning basketball team does not make me racist - it makes me competent at math and statistics. I'd only be racist if I would reject a black player who showed skill over a white player who didn't (or vice versa in basketball). I actually wrote up the statistics to show her the plain numbers, and she still called me a "racist." She was not very bright.
EDIT: Racism just doesn't work. Darwinism will take care of that, despite the uneven distribution of advantage that still exists because of past racism. Even in crime: gangs that recruit based on ability instead of race are more successful than the old race-based gangs. I'm almost in favor of abolishing equal protection laws - maybe I have too much faith in other people, but I'd like to think that society will ostracize companies that enact racist hiring practices and it will take care of itself. It doesn't pay to refuse to hire a more qualified candidate because of some incidental genetic difference. If I hire only awesome lawyers, and you hire only Asian or White or Aztec or whatever lawyers, my law firm will kick your law firm's ass. Racism should go away, much the same way people who reject modern medicine won't be with us much longer.
That's right, it's your story. Why do you think they were being racist? Because they had a friend who was also Korean and so they obviously wanted to work with him as an affront against your ethnicity? Doesn't that strike you as being just a tad provincial and oversensitive?
Well, either he was accusing the Koreans of being racist, or he just wanted to present a completely unrelated story of why he dislikes Korean people. Pick one.
We live in a day and age where black people tend to vote exclusively democratic and where Barack Obama is a shoe in for the nomination, but where any black person who votes for Barack Obama gets accused of racism and of voting for Obama solely because of race.
Can't speak for the poster, but I think that there's an underlying unease of seeing the "other" people form into groups, rather than staying separate and unthreatening. So for instance, it's okay to have a black president and it's okay to have black voters, but put those two together? Oh no! That's reverse racist!
Let's put it this way; if this were a group of white kids in an otherwise all-black/asian/whatever class that specifically requested that they only work with each other, no doubt a lot of people would think it was "racist".
You don't know that and to assume so is to let the white person play the victim in a system where it is not really so.
You don't know that and to assume so is to let the white person play the victim in a system where it is not really so.
This is really part of the whole 'no one can be racist towards white people' phenomenon and is absurd. The 'system' is in your favour, thus no situation can exist where white people are discriminated against on the basis of their race, is stupid on multiple levels.
Though I am not implying that the scenario with the koreans wanting to work with their korean buddy was racist, as it probably wasn't.
You don't know that and to assume so is to let the white person play the victim in a system where it is not really so.
This is really part of the whole 'no one can be racist towards white people' phenomenon and is absurd. The 'system' is in your favour, thus no situation can exist where white people are discriminated against on the basis of their race, is stupid on multiple levels.
Except that's not the way it works. The way it works is "the system is so thoroughly biased in your favor that it's damned near impossible for people making racist remarks about you to harm you in any meaningful way" with "meaningful" in this context referring to access to social, economic and political achievement.
You don't know that and to assume so is to let the white person play the victim in a system where it is not really so.
This is really part of the whole 'no one can be racist towards white people' phenomenon and is absurd. The 'system' is in your favour, thus no situation can exist where white people are discriminated against on the basis of their race, is stupid on multiple levels.
Though I am not implying that the scenario with the koreans wanting to work with their korean buddy was racist, as it probably wasn't.
I was not speaking of discrimination or prejudice against white people, just that in this situation, it is not a given that a double standard exists, just that one is perceived in the speaker's mind, and perhaps that is the problem. Not the korean kids that want to work with their friend who is also korean. Just as many of the situations listed on the first page, it is attributing someone's flaws and/or mistakes with their ethnicities is a racist act (that can be done by people who are not racist). To defend it with, "Well it's just all the so-and-so's that I have dealt with are jerks" is not really a good argument.
And, to be completely honest, the "If a white person did this, people would think it was racist!" argument is really tired and, most of the time, does not mean there is a problem (i.e. not having a network called white entertainment television, not being able to officially call a church a 'white church', etc.)
You don't know that and to assume so is to let the white person play the victim in a system where it is not really so.
This is really part of the whole 'no one can be racist towards white people' phenomenon and is absurd. The 'system' is in your favour, thus no situation can exist where white people are discriminated against on the basis of their race, is stupid on multiple levels.
Except that's not the way it works. The way it works is "the system is so thoroughly biased in your favor that it's damned near impossible for people making racist remarks about you to harm you in any meaningful way" with "meaningful" in this context referring to access to social, economic and political achievement.
I'm reminded of the Chevy Chase/Richard Pryor sketch, dealing with racial word association. The funny thing about that sketch (aside from the obvious) was that Chase states a bunch of hurtful racial slurs that we have all heard and which we're all familiar with, where as Pryor has to resort to super obscure racial slurs like "peckerwood" that most people have never heard before in their entire lives, and variations of "honky," "honky honky," and "dead honky." Why? Because in the entire lexicon of racial slang, that's apparently the absolute worse thing that you can come up with when describing a white person. A term that pretty much no one ever uses, and which you pretty much have to go on the google in order to figure out the historical background. And even then, it's a term that really doesn't mean much. "Oh, Honky is a term that black people used to describe hungarian workers, which they had to develop in desperation after being called the n-word and having nothing to respond with. It harkens back to the awful day when white people would call black people the n-word, and black people had the nerve to stand up for themselves!"
So yeah, I think it's fair to say that just because some people would like to imagine a double standard, that doesn't mean that there is one. And no, it's not racist to point out that there's no double standard and no parallel comparison.
FYI, the Chevy Chase example is also proof that a white person can use the n-word for laughs if he wants to without sparking protest, as long as he's not an idiot about it. On broadcast TV, no less.
I still don't understand how racial slurs are offensive.
Uh, really? You don't?
Um, do you understand how someone saying they hate you and think you are sub-human and so on could be offensive? And how someone bringing up a history of oppression and hate could be offensive?
I mean, it's pretty straight forward dude.
Words are words. I mean someone making an absolutely baseless insult should have much less impact than if the person were to insult the integrity and character of a person instead of making an obvious physical observation.
I still don't understand how racial slurs are offensive.
Uh, really? You don't?
Um, do you understand how someone saying they hate you and think you are sub-human and so on could be offensive? And how someone bringing up a history of oppression and hate could be offensive?
I mean, it's pretty straight forward dude.
Words are words. I mean someone making an absolutely baseless insult should have much less impact than if the person were to insult the integrity and character of a person instead of making an obvious physical observation.
Maybe on a purely, cold, theoretical level this makes sense. But to say that people shouldn't take offense to any words because they are words, or worse, to say that you don't understand how they are offensive, is illogical and doesn't work in a normal society of thinking and feeling human beings.
But the general rule is that using racial slurs is being a dick and no one likes people who are dicks.
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yeah thats pretty much exactly what i meant.
Yes, cultural prejudice is bad. And it is often intertwined with legitimate racism. But I think it's incredibly important to separate the two, because they are very different beasts. And I think that cultures, unlike races, should be open to criticism, and even in some cases ostracism.
All I'm saying is that it's a slippery slope. One minute you're finding your friends rude because they're excluding you from a conversation, which for all you know is some culturally-focused topic that may very well require the explicit use of Chinese slang and ancient Confucian proverbs. The next you're throwing chairs at people. At that rate, you'll be collecting human mammaries as trophies by the end of the month.
That's true, they should've given some notice. Otherwise it's just kind of random and out of the blue. Seriously, you don't know whether they're rehearsing kabuki or relaying sensitive intel to Pyongyang.
On a completely different point, I heard somewhere (and agree) that the word 'African American' is a lot more problematic than 'black'. It's both absurd and impossible we have to refer to every person as 'the-country-they-came-from-American'. If have to deal with being called "white/whitey" all the time and personally words don't really hurt me that much.
(On a final side note, logically and technically the word "colored" is even more appropriate then "black" since the primary difference in race is the amount of melanin...which is definitely not black. But this just goes to show how touchy and hypocritical the whole world of "words-that-hurt-you" is. )
My response: "First of all, this is Wal-Mart, not a car dealership. Second of all, I'm not even half-white. Third, I'm not sure 'asshole' is considered a race just yet."
XBL : lJesse Custerl | MWO: Jesse Custer | Best vid ever. | 2nd best vid ever.
If it's every single person in the group doing it at once, then yeah I can see where you're coming from. But if it's more than 4 people, then I feel perfectly fine starting a conversation with someone in another language. If you're with 2 other people and they suddenly start speaking in another language, then that is about the same as them whispering only to each other. And that is pretty damn rude. In a group of 5 or 6 though, not every person has to aim to accomodate you. You wouldn't demand that people not talk about any topics that you don't understand or know anything about, so where do you get off demanding that they speak English all the time, just so you can understand everything?
Again, it's a question of group size and social niceties. Hell, if you were with 2 people and they spent the whole time talking about cars and you don't understand cars and they KNOW you don't understand cars, I'd agree that that would be pretty damn rude. But in a larger group, you can't expect every thing to include you at every level.
I once had "You've got SARS fuckface!" yelled at me from a window as I walked to school. I gave him the finger and went to class. This is not really that exciting.
It's like if Californians were going to Rhode Island for school.
How do you know it wasn't just them wanting to work with their friend, rather than not wanting to work with any non-Korean?
My god... almost like the first waves of a full-scale invasion force.
But, what's a person supposed to do on the first day of school where he walks by table after table of korean kids talking in korean and armenian kids talking in armenian and then finally stumbles upon a table of white kids playing magic cards. As time went on though our group of friends expanded to contain more and more people, most of which weren't white. But, it did feel kinda odd for the first year or so.
I see that a lot though, where I live. Most groups of friends hanging out are entirely of the same race, though I see the most white kids hanging out with people of other races, probably because there are so few white kids. It's just annoying how insular cultures are around here.
It's not the point but they sure are more enjoyable that way.
So... if you don't care whether or not they were being racist, what purpose does your story serve in a thread discussing racism?
It wasn't his story. Learn to read.
That's right, it's your story. Why do you think they were being racist? Because they had a friend who was also Korean and so they obviously wanted to work with him as an affront against your ethnicity? Doesn't that strike you as being just a tad provincial and oversensitive?
Uh, really? You don't?
Um, do you understand how someone saying they hate you and think you are sub-human and so on could be offensive? And how someone bringing up a history of oppression and hate could be offensive?
I mean, it's pretty straight forward dude.
I don't know. I tend to let my disappointment show when friends do it. It's pretty rare that I mean someone who isn't racist, and they tend to be transplants. I worked with a girl for Los Angles for a while, and she was just utterly disgusted by how blatant and constant it was.
Like, they had riots and shit.
Well, either he was accusing the Koreans of being racist, or he just wanted to present a completely unrelated story of why he dislikes Korean people. Pick one.
We live in a day and age where black people tend to vote exclusively democratic and where Barack Obama is a shoe in for the nomination, but where any black person who votes for Barack Obama gets accused of racism and of voting for Obama solely because of race.
Can't speak for the poster, but I think that there's an underlying unease of seeing the "other" people form into groups, rather than staying separate and unthreatening. So for instance, it's okay to have a black president and it's okay to have black voters, but put those two together? Oh no! That's reverse racist!
I think it's neither. It seems like ege just genuinely interpreted their wanting to include a friend as an exclusionary act against his membership. Personally I've found many native Koreans I've met to be somewhat aloof when removed from their homogeneous element and so it's probably true that they tend to feel more comfortable with other Koreans. But at the same time, I'd be remiss in leaving out the countless Americans, Europeans and Africans I see in foreign countries seeking out other Americans, Europeans and Africans.
Bottom line though, it isn't necessarily that ege couldn't relate to his Korean "aggressors," but rather that he probably would've liked to have worked with them. He likely felt as though they closed off that opportunity without even giving him a chance. Had he been excluded by fellow Westerners who simply wanted to include a friend of theirs, it's likely that he would've been equally upset but since this particular group happened to be comprised of a different national heritage, that gave him the ammunition he needed to use racism as a possible rationale for their decision.
Isn't empathy nauseating?
Racism is the act of one race intentionally being hateful to another.
But to many, racism is the act of white people being hateful to all the other races. If not, its 'reverse racism'. This is pretty telling because it just goes to show that they consider white people to be the 'default people' and the others to be 'variations'. So they think they aren't being racist when they defend these 'variations' when they are actually perpetuating a new brand of racism. The kind where non-whites are made out to be 'special' or 'not normal', and so need to be protected. Which basically makes out white people to be some sort of master race.
The mere act of bringing the issue of race to peoples attention creates an underlying racism because it perpetuates the belief that we are separate.
Let's put it this way; if this were a group of white kids in an otherwise all-black/asian/whatever class that specifically requested that they only work with each other, no doubt a lot of people would think it was "racist".
It would depend on why the class was all black or all Asian. e.g., if you had four foreign American exchange students who wanted to hang out with one another in an Asian class room that took place in China, then I doubt that anyone would find that unusual. The same if they went to a school in Africa.
Now, I suppose you can make a non-racial argument in favor of getting the kids exposed to new partners. The real question is why the teacher would pair three of the Korean kids together, but leave one out. If each kid was assigned to a separate group, then I seriously doubt that they would be asked to be brought together. But pairing 3 kids together and leaving 1 out is bound to create tension.
And therein lies the underlying fallacy of equivocation that pretty much makes the concept of "reverse racism" completely worthless in this day and age.
When minorities complain about being the victims of racism, they're usually referring to the first definition, which I bolded.
When white people complain about reverse racism, they're usually referring to the second definition, which I bolded.
So you have a bunch of people who lump these things together and insist that they're the exact same thing, when really they're not the same thing at all. e.g., listening to white people complain about how there's a "racist" double standard where they can't use the n-word without offending people, as though it's the exact same thing as a racist situation where an employer denies you a job despite being equally qualified simply for being black.
Like they said on the Office, you can't fight ignorance with ignorance. People notice race, period. They might not even be aware of it. Pretending that you don't see race and that the problem doesn't exist is not going to make this go away. It was what I was getting at with my first post of this thread, step 2, "???"
Thank you - it's nice to see that other people think, too. Racism is stupid. There are lots of ACTUAL reasons to hate people based on how they act and what they say - why bother basing it on something somebody has no control over?
As far as the OP is concerned, having an immediate reaction to the first statement is jumping the gun a little, though the follow-up comments were deserving. I went to a college that was (and still is) predominantly Asian (I'm "Caucasian" - oddly, despite Asians being something like 67% of the student population, they were still considered a "minority" while Caucasians were not). Somebody pointing out that there are a lot of Asians at my school doesn't strike me as racist, unless there was some kind of underlying tone of hatred in it. And yes, I did encounter the phenomenon of not being invited to study groups because I was not also Asian. I didn't care, because I reconnected with old acquaintances there and they were all basically geniuses and we studied together anyway, but I can understand someone getting frustrated by experiencing that. That doesn't impugn "asians" though, it just impugns people who discriminated against others because they were NOT asian (and that means that they themselves WERE asian, but that wasn't what made them bad people).
I also tend to find racism hilarious in my own circle of friends, but that's because we know each other well enough that we know that there's no hatred in any of hearts for anyone based on race. We find racism ridiculous, so we make racist comments to each other that, if overheard by someone not familiar with us, would sound pretty bad but to us is just mocking racists. Since I don't encounter racism much, I forget how prevalent it is elsewhere. Similarly, someone who encounters it a lot might see it in many places where it's really not happening. As much as I hate racisim, I also hate accusations of racism that have no fair basis, because they basically insult the experiences of people who really have been victims of racism.
In high school, we were watching live footage of the devastation of a California earthquake. The news crews depicted looting and were talking about firemen getting shot in the face by looters. I commented that those people should be shot on site (meaning the people who would be so low as to try to kill people who were risking their lives to help people in a disaster, as the kind of person who would victimize other humans in an emergency like that is detrimental to the human race). A black student got all outraged, saying something like "you're talking about my people!" (ironically, the people looting on screen were obviously white and hispanic dudes). I just responded with something like "If you consider looters and people who shoot at firemen `your people' then you need to find better people." OJ getting away with murder did not "win something for black people" - it "won something for rich celebrity murderers." Thankfully, I think it will soon be impossible to define people by "race" as people will be so mixed and it will become so easy to change one's physical attributes that the point will be moot. People will have to start hating/taking pride in something that they actually have a hand in for once. I hope to live to see it.
I also had a crazy ex who went off on me for recommending the movie "Slap Shot" because she insisted hockey was racist, as there weren't many black players. I responded with a stat sheet showing how much more mediocre-to-poor black players were paid than much more talented white players, simply because the organization wanted to capitalize on the "idol factor" that says kids will be more likely to follow a sport if it has players that "look more like them." The fact that, if I was ONLY given their races for some ridiculous hypothetical reason, I would blindly choose white players for a winning hockey team and black players for a winning basketball team does not make me racist - it makes me competent at math and statistics. I'd only be racist if I would reject a black player who showed skill over a white player who didn't (or vice versa in basketball). I actually wrote up the statistics to show her the plain numbers, and she still called me a "racist." She was not very bright.
EDIT: Racism just doesn't work. Darwinism will take care of that, despite the uneven distribution of advantage that still exists because of past racism. Even in crime: gangs that recruit based on ability instead of race are more successful than the old race-based gangs. I'm almost in favor of abolishing equal protection laws - maybe I have too much faith in other people, but I'd like to think that society will ostracize companies that enact racist hiring practices and it will take care of itself. It doesn't pay to refuse to hire a more qualified candidate because of some incidental genetic difference. If I hire only awesome lawyers, and you hire only Asian or White or Aztec or whatever lawyers, my law firm will kick your law firm's ass. Racism should go away, much the same way people who reject modern medicine won't be with us much longer.
You don't know that and to assume so is to let the white person play the victim in a system where it is not really so.
This is really part of the whole 'no one can be racist towards white people' phenomenon and is absurd. The 'system' is in your favour, thus no situation can exist where white people are discriminated against on the basis of their race, is stupid on multiple levels.
Though I am not implying that the scenario with the koreans wanting to work with their korean buddy was racist, as it probably wasn't.
Except that's not the way it works. The way it works is "the system is so thoroughly biased in your favor that it's damned near impossible for people making racist remarks about you to harm you in any meaningful way" with "meaningful" in this context referring to access to social, economic and political achievement.
I was not speaking of discrimination or prejudice against white people, just that in this situation, it is not a given that a double standard exists, just that one is perceived in the speaker's mind, and perhaps that is the problem. Not the korean kids that want to work with their friend who is also korean. Just as many of the situations listed on the first page, it is attributing someone's flaws and/or mistakes with their ethnicities is a racist act (that can be done by people who are not racist). To defend it with, "Well it's just all the so-and-so's that I have dealt with are jerks" is not really a good argument.
And, to be completely honest, the "If a white person did this, people would think it was racist!" argument is really tired and, most of the time, does not mean there is a problem (i.e. not having a network called white entertainment television, not being able to officially call a church a 'white church', etc.)
I'm reminded of the Chevy Chase/Richard Pryor sketch, dealing with racial word association. The funny thing about that sketch (aside from the obvious) was that Chase states a bunch of hurtful racial slurs that we have all heard and which we're all familiar with, where as Pryor has to resort to super obscure racial slurs like "peckerwood" that most people have never heard before in their entire lives, and variations of "honky," "honky honky," and "dead honky." Why? Because in the entire lexicon of racial slang, that's apparently the absolute worse thing that you can come up with when describing a white person. A term that pretty much no one ever uses, and which you pretty much have to go on the google in order to figure out the historical background. And even then, it's a term that really doesn't mean much. "Oh, Honky is a term that black people used to describe hungarian workers, which they had to develop in desperation after being called the n-word and having nothing to respond with. It harkens back to the awful day when white people would call black people the n-word, and black people had the nerve to stand up for themselves!"
So yeah, I think it's fair to say that just because some people would like to imagine a double standard, that doesn't mean that there is one. And no, it's not racist to point out that there's no double standard and no parallel comparison.
FYI, the Chevy Chase example is also proof that a white person can use the n-word for laughs if he wants to without sparking protest, as long as he's not an idiot about it. On broadcast TV, no less.
Words are words. I mean someone making an absolutely baseless insult should have much less impact than if the person were to insult the integrity and character of a person instead of making an obvious physical observation.
Maybe on a purely, cold, theoretical level this makes sense. But to say that people shouldn't take offense to any words because they are words, or worse, to say that you don't understand how they are offensive, is illogical and doesn't work in a normal society of thinking and feeling human beings.
But the general rule is that using racial slurs is being a dick and no one likes people who are dicks.