A Conversation About Race

[kimmy]

The point is that most of the time, in my experience, racism exists to the denial of the Caucasian mainstream and those that complain there is reverse racism occurring are more often than not, being targeted because they are idiots and jack-asses, and not because of their "white" race (which by the way doesn't exist).

(if the "white" race doesn't exist, do any of the others? and if not, does this thread exist?)

Am I reading this right? That if a person of color lashes out against a white person, it's probably a justified reaction provoked by the white person being an idiot or jackass?

-k

[Argus]

It's also a fallacy to assume that all other Somalians have the same characteristics as the ones you happened to meet, Argus.

I grant the truth of that. However, my response was merely to the "rarely" do people falsely claim racism when it doesn't exist.

I have no reason to expect the people I met were or were not a representative sample of Somalian refugees/immigrants. On the other hand, they were certainly representative of a certain lazy, whiny type who is quick to blame all his problems on some sort of societal racism. And, as I now recall, a number of Black leaders in the US have talked about a tendency among some segments of the Black population to blame all their problems on racism and Whites, even when those problems are self-created.

People do indeed, in other words, cry racism where none exists.

[Argus]

It's also a fallacy to assume that all other Somalians have the same characteristics as the ones you happened to meet, Argus.

If more than half the youths in custody in the Ottawa detention centre are Somalians then it is logically to presume this holds true, more or less, for adults. This does not speak well of the Somalian community and their success as immigrants to Canada.

[M.Dancer]

If more than half the youths in custody in the Ottawa detention centre are Somalians then it is logically to presume this holds true, more or less, for adults.

But they're not so we don't

[Argus]

But they're not so we don't

The Citizen says that is the case. I have no information on which to think they are wrong. Do you?

In fact, now that I think of it, the generalized contempt and dislike for Somalians in this region is informative in one regard. It is not their skin colour which draws comments or derision. People don't talk contemptuously about "Blacks" in Ottawa - or least, I haven't heard anyone talk like that. There are, after all, Blacks here from numerous other countries. But contempt for Somalians is nearly universal so far as I can tell. This would tend to reinforce my opinion that prejudice is more a product of cultural traits and observed behaviour than any belief in the superiority of a given race. I mean, how many people in Ottawa had even heard of Somalians before they started coming here?

And it's true we have had trouble with other groups of newcomers. When Marion Dewer decided to bring over 10,000 Vietnamese boat people as a good will gesture there were a number of problems involving crime and cultural clashes. But things settled down fairly quickly, and I never heard anyone speak about Vietnamese in the same way people speak about Somalians.

Edited August 9, 2009 by Argus

[Guest American Woman]

["....more than half the youths in custody in the Ottawa detention centre are Somalians..."]

The Citizen says that is the case. I have no information on which to think they are wrong. Do you?

Do you have a link for that? Because I did a search on the Ottawa Citizen web site and found no such claim.

[Argus]

Do you have a link for that? Because I did a search on the Ottawa Citizen web site and found no such claim.

It's funny how years go by when you get old. :-P I've made this claim a few times, and had to look back to see where I'd encountered it. I'm rather surprised to see that I first posted it in 2005, so small wonder you couldn't find it on the Citizen site. And it was never a story about crime. The mainstream media doesn't "demonize" people in that way. Instead, the story was about efforts to support a Somali youth centre. It was in that story that the figure was given, almost a throw in, simply to support the need for the youth centre. It was the reporter's statement, and I don't know her reference.

One of the problems in Canada is that not only are there no valid statistics kept by government or police, but the habit of the mainstream media to self-censor on race, never deliberately reporting the race of those arrested or involved in major crimes. As Kimmy mentioned, the media never would have even mentioned that all 17 arrested for sexual abuse against a girl in Toronto were Black had their parents not cried racism in defense. And in terms of Somalians in Ottawa, they are never mentioned with reference to crime - ever. But when you read a story about fifteen or twenty "youths" swarming people on a bus or attacking people at a mall, everyone knows who the "youths" are.

[M.Dancer]

The Citizen says that is the case. I have no information on which to think they are wrong. Do you?

Nor do you have any info on the claim.

Sorry, doesn't wash....

[Argus]

Nor do you have any info on the claim.

Sorry, doesn't wash....

What _would_ wash? In a culture in which there are NO statistically valid studies on race and crime, in which the politically correct have insisted such records not be kept, and where the media deliberately self-censor so as to not identify the race of people arrested for violent crimes, just what would you find convincing?

I'm guessing - nothing.

But what one observes in life cannot be denied simply because no one with a masters in statistical studies is around to validate.

[August1991]

I don't want to support Argus' argument when I have no statistics at hand but I did find this, and I'm reminded of the historian's way to understand a problem in medieval Europe or Soviet Russia. If the Pope or the Politburo announces that it has "complete confidence in the honesty/integrity of Person/Group A", then you can surmise that there is a problem with Person/Group A.

Premier Dalton McGuinty was in Ottawa on Wednesday, February 9, 2005 at Lisgar Collegiate High School, to announce a Provincial Grant to be awarded to the Somali Youth Basketball League (SYBL).

SYBL, founded in 2004, is a volunteer, not-for-profit basketball league designed to offer a fun and competitive environment for youth and to maintain a drug and violence free environment. It has developed into an outstanding league today and continues to grow and enrich more and more young lives everyday.

Ottawa Police Service

This press release is the modern version of a Kremlin edict or a Papal Bull. Whether it is political correctness, communist ideology or Catholic orthodoxy, officials have to dance around a contrary fact.

------

What are my thoughts about race?

James Watson, Race & Intelligence

Edited August 26, 2009 by August1991

[lictor616]

I don't want to support Argus' argument when I have no statistics at hand but I did find this, and I'm reminded of the historian's way to understand a problem in medieval Europe or Soviet Russia. If the Pope or the Politburo announces that it has "complete confidence in the honesty/integrity of Person/Group A", then you can surmise that there is a problem with Person/Group A.

Ottawa Police Service

This press release is the modern version of a Kremlin edict or a Papal Bull. Whether it is political correctness, communist ideology or Catholic orthodoxy, officials have to dance around a contrary fact.

------

What are my thoughts about race?

James Watson, Race & Intelligence

btw James Watson's retraction was that while the facts do point towards DIFFERENT POWERS OF perceptions along racial lines, that gene or genetic cluster cant be deemed "inferior"...

Watson was answering to the slanders to the effect that he thought that the genes of blacks were inferior.. .and he never said anything like that, just that Blacks don't have the same reasoning faculties as whites ... blacks aren't inferior or superior... but rather DIFFERENT.

Edited August 26, 2009 by lictor616

[August1991]

btw James Watson's retraction was that while the facts do point towards DIFFERENT POWERS OF perceptions along racial lines, that gene or genetic cluster can be deemed "inferior"...

Watson was answering to the slanders to the effect that he thought that the genes of blacks were inferior.. .and he never said anything like that, just that Blacks don't have the same reasoning faculties as whites ... blacks aren't inferior or superior... but rather DIFFERENT.

Lictor, you entirely missed Watson's point and the point of my link.

[lictor616]

Lictor, you entirely missed Watson's point and the point of my link.

No you miss the point that the man faced being dropped from academia for saying something everyone knows to be DEMONSTRABLY TRUE but that runs against the whims and religion of political correctness.

Watson isn't factually incorrect, he is religiously incorrect. That is a crucial stipulation.

His retraction is hollow and you should read it more carefully.

But eventually scientists will drop the pretense entirely and begin to speak forthrightly on race. Bullying and coercion can only go so far and last for so long.

and unless the politically correct rabble don't start to burn heretics at the stake (as Christians did to intelligent men in the hopes that the laws of reality can thus be altered) there will be increasing amounts of our elite that will see that the distance between observable reality and Political Correctness has become intolerably great.

[BC_chick]

oh and there's also that article by david duke who endorsed Obama and urged white nationalists to VOTE FOR OBAMA...

You mean this heart-felt endorsement based on his belief that Obama is the best candidate?

Even David Duke (right), the neo-Nazi and former Klan boss who is the closest thing the movement has to a real intellectual these days, sees clear advantages in an Obama victory in the fall. “Obama will be a signal, a clear signal for millions of our people,” Duke wrote in an essay entitled “A Black Flag for White America” last week. “Obama is like that new big dark spot on your arm that finally sends you to the doctor for some real medicine. … Obama is the pain that let’s [sic] your body know that something is dreadfully wrong. Obama will let the American people know that there is a real cancer eating away at the heart of our country and Republican aspirin will not only not cure it, but only masks the pain and makes you think you don’t need radical surgery. … My bet is that whether Obama wins or loses in November, millions of European Americans will inevitably react with new awareness of their heritage and the need for them to defend and advance it.”

link

Yeah, that was really awesome.

[BC_chick]

I don't think there is any real racism out there today, at least, not based on the definition that one race is genetically superior to another. Oh there are a few fringe types waaaay out there who will make that sort of suggestion, but their numbers are tiny.

For the most part, what we are calling "racism" is not racism at all (ie, not a belief in the racial superiority of one group) it is suspicion/distrust of a different group based on either a misunderstanding of that group's generic/general behaviour, or, let's face it, based on disapproval of that group's actual generic/general behaviour.

Those are just two variations of racism. Still, just because there are many different uses of the word it means the whole concept does not exist.

In fact, racism cannot have any one single definition because it is a *spectrum* where all the definitions of the word fit somewhere along the way. For example, at one extreme end someone could be racist because s/he thinks race x is superior (please note I said 'race x' to indicate that anyone of any race could be racist). Somewhere along the way, it could be mundane prejudices like stereotyping. At the other end of the spectrum is someone who truly doesn't care about someone's race in the least.

Just like any opposing idea, racism and non-racism are a continuum. You can make a documentary discussing 'homosexuality' too. What is gay? Are bisexuals gay? What if you just had one experience in college, are you gay? Gay and straight are a continuum with two extremes and most people falling somewhere along the way.

Same thing for racism.

Edited September 1, 2009 by BC_chick

[Rue]

I don't think there is any real racism out there today, at least, not based on the definition that one race is genetically superior to another.

How about you start by reading some of the responses to this thread.

"Racism" is the experience of being subject to someone engaging in subjective negative stereotypes

about you designed to incite hatred and resentment.

You don't think there is any, because you choose not to see any.

You choose not to see any based on two reasons;

1-it doesn't suit your subjective opinion you toss out;

2-you may have never experienced it.

When was the last time you were arbitrarily stopped driving your car?

When was the last time you read a thread where someone refers to blacks as apes?

You want me to provide you the hundreds of posts I have come across from people suggesting

we Jews are genetically inferior or that blacks are inferior, etc.?

Give it a rest Argus. This is without a doubt the stupidest and lamest attempt I have read

trying to justify insulting all black men and inferring they are rapists and rape white woman I have

ever read.

The only difference between this thread and the ones in Avatar is you couch your words and try

sound as if you are engaged in an intellectual exercise.

I have read this crap and said nothing and now I say it-Argus did you expect any replies other then

the ones this thread as evolved into-some moron engaging in race baiting against black people?

Go couch your exercise with someone else.

[Rue]

the concepts of good and evil are not dependent on a primitive mythology that came out of a squalid pesthole in the middle east...

The bible contradicts itself on 300 occasions (I own a book that goes through each one in detail).

Christianity was all about the Church BEING THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL.

oh why bother, why don't you go and debate with you fellow fugitives from reality.

Let's talk reality. You came on this thread to engage in racial insults of black people and ridicule people who disagree with you.

You want reality-you call black children apes. You want reality-you come on this forum to to insult black women because they are black.

You want reality-you make sweeping negatvie generalizations about people based on your subjective feelings as to the attractiveness of their physical features- and that makes you an ape-a primal ape who still lives in a pack and when he sees another pack of primates with different colouring he prances up and down showing his inflammed red baboon butt and making noises to sound threatening just like baboons do when they feel threatened by another back whose baboons do not have the same coloured and shaped buttox.

You want reality-look in the mirror. My reality is I read the words of a hateful man who hates people because they are not a member of bis baboon pack.

You want reality-this is an absurd thread and nothing more then a pretense to try justify making sweeping negative sexual generalizations about black men-no more, no less and it attracts hate mongers like you like flies to dung.

You want reality-reality is me telling you that your world of hatred and taunting people is at a dead end. Some of us will pick up the dung you fling and shove it right back down your throat.

You want reality-the colour of the crap you fling and its smell speaks for itself.

Edited September 1, 2009 by Rue

[Rue]

Those are just two variations of racism.

BC let me break this to you gently. He is a white supremacist. You probably might want to save your

observations for a bleeding heart liberal like me.

Lecturing a white supremacist on racism is sort of...oh let me give you an analogy,

lecturing me on Israel.

It probably is not resonating.

You might have better luck saving your lectures for a bleeding heart like me instead.

Edited September 1, 2009 by Rue

[lictor616]

How about you start by reading some of the responses to this thread.

"Racism" is the experience of being subject to someone engaging in subjective negative stereotypes

about you designed to incite hatred and resentment.

Really? that's the definition of racism?

So you calling me a "white supremacist" is actually racist by your own subjective definition of "racism".

Since obviously you are subjecting me to negative stereotyping... an accusation of white supremacism can make one loose his job, expose him to physical harm, lead to lawsuits and all manner of social problems.

therefore by your own logic: you are a racist.

[lictor616]

1-it doesn't suit your subjective opinion you toss out;

2-you may have never experienced it.

When was the last time you were arbitrarily stopped driving your car?

When was the last time you read a thread where someone refers to blacks as apes?

You want me to provide you the hundreds of posts I have come across from people suggesting

we Jews are genetically inferior or that blacks are inferior, etc.?

Give it a rest Argus. This is without a doubt the stupidest and lamest attempt I have read

trying to justify insulting all black men and inferring they are rapists and rape white woman I have

ever read.

The only difference between this thread and the ones in Avatar is you couch your words and try

sound as if you are engaged in an intellectual exercise.

I have read this crap and said nothing and now I say it-Argus did you expect any replies other then

the ones this thread as evolved into-some moron engaging in race baiting against black people?

Go couch your exercise with someone else.

In Longueuil, police officers have a maximum quota of arrests of black males... recently a black cocaine dealer driving a stolen car at high speeds, was pulled over and LET GO.. because the arresting officer knew that the department had reached the maximum quota of blacks... and didn't want to be audited.

how's that for anti-black racism?

Do you think there will ever be a maximum quota for white males? Don't think so.

And look at you, defending RAPE... and asking people to ignore it SIMPLY because the perpetrators are black.... how more obviously biased can one be?

37 000 black on white rapes (while blacks are a 12% minority- and don't often live in close proximity to white women)

vs:

LESS then 10.... that's right less then TEN: white on black rapes a year.... by a 72% majority

and you don't think we should dare talk about it? Seems to me like your more concerned with defending black rapists against so called "racists" then anything else.

I mean how else could we interpret this? You're here browbeating and insulting the people who BRING THIS UP, and conspicuously ignore the black rapists.

and the hilarious thing is... if the stats were inverted... if the races were inverted (say that whites would rape black women at hugely disproportionate rates then blacks rape white women) you'd be calling ME a racist if I ignored it and called this an attempt at "race baiting"

Let it go Rue, we know that all your hand wringing amounts to barefaced hatred of people because they are white... its as simple as that.

[lictor616]

BC let me break this to you gently. He is a white supremacist. You probably might want to save your

observations for a bleeding heart liberal like me.

Lecturing a white supremacist on racism is sort of...oh let me give you an analogy,

lecturing me on Israel.

It probably is not resonating.

You might have better luck saving your lectures for a bleeding heart like me instead.

This is a prime example of what is wrong with debating these rabid leftists.... such as Tango, Rue, and many others...

All of you completely FAIL in this debate because you barely dispute my central thesis: the descriptive idea that whites are discriminated against as second class citizens and that humans are naturally racists AND the normative idea that they ought to be able to go their own way. Instead, you spend your time disputing the idea that other races are inferior. That I may or may not think that is not essential to my argument. It's totally superfluous.

get a clue already guys...

Edited September 1, 2009 by lictor616

[daniel]

Discussion isn't going your way? Whine, whine, whine.

[tango]

... In a culture in which there are NO statistically valid studies on race and crime, in which the politically correct have insisted such records not be kept, and where the media deliberately self-censor so as to not identify the race of people arrested for violent crimes ...

My recollection is that the Toronto police were asked to keep the records by some cultural communities concerned that they were being unfairly targeted for arrest and detainment, but the cops wisely declined because they did not feel competent in identifying people's race/cultural origin. ("Unhh ... Are you 'Indian' or Indian, sir?")

Thus, they also stopped their haphazard practice of identifying only "black" people (some of whom weren't) and not "white" or "brown" people. The media then wisely followed suit. You either identify everyone or no one by race.

And of course my favourite story ... white guy in grubby tank top and cutoffs gets into heated debate in a store, owner calls police, white guy stands outside to wait for police, police pull up and take down the black guy in the three-piece suit standing near him.

Now let's see ... would that count as an arrest of a black man in your world?

Edited September 2, 2009 by tango

[lictor616]

And of course my favourite story ... white guy in grubby tank top and cutoffs gets into heated debate in a store, owner calls police, white guy stands outside to wait for police, police pull up and take down the black guy in the three-piece suit standing near him.

opiate fantasies... is this what you picture reality to be in Canada?

Do you think that blacks get arrested for crimes committed by OTHER people (of course all of them being white)...

A white person assaults a homeless person say... the police are there and jump a black guy 100 feet away from the incident?

and you call moi paranoid?

[BC_chick]

opiate fantasies... is this what you picture reality to be in Canada?

Do you think that blacks get arrested for crimes committed by OTHER people (of course all of them being white)...

A white person assaults a homeless person say... the police are there and jump a black guy 100 feet away from the incident?

and you call moi paranoid?

Vegetarians live longer than meat eaters too. Vegetarians would have us believe it's because of what they eat, but how true is that? Studies show that we need meat, it's good for us in moderation. So what gives, why are vegetarians living longer? In reality, it's because they tend to lead healthier lives overall whereby they tend to exercise more, smoke less, amongst many other things.

Apply the same thing to race - there is no direct correlation between race and crime. Under the right circumstances (ie single parent home, low income bracket, low education levels etc), people of any race tend to be prone to crime.

IOW, there is more than just genetics at work here. There are socioeconomic factors that are tied into the equation.