# Do hyphenated-Americans contribute to racism?



## Delta4Embassy (Aug 21, 2014)

Do terms like African-American, Asian-American, Muslim-American, etc. contribute to racism? I believe they do. Rather than making people out to be something other than a regular ol' "American" hyphenated forms seem to highlight how they're somehow different. Only time you should hyphenate yourself is if you have dual citizenship. But unless an African-American is also a citizen of an African country, or is a naturalized American citizen born elsewhere, just say you're "American." All well and good to be proud of your ancestry, but there are other ways to do that.


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## Asclepias (Aug 21, 2014)

I believe they don't. People should not have a problem with me calling myself African-american. if they do then they need to look within themselves to figure out exactly why that bothers them. If I was a "regular American" then the discriminatory treatment I have witnessed and been subject to would not have occurred.  I have no problem with people noticing I am Black. I do have a problem with them forming a judgement of me before they know what I am about.


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## BillyP (Aug 21, 2014)

They separate everyone into categories of color and race. So yes, it contributes to racism by pointing out all the differences. We're all Americans, that's it. If you're for example, of Irish descent, you'd be an American of Irish descent, not an Irish-American, that's idiotic.


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## BillyP (Aug 21, 2014)

Asclepias said:


> I believe they don't. People should not have a problem with me calling myself African-american. if they do then they need to look within themselves to figure out exactly why that bothers them. If I was a "regular American" then the discriminatory treatment I have witnessed and been subject to would not have occurred.  I have no problem with people noticing I am Black. I do have a problem with them forming a judgement of me before they know what I am about.


You're an American of African descent. American is your nationality, African is not.


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## Rotagilla (Aug 21, 2014)

The only group who aren't represented by hyphenated names are white-americans. We don't have a group like the naacp to agitate/intervene for us..We don't have a ADL to run to when our ethnicity is belittled or targeted for violence (like in negro "rap" "songs") or whatever they're called...
We don't have a "white' legislative caucus to warp and twist government to our advantage.
We don't have AA to award us jobs by govt mandate
Our govt has been infiltrated and turned fully against us.

A day of reckoning and backlash approaches, though. It's inevitable.


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## Asclepias (Aug 21, 2014)

BillyP said:


> Asclepias said:
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> > I believe they don't. People should not have a problem with me calling myself African-american. if they do then they need to look within themselves to figure out exactly why that bothers them. If I was a "regular American" then the discriminatory treatment I have witnessed and been subject to would not have occurred.  I have no problem with people noticing I am Black. I do have a problem with them forming a judgement of me before they know what I am about.
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I agree. What makes you think I believed I live in Africa?


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## Asclepias (Aug 21, 2014)

BillyP said:


> They separate everyone into categories of color and race. So yes, it contributes to racism by pointing out all the differences. We're all Americans, that's it. If you're for example, of Irish descent, you'd be an American of Irish descent, not an Irish-American, that's idiotic.



Pointing out differences should not produce racists. I maintain that you have a personal problem if you take issue with me calling myself an African-American. Africa is where my ancestors came from. America is where I live.


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## Asclepias (Aug 21, 2014)

Rotagilla said:


> The only group who aren't represented by hyphenated names are white-americans. We don't have a group like the naacp to agitate/intervene for us..We don't have a ADL to run to when our ethnicity is belittled or targeted for violence (like in negro "rap" "songs") or whatever they're called...
> We don't have a "white' legislative caucus to warp and twist government to our advantage.
> We don't have AA to award us jobs by govt mandate
> Our govt has been infiltrated and turned fully against us.
> ...



There are Italian, Irish, Greek, Ukranian, etc American groups and societies. Once again you make yourself look illiterate with your posts.

You had all those perks for 350 years. Stop whining about the attempt to make the playing field level. You sound like a little pansy.


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## BillyP (Aug 21, 2014)

Asclepias said:


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I'm not saying that you live in Africa, what I'm saying is that you're not of African nationality so it's not right to put that on the same level as your nationality, which is American. And not all blacks in the US are from Africa, so it's not even a correct term.


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## Asclepias (Aug 21, 2014)

BillyP said:


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Who told you its not right? Your opinion doesnt matter to me. Mind your own business.

Blacks from all over the world are from Africa. What are you smoking?


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## BillyP (Aug 21, 2014)

Asclepias said:


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Everyone from around the world is from Africa, even white peeps, get over that. Some blacks are from the Carribean, some from Europe...


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## Asclepias (Aug 21, 2014)

BillyP said:


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All Blacks can trace their ancestry to Africa recently. You cant say the same for say white people. They became white in Europe not Africa.


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## Swagger (Aug 21, 2014)

BillyP said:


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True, but Asclepias' ancestors were from Africa, so I believe he should be allowed to label himself as African-American, the same as when some White people label themselves European-American.


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## Swagger (Aug 21, 2014)

Asclepias said:


> Rotagilla said:
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Those are nationalities, not racial groups.


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## Asclepias (Aug 21, 2014)

Swagger said:


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So is the term African.Its a descriptor for the continent of Africa just like Irish is a descriptor of people from Ireland. I dont call myself Negroid American.


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## Swagger (Aug 21, 2014)

Africa is not a 


Asclepias said:


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The point I'm trying to make is that there's no organisation, lobby group or league recognised by the U.S. government that explicitely seeks to promote and defend the interests of White Americans.


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## Desperado (Aug 21, 2014)

E.W. Jackson, the controversial Republican candidate for Virginia Lieutenant Governor explained it best, and I could not agree more with his thoughts on the subject. 
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			It is time to bring an end to the hyphenated American. We have balkanized ourselves into islands of ethnocentrism: Italian-Americans, Irish-Americans, Jewish-Americans, Hispanic-Americans and African-Americans. We understand the desire of people to maintain a connection to their history and ancestry. That desire is legitimate, but not at the expense of our national unity.
		
Click to expand...

*


> We are Americans with different ethnic backgrounds, but we are first and foremost Americans. Some of our forefathers came from Europe, some from Asia, India, the African continent and a host of nations around the world. *If we restrict ourselves to our ethnic enclaves and ethnic identities, we deprive ourselves of the great benefits of the American experiment.* It is about uniting a diverse group of people with a common love for freedom, democracy and the ideals of our nation. We are a family. We unite under one Constitution, one flag, and one common destiny. Without a single language, that ideal will become farther and farther from reality.


*Virginia GOP Nominee: We Must 'Stand For An End To The Hyphenated American' | ThinkProgress*


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## Asclepias (Aug 21, 2014)

Swagger said:


> Africa is not a
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Thats a pretty weak point considering whites own the vast majority of the resources and the means to get them. They dont need a specific organization to promote and defend their interests. They hold the keys to their interests.  Thats like claiming business owners need a union to protect their interests from their employees. LOL!


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## Swagger (Aug 21, 2014)

Would you feel threatened if an organisation emerged that sought to promote and protect the group interests of White Americans and was acknowledged and supported by the U.S. government?


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## Unkotare (Aug 21, 2014)

Rotagilla said:


> The only group who aren't represented by hyphenated names are white-americans. We don't have a group like the naacp to agitate/intervene for us..We don't have a ADL to run to when our ethnicity is belittled or targeted for violence (like in negro "rap" "songs") or whatever they're called...
> We don't have a "white' legislative caucus to warp and twist government to our advantage.
> We don't have AA to award us jobs by govt mandate
> Our govt has been infiltrated and turned fully against us.
> ...




LOL

And exactly what role will you play in this "reckoning," hero?


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## Zander (Aug 21, 2014)

I don't know if these hyphenated descriptors contribute to racism, but they certainly do divide us into groups. For that reason I'd like to see them go away. 

My race is HUMAN. Period. 

"The way to stop discrimination based on race, is to stop discriminating based on race." -Chief Justice John Roberts


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## Unkotare (Aug 21, 2014)

Swagger said:


> The point I'm trying to make is that there's no organisation, lobby group or league recognised by the U.S. government that explicitely seeks to promote and defend the interests of White Americans.




What the hell do you care? You're not an American.


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## Unkotare (Aug 21, 2014)

Zander said:


> My race is HUMAN. Period.




Can you prove that? Just askin'...


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## Zander (Aug 21, 2014)

Unkotare said:


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Yes.


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## BillyP (Aug 21, 2014)

Swagger said:


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People should have more pride in being American. What is this shit, Irish-American? You're American, you fucking buncha noobs!!!! From Irish descent, if you wish, but fucking American!

Asc, you're an American. You're not even from Africa, you're ancestors were, so you're a MyAncestorsWereAfrican-American at best. The term African-American doesn't even denote Africans, it's just a pc way to say "black".


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## Rotagilla (Aug 21, 2014)

Zander said:


> I don't know if these hyphenated descriptors contribute to racism, but they certainly do divide us into groups. For that reason I'd like to see them go away.
> 
> My race is HUMAN. Period.


"Human" isn't a race. It's a species. 



Zander said:


> "The way to stop discrimination based on race, is to stop discriminating based on race." -Chief Justice John Roberts


Does that mean he's against affirmative action and is working to rescind it?

Right..I didn't think so. Just meaningless chatter.


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## Unkotare (Aug 21, 2014)

Swagger said:


> True, but Asclepias' ancestors were from Africa, so I believe he should be allowed to label himself as African-American, the same as when some White people label themselves European-American.




Very few 'white' people label themselves thus because they know from what country or countries their ancestors came. They were not sold into slavery, shipped across the ocean as cargo, and systematically divorced from knowledge or affiliation with their country of origin, language, family, religion, etc. over several centuries.


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## Rotagilla (Aug 21, 2014)

Unkotare said:


> Swagger said:
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> > True, but Asclepias' ancestors were from Africa, so I believe he should be allowed to label himself as African-American, the same as when some White people label themselves European-American.
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## Desperado (Aug 21, 2014)

Asclepias said:


> So is the term African.Its a descriptor for the continent of Africa just like Irish is a descriptor of people from Ireland. I dont call myself Negroid American.




So can a white South African that moves to New Jersey be called an Afro American?
If not, why not?


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## Asclepias (Aug 21, 2014)

BillyP said:


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I have more pride in being Black than being an American.  Being an American is not hard.  Why do you believe what you think I should have more pride in is important to me?

I know I am American. My ancestors came from Africa.  The term African-american is not subject to interpretation from a white guy. You dont define what it means. We do.


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## Asclepias (Aug 21, 2014)

Desperado said:


> Asclepias said:
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No because he is white not Black.  Do you not know what the term Afro means?


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## Unkotare (Aug 21, 2014)

Asclepias said:


> I have more pride in being Black than being an American. ...




Then you're not really an American. Not in the most important sense.


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## Asclepias (Aug 21, 2014)

Unkotare said:


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My passport and the law says different.


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## Dont Taz Me Bro (Aug 21, 2014)

Cleaned up thread.  Remember this is in a Zone 2 forum.  Thanks


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## Asclepias (Aug 21, 2014)

Zander said:


> I don't know if these hyphenated descriptors contribute to racism, but they certainly do divide us into groups. For that reason I'd like to see them go away.
> 
> My race is HUMAN. Period.
> 
> "The way to stop discrimination based on race, is to stop discriminating based on race." -Chief Justice John Roberts



Your race really has nothing to do with racism. The Irish werent considered white until they came over to the US and got special designation. Racism is a system based on benefiting the "race" it was designed for.


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## BillyP (Aug 21, 2014)

Asclepias said:


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We're all just American, and African-American doesn't even reference Africa, it's a PC way to say "black". So you don't even know why you're calling yourself that. It's ridiculous. The blacks in ferguson have no pride in America, just tear it up for any excuse. Too busy being a fake African to have pride in being an American. You're a black American, just like I'm a white American. Pretty simple really.


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## rightwinger (Aug 21, 2014)

This is America

You can be any type of American you choose to be. You can be...

Irish-American
African-American
Southern-American
Catholic-American
Texan- American
wealthy-American

Just because you are "American" does not mean you can't affiliate with other groups


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## Asclepias (Aug 21, 2014)

BillyP said:


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What you think doesnt change anything for me.  I call myself African American because my ancestors are from Africa. Like I said before, the day I let a white person define me is the day I give up leading my own life. If you dont like that find something else to get your feelings hurt over. I'm African American until I tell you otherwise.


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## Rotagilla (Aug 21, 2014)

Asclepias said:


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So white people born in africa aren't really africans...LMFAO...silly negroes. They'll just say ANYthing if it makes them feel good.
I wonder, though..are white people who are born in africa racists, too?


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## Asclepias (Aug 21, 2014)

Rotagilla said:


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You silly white boy. White Africans would be called by the country they come from Americans if they so desired. For example if they come from Tanzania the would be called Tanzanian Americans. They could never be African Americans until there is a country called Africa in Africa.


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## GHook93 (Aug 21, 2014)

Asclepias said:


> I believe they don't. People should not have a problem with me calling myself African-american. if they do then they need to look within themselves to figure out exactly why that bothers them. If I was a "regular American" then the discriminatory treatment I have witnessed and been subject to would not have occurred.  I have no problem with people noticing I am Black. I do have a problem with them forming a judgement of me before they know what I am about.



But you are one of the worst racist on the board, so you prove the point that Delta is making! Just saying!


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## Asclepias (Aug 21, 2014)

GHook93 said:


> Asclepias said:
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> > I believe they don't. People should not have a problem with me calling myself African-american. if they do then they need to look within themselves to figure out exactly why that bothers them. If I was a "regular American" then the discriminatory treatment I have witnessed and been subject to would not have occurred.  I have no problem with people noticing I am Black. I do have a problem with them forming a judgement of me before they know what I am about.
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Only to those of low intellect. Your logic is appallingly misguided. Even if I was a racist it would not be because of what someone else decided to call themselves.


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## Delta4Embassy (Aug 21, 2014)

Asclepias said:


> I believe they don't. People should not have a problem with me calling myself African-american. if they do then they need to look within themselves to figure out exactly why that bothers them. If I was a "regular American" then the discriminatory treatment I have witnessed and been subject to would not have occurred.  I have no problem with people noticing I am Black. I do have a problem with them forming a judgement of me before they know what I am about.



African-Americans are a possible exception. Though I"m about to illustrate both sides. The for-side is in how Africans were kidnapped from their home countries and brought here as slaves. So if anyone 'deserves' to retain the dual-identity it's them.

On the other hand, perhaps some of why people continue to discriminate against African-Americans is partly because of the hyphenating term? When you refer to yourself as anything other than 'regular American' you're only spearating yourself from other Americans.


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## Delta4Embassy (Aug 21, 2014)

BillyP said:


> They separate everyone into categories of color and race. So yes, it contributes to racism by pointing out all the differences. We're all Americans, that's it. If you're for example, of Irish descent, you'd be an American of Irish descent, not an Irish-American, that's idiotic.



Agree...95%. Trying to have a respectful discussion here about a touchy subject. Not helped when we start calling people names.


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## Delta4Embassy (Aug 21, 2014)

Asclepias said:


> I believe they don't. People should not have a problem with me calling myself African-american. if they do then they need to look within themselves to figure out exactly why that bothers them. If I was a "regular American" then the discriminatory treatment I have witnessed and been subject to would not have occurred.  I have no problem with people noticing I am Black. I do have a problem with them forming a judgement of me before they know what I am about.



While I disagree with the position, 'Liked' for respectful opposition.


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## Delta4Embassy (Aug 21, 2014)

Rotagilla said:


> The only group who aren't represented by hyphenated names are white-americans. We don't have a group like the naacp to agitate/intervene for us..We don't have a ADL to run to when our ethnicity is belittled or targeted for violence (like in negro "rap" "songs") or whatever they're called...
> We don't have a "white' legislative caucus to warp and twist government to our advantage.
> We don't have AA to award us jobs by govt mandate
> Our govt has been infiltrated and turned fully against us.
> ...



Being fair, I'm forced to agree with this post, except for the end.The arguements expressed are valid, even if the orign of them makes me wanna light my hair on fire.


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## Ernie S. (Aug 21, 2014)

Asclepias said:


> I believe they don't. People should not have a problem with me calling myself African-american. if they do then they need to look within themselves to figure out exactly why that bothers them. If I was a "regular American" then the discriminatory treatment I have witnessed and been subject to would not have occurred.  I have no problem with people noticing I am Black. I do have a problem with them forming a judgement of me before they know what I am about.


We all know what you're about and have formed an opinion. How's that?


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## Rotagilla (Aug 21, 2014)

Delta4Embassy said:


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That's fine. Appreciate the kind words.
My position on the last 2 sentences is that this country is in a tailspin and can't recover...All 3 branches of gvt are corrupt and "electing" some "new" politicians isn't going to change anything one bit.  
It's a shame but it's just a natural event that happens to every form of gvt. eventually.
They are all born in blood and revolution and they all die in blood and revolution...or are overrun by outside enemies..Every single one..monarchies, republics, democracies, dictatorships, emirates...you name it.
This nation is no different. We aren't "special" or "exempt".


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## Desperado (Aug 22, 2014)

Asclepias said:


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silly white boy? said the biggest racist on the board.
Your argument does not wash. 
If what you say is true for whites than the same is true for blacks.
So what country are you from?


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## BillyP (Aug 22, 2014)

Asclepias said:


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I don't care what you call yourself, white peeps call American blacks simply a "black" person, I've never heard a white person call them African-American, except in a PC situation.
And like Rota says, a white person born in Africa is also an African-American?


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## BillyP (Aug 22, 2014)

Asclepias said:


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WTF!!!!!!!! 

There's no such thing as an Tanzanian American, that's just lazy grammar, they're properly called an American from Tanzania. Or if they have dual citizenship, a dual citizen of the US and Tanzania. Someone with dual citizenship in Canada and the US isn't known as a Canadian American, that's just plain lazy and dumb.


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## rightwinger (Aug 22, 2014)

You can be an African American

At the same time you can be an elderly American, a baptist American, a Texan American and a farmer American

Each will help define your values, life experiences and wants from society. They do not make you any less patriotic or any less American

Yet, the only "label" conservatives object to is .......African American


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## Desperado (Aug 22, 2014)

rightwinger said:


> You can be an African American
> Yet, the only "label" conservatives object to is .......African American


I will object to anyone who puts another country, race or religion before being an American,.
As the board's famous racist says
"I have more pride in being Black than being an American."


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## Delta4Embassy (Aug 22, 2014)

If I have to refer to people as some kind of hyphenated-American then I wanna be hyphenated too. A hypen race  

So let's see, I'm a Jewish-Caucasianal-Bisexual-Visually-Impaired-American.


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## katsteve2012 (Aug 22, 2014)

Rotagilla said:


> The only group who aren't represented by hyphenated names are white-americans. We don't have a group like the naacp to agitate/intervene for us..We don't have a ADL to run to when our ethnicity is belittled or targeted for violence (like in negro "rap" "songs") or whatever they're called...
> We don't have a "white' legislative caucus to warp and twist government to our advantage.
> We don't have AA to award us jobs by govt mandate
> Our govt has been infiltrated and turned fully against us.
> ...



The overwhelming majority of people in positions of power who put legislation into effect  in politics are white. As far as "hyphenated name" based organizations, if you don't think that they are out there in abundance, such as Italian American, German American, and Irish American, you might try Google...it is your friend. 

How has "your" government "turned against you"? Is it by putting laws into effect that do not allow the majority to openly practice discrimination in the workplace and the courtroom against minorities and females with impunity?


Lastly, what does this ubiquitous "day of reckoning" look like?

 Race war I'm assuming?


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## Rotagilla (Aug 22, 2014)

katsteve2012 said:


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Sure...sure..Whatever you say, negro..whatever you say.


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## Unkotare (Aug 22, 2014)

Rotagilla said:


> My position on the last 2 sentences is that this country is in a tailspin and can't recover...




If you really believe that why don't you leave now? Of course you don't really believe that, you are just being a little emo-bitch.


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## House (Aug 22, 2014)

Hyphenated-Americans do not contribute to racism.

I should know, I'm an Irish-German-English-Polish-Spanish-African-American.


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## Rotagilla (Aug 22, 2014)

Unkotare said:


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You're projecting your own insecurities and shortcomings again. You'll learn eventually.


Urban Dictionary: Unkotare

Unkotare
unkotare \ woon-ko-ta-re \ , noun;

Japanese. Roughly translated as dripping poop. This word is used to describe a pornographic genre commonly known as Scat.


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## katsteve2012 (Aug 22, 2014)

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I didn't "say" anything that is not true, blanco....... but I DID ask what "the day of reckoning" looks like to you?


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## Rotagilla (Aug 22, 2014)

katsteve2012 said:


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I don't know anything about any race war and I can't predict the future.
Now hush negro..you're getting too uppity.


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## rightwinger (Aug 22, 2014)

Desperado said:


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Good for you then.  You should also object to anyone who has a t shirt.  that says they are Texan and they are proud but doesn't mention they are also proud of being American
Same goes for announcing your religion without acknowledging you are a proud AMERICAN first


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## rightwinger (Aug 22, 2014)

Delta4Embassy said:


> If I have to refer to people as some kind of hyphenated-American then I wanna be hyphenated too. A hypen race
> 
> So let's see, I'm a Jewish-Caucasianal-Bisexual-Visually-Impaired-American.


You don't have to be anything

But you can still be an American and acknowledge being other things. Could be that you are Jewish, gay, elderly, a vet, even black

Doesn't make you less of an american


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## Desperado (Aug 22, 2014)

As long as you consider yourself first and foremost an American.


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## Stephanie (Aug 22, 2014)

I think that is when the country started going to hell

We used to be just all, Americans. that reason they immigrated here

now we have so many Hyphenated you can't keep up and some act like they're separate from the rest of the country...Muslims Americans, homosexual american, African-Americans, etc.

If I hyphenated mine I guess I'd be, English, Irish, German. Portuguese American

how lovely


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## Desperado (Aug 22, 2014)

rightwinger said:


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God, that is a stretch even for you.


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## Asclepias (Aug 22, 2014)

Delta4Embassy said:


> Asclepias said:
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> > I believe they don't. People should not have a problem with me calling myself African-american. if they do then they need to look within themselves to figure out exactly why that bothers them. If I was a "regular American" then the discriminatory treatment I have witnessed and been subject to would not have occurred.  I have no problem with people noticing I am Black. I do have a problem with them forming a judgement of me before they know what I am about.
> ...



What it sounds like you are saying is that African Americans should placate today's white people for having misguided guilt for something they had nothing to do with?


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## Asclepias (Aug 22, 2014)

Desperado said:


> rightwinger said:
> 
> 
> > You can be an African American
> ...



I'm not concerned with what you object to. You dont dictate my life nor do you pay my bills.


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## Asclepias (Aug 22, 2014)

Desperado said:


> Asclepias said:
> 
> 
> > Rotagilla said:
> ...



Yes silly white boy.  Did you miss what the previous post in your haste calling me a silly negro? 

My argument washes fine. Just because you dont like it is pretty irrelevant to everyone but you. Black people who dont know exactly where in Africa they come from can and will use the term African American. You simply are powerless to stop it.


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## Asclepias (Aug 22, 2014)

BillyP said:


> Asclepias said:
> 
> 
> > BillyP said:
> ...



You must care. You are trying your best and failing to try to convince me not to use it. Who did you think you were fooling?


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## BillyP (Aug 22, 2014)

Asclepias said:


> BillyP said:
> 
> 
> > Asclepias said:
> ...


No, I don't care what you call yourself, I'm just letting you know how dumb it is, plus, you don't even know why blacks are called A-A, it's not for anything to do with Africa, but just a PC way of saying black. You're not even from Africa, you're a negroid or black American, no hyphen.


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## Desperado (Aug 22, 2014)

Asclepias said:


> Desperado said:
> 
> 
> > Asclepias said:
> ...


 Did you in your haste notice I did not call you a "Silly Negro"


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## Asclepias (Aug 22, 2014)

BillyP said:


> Asclepias said:
> 
> 
> > BillyP said:
> ...



If you didnt care you wouldnt bother to tell me how dumb it sounds. You would just live your life.  Please clown. Try that on someone that doesnt know better. You were trying your best to convince me.


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## Asclepias (Aug 22, 2014)

Desperado said:


> Asclepias said:
> 
> 
> > Desperado said:
> ...



What does that have to do with you making reference to me calling Rotatilla a silly white boy?


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## Asclepias (Aug 22, 2014)

BillyP said:


> Asclepias said:
> 
> 
> > Rotagilla said:
> ...



It must hurt to be as stupid as you appear to be. You are on the internet for gods sake and you couldnt at least look it up before making yourself look like an ass? 

Tanzanian American - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia



> The Tanzanian American associations in the United States include the Tanzanian American Association (Inc.) in Massachusetts[4] and the Tanzania Association Of Wichita, Kansas.


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## BillyP (Aug 22, 2014)

Asclepias said:


> BillyP said:
> 
> 
> > Asclepias said:
> ...


Oh c'mon, you give yourself way too much importance. This is a chat board, we're just chattin'. In fact I'm trying to help you not look so foolish by calling yourself something dumb, but go ahead, you're not from Africa, but who cares, you have no pride in America anyways. Like most blacks. Just look at Ferguson.


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## BillyP (Aug 22, 2014)

Asclepias said:


> BillyP said:
> 
> 
> > Asclepias said:
> ...


No, what's dumb is someone calling themselves a Tanzanian American. Or African-American.


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## Asclepias (Aug 22, 2014)

BillyP said:


> *There's no such thing as an Tanzanian American, *that's just lazy grammar, they're properly called an American from Tanzania.





BillyP said:


> No, what's dumb is someone calling themselves a Tanzanian American. Or African-American.



Sorry stupid. I proved you never got an education. You said there was no such thing as a Tanzanian American. I bet you feel foolish as hell now.


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## Asclepias (Aug 22, 2014)

BillyP said:


> Asclepias said:
> 
> 
> > BillyP said:
> ...




Sorry cave monkey. You give me way too much importance. I look like a Imhotep next to white trash such as you.


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## BillyP (Aug 22, 2014)

Asclepias said:


> BillyP said:
> 
> 
> > *There's no such thing as an Tanzanian American, *that's just lazy grammar, they're properly called an American from Tanzania.
> ...


You have reading comprehension problems, there's no such thing in my book, just like I think that it's wrong to call a black an African-American. Fuck are you feral negros stupid.


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## BillyP (Aug 22, 2014)

Asclepias said:


> BillyP said:
> 
> 
> > Asclepias said:
> ...


You look like a feral negro next to Bill Cosby.


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## Asclepias (Aug 22, 2014)

BillyP said:


> Asclepias said:
> 
> 
> > BillyP said:
> ...




Yeah you must feel really angry you got busted being a retard.


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## Mathbud1 (Aug 22, 2014)

The fundamental idea behind the hyphenation is the same as the fundamental idea behind racism: we are different, you and I.


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## BillyP (Aug 22, 2014)

Asclepias said:


> BillyP said:
> 
> 
> > Asclepias said:
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You're the fucking feral retard, thinking I even give a shit what you think.


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## Asclepias (Aug 22, 2014)

Mathbud1 said:


> The fundamental idea behind the hyphenation is the same as the fundamental idea behind racism: we are different, you and I.



The fundamental idea behind racism is not that you are different but that between us *you are an inferior form of human*. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being different.  Unless you have a twin you are different from everyone else anyway.


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## Unkotare (Aug 22, 2014)

Rotagilla said:


> Unkotare said:
> 
> 
> > Rotagilla said:
> ...




If you really believe it's hopeless, why don't you leave? 




You're full of shit, you idiot.


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## C_Clayton_Jones (Aug 22, 2014)

_Do hyphenated-Americans contribute to racism?_ 
No.

Fear and ignorance – and the byproduct of fear and ignorance, hate – which manifest among racists contribute to racism.


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## Unkotare (Aug 22, 2014)

People who immigrated here in previous years didn't forget or reject their heritage. It's one of the things that drove the Nativists crazy in the 1800s. They ranted and raved bitterly (and worse) against the ancestors of many of those ranting and raving about immigrants here and now.


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## BillyP (Aug 22, 2014)

Asclepias said:


> Mathbud1 said:
> 
> 
> > The fundamental idea behind the hyphenation is the same as the fundamental idea behind racism: we are different, you and I.
> ...


Says the feral negro who's more proud of the color brown than he is about being an American.


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## Unkotare (Aug 22, 2014)

BillyP said:


> Asclepias said:
> 
> 
> > Mathbud1 said:
> ...




???

To whom was that post directed?


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## Rotagilla (Aug 22, 2014)

rightwinger said:


> Desperado said:
> 
> 
> > rightwinger said:
> ...



Texas is in america.


Unkotare said:


> Rotagilla said:
> 
> 
> > Unkotare said:
> ...



I never mentioned the word "hopeless"..you made that up out of thin air.
The country will collapse and it will be partitioned and there will be a period of reconstruction.
That's the natural progression of unsustainable and decaying governments.

Read a little history.







Unkotare said:


> You're full of shit, you idiot.


Projecting


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## katsteve2012 (Aug 22, 2014)

Rotagilla said:


> I don't know anything about any race war and I can't predict the future.
> Now hush negro..you're getting too uppity.



So what's going happen when the so called "reckoning" comes, "blanco"? 

Or are you just another "keyboard warrior" who lives vicariously through old Rambo movies?


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## Unkotare (Aug 22, 2014)

Rotagilla said:


> I never mentioned the word "hopeless"..




Gee, what does "in a tailspin and can't recover" mean?  Disingenuous douche


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## Rotagilla (Aug 22, 2014)

Rotagilla said:


> I never mentioned the word "hopeless"..





Unkotare said:


> Gee, what does "in a tailspin and can't recover" mean?


just what it says.

What does "unkotare" mean?
This is all I could find.

Unkotare
unkotare \ woon-ko-ta-re \ , noun;

Japanese. Roughly translated as dripping poop. This word is used to describe a pornographic genre commonly known as Scat.

Your screen name means "dripping poop"?

Hmmm...good choice, actually.



Unkotare said:


> Disingenuous douche



projecting


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## Rotagilla (Aug 22, 2014)

katsteve2012 said:


> Rotagilla said:
> 
> 
> > I don't know anything about any race war and I can't predict the future.
> ...



See ya in the field.


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## Asclepias (Aug 22, 2014)

BillyP said:


> Asclepias said:
> 
> 
> > Mathbud1 said:
> ...


You must be really incensed you got caught not knowing how to lookup your blunder before you posted it. 

Bubu nyeupe mvulana


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## Rikurzhen (Aug 22, 2014)

Delta4Embassy said:


> Rotagilla said:
> 
> 
> > The only group who aren't represented by hyphenated names are white-americans. We don't have a group like the naacp to agitate/intervene for us..We don't have a ADL to run to when our ethnicity is belittled or targeted for violence (like in negro "rap" "songs") or whatever they're called...
> ...



Even his conclusion is supportable. The lubrication which greases the wheel of American multiculturalism is wealth transfer from whites to minorities. Right now Arab-Americans are fighting to have the government recognize them as a minority group which opens the wealth transfer spigot:

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), the largest grassroots civil rights organizations in the United States for Arab Americans, was expecting the U.S. Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) to make a final verdict on whether Arab American business people can be categorized as a minority on Wednesday, but the decision was postponed. . . . 

If ADC’s petition passes through, more grants and funding will be funneled to the Arab American business community.

There will also be more contracts for the community that can be applied on the federal, local and state levels, Fay Beydoun, Executive Director of Arab American Chamber of Commerce, told Al Arabiya.

“It is a great move, we hope [the petition] goes through,” she said. “It will give more support to Arab Americans.”​
This balkanization is not sustainable. When this liberal experiment started American was 88% white and 12% black, so it was affordable for 7 whites to help uplift 1 black. It's utterly insane for 64% of whites to help uplift 36% of minorities, now down to 1.8:1 from 7.3:1.

Whites denied opportunity because government is putting its thumb on the scale to aid minorities is a problem right now and as it gets worse the intensity of reaction against this injustice will only increase.


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## Rikurzhen (Aug 22, 2014)

Delta4Embassy said:


> If I have to refer to people as some kind of hyphenated-American then I wanna be hyphenated too. A hypen race
> 
> So let's see, I'm a Jewish-Caucasianal-Bisexual-Visually-Impaired-American.



I'll choose the label "Real-American" and everyone who hyphenates differently is a "Fake-American."


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## Unkotare (Aug 22, 2014)

Rotagilla said:


> Rotagilla said:
> 
> 
> > I never mentioned the word "hopeless"..
> ...



Yeah, as I said. GTFO of my country, you unworthy cur.


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## Rotagilla (Aug 22, 2014)

Unkotare said:


> Rotagilla said:
> 
> 
> > Rotagilla said:
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Great rebuttal.

Really demonstrates what a deep thinker you are.

EDIT:
I was wondering if you could answer the question I asked in post #94 about what your screen name meant...did I get it right?


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## Mathbud1 (Aug 22, 2014)

Asclepias said:


> The fundamental idea behind racism is not that you are different but that between us *you are an inferior form of human*. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being different.  Unless you have a twin you are different from everyone else anyway.


"You are inferior" is built on "you are different." You can't think someone is inferior to you without first thinking they are different from you. The more importance you place on that difference that you have recognized, the more misunderstanding, intolerance, and hate you invite. If you want to end racism, decreasing the importance of differences and increasing the importance of similarities is the fundamental place to start.


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## Rikurzhen (Aug 22, 2014)

Mathbud1 said:


> "You are inferior" is built on "you are different." You can't think someone is inferior to you without first thinking they are different from you. The more importance you place on that difference that you have recognized, the more misunderstanding, intolerance, and hate you invite. If you want to end racism,* decreasing the importance of differences and increasing the importance of similarities is the fundamental place to start.*



OK. I notice that you phrased this as a starting point rather than as a static solution, so what do you believe will be the immediate consequence of deemphasizing differences and what do you imagine the counter-move will be?


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## Rotagilla (Aug 22, 2014)

Mathbud1 said:


> Asclepias said:
> 
> 
> > The fundamental idea behind racism is not that you are different but that between us *you are an inferior form of human*. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being different.  Unless you have a twin you are different from everyone else anyway.
> ...



Everyone is superior to someone and inferior to someone else in some way or another...This "we are all equal in every way" BS people are indoctrinated to believe is just that...BS.

Nothing on earth is "equal". "Equality" is an artificial and inaccurate concept concocted by humans.


"In actual operation, Nature is cruel and merciless to men, as to all other beings. Let a tribe of human animals live a rational life, Nature will smile upon them and their posterity; but let them attempt to organize an unnatural mode of existence, an _*equality elysium*_, and they will be punished even to the point of extinction." 
~ R. Redbeard ~


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## Unkotare (Aug 22, 2014)

Rotagilla said:


> Unkotare said:
> 
> 
> > Rotagilla said:
> ...



I know.


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## Unkotare (Aug 22, 2014)

Rotagilla said:


> I was wondering if you could answer the question I asked in post #94 about what your screen name meant...did I get it right?




No, you didn't.


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## Mathbud1 (Aug 22, 2014)

Rikurzhen said:


> OK. I notice that you phrased this as a starting point rather than as a static solution, so what do you believe will be the immediate consequence of deemphasizing differences and what do you imagine the counter-move will be?



I'm sorry, but I'm not sure I understood your question correctly. Can you elaborate on what you mean by counter-move?


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## Rikurzhen (Aug 23, 2014)

Mathbud1 said:


> Rikurzhen said:
> 
> 
> > OK. I notice that you phrased this as a starting point rather than as a static solution, so what do you believe will be the immediate consequence of deemphasizing differences and what do you imagine the counter-move will be?
> ...



I'm assuming that you have something in mind when you write "decreasing the importance of differences and increasing the importance of similarities is the fundamental place to start" so I'm curious about a.) what actual method or policy you feel is the best way to achieve that and then b.) how do you imagine the policy would be received and what will your opponents do to counter the policy you support.

This is a dynamic game - move and countermove. You noted that the effort should "start" with your suggestion. I took this to mean that you had more suggestion in mind which would follow after the starting move was initiated.

Here's an example. People who hate the injustice of Affirmative Action work to make it illegal by amending their State Constitutions. This seriously pisses off black people who count on this to advance in their lives. They respond by suing the state and trying to overturn the changes. There are two factions which are diametrically opposed to each other's positions. There is no compromise in a binary stand-off. Either you have AA or you don't.

In general, here in the US there is a lot of white support for race neutrality - whites want a level playing field without racial interest groups and policies having any role. This is completely unacceptable to blacks and Hispanics because they end up a huge losers in terms of unequal outcomes and so they'll fight you tooth and nail.

You want to emphasize similarities but all Hispanics and blacks are going to see is unequal outcomes. Race is a hugely visible attribute in the social realm. The social variation that we see within white communities - some people are rich, others poor, some smart, others dumb, some in professional jobs, some in blue collar jobs, some thin, some fat, some healthy, some sick, is just seen as diversity within a community and accepted. However, if that diversity breaks along racial lines, for instance, if blacks are unhealthy, fat, predominantly in blue collar jobs, and poor then the differences are in your face difficult to avoid noticing. How will pointing out similarities soothe the griping about unequal outcomes?


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## Rikurzhen (Aug 23, 2014)

Mathbud1 said:


> If you want to end racism, decreasing the importance of differences and increasing the importance of similarities is the fundamental place to start.



I recalled reading something about what the idiot Swedes were doing and after a bit of searching I found it again. They're simply going to pretend that race doesn't exist, up and down, through their society. These guys are totally buying into the notion that race is a social construction - I suppose that they've thrown all their population geneticists into prison or something.

"We know that different human races actually do not exist," Swedish Integration Minister Erik Ullenhag told Sveriges Television (SVT).

"We also know that the fundamental grounds of racism are based on the belief that there are different races, and that belonging to a race makes people behave in a certain way, and that some races are better than others." . . .

Oscar Pripp, associate professor of ethnology at Uppsala University, welcomed the idea. He said that the concept of race is necessary to understand people's social behaviour, but that it is not necessary in law.

"It sounds rather sensible," Pripp told The Local. "Not to scrap the word entirely, but that it should not be included as a concept in legislation, because then you're saying that there are indeed different races."

Pripp went on to say that race in and of itself does not exist, but is rather something that is "done" in society, such as in the labour market, housing market, and other areas.​
So I had asked you about counter-moves. Here's one:

The proposal has come under sharp criticism, however, from the National Afro-Swedish Association (Afrosvensarnas Riksförbund, ASR).

"This scientific racism that Ullenhag is focused on, when he says that racism is based on believing in different races, is not true," Kitimbwa Sabuni, spokesperson for the ASR, told The Local.

"How many people in Sweden really think that way? Maybe 100. That's not the problem. Racism existed before the concept of race biology. Scientific racism is just one chapter in the story of race and racism."

Sabuni concurred that race is a social construction, but from there his views diverged.

"Just because it's a social construction doesn't mean it's not a reality," Sabuni said. "For us, this is just trying to take away the possibility to even talk about it. It's critical."​And here is the crux of the objection.

*"How can you apply for a grant for fighting racism if the concept of race doesn't exist in legislation? *Racism will disappear de facto from the agenda. The government is lost in a fantasy, a fantasy which counteracts effective work against racism."​So for the Swedes all this racial talking and the problems arising from multiculturalism are causing all sorts of social strife. The Swedes just want it to go away and they believe that by not talking about it, but stressing similarity and making it difficult to talk about differences, that the problems will indeed go away. However, those from the invader-class living in Sweden get a lot of benefit from talking about differences. The more they make Swedes feel guilty about differences in outcomes, the more money they can get for themselves and their projects designed to extort even more money.

I don't know if this is similar to what you're proposing but the Swedes really have an aversion to talking about race and this is actually now corrupting science. This is serious business because it involves willfully closing the eyes of scientists such that they don't dare acknowledge the genetic basis of race because it runs counter to the liberal notion that race is just a figment of our imaginations.

Here is a report of new research published in Sweden which investigates the rapid increase of male babies being born with deformed penises. The researchers state that they've tried to find the cause and they are baffled as to what is going on.

A condition which causes baby boys to be born with deformed penises is becoming more common in Sweden, for reasons unknown to scientists.

Researchers in Sweden assessed data collected on Hypospadias between 1973 and 2009. They found that before 1990, only 4.5 boys out of every thousand had the condition known as hypospadias. But after 1990, the figure had risen to 8 per 1000 boys.

In an attempt to explain the rise, the experts from Stockholm's Karolinksa Institute considered factors known to cause the defect, including low-birth weight, being born a twin, and parents who used IVF treatment to conceive.

However, scientists could not link the rise to any previously known causes, and instead concluded that an unknown factor was behind the trend, _The Local _reported.​They purposely avoid looking at the genetics of race, so I'm going to solve the puzzle for you because I always look at population variance when I read such studies. Have the demographics of Sweden changed over time? They can't look at that, but I sure can.

Hypospadias in Istanbul: Incidence and risk factors

Out of 1750 boys examined, 34 had hypospadias, that is, the frequency was 19.4 per 1000 male live-births​If you purposely close your eyes to the genetics of race, you are left willfully stupid. I don't have a clue how far you propose to take your solution of stressing similarities and avoiding discussing differences, but the Swedes are blazing a path forward and other than making them willfully stupid and a laughingstock, I highly doubt that this tactic will solve their racial problems.


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## BillyP (Aug 23, 2014)

Asclepias said:


> BillyP said:
> 
> 
> > Asclepias said:
> ...


Just because I told you how stupid it is to call yourself an African-American because you're not from Africa is no reason to not understand anything else I say. But then again, none of you guys ever came close to splitting the atom, and blacks need affirmative action just to try to keep up, so I guess I shouldn't expect too much from you. Carry on.


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## Unkotare (Aug 23, 2014)

BillyP said:


> But then again, none of you guys ever came close to splitting the atom...




And you did, personally? You couldn't peel a banana by yourself, idiot. STFU before you make yourself look like even more of a loser.


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## BillyP (Aug 23, 2014)

Unkotare said:


> BillyP said:
> 
> 
> > But then again, none of you guys ever came close to splitting the atom...
> ...


Shaddup, dripping poo. Is that a fetish of yours? Or you just can't keep your starfish closed all the way?


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## Desperado (Aug 23, 2014)

On another thread, Even Bill Cosby has something to say on this issue:



> _We are not Africans. Those people are not Africans; they don't know a thing about Africa .....
> I say this all of the time. It would be like white people saying they are European-American. That is totally stupid.
> I was born here, and so were my parents and grand parents and, very likely my great grandparents. I don't have any connection to Africa, no more than white Americans have to Germany , Scotland , England , Ireland , or the Netherlands . The same applies to 99 percent of all the black Americans as regards to Africa . So stop, already! ! !
> _


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## katsteve2012 (Aug 23, 2014)

Rotagilla said:


> katsteve2012 said:
> 
> 
> > Rotagilla said:
> ...



No, you won't.


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## katsteve2012 (Aug 23, 2014)

Desperado said:


> On another thread, Even Bill Cosby has something to say on this issue:
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Good point. I will  repost this the next time someone here says in general to the black population as they frequently do, "go back to Africa".

Furthermore, when certain  white people here like Shootspeeders, and his plethora of cartoon pals take personal credit based on accident of birth for the accomplishments and contributions to mankind by European inventors, explorers, scientists  and scholars they should also be reminded of this. Thanks for posting the truth,


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## Rotagilla (Aug 23, 2014)

katsteve2012 said:


> Rotagilla said:
> 
> 
> > katsteve2012 said:
> ...


Figures. you're all bark and no bite.


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## Mathbud1 (Aug 23, 2014)

Rikurzhen said:


> I recalled reading something about what the idiot Swedes were doing and after a bit of searching I found it again. They're simply going to pretend that race doesn't exist, up and down, through their society. These guys are totally buying into the notion that race is a social construction - I suppose that they've thrown all their population geneticists into prison or something.
> 
> "We know that different human races actually do not exist," Swedish Integration Minister Erik Ullenhag told Sveriges Television (SVT).
> 
> ...


You make a lot of sense. I had not really thought that far ahead. More a theoretical point. Pretending that race doesn't exist wouldn't help. I'm not saying that we should pretend that our differences do not exist. Differences are what makes the world interesting for one thing. The problem is making differences of prime importance.

There are all these groups out there that claim to want to end discrimination. But by making their DIFFERENCE from others their identity, they only invite more discrimination. Gay pride, black pride, it's all about declaring that "I am different and that difference is the most important aspect of who I am."

Unity isn't based in differences though. It is based in similarities. People don't form groups based on what makes them different from each other. They form groups based on what they have in common. Then the diversity in the group can help make them a more interesting stronger group, because the differences are there, but they are not the thing of most importance.

If we want true unity in America, we need to be proud to be American again. That's a similarity that can tie the truly different people together in the country while still allowing their differences to add real spice to the mix.

But you're right. The special interest groups don't really want unity. They want a cause.


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## katsteve2012 (Aug 23, 2014)

Rikurzhen said:


> Mathbud1 said:
> 
> 
> > Rikurzhen said:
> ...





Rotagilla said:


> katsteve2012 said:
> 
> 
> > Rotagilla said:
> ...


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## katsteve2012 (Aug 23, 2014)

Rotagilla said:


> katsteve2012 said:
> 
> 
> > Rotagilla said:
> ...



Yeah right. It is not I who alluded to a "day of reckoning" then when asked what I meant avoided answering the question. 

You're a yellow Chihuahua who wishes he was a Pitbull.


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## Mac1958 (Aug 23, 2014)

Delta4Embassy said:


> Do terms like African-American, Asian-American, Muslim-American, etc. contribute to racism? I believe they do. Rather than making people out to be something other than a regular ol' "American" hyphenated forms seem to highlight how they're somehow different.




Yes, absolutely.

PC and Identity Politics have caused this country great harm and continue to do so.

The Left has gone out of its way to divide us for political advantage, and we are seeing the predictable result.

Hyphenated America, enjoy.

.


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## Mathbud1 (Aug 23, 2014)

Rotagilla said:


> Mathbud1 said:
> 
> 
> > Asclepias said:
> ...



I agree that, except for equality before the law, equality is an illusion at best. In theory we could all be made equal in a world of utter mediocrity. If you worked hard enough to discourage excellence, you might be able to bring everyone down to the level of the weakest. That isn't really a goal worth pursuing though. Excellence and achievement are what advancement is made of. Encouraging mediocrity just undermines that.

I'm not suggesting that we should view ourselves as being identical to each other. That would be an incredibly boring world. Rather, I'm suggesting that where we place _prime_ importance can either be used to divide or it can be used to unite. If prime importance is given to what makes us different, then we will be divided by that difference. If prime importance is given to what makes us the same, we can be united by the similarity. The differences don't go away. They simply aren't used to divide us.


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## Mathbud1 (Aug 23, 2014)

Rikurzhen said:


> I'm assuming that you have something in mind when you write "decreasing the importance of differences and increasing the importance of similarities is the fundamental place to start" so I'm curious about a.) what actual method or policy you feel is the best way to achieve that and then b.) how do you imagine the policy would be received and what will your opponents do to counter the policy you support.
> 
> This is a dynamic game - move and countermove. You noted that the effort should "start" with your suggestion. I took this to mean that you had more suggestion in mind which would follow after the starting move was initiated.
> 
> ...



Thank you for ellaborating. Your assumption was not correct though. I didn't really have anything well-formed in mind when I made that statement. It would take more thinking than I have actually given the subject to form an actual plan. I was actually just pointing out the idea that I think any plan would need to be formed around to have any real chance of success in combatting racism and other division. That is what I meant by "start" there.


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## Rikurzhen (Aug 23, 2014)

Mathbud1 said:


> Unity isn't based in differences though. It is based in similarities. People don't form groups based on what makes them different from each other. They form groups based on what they have in common.



This right here is the cancer, the ticking time bomb, in the heart of American society and this is what is going to destroy our nation. It won't be a quick death, rather a painful lingering one that we'll fight every step of the way until all other avenues are closed. There have been plenty of multicultural societies throughout history and every single one of them has failed. Diversity is not strength. In diverse societies like will always be attracted to like.

Democracy - Free Markets -Multiculturalism - Pick Two



> Then the diversity in the group can help make them a more interesting stronger group, because the differences are there, but they are not the thing of most importance.



Take a similar group and look within and you will see diversity. There is diversity within the black community, within the white community, within all communities. Japan has a lot of internal diversity even though it finds multiculturalism a repulsive concept. What Japan also has is a tighter culture, less cultural stress, and a tighter sense of community because of the universal aspect of shared values.

In a multicultural society, the common features which are bridges between the groups really are not sufficient in quantity or strength to overcome the breadth of the moats which work to divide us. Those differences and emphasizing the differences don't have to be expressed as conscious choices. they're simply natural outgrowths of people living their lives. Any plan to focus on similarities brings about resistance to the artificial nature, such as black kids rebelling at "acting white." For over half a century since the Civil Rights Act was passed, do-gooder white America has worked on the project of remaking blacks into white Americans with black skin. The same values, the same sense of family, the same desire for career, the same past times, etc. We see this most vividly on TV with token blacks always being a part of a social group of whites, with black role models always in positions of authority - the chief of surgery, the police captain, the brilliant physicist, etc. and all of this effort has amounted to failure. We're not ever going to create a multiracial society into one unified society of shared values and outlooks.



> If we want true unity in America, we need to be proud to be American again. That's a similarity that can tie the truly different people together in the country while still allowing their differences to add real spice to the mix.
> 
> But you're right. The special interest groups don't really want unity. They want a cause.



The closest we came to a unified America was in the late 50s and early 60s. The nation was 88% white, immigration had been significantly closed off since 1924 so the share of immigrants in the population was at an all-time low. Blacks were not a part of that unified America, but taken as a whole, that's the closest we've ever come. It's all been downhill since then and it's going to get worse. Look at the divides now between Red and Blue, between white, black, Hispanic and Asian. Whites have always been the core because of their sheer number and now as that core diminishes so too does the coherence of American identity.


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## Mathbud1 (Aug 23, 2014)

Rikurzhen said:


> This right here is the cancer, the ticking time bomb, in the heart of American society and this is what is going to destroy our nation. It won't be a quick death, rather a painful lingering one that we'll fight every step of the way until all other avenues are closed. There have been plenty of multicultural societies throughout history and every single one of them has failed. Diversity is not strength. In diverse societies like will always be attracted to like.
> 
> Democracy - Free Markets -Multiculturalism - Pick Two
> 
> ...


I don't really have anything to refute what you are saying. I live in a predominantly white area of a predominantly white state. I have friends and co-workers from many races, but as far as I know they aren't representative of the majority if their respective races. Just watching the footage of the mess in Ferguson seems to support what you are saying though.


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## Luddly Neddite (Aug 23, 2014)

Asclepias said:


> I believe they don't. People should not have a problem with me calling myself African-american. if they do then they need to look within themselves to figure out exactly why that bothers them. If I was a "regular American" then the discriminatory treatment I have witnessed and been subject to would not have occurred.  I have no problem with people noticing I am Black. I do have a problem with them forming a judgement of me before they know what I am about.



But, you ARE a "regular American" and ALL Americans are hyphenated. 

Some just don't want to admit it.


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## Pogo (Aug 23, 2014)

Delta4Embassy said:


> Do terms like African-American, Asian-American, Muslim-American, etc. contribute to racism? I believe they do. Rather than making people out to be something other than a regular ol' "American" hyphenated forms seem to highlight how they're somehow different. Only time you should hyphenate yourself is if you have dual citizenship. But unless an African-American is also a citizen of an African country, or is a naturalized American citizen born elsewhere, just say you're "American." All well and good to be proud of your ancestry, but there are other ways to do that.



No.  Racism is a belief that some race is inferior to another.  That doesn't come from hyphenated adjectives; that comes from cultural mythology.  It comes from paranoid ignorance, and it's taught.  Can't do that out of an adjective.

These terms may be pussyfooting PC-itis or a manifestation of paralysis through analysis but they can't cause racism, nor do they in themselves make a statement on racial hierarchy.

"Muslim" isn't a race btw.

And the other side of this coin: my father and my grandmother before him did what your OP seems to call for -- called themselves "Americans".  As a result we the offspring never knew they were pure Irish.  They were taught to be ashamed of it and "assimilate".  He never talked about it until I ferreted it out.  And I resent missing that exposure.


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## Pogo (Aug 23, 2014)

BillyP said:


> They separate everyone into categories of color and race. So yes, it contributes to racism by pointing out all the differences. We're all Americans, that's it. If you're for example, of Irish descent, you'd be an American of Irish descent, not an Irish-American, that's idiotic.



Uh -- how does specifying a distinction imply inferiority?


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## Pogo (Aug 23, 2014)

Desperado said:


> As long as you consider yourself first and foremost an American.



Feel free to explain why one's country ---- an abstract (and very changeable) concept of government -- should take precedence over what one's own personal atoms are made of.


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## Pogo (Aug 23, 2014)

Stephanie said:


> I think that is when the country started going to hell
> *
> We used to be just all, Americans*. that reason they immigrated here



There's never been a time when that was the case, Steph.

 "Wops"... "Chinks".... "Pollocks".... "No Irish need apply" ... "the only good Indian is a dead Indian".... water fountains and back doors marked "colored".... these are firmly entrenched in our history.  What you have posted above is a pipe dream myth that has never existed, ever.

The only new concept here is the use of the hyphen.


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## Pogo (Aug 24, 2014)

Mathbud1 said:


> The fundamental idea behind the hyphenation is the same as the fundamental idea behind racism: we are different, you and I.



Nope, false premise.  The fundamental idea behind racism is not "we are different"; it is "_we_ are superior to _them"_.


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## Pogo (Aug 24, 2014)

Rikurzhen said:


> Delta4Embassy said:
> 
> 
> > If I have to refer to people as some kind of hyphenated-American then I wanna be hyphenated too. A hypen race
> ...



Yeah?  What tribe?


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## Pogo (Aug 24, 2014)

Mathbud1 said:


> Asclepias said:
> 
> 
> > The fundamental idea behind racism is not that you are different but that between us *you are an inferior form of human*. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being different.  Unless you have a twin you are different from everyone else anyway.
> ...



"Difference" does not imply a hierarchy.

Eight and five are "different" numbers.  Is one "superior" to the other?  How 'bout green and blue?  Spanish and Portuguese?  Strawberry and banana?


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## Rikurzhen (Aug 24, 2014)

Pogo said:


> Mathbud1 said:
> 
> 
> > Asclepias said:
> ...



Look at the bolded statement above. That's the condition that you're missing. He's not saying that Eight and Five constitute an inferior versus superior framework, he's saying that you first need to have an Eight and a Five before you can overlay the superior-inferior framework.


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## Pogo (Aug 24, 2014)

BillyP said:


> Asclepias said:
> 
> 
> > BillyP said:
> ...



Who decided that splitting the atom was a positive?

Damn this thread delivers the low hanging fruit...


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## Pogo (Aug 24, 2014)

Mac1958 said:


> Delta4Embassy said:
> 
> 
> > Do terms like African-American, Asian-American, Muslim-American, etc. contribute to racism? I believe they do. Rather than making people out to be something other than a regular ol' "American" hyphenated forms seem to highlight how they're somehow different.
> ...



"Identity politics" 

Comic books making a comeback.


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## Pogo (Aug 24, 2014)

Rikurzhen said:


> Pogo said:
> 
> 
> > Mathbud1 said:
> ...



You think he's saying that races don't exist?

The way I read it he's saying that merely _acknowledging_ that A and B are different leads to a hierarchy of superior/inferior (racism) all by itself.  Which is kind of what the OP posits.  Which is why I disagreed with both.

Same point as two posts prior (129).


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## Rikurzhen (Aug 24, 2014)

Pogo said:


> Rikurzhen said:
> 
> 
> > Pogo said:
> ...



I'm not understanding why you're confused with his statement. It makes sense to me. He's not saying that acknowledgment leads to the sup-inf framework, he's saying that you need to have the first step, differences, before you can build a sup-inf framework. If you knockout the emphasis on differences then you make it impossible to have a sup-inf framework. Has my rephrasing made his point clearer?

By analogy. If milk is deemed superior to OJ, then by knocking out different beverages and focusing only on DRINKS you no longer have the tools to distinguish between OJ and milk, all you see is liquid in a glass and bye-bye goes the sup-inf framework.

Now I understand his point but I don't believe it's achievable.


----------



## Pogo (Aug 24, 2014)

Rikurzhen said:


> Pogo said:
> 
> 
> > Rikurzhen said:
> ...



Unless he's just expressing something totally different from what he intends, it's pretty clear already.  When he says above,

"The fundamental idea behind the hyphenation is the same as *the fundamental idea behind racism: we are different*, you and I." 

-- he's saying that noting a difference equals racism.  Which does not follow.  "Different" simply does not mean "superior" in any sense.

When he says above,

"'You are inferior' is built on "you are different."

Again, no it does not follow.  And again the refutation by analogy: blue and green are clearly different, but that in no way declares or even slightly implies that one is superior to the other.

We can let him explain himself if he so chooses.  I admit, I can't follow the point of your last paragraph about the drinks at all.


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## Mathbud1 (Aug 24, 2014)

Pogo said:


> You think he's saying that races don't exist?
> 
> The way I read it he's saying that merely _acknowledging_ that A and B are different leads to a hierarchy of superior/inferior (racism) all by itself.  Which is kind of what the OP posits.  Which is why I disagreed with both.
> 
> Same point as two posts prior (129).



The difference itself doesn't "lead to" judgements of inferiority/superiority. But it is the foundation. Inferiority/superiority can't be built without that difference. Racism rests on that foundation of difference.

So when some people choose to give prime importance to the things that make them different, they are placing that foundation front and center. They are laying the foundation strong and practically inviting the people that they have divided themselves from to build a tower of hate on that foundation.

Differences in and of themselves are not necessarily bad things. Differences can be great opportunities to learn new things. That can only happen though when people come together united by the things that they have in common instead of divided by the things they don't. If, to you, the most important thing about you is the thing that makes you different from me, what have we got to build any kind of understanding and unity on?

You ask what is the importance of a geographical identity that is easily changed. The importance is that it is something that we have in common. It is something that we can begin to build an understanding and respect, if not friendship, on.

Instead we choose to emphasize what is different about us.


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## Pogo (Aug 24, 2014)

Mathbud1 said:


> Pogo said:
> 
> 
> > You think he's saying that races don't exist?
> ...



It's painfully obvious that you cannot distinguish between two things without acknowledging that there are two things and not one.  _That by itself doesn't lead to any kind of value judgment._  Such a value judgment has to be introduced.  Obviously you can't introduce a superior/inferior relationship upon a single entity.



Mathbud1 said:


> So when some people choose to give prime importance to the things that make them different, they are placing that foundation front and center. They are laying the foundation strong and practically inviting the people that they have divided themselves from to build a tower of hate on that foundation.



Now you're expanding your own definition radically, introducing elements of "prime importance" and even "hate".  While those are essential building blocks of racism, they have no relationship to a simple acknowledgment that blue is a different color from green.  Saying that does not imply either color is "superior" to the other, nor does it place "prime importance" or "hate" on either one.  So when you say racism is based on differences, you're just wrong.  It's based on _value judgments attached later *to* those differences_ -- not the differences _themselves_.




Mathbud1 said:


> Differences in and of themselves are not necessarily bad things. Differences can be great opportunities to learn new things. That can only happen though when people come together united by the things that they have in common instead of divided by the things they don't. If, to you, the most important thing about you is the thing that makes you different from me, what have we got to build any kind of understanding and unity on?



How do you ever interact with a person of the opposite sex?
Or of a different age or social status or language?

Once again you're moving your own goalpost, stretching some difference noted into "the most important thing".  Where is this coming from?  How does referring to "that green car over there" make its color the "most important thing" about it?  It isn't; it's simply a neutral identifier.

See what I'm saying?  IOW "that black guy over there" is not a phrase that articulates racism; to get to that point you'd have to introduce a value judgment: "that guy is stupid *because* he's black".



Mathbud1 said:


> You ask what is the importance of a geographical identity that is easily changed. The importance is that it is something that we have in common. It is something that we can begin to build an understanding and respect, if not friendship, on.
> 
> Instead we choose to emphasize what is different about us.



That's three now; again _noting_ a difference is not necessarily "emphasizing" it.  Point overmade.

And I didn't ask about geographical considerations; I asked about _governmental _abstracts.  When we say "I'm an American" we are declaring which governmental abstract entity we are a citizen of, not geography.  That's simply a function of what structure we live under -- not who we are.  That's why it strikes me as wrongheaded to prioritize an abstract governmental concept over what one is oneself actually made of.

I think that was somebody else's point anyway though.


----------



## Asclepias (Aug 24, 2014)

Mathbud1 said:


> Asclepias said:
> 
> 
> > The fundamental idea behind racism is not that you are different but that between us *you are an inferior form of human*. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being different.  Unless you have a twin you are different from everyone else anyway.
> ...



Your logic is simplistic and purile in nature.  Where can you show proof that me feeling I am different from you means you are inferior to me?  There are a lot of people that are different from me. That in no way means they are inferior. Thinking someone is inferior is what causes racism. If that were not true the definition would stress that being different was the most important factor.


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## Desperado (Aug 24, 2014)

Asclepias said:


> What does that have to do with you making reference to me calling Rotatilla a silly white boy?



Just pointing out your racist's ways. So you calling anyone a racist is like "pardon the expression" "The pot _calling the kettle black_.  You have lost all credibility


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## House (Aug 24, 2014)

Desperado said:


> Asclepias said:
> 
> 
> > What does that have to do with you making reference to me calling Rotatilla a silly white boy?
> ...



There are kettles in many different colors, including white.

Why are you focused on *black* kettles?  Hmmmm?


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## Desperado (Aug 24, 2014)

House said:


> Desperado said:
> 
> 
> > Asclepias said:
> ...




Because that is what the expression is:
The phrase "*The pot calling the kettle black*" is an idiom used to claim that a person is guilty of the very thing of which they accuse another..
The pot calling the kettle black - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia


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## House (Aug 24, 2014)

Desperado said:


> House said:
> 
> 
> > Desperado said:
> ...



Wow, you're so defensive.  What is this deep-seeded hatred you have with white kettles?

Did a white kettle burn you as a child?


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## Mathbud1 (Aug 24, 2014)

Pogo said:


> It's painfully obvious that you cannot distinguish between two things without acknowledging that there are two things and not one.  _That by itself doesn't lead to any kind of value judgment._  Such a value judgment has to be introduced.  Obviously you can't introduce a superior/inferior relationship upon a single entity.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



You're missing the point entirely.

Acknowledging difference is not racism. Acknowledging difference does not inevitably lead to racism. Difference is however the most basic idea that racism is built on top of. Acknowledging difference is important and unavoidable if you want to stay connected to reality. Having acknowledged the difference, you will consciously or unconsciously assign an importance to that difference. The more importance you give to the differences between people, the more you promote division between people. The more you promote division, the more hate, like racism, will follow. If instead you choose to give more importance to those things that are similar, you bring people together instead of dividing them. The differences are still there. The differences are still acknowledged, but since they are given less importance they are not strong dividing lines.

You say I'm moving the goals, but I'm not. I have said all along that the IMPORTANCE you place on difference is what will lead to hate like racism. Difference is the foundation, but the level of importance that you give that difference is the catalyst. Again, every time you emphasize a difference (not acknowledge, emphasize) you give that difference more importance. When you give it more importance you promote division. The more division you have, the more likely you are to have misunderstanding and hate.

So again, we don't stick our head in the sand and pretend that differences don't exist. That is just ignorant and stupid. But we do CHOOSE how much importance and weight we are going to give that difference.


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## Pogo (Aug 24, 2014)

Mathbud1 said:


> Pogo said:
> 
> 
> > It's painfully obvious that you cannot distinguish between two things without acknowledging that there are two things and not one.  _That by itself doesn't lead to any kind of value judgment._  Such a value judgment has to be introduced.  Obviously you can't introduce a superior/inferior relationship upon a single entity.
> ...



Here's where your train of thought keeps jumping the tracks:



> Having acknowledged the difference, *you will consciously or unconsciously assign an importance* to that difference



False premise; does not follow  This phrase is blue; this phrase is green.  Neither is more or less "important"; they're simply different.  That's it, the end.  The number 8 has one function; the number 5 has another.  Neither is more "important".

"Difference" is an entirely neutral concept.  You keep expecting a hierarchy where none inherently exists.  That has to be infused artificially after the fact.  That infusion, in human terms, is where racism begins.  But simply noting _black, Irish, female, indigenous_, etc doesn't carry any such hierarchy baggage.


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## longknife (Aug 24, 2014)

To me, this entire thread is ignorant and 99% of the replies are beyond belief.

I am a citizen of the United States of America and that should be sufficient.


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## Pogo (Aug 24, 2014)

longknife said:


> To me, this entire thread is ignorant and 99% of the replies are beyond belief.
> 
> I am a citizen of the United States of America and that should be sufficient.



Fine, but the thread is not about politics.  It's about socialization and personal identity.


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## Rotagilla (Aug 24, 2014)

Pogo said:


> Mathbud1 said:
> 
> 
> > Pogo said:
> ...


Great post...As usual.


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## longknife (Aug 24, 2014)

One thing I learned from this thread is to quickly scroll past any ot the posts with lengthy quotes. If the responders can't cut them down to the latest item they're responding to, it's a total waste of time.


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## rightwinger (Aug 24, 2014)

Desperado said:


> rightwinger said:
> 
> 
> > Desperado said:
> ...


Not at all

Because being an American does not require that you be nothing else.

You can still have other identifiers in addition to being American

Why are conservatives threatened by this?


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## Mathbud1 (Aug 24, 2014)

Pogo said:


> Here's where your train of thought keeps jumping the tracks:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



You are misunderstanding.

I am not saying the the subjects of the difference will be seen as important or not important. Rather, it is the difference itself that will be given some level of importance. 

When I recognize that 8 is different from 5 I don't assign an importance level to either number or both numbers. I do attach an importance level to the fact that they are different. In this case not much importance at all.

When I recognize that someone has black skin and I have white skin, I can choose to view that difference as an important difference or I can choose to see it as unimportant. Consciously or subconsciously I will attach a level of importance to the fact that we are different. It will be very important to me, completely unimportant to me, or somewhere in between. At that point I have NOT yet made a judgement over whether one of us is better than the other. Even if I see the difference as being important and significant, I will not yet have made a judgement over the value of the subjects of the difference, only of the difference itself.

Do you understand?


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## rightwinger (Aug 24, 2014)

Why would anyone be offended at someone claiming to be African-American or any other type of American?

Did you miss the American part?


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## alan1 (Aug 24, 2014)

Asclepias said:


> Rotagilla said:
> 
> 
> > The only group who aren't represented by hyphenated names are white-americans. We don't have a group like the naacp to agitate/intervene for us..We don't have a ADL to run to when our ethnicity is belittled or targeted for violence (like in negro "rap" "songs") or whatever they're called...
> ...


Do you think Rotagilla is 350 years old?


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## Rotagilla (Aug 24, 2014)

alan1 said:


> Asclepias said:
> 
> 
> > Rotagilla said:
> ...


LMAO..

Consider the source and act accordingly is my motto.

EDIT..the other day daws was doing his usual act..insults and spite...and he said I wasn't "white" because my name sounded "italian".

I explained that italians are caucasian but as far as my name..it's "alligator" spelled backwards.

I haven't heard from him since...

They rent me space in their heads....and I wreck the place and let my dog piss on the floor..LMAO 
clowns....


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## Pogo (Aug 24, 2014)

Mathbud1 said:


> Pogo said:
> 
> 
> > Here's where your train of thought keeps jumping the tracks:
> ...



No.  You've been saying that the simple act of noting or acknowledging differences is where racism begins.  And I disagree with that; it isn't.  Where racism begins is where value judgment is _introduced_ into those differences.  But until that optional bridge is crossed, if it's crossed at all, the simple noting of differences is in itself innocuous.

It does look like you're trying to backtrack from where you were last night.


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## Mathbud1 (Aug 24, 2014)

Pogo said:


> No.  You've been saying that the simple act of noting or acknowledging differences is where racism begins.  And I disagree with that; it isn't.  Where racism begins is where value judgment is _introduced_ into those differences.  But until that optional bridge is crossed, if it's crossed at all, the simple noting of differences is in itself innocuous.
> 
> It does look like you're trying to backtrack from where you were last night.


I'm not backtracking at all. I'm saying exactly the same thing I have been the entire time. Perhaps you are simply getting closer to understanding it.


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## Pogo (Aug 24, 2014)

Mathbud1 said:


> Pogo said:
> 
> 
> > No.  You've been saying that the simple act of noting or acknowledging differences is where racism begins.  And I disagree with that; it isn't.  Where racism begins is where value judgment is _introduced_ into those differences.  But until that optional bridge is crossed, if it's crossed at all, the simple noting of differences is in itself innocuous.
> ...



No, it looks to me like you're trying to massage.  Here's what I started with:



Mathbud1 said:


> The fundamental idea behind the hyphenation is the same as *the fundamental idea behind racism: we are different, you and I*.





Mathbud1 said:


> *"You are inferior" is built on "you are different*."



-- And I disagree with both of those.

Do not Italians, women, Asians and lefthanded people, as groups, all have differences from the greater whole?  Of course they do.  Saying so does not in any way imply that any one of them is inferior.

Now we can _attach _our own prejudices to any one of those, or any combination.  But that is in no way derived from a simple acknowledgment that "Italian" is different from "Irish".  To go around pretending we have no differences to me is just not honest.


----------



## Desperado (Aug 24, 2014)

Asclepias said:


> Do you not know what the term Afro means?



A hair style made popular by American Blacks but what has that got to do with this conversation?



Asclepias said:


> You silly white boy. White Africans would be called by the country they come from Americans if they so desired. For example if they come from Tanzania the would be called Tanzanian Americans. They could never be African Americans until there is a country called Africa in Africa.



If you want to get technical, since there are no countries named America or Africa, we are talking continents not countries with African-American.


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## Rikurzhen (Aug 24, 2014)

Pogo said:


> Mathbud1 said:
> 
> 
> > Pogo said:
> ...



Pogo, you have the structural advantage in the debate with Mathbud because you can apply precision to the language he used when he first laid down his thought. Look at what he wrote after the first sentence.

"You are inferior" is built on "you are different." You can't think someone is inferior to you without first thinking they are different from you. *The more importance* you place on that difference that you have recognized, the more misunderstanding, intolerance, and hate you invite.​That "more importance" is the value judgment you're focusing on. I agree with you that this is the stage where the action originates but I also see his point - if you knock out the foundation of difference, then you make it impossible to attach a value judgment to something that doesn't exist. I understand his point, I just think it's operational only in the realm of the abstract.

I think you guys are talking past each other. You can hold him to account for his thoughts when they were off-the-cuff or you can ask him what his position is now that he knows exactly what you're focused on. I'm not really seeing what the fundamental difference in play is here.

In the first quote, I assumed that there were unstated conditions which applied,  specifically that difference has social meaning. That's how I read it. I didn't take him at his word that racism arises only from difference. 

Anyways, enough of being peacemaker. To your comment - you call the value judgments prejudices, so are you implying that prejudices are bad, that they don't reflect reality, that they're irrational. Can a value judgment be negative and also correct?


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## Mac1958 (Aug 24, 2014)

House said:


> Desperado said:
> 
> 
> > Asclepias said:
> ...



Please tell me that you're just kidding.

That you're mocking the PC Police.

Please.

.


----------



## Pogo (Aug 24, 2014)

Rikurzhen said:


> Pogo said:
> 
> 
> > Mathbud1 said:
> ...



What I read him saying is that the simple act of articulating a difference --- all by itself -- creates racism.  I'm just taking his words at face value.  Now I understand he then tries to morph that meaning with red herrings about "importance" but that's completely a separate issue.  The way he tries to state it they are the same thing.  And I disagree with that.

That's the point of contention here --- whether seeing a difference and then appending a value judgment to that difference is one act, or two.  I say it's two; he says they're one.

Again it's impossible to inject a prejudice into one entity among several_ if you do not first acknowledge that there are multiple entities that are different from each other_.  So to make the statement that you cannot have racism with out first noting differences, that statement has no meaning.  You *must *acknowledge differences in order to simply _count _more than one entity in the first place.  You cannot have two separate entities until you acknowledge that 5 is different from 8.  Noting that does not in itself ascribe a superior/inferior relationship; it merely establishes that there are two numbers that are not the same thing.  If you want to ascribe a hierarchy, that's a separate step.

I agree we're lost in minutiae here.  But this is kind of crucial to understanding how it works.


----------



## Rikurzhen (Aug 24, 2014)

Pogo said:


> What I read him saying is that the simple act of articulating a difference --- all by itself -- creates racism.  I'm just taking his words at face value.  Now I understand he then tries to morph that meaning with red herrings about "importance" but that's completely a separate issue.  The way he tries to state it they are the same thing.  And I disagree with that.
> 
> That's the point of contention here --- whether seeing a difference and then appending a value judgment to that difference is one act, or two.  I say it's two; he says they're one.



And this is why I noted that you have the structural advantage in the debate. He wrote his thoughts in reaction to whatever was going on up thread and didn't realize that they'd become the topic of debate. I hate getting caught in that position myself.

That point of contention - let's just ask him whether he disagrees now that we're in the minutia of the issue.



> Again it's impossible to inject a prejudice into one entity among several_ if you do not first acknowledge that there are multiple entities that are different from each other_. So to make the statement that you cannot have racism with out first noting differences, that statement has no meaning.  You *must *acknowledge differences in order to simply _count _more than one entity in the first place.  You cannot have two separate entities until you acknowledge that 5 is different from 8.  Noting that does not in itself ascribe a superior/inferior relationship; it merely establishes that there are two numbers that are not the same thing.  If you want to ascribe a hierarchy, that's a separate step.



The sense I got from his argument, which I have already stated I thought to be too abstract, was that if we could just see each other as humans rather than as members of racial groups, then we've knocked out the differences and so there is nothing to hang the value judgments on. This is a common belief of people - "we're all humans" and "I belong to the human race, the only racial group" etc. I don't actually believe these people live this way, so I take them as speaking to ideals. When you say "that statement has no meaning" you're referring to the real world. These example statements that I highlighted speak to a world of ideals. That's where his argument is rooted, or so it seems to me.



> I agree we're lost in minutiae here.  But this is kind of crucial to understanding how it works.



I don't get the sense that Mathbud disagrees, but the surest way to resolve that is for him to answer a direct question.


----------



## Mathbud1 (Aug 24, 2014)

Rikurzhen said:


> And this is why I noted that you have the structural advantage in the debate. He wrote his thoughts in reaction to whatever was going on up thread and didn't realize that they'd become the topic of debate. I hate getting caught in that position myself.
> 
> That point of contention - let's just ask him whether he disagrees now that we're in the minutia of the issue.
> 
> ...


I don't disagree with what Pogo is saying. I never have. If I disagreed, I would have stated that.

The problem is that what Pogo is saying doesn't address what I am actually saying, it addresses what Pogo _thought_ I was saying in the first place.

Does saying, "a house is built on a foundation," mean that a house _is_ a foundation? Or that building a foundation means that you have automatically built a house on it? Could you build a barn on that foundation instead? Could you build an office building?

Pogo needs to stop assuming that I said acknowledging difference is racism or that acknowledging difference automatically leads to racism. That is NOT what I said. Every argument Pogo has laid out is based on that false assumption that that is what I said.

I emphatically DO NOT advocate pretending that there are no differences between people. Pretending that only disconnects you from reality. There are differences. We absolutely must acknowledge that there are differences. Having acknowledged that there are differences, we THEN have a choice to make: how much importance are we going to give those differences. How much significance are we going to attach to those differences.

My contention is this: if we choose to give a great deal of importance to those differences, we are choosing to divide ourselves. Not giving importance to the differences is NOT denying that the differences exist.


----------



## Rikurzhen (Aug 24, 2014)

Mathbud1 said:


> I emphatically DO NOT advocate pretending that there are no differences between people. Pretending that only disconnects you from reality. There are differences. We absolutely must acknowledge that there are differences. Having acknowledged that there are differences, we THEN have a choice to make:* how much importance are we going to give those differences*. How much significance are we going to attach to those differences.
> 
> My contention is this: if we *choose *to give a great deal of importance to those differences, we are choosing to divide ourselves. Not giving importance to the differences is NOT denying that the differences exist.



Do you believe that the importance attached to the differences, the value judgment using pogo's terms, is arbitrary? I asked pogo the same question but I think she missed it.

Instead of speaking in generalities, let me give a specific example. Black kids wearing their pants around their knees. This bugs some people, makes them look unkindly on blacks. This is something I see as being amenable to social propaganda efforts. There are many instances of black social innovations being widely adopted in society and thus normalized. Music, language, single motherhood, fashion - blacks lead and others follow. Most of these attributes don't have much consequence attached to them.

However, if the negative attributes are criminality, social disruption, low intelligence, high welfare use, then these have high levels of impact on other people, that is, they actually make life worse for people. How can these expressions of the group (not the individual) be managed away?

If negative feelings are built on pants around the knees, then big deal, if they're rooted in my kid's school being degraded by too high a proportion of underachieving and disruptive black kids, then isn't there a real world negative consequence falling on people and how do you get them to overlook that consequence? I can *choose *to overlook the pants at the knee fashion, I can't choose to overlook at the harm that befalls my kid.

So if we define these feelings as racism, as it's popularly used, can racism be rational and well-founded or is it always irrational and emotional?


----------



## House (Aug 24, 2014)

Mac1958 said:


> House said:
> 
> 
> > Desperado said:
> ...



Read my follow-up that was posted shortly after.

If that doesn't tell you all you need to know, there's no helping you.


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## Pogo (Aug 24, 2014)

Rikurzhen said:


> Mathbud1 said:
> 
> 
> > I emphatically DO NOT advocate pretending that there are no differences between people. Pretending that only disconnects you from reality. There are differences. We absolutely must acknowledge that there are differences. Having acknowledged that there are differences, we THEN have a choice to make:* how much importance are we going to give those differences*. How much significance are we going to attach to those differences.
> ...



"She"?  What's the point of calling me "she"?

I didn't address that question because I didn't think that's what Mathbud was saying (and still don't).  Or if it is what he meant it's not what he wrote.  So I stayed on point of pursuing what he actually posted.

Your citations here of underwear, music, criminality, welfare, parenting etc -- these are *cultural* stereotypes, not racial characteristics.  Of course choosing to see them as racial rather than cultural would get you into a whole 'nother can o' worms.  And perhaps that's part of the problem that is racism.  Perhaps that's a whole lot of it.

We ran into that same kind of conflation recently with a couple of threads on female genital mutilation and "honor killings", where some tried to make them religious issues rather than cultural ones.  What does it mean?  Perhaps the masses find it easier to blame social phenomena they don't understand on race or religion so they can declare a simple black/white dichotomy: "this race is bad" or "that religion sucks" instead of trying to actually grok the cultural foundation underlying them.  A path of less resistance.

?


----------



## Rikurzhen (Aug 24, 2014)

Pogo said:


> Rikurzhen said:
> 
> 
> > Mathbud1 said:
> ...



Now that I know that you're a dude, I won't make the mistake of thinking you're a chick. I had to choose one, the dart landed on chick.

I tried to distinguish between cultural markers and markers which have basis in our genetic heritage and so are not very easy to remedy. The IQ gap hasn't budged in the last half century and the movement that happened in the previous half century can't be replicated (malnutrition in America isn't a problem - all our kids are getting the proper amount of micronutrients in their diets and so there aren't any nutrition related effect on cognitive development any more) and so the consequences which fall out from this fact and there for us to deal with. What the parents of 1955 saw as jungle music and negro music has passed through the mainstream and is now cliche as popular culture embraces rap. No one is looking at Little Richard singing Tutti Frutti and locking up their white daughters to protect them from his gyrating hips.

To your remark about choosing to see something as racial rather than cultural, I suppose the dividing line for people falls on how changeable the attribute is. Single motherhood is changeable - blacks could go back to embracing marriage and then this cultural marker falls away. Blacks are not going to raise the mean intelligence of their population from IQ 85 to IQ 100 and match white Americans. So what do you do when confronted by the issues which fall out from this - when black kids are bused into your neighborhood's school and the school quality begins to decline. What reactions are legitimate, how does racism get defined here?


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## House (Aug 24, 2014)

*Wait... time out...*


Pogo isn't a she?


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## Pogo (Aug 24, 2014)

House said:


> *Wait... time out...*
> 
> Pogo isn't a she?



Oh bite my crank.  Even the cartoon character was never a she.  What are you trying to say exactly?



Rikurzhen said:


> Pogo said:
> 
> 
> > Rikurzhen said:
> ...



I'm not sure from where you're pulling this "IQ" canard, or what the dubious value of such a measure is anyway.  I'm distinguishing between stereotypes driven by cultural traditions versus (imaginary) traits driven by race.  Are you suggesting that there exist intelligence limitations _by race_?  That somehow black _brains_ are different?

That's the distinction being delineated.


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## Mathbud1 (Aug 24, 2014)

Rikurzhen said:


> Do you believe that the importance attached to the differences, the value judgment using pogo's terms, is arbitrary? I asked pogo the same question but I think she missed it.
> 
> Instead of speaking in generalities, let me give a specific example. Black kids wearing their pants around their knees. This bugs some people, makes them look unkindly on blacks. This is something I see as being amenable to social propaganda efforts. There are many instances of black social innovations being widely adopted in society and thus normalized. Music, language, single motherhood, fashion - blacks lead and others follow. Most of these attributes don't have much consequence attached to them.
> 
> ...



I guess you would have to decide if you think they are behaving badly _because_ they are black or if you think they are behaving badly _and_ they are black.

If you don't see their behavior as being caused by their race, can it be racist to criticize their behavior?

On the other hand would it be racist to criticize actually bad behavior even if it really was caused by their race?


----------



## Rikurzhen (Aug 25, 2014)

Pogo said:


> I'm not sure from where you're pulling this "IQ" canard, or what the dubious value of such a measure is anyway.  I'm distinguishing between stereotypes driven by cultural traditions versus (imaginary) traits driven by race.  Are you suggesting that there exist intelligence limitations _by race_?  That somehow black _brains_ are different?
> 
> That's the distinction being delineated.



What canard? The IQ Gap is one of the most solid social science findings, it's been replicated countless times, it's been studied up the wazoo. No one in psychology disputes the existence of the gap anymore, the only debate remains on the cause of the gap and the environmentalists are steadily losing ground to the hereditarians. 

The value of intelligence is far from dubious. IQ touches on life - health outcomes correlate with IQ, so too does education, income, crime, etc.

You're sounding like an environmental determinist, where the genetics of race has no social consequence whatsoever and every attribute which intersects with racial variation has a cultural cause. I thought this nonsense was dead and buried last century. Am I reading you correctly? You accept evolution, don't you, or are you arguing from a creationists perspective?

Jumpin' Jehoshaphat, get with the times man, yes blacks are different - they're the only pure, homo-sapiens left on the Earth.






Brain size differences. Intelligence 31 (2003) 139–155

*African-descended people (Blacks) average cranial capacities of 1267 cm3, European-descended
people (Whites) 1347 cm3, and East Asian-descended people (East Asians) 1364 cm3*. These brain size differences, containing millions of brain cells and hundreds of millions of synapses, were hypothesized to underlie the race differences on IQ tests, in which Blacks average an IQ of 85, Whites 100, and East Asians 106. The validity of the race differences in brain size, however, continues to be disputed. In the present study, the race differences in brain size are correlated with 37 musculoskeletal variables shown in standard evolutionary textbooks to change systematically with increments in brain size. The 37 variables include cranial traits (such as jaw size and shape, tooth size and shape, muscle attachment sites, and orbital bone indentations), and postcranial traits (such as pelvic width, thighbone curvature, and knee joint surface area). Across the three populations, the ‘‘ecological correlations’’ [Jensen, A. R. (1998). The g factor. Westport, CT: Praeger]* between brain size and the 37 morphological traits averaged a remarkable r=.94; r=.94. If the races did not differ in brain size, these correlations could not have been found.* It must be concluded that the race differences in average brain size are securely established. As such, brain size-related variables provide the most likely biological mediators of the race differences in intelligence.​


----------



## Pogo (Aug 25, 2014)

Mathbud1 said:


> Rikurzhen said:
> 
> 
> > Do you believe that the importance attached to the differences, the value judgment using pogo's terms, is arbitrary? I asked pogo the same question but I think she missed it.
> ...



Exactly.    That's the distinction I think is crucial.



Mathbud1 said:


> If you don't see their behavior as being caused by their race, can it be racist to criticize their behavior?
> 
> On the other hand would it be racist to criticize actually bad behavior even if it really was caused by their race?



Good question.  It goes to what we mean by the word "racism".  In another recent thread where somebody tried to float the myth that the word was invented by Trotsky, we delved into its earlier usages back to the 19th century.  I'll try to dig it up if I can remember where the thread was but basically it originally meant a race (or geo-social class of people) coalescing around their own identity.  A kind of _tribalism_ if you like, and ergo a neutral term.  Today we mean it as "racial prejudice".

If one could demonstrate that something actually is a product of or influenced by race (as some things are; sickle cell anemia, lactose intolerance, a host of other medical propensities) then it could not be called "racist" to note those characteristics in the sense of prejudice that we use the word today.  I've sat through a ton of medical lectures enough to know the doctors and medical researchers compiling such data are not doing so out of any kind of prejudice.  Of course, comparative data on medical propensities is an entirely different ballgame from ascribing actual _behaviour_ to race; at that point we veer off into concepts of free will, nature vs. nurture and predestination.

That's where this other guy here with his bell curve though (really?), just smacks of somebody looking for any contrived data that will fit his social agenda.  

I'll try to find that etymology.  And I wonder why the OP hasn't returned to defend.


----------



## Rikurzhen (Aug 25, 2014)

Pogo said:


> Mathbud1 said:
> 
> 
> > Rikurzhen said:
> ...



So you've outed yourself as a creationist. This gives me a better fix on you and how to talk to you.


----------



## Pogo (Aug 25, 2014)

A "creationist"?  Moi?


----------



## Luddly Neddite (Aug 25, 2014)

Mathbud1 said:


> Rikurzhen said:
> 
> 
> > Do you believe that the importance attached to the differences, the value judgment using pogo's terms, is arbitrary? I asked pogo the same question but I think she missed it.
> ...



How do you account for the extremely ignorant and uneducated writings of vile vermin like Rikurzhen?


----------



## Rikurzhen (Aug 25, 2014)

Pogo said:


> A "creationist"?  Moi?



You're arguing that evolution doesn't apply to humanity. That's creationism. Sure, you may not make appeal to a God, you just pretend that some invisible forcefield exists which makes the human brain immune to evolutionary forces. Creationism of the left rather than creationism of religion.


----------



## Pogo (Aug 25, 2014)

Now I remember who this guy is.  The same clown who started asking me about my family in some aimless quest to connect that to racism, an argument he never quite delivered.   -- back to @Mathbud1 here's that etymology I was thinking of.  This is a copy of my post from that thread - I'll strip out the quote function so it doesn't go all italic but it comes from here:

>>
*racism (n.) *


1936; see racist.
*racist *


1932 as a noun, 1938 as an adjective, from race (n.2); racism is first attested 1936 (from French _racisme_, 1935), originally in the context of Nazi theories. But they replaced earlier words, _racialism _(1871) and _racialist _(1917), both often used early 20c. in a British or South African context. In the U.S., _race hatred_, _race prejudice_ had been used, and, especially in 19c. political contexts, _negrophobia_. --- OED <<

But the earliest English citation:

>>  The _Oxford English Dictionary_'s first recorded utterance of the word _racism_ was by a man named Richard Henry Pratt in 1902. Pratt was railing against the evils of racial segregation.

_Segregating any class or race of people apart from the rest of the people kills the progress of the segregated people or makes their growth very slow. Association of races and classes is necessary to destroy racism and classism._

Although Pratt might have been the first person to inveigh against _racism_ and its deleterious effects by _name_, he is much better-remembered for a very different coinage: _Kill the Indian...save the man. <<  _(here)

But wait -- there's more.  Now how much would you pay...

>> There is an urban legend that has been floating around for some years now, that the word racist was coined by Leon Trotsky, for the purpose of cowing and intimidating opponents of leftist ideology. In his _History of the Russian Revolution_ Trotsky applied the word racist to Slavophiles, who opposed Communism.

... What the conservatives like to do instead of debunking their enemies' assumptions, which are also supported by mass-media, is to try to find a way to throw an accusation back at them, even a ridiculous accusation based on a specious argument and a flimsy premise. (I believe that this preference for responding with accusations, rather than truth and reason, derives from the fact that staying on the attack means not having to clarify one's own position on touchy matters. For somebody trying to win a popularity contest in the short term, rather than inform and educate for the long term, it makes perfect sense to try to keep one's own positions obscure.) The legend that Leon Trotsky coined the word racist offers a basis for that kind of rhetoric. It seems a silly argument, but they will say something like, _If you use the word racist then you are a bad person like Communist mass-murderer Leon Trotsky, because he invented that word!
_
Did Trotsky really invent that word? No, apparently not. The work in which Trotsky is supposed to have coined that word was written and published in Russian in 1930.  I found several examples of the French form, _raciste_, preceding Trotsky's use of the word by far.

I find _pensée raciste_ (French for “racist thought”) and _individualité raciste_ (“racist individuality”) in the volume of _La Terro d’oc: revisto felibrenco e federalisto_ (a periodical championing the cultural and ethnic identity of people in southern France) for the year 1906.

_Je forme des voeux pour la réussité de vos projets, car je suis persuadé que, dans cette fédération des peuples de Langue d’Oc luttant pour leurs intérêts et l’émancipation de leur pensée raciste, le prestige de Toulouse trouvera son compte_.  (p. 101)

("I express my best wishes for the success of your projects, because I am convinced that, in the federation of the peoples of Langue d’Oc fighting for their interests and the emancipation of their racist thought, the prestige of Toulouse will stand to gain.)

Even Earlier Examples:
....In Charles Malato's _Philosophie de l'Anarchie _(*1897*) we find both _raciste_ and _racisme_:

_Nul doute qu'avant d'arriver à l'internationalisme complet, il y aura une étape qui sera le racisme; mais il y a lieu d'esperer que la halte ne sera pas trop longue, que l'étape sera brûlée. Le communisme qui, au début de son fonctionnement, apparait devoir être fatalement réglementé, surtout au point de vue des échanges internationaux, entrainera la constitution de fédérations *racistes* (latine, slave, germaine, etc.) L'anarchie qu'on peut entrevoir au bout de deux ou trois générations, lorsque, par suite du développement de la production toute réglementation sera devenue superflue, amènera la fin du *racisme* et l'avénement d'une humanité sans frontiéres. _(p.47)

("There's no doubt that before complete internationalism is achieved, there will be a stage of racism; but it is to he hoped that the interim will not be too long, that this step will be rapidly vaporized.  Communism, which in its early stages appears to become fatally regulated especially looking at international commerce, will lead to the formation of racist federations (Latin, Slavic, Germanic, etc.)  Anarchy that can be seen after two or three generations when, as a result of the development of production, all regulation will become superfluous, will herald the end of racism and the advent of a humanity without borders")

"My lack of god!  It's Trotsky!"   <<​(the closing line is a Monty Python reference)

Malato in the latter passage seems to be using _racism _in the sense that we would use "_ethnic_". -- perhaps in a nationalistic sense.  Our definition then has become more literal over the years, more personal, and less nationalistic.


----------



## Rikurzhen (Aug 25, 2014)

Pogo said:


> Now I remember who this guy is.  The same clown who started asking me about my family in some aimless quest to connect that to racism, an argument he never quite delivered.   -- back to @Mathbud1 here's that etymology I was thinking of.  This is a copy of my post from that thread - I'll strip out the quote function so it doesn't go all italic but it comes from here:
> 
> >>
> *racism (n.) *
> ...



So now in addition to being a creationist you're a plagiarist copying from a NAZI website.


----------



## Pogo (Aug 25, 2014)

So now you're an idiot.

Actually the links are to Google Books, where the originals may be read.  That's not plagiarism; those are called "quotes".  That's why the titles and authors are specified, and even linked.  The translations are mine.

Might you have a point coming sometime soon or what?


----------



## Rikurzhen (Aug 25, 2014)

Pogo said:


> So now you're an idiot.
> 
> Actually the links are to Google Books, where the originals may be read.  That's not plagiarism; those are called "quotes".  That's why the titles and authors are specified, and even linked.  The translations are mine.
> 
> Might you have a point coming sometime soon or what?




Quoting you form post #178

What the conservatives like to do instead of debunking their enemies' assumptions, which are also supported by mass-media, is to try to find a way to throw an accusation back at them, even a ridiculous accusation based on a specious argument and a flimsy premise. (I believe that this preference for responding with accusations, rather than truth and reason, derives from the fact that staying on the attack means not having to clarify one's own position on touchy matters. For somebody trying to win a popularity contest in the short term, rather than inform and educate for the long term, it makes perfect sense to try to keep one's own positions obscure.) The legend that Leon Trotsky coined the word racist offers a basis for that kind of rhetoric. It seems a silly argument, but they will say something like, _If you use the word racist then you are a bad person like Communist mass-murderer Leon Trotsky, because he invented that word!
Did Trotsky really invent that word? No, apparently not. The work in which Trotsky is supposed to have coined that word was written and published in Russian in 1930. I found several examples of the French form, raciste, preceding Trotsky's use of the word by far.

I find pensée raciste (French for “racist thought”) and individualité raciste (“racist individuality”) in the volume of La Terro d’oc: revisto felibrenco e federalisto (a periodical championing the cultural and ethnic identity of people in southern France) for the year 1906.

Je forme des voeux pour la réussité de vos projets, car je suis persuadé que, dans cette fédération des peuples de Langue d’Oc luttant pour leurs intérêts et l’émancipation de leur pensée raciste, le prestige de Toulouse trouvera son compte. (p. 101)

("I express my best wishes for the success of your projects, because I am convinced that, in the federation of the peoples of Langue d’Oc fighting for their interests and the emancipation of their racist thought, the prestige of Toulouse will stand to gain.)_​Quoting the NAZI website:

*What the conservatives like to do instead of debunking their enemies' assumptions, which are also supported by mass-media, is to try to find a way to throw an accusation back at them, even a ridiculous accusation based on a specious argument and a flimsy premise. (I believe that this preference for responding with accusations, rather than truth and reason, derives from the fact that staying on the attack means not having to clarify one's own position on touchy matters. For somebody trying to win a popularity contest in the short term, rather than inform and educate for the long term, it makes perfect sense to try to keep one's own positions obscure.) The legend that Leon Trotsky coined the word racist offers a basis for that kind of rhetoric. It seems a silly argument, but they will say something like, If you use the word racist then you are a bad person like Communist mass-murderer Leon Trotsky, because he invented that word!

Did Trotsky really invent that word? No, apparently not. The work in which Trotsky is supposed to have coined that word was written and published in Russian in 1930.  I found several examples of the French form, raciste, preceding Trotsky's use of the word by far.*

*I find pensée raciste (French for “racist thought”) and individualité raciste (“racist individuality”) in the volume of La Terro d’oc: revisto felibrenco e federalisto (a periodical championing the cultural and ethnic identity of people in southern France) for the year 1906.  Here the word racist was used without a hint of negativity:

Je forme des voeux pour la réussité de vos projets, car je suis persuadé que, dans cette fédération des peuples de Langue d’Oc luttant pour leurs intérêts et l’émancipation de leur pensée raciste, le prestige de Toulouse trouvera son compte.  (p. 101)

TRANSLATION: I express my best wishes for the success of your projects, because I am convinced that, in the federation of the peoples of Langue d’Oc fighting for their interests and the emancipation of their racist thought, the prestige of Toulouse will benefit.​*​The differences between what you "wrote" and the NAZI text is that you've combined some paragraphs together and you've omitted the red texted word Translation. Otherwise what you claim as your own writing is what is found on this Nazi website.


----------



## Pogo (Aug 25, 2014)

Rikurzhen said:


> Pogo said:
> 
> 
> > So now you're an idiot.
> ...



I am compelled to reiterate; you're a _giant_ idiot.

I used to live in France; I'm fluent and I do my own translating.  And again, I did not claim the originals as "my writing"; I *named* the writers *and* the works and linked them.

_*Do*_ the Google links go to the books quoted, or do they not?  *Are* they faithful copies of the text in the books, or are they not?  And *do* those passages offer a glimpse into variant uses of the word _racism _through the years --- or do they not?

And *do you* in fact have anything whatsoever to add to this?

The point of all that is exploring the changing meaning of the term _racism _over the last century-plus, as alluded to earlier today.

That's my point.  What's yours?  Can you even articulate one?





Exactly.


----------



## Rikurzhen (Aug 25, 2014)

Pogo said:


> Rikurzhen said:
> 
> 
> > Pogo said:
> ...



You "wrote" the following in first person:

*I find* pensée raciste (French for “racist thought”) and individualité raciste (“racist individuality”) in the volume of La Terro d’oc: revisto felibrenco e federalisto *(a periodical championing the cultural and ethnic identity of people in southern France)* for the year 1906 . . .​
The NAZI website has the very same text as well as everything else I referenced above plus more at the site. Look both you and the NAZI website even have the same parenthetical comment.

I find _pensée raciste_ (French for “racist thought”) and _individualité raciste_ (“racist individuality”) in the volume of _La Terro d’oc: revisto felibrenco e federalisto_ (*a periodical championing the cultural and ethnic identity of people in southern France)* for the year 1906.​
The links to the books aren't what I'm talking about, I'm focusing on the plagiarism. Granted, you fixed things up a bit here and there, added some links which weren't in the NAZI text.

When you wrote *"I find *pensée raciste . . " that's not actually you writing that, now is it?


----------



## Pogo (Aug 25, 2014)

It's copied from a previous post, that's why.
So you have no point.  The books are accurately quoted and accurately linked.  You have no comment whatsoever on the topic.  All you have is an onanistic bandwidth burn.

On to Ignore you go.


----------



## House (Aug 25, 2014)

Rik, I'm sorry but I believe you're fishing off the wrong pier.

At worst, Pogo created a form faux pas by not properly denoting the beginning & ending of cited work.


----------



## Pogo (Aug 25, 2014)

House said:


> Rik, I'm sorry but I believe you're fishing off the wrong pier.
> 
> At worst, Pogo created a form faux pas by not properly denoting the beginning & ending of cited work.



I put the quotes in italics and the translations straight up.  Thought that would suffice -- if the fact that they're in two different languages wasn't a clue.

No worries, this guy is notorious for coming on with a clusterfuck of point fragments that he can't pull together.  I'm gonna call him Humpty Dumpty.


----------



## House (Aug 25, 2014)

Pogo said:


> House said:
> 
> 
> > Rik, I'm sorry but I believe you're fishing off the wrong pier.
> ...



I get what you're saying.  A lot of people use italics and bold indiscriminately, however.

You might consider posting cited work in quote tags or separated from original content in another way.

Just a thought.


----------



## Rikurzhen (Aug 25, 2014)

House said:


> Rik, I'm sorry but I believe you're fishing off the wrong pier.
> 
> At worst, Pogo created a form faux pas by not properly denoting the beginning & ending of cited work.



I'm willing to apologize if I made an unwarranted accusation but I don't see it. I followed all of his links, including the one to his previous post. Not one link has the phrase: _"There is an urban legend that has been floating around . . "_

That's where his plagiarism begins. This phrase is not found in his NPR link, it's not found in the OED link.

Look, the dude wanted to play rough, so I'm not prepared to back down until he explains how the NAZI website has the exact same text HE CLAIMS HE WROTE. If the error is on my part, in that the text is found on one of the links he provided, then he'll get an apology from me.

I don't believe that this is a formatting error.


----------



## House (Aug 25, 2014)

Rikurzhen said:


> House said:
> 
> 
> > Rik, I'm sorry but I believe you're fishing off the wrong pier.
> ...



You have a point about the urban legend paragraph.  That's on a blog.

Pogo, if that paragraph is also in the book, would you mind providing the page number, please?


----------



## Rikurzhen (Aug 25, 2014)

House said:


> Rikurzhen said:
> 
> 
> > House said:
> ...



That will be quite a feat. One book was published in 1906 and the other in 1897 and the Trotsky event happened in 1930. How either of these two books could predict what Trotsky would write in the future is puzzling. Unless we have time travelers involved,  like this woman using a cell phone in a 1920s Charlie Chaplin movie.


----------



## Pogo (Aug 26, 2014)

House said:


> Pogo said:
> 
> 
> > House said:
> ...



There's no point; it was clear enough.

The citation was all about early and morphing uses of the word _racism_; it's got nothing to do with "Nazis".  Nazis weren't even invented yet.  He has nothing to say on the actual topic and can't articulate what his point is, so -- fuck him.  The whole thing was intended for another poster anyway; this guy is just wasting my time.


----------



## Rikurzhen (Aug 26, 2014)

Pogo said:


> House said:
> 
> 
> > Pogo said:
> ...



Getting to the root of a plagiarism accusation isn't a waste of time. Why is the text you claim you wrote, beginning with the phrase "_There is an urban legend that has been floating around for some years now_, .. ." and continuing on to the end of your post *identical *to the text on that Nazi website? If you're too frightened to answer me directly, then answer the question House put to you.

You wanted to play rough, so don't run away now. Don't you want to see me apologize to you? Wouldn't that be sweet? Just show us where in the links of your post the text you copied can be found and then you'll get my apology.


----------



## Pogo (Aug 26, 2014)

House said:


> Rikurzhen said:
> 
> 
> > House said:
> ...



What paragraph?  The quotations were from the books cited and the liniks go right to those pages.  All of that was, again, a copy of a post I made _last week_.  I stripped out the "quote" function here so it wouldn't go all italics -- which would have made the quotes less distinguishable.  Whatever was in last weeks post is in there.  None of it has jack squat to do with "Nazis", which demonstrably did not even exist in 1897 or 1902.  Or 1906.

None of which is the point at all --- It's a simple citation of a couple of books to examine the term _racism _-- which is the topic in this thread.  And I have never claimed to have written either of them.  I was not even alive in  1906.  The poster's a freaking nutjob.  This is getting to the Special Ed surreal level.  

I'll entertain further from Mathbud, the OP or any reasonable soul who wishes to debate the actual topic.  This Rhizome guy is a troll trying desperately to derail the thread.


----------



## Rikurzhen (Aug 26, 2014)

Pogo said:


> House said:
> 
> 
> > Rikurzhen said:
> ...



Do you claim that this is your writing ""_There is an urban legend that has been floating around for some years now_, .. ." and that everything below this text is your writing?

Please, enough with this innocence routine of purposely misinterpreting what I and House are asking you. We're being clear. Our focus is not on the french text or it's translation, it's on the REST of the text, beginning with the quote (in the above paragraph) in italics and continuing on through the remainder of your post. Did you write that? WIll you admit to plagiarizing and so put an end to your embarrassment?


----------



## shart_attack (Aug 27, 2014)

Rikurzhen said:


> At worst, Pogo created a form faux pas by not properly denoting the beginning & ending of cited work.





			
				Pogo said:
			
		

> I put the quotes in italics and the translations straight up.  Thought that would suffice -- if the fact that they're in two different languages wasn't a clue.
> 
> No worries, this guy is notorious for coming on with a clusterfuck of point fragments that he can't pull together.  I'm gonna call him Humpty Dumpty.





			
				Rikurzhen said:
			
		

> I get what you're saying.  A lot of people use italics and bold indiscriminately, however.
> 
> You might consider posting cited work in quote tags or separated from original content in another way.
> 
> Just a thought.





			
				Pogo said:
			
		

> There's no point; it was clear enough.
> 
> The citation was all about early and morphing uses of the word _racism_; it's got nothing to do with "Nazis".  Nazis weren't even invented yet.  He has nothing to say on the actual topic and can't articulate what his point is, so -- fuck him.  The whole thing was intended for another poster anyway; this guy is just wasting my time.





			
				Rikurzhen said:
			
		

> Getting to the root of a plagiarism accusation isn't a waste of time. Why is the text you claim you wrote, beginning with the phrase "_There is an urban legend that has been floating around for some years now_, .. ." and continuing on to the end of your post *identical *to the text on that Nazi website? If you're too frightened to answer me directly, then answer the question House put to you.
> 
> You wanted to play rough, so don't run away now. Don't you want to see me apologize to you? Wouldn't that be sweet? Just show us where in the links of your post the text you copied can be found and then you'll get my apology.



It's what the legendary Pogo does, see:

Traipse into a thread hurling the most egregiously childish of insults, only later in the same thread to whine like a BITCH that somebody's giving him three or four disagrees for his horribly pathetic jokes.

The sad truth for Pogo is that he's a fraud who can't write anything of his own to save his ass.

I'm not the least bit surprised to see this little conversation taking shape, with Pogo's being outed as a plagiarist.


----------



## Pogo (Aug 27, 2014)

shart_attack said:


> Rikurzhen said:
> 
> 
> > At worst, Pogo created a form faux pas by not properly denoting the beginning & ending of cited work.
> ...



What's "plagiarized", tampon boy?  Can one plagiarize oneself?  Maybe if you're John Fogerty... 
Guess what Einstein; when I quote myself it's _still my own writin'._  Who knew.

The specific literary references have yet to be challenged, so they stand unmolested.  And revealingly they still stand undiscussed.  A troll found the same citations somewhere else and he's hung up on shiny objects of his own Googlin'.

"Keep on Googin'" -- John Fogerty  

I must say it was one of the more bizarre deflections I've ever seen, a poster trying to call another poster a "Nazi" for citing books from 1897 to 1906 -- long before Nazis ever existed, before even _World War One_ started.  Yeah that makes sense.  

Still butthurt that you thought Iron Maiden invented the triplet are we? 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




What a maroon.


----------



## NLT (Aug 27, 2014)

I am a white anglo-saxon male, to libs that makes me racist from birth


----------



## shart_attack (Aug 27, 2014)

Pogo said:


> What's "plagiarized", tampon boy?  Can one plagiarize oneself?  Maybe if you're John Fogerty...
> 
> I copied _my own post_ from a week ago, that's all it is.  The specific literary references have yet to be challenged, so they stand unmolested.  And revealingly they still stand undiscussed.  A troll found the same reference somewhere else and he's hung up on shiny objects.
> 
> ...



Awwwwww, did widdle Pogo get his feewings hurt now?

Is he gonna whine now about people disliking his horribly crap-ass jokes?

Will he plagiarize someone else's work, just to try to make himself sound smarter than he really is?

We're on to you, you little whiny plagiarizing punk bitch.

Look out.


----------



## Pogo (Aug 27, 2014)

NLT said:


> I am a white anglo-saxon male, to libs that makes me racist from birth



You got off easy.  I got to be a "Nazi".


----------



## Pogo (Aug 27, 2014)

shart_attack said:


> Pogo said:
> 
> 
> > What's "plagiarized", tampon boy?  Can one plagiarize oneself?  Maybe if you're John Fogerty...
> ...



Lift a finger and break a synapse sweat to the citation itself; there's a link back to the post where it came from.  Dumbass.

Dismissed.


----------



## Rikurzhen (Aug 27, 2014)

Pogo said:


> shart_attack said:
> 
> 
> > Pogo said:
> ...



You playing dumb is not convincing anyone. I've explained your crime to you many times now, you plagiarized all of the non-translated text. Even if we give a dishonest man like you the benefit of the doubt on your claim that you translated the French text into English, that still leaves you plagiarizing all of the commentary surrounding that translated text. *That's what you stole from that Nazi website. You've been caught.*

Here's a life lesson for you - if you're going to insult people, like me, then be scrupulously clean and honest, because I'm going to return fire by looking for your weakness. If you had just been a civil person, then I would have let your plagiarism pass. You're like a whore who is raising a stink about the virtue of a virgin who just had sex with her fiance. That behavior gets people's attention.  

Go read that Nazi website, it's a word for word duplicate of what you "claim" to have written.


----------



## shart_attack (Aug 27, 2014)

Pogo said:


> What's "plagiarized", tampon boy?  Can one plagiarize oneself?  Maybe if you're John Fogerty...
> 
> I copied _my own post_ from a week ago, that's all it is.  The specific literary references have yet to be challenged, so they stand unmolested.  And revealingly they still stand undiscussed.  A troll found the same reference somewhere else and he's hung up on shiny objects.
> 
> ...





			
				a gang of things that look worse than a saturday night live writer's attempts to be funny said:
			
		

> Awwwwww, did widdle Pogo get his feewings hurt now?
> 
> Is he gonna whine now about people disliking his horribly crap-ass jokes?
> 
> ...





			
				Pogo said:
			
		

> Lift a finger and break a synapse sweat to the citation itself; there's a link back to the post where it came from.  Dumbass.
> 
> Dismissed.





			
				Rikurzhen said:
			
		

> You playing dumb is not convincing anyone. I've explained your crime to you many times now, you plagiarized all of the non-translated text. Even if we give a dishonest man like you the benefit of the doubt on your claim that you translated the French text into English, that still leaves you plagiarizing all of the commentary surrounding that translated text. *That's what you stole from that Nazi website. You've been caught.*





This may be the first time I've ever seen anyone have the right to say that our boy Pogo is "playing dumb".

That's because he really _is_ dumb, see.

All serial plagiarists are. 



			
				Rikurzhen said:
			
		

> Here's a life lesson for you - if you're going to insult people, like me, then be scrupulously clean and honest, because I'm going to return fire by looking for your weakness. If you had just been a civil person, then I would have let your plagiarism pass. You're like a whore who is raising a stink about the virtue of a virgin who just had sex with her fiance. That behavior gets people's attention.
> 
> Go read that Nazi website, it's a word for word duplicate of what you "claim" to have written.



You are like a shark.

I like that.

Bust 'im up, brutha.


----------



## alan1 (Aug 27, 2014)

Desperado said:


> Asclepias said:
> 
> 
> > Do you not know what the term Afro means?
> ...


That is actually a pretty interesting point.  It can even be taken a step further, as there is no continent called America.  There are two continents, one is North America and the other is South America, then there is that little bit of land betwixt the two called Central America.

I'm curious and don't know the answer, but do people of African (continent) descent that live in Canada, Mexico or any part of South America or Central America call themselves "African-American"?


----------



## BillyP (Aug 27, 2014)

African-American is just a PC term to denote a black person. Geez, it has nothing to do with Africa, and 99% of US blacks have never even been there and most probably couldn't find it on a map if you spotted them the a, f, r, i and c.


----------



## Rikurzhen (Aug 27, 2014)

shart_attack said:


> Pogo said:
> 
> 
> > What's "plagiarized", tampon boy?  Can one plagiarize oneself?  Maybe if you're John Fogerty...
> ...



We started off having a nice civil discussion about Mathbud's thesis on differences. Pogo came in all autistic like and was belaboring the obvious and I tried to play peacemaker and be diplomatic. I understood Mathbud's point from the get-go but like a dog with a bone, Pogo wouldn't let go of his obvious point. You see, I didn't know that he was dumb, I thought there was actually something there, some fine point or nuance that he was building up to, but that nuance never materialized. It was dawning on me that there was no there there.

His being dumb isn't really the problem though, it's his playing dumb on purpose, his constant focus on his translation and the willful decision to pretend that that's what the issue is about. I've made it very clear in a number of posts that it's all of the other text that he plagiarized from a NAZI website that is the issue but he just ignores that and continues to point to the translations and his links to old books. Can someone really be that dumb? That's why I think he's just playing dumb - better to have people think you're dumb than a liar and plagiarist.


----------



## Pogo (Aug 27, 2014)

shart_attack said:


> Pogo said:
> 
> 
> > What's "plagiarized", tampon boy?  Can one plagiarize oneself?  Maybe if you're John Fogerty...
> ...



Look dickhead... I don't know or care what troll boy thinks he came up with.  Apparently he's got a "Nazi website"?   BFD, maybe he wants a cookie.  The fact remains my citations _are_ valid, _and_ linked, *and properly attributed* -- I never claimed to have written them.  That he found somebody else using the same citation is meaningless; the _citations themselves_ were the point.

This ain't my first internet rodeo on this topic or this point; check out my extensive posts on the KKK right here on this site.  I inherited a small library on all of this from an older cousin who was also a writer.  I used to publish his work, and when he passed away I took over the space and started my own political blog.  That was ten years ago and I was writing well before that, so I have a lot of content out there.  It gets quoted sometimes.  Who cares?  I have no control of that, nor is a fucking website blurb important.

You don't "plagiarize" a fucking website blurb; you plagiarize a book, or an article, or a piece of music.  I've found both of the latter two of my work on the internets in the past, without accreditation, including website blurbs setting up a point, such as this.  Such a blurb isn't "creative writing" any more than this post is.  Not important.  But I have never written for, or even seen, a "Nazi website".  In fact I've never written anything for anybody else that didn't physically come off a printing press.  Not on political topics.

ALL of that aside, because it was never the point  ---  this is:

--- exactly HOW does the fact that some troll finds (cookie cookie) the same references on some "Nazi site"  .... somehow change the nature or validity of those references?  Are the references genuine, or are they not?  Are they attributed or are they not?  Do they make the point, or do they not?

They are, they are, and they do.  And they're linked, and fully credited, and there is no dispute.  This is the question I kept putting to this asshole the other day, a puerile poison-the-well fallacy from which he ran away rather than admit to it.  He is in effect Arnold Horshack, frantically waving his hand in the air crying "Mista Kotter! Mista Kotter! I got a Nazi website saying the same thing, that means he's a Nazi so that invalidates his points so I don't have to address them!"  His ploy was to put up a smokescreen in some kind of desperation to obscure the references I posted.  They must have been more significant than I thought.  But it's a fatal fallacy.

And you fell for it.  Your role is to stand in the corner waving pom-poms.  He at least participated in this thread before going off on this tangent.  You haven't contributed jack shit.

Both of y'all need to find yer big boy pants. The citations stand; they are valid _and_ attributed; the links work.  This trollism deflection bullshit doesn't.

"Plagiarism" my ass.  Learn your terms and grow the fuck up.


----------



## Pogo (Aug 27, 2014)

BillyP said:


> African-American is just a PC term to denote a black person. Geez, it has nothing to do with Africa, and 99% of US blacks have never even been there and most probably couldn't find it on a map if you spotted them the a, f, r, i and c.



I think it was invented as a device to get away from the previous terms that were highly charged from the emotion of the struggles that went into achieving social equality.  It's easy to look with disdain on terminology that has run its course and was fresh when invented in its time.  At that time there had been so much angst and suffering over our racial history that any term at all was destined to be loaded.

IOW "African American" offered a _dignity _that had not been available prior to that point.  It doesn't mean you're from Africa; it means your ancestors were.  Unlike Brazil (see next post), direct reference to color could overheat a conversational exchange because of that history.  "Negro" and "black", as well as a few disparaging terms, refer to color.  "African American" doesn't.


----------



## Pogo (Aug 27, 2014)

alan1 said:


> Desperado said:
> 
> 
> > Asclepias said:
> ...



Yup, that's true; there are some 28 countries in "America", yet we claim the adjective for ourselves.

I don't know about the rest of SA but in Brazil, where most of the African influx came in, it's common to refer to a person by color, e.g. "moreno/morena".  One might call one's sweetheart "nega".  It's a term of endearment rather than anything insulting, even though it refers to color. The difference is all in the historical baggage.


----------



## Rikurzhen (Aug 27, 2014)

Pogo said:


> shart_attack said:
> 
> 
> > Pogo said:
> ...



You "wrote" the following in first person:

*I find* pensée raciste (French for “racist thought”) and individualité raciste (“racist individuality”) in the volume of La Terro d’oc: revisto felibrenco e federalisto *(a periodical championing the cultural and ethnic identity of people in southern France)* for the year 1906 . . .​
The NAZI website has the very same text as well as everything else I referenced above plus more at the site. Look both you and the NAZI website even have the same parenthetical comment.

I find _pensée raciste_ (French for “racist thought”) and _individualité raciste_ (“racist individuality”) in the volume of _La Terro d’oc: revisto felibrenco e federalisto_ (*a periodical championing the cultural and ethnic identity of people in southern France)* for the year 1906.​
The links to the books aren't what I'm talking about, I'm focusing on the plagiarism. Granted, you fixed things up a bit here and there, added some links which weren't in the NAZI text.

When you wrote *"I find *pensée raciste . . " that's not actually you writing that, now is it?

The above writing CANNOT be found at your links. DID YOU WRITE THAT OR COPY IT AND PASS IT OFF AS YOUR OWN WRITING?


----------



## BillyP (Aug 28, 2014)

Pogo said:


> BillyP said:
> 
> 
> > African-American is just a PC term to denote a black person. Geez, it has nothing to do with Africa, and 99% of US blacks have never even been there and most probably couldn't find it on a map if you spotted them the a, f, r, i and c.
> ...


African-American MEANS a black American. It refers not to someone whose family originated from Africa (Hey! That's everyone in the fucking world!!! lol), but to someone in the US of colour. Answer me this: Isn't a white person BORN in Africa who comes over and gets his American citizenship an African-American? If you say yes, then you don't understand what it means, and if you say no, then you're admitting that African-American refers to someone who is black. Pretty simple really.


----------



## Pogo (Aug 28, 2014)

BillyP said:


> Pogo said:
> 
> 
> > BillyP said:
> ...



Sure it does.  I'm explaining *why *it does and why we use a term that's color-nonspecific -- because any reference to color, at the time the term "African American" was invented, was a lit fuse.

And it still is .... just look at how some idiots around here cry "racist" when color is merely _mentioned_ without any value judgment.  That's a perfect illustration of why it was invented at the time in the first place.  That issue hasn't yet left the social structure; it's still hanging on.

Does "African American" function perfectly in a literal sense?  No.  It's a circumlocution designed to sidestep the controversy attached to direct mention of color, which still carries its latent subconscious definitions of inferiority.



> someone whose family originated from Africa (Hey! That's everyone in the fucking world!!! lol)



That's true, in a long term sense, but you're taking it too literally.  Has to be seen in context, the point being to allude to origins without touching on color.  If you have another way to do that, bring it on.


----------



## BillyP (Aug 28, 2014)

Pogo said:


> BillyP said:
> 
> 
> > Pogo said:
> ...


Black people is the best term. I don't go all fucking apeshit because someone calls me a white guy, you know why? Because I FUCKING AM!!! lol! Caucasian works too. But I know negroid doesn't work for blacks, so it's blacks. Anyways, me calling them black (with no malice intended at all) is way nicer than them calling each other nigga.


----------



## Pogo (Aug 28, 2014)

BillyP said:


> Pogo said:
> 
> 
> > BillyP said:
> ...



Then you're ignoring the context of experience and infusing an egocentrism i.e. assuming your experience is everyone's experience.

Words and terms don't exist in free space on their own.  They have histories.  And calling up a word heavily charged with one conjures that history.

If words DO exist without context, then you have no complaint about "African American".  Can't have it both ways; either they have context, or they do not.

Examples:
"bitch"
"c**t"
"Dago"/"Wop"
"Gook"

-- you get the idea.  Note that even this site itself won't print the second one.


----------



## BillyP (Aug 28, 2014)

Pogo said:


> BillyP said:
> 
> 
> > Pogo said:
> ...


Sorry but black isn't on the same level as wop or dago. When I talk among friends, nobody ever says African-American. Ever. They all say black. And no, it's not a Stormfront get together, lol.


----------



## Pogo (Aug 28, 2014)

BillyP said:


> Pogo said:
> 
> 
> > BillyP said:
> ...



Isn't it?
How many of these friends are black?

Would you address, say, your female co-worker as "hey c**t"?   If not -- why not?  Just a word, right?


----------



## House (Aug 29, 2014)

Pogo said:


> Would you address, say, your female co-worker as "hey c**t"?   If not -- why not?  Just a word, right?



If she's a ****, I will.

Are you saying the very color black is derogatory in nature?  That's the root of bigotry, right there.  True acceptance of a person means the color of their skin is irrelevant to their character and/or worth, not that it doesn't exist.

Unless a motherfucker is from Africa, he/she ain't African-ANYTHING.


----------



## Mac1958 (Aug 29, 2014)

House said:


> Pogo said:
> 
> 
> > Would you address, say, your female co-worker as "hey c**t"?   If not -- why not?  Just a word, right?
> ...



The first thing a member of the PC Police notices is the color of a person's skin.  

All of their subsequent behavior relating to that person is predicated on that determination.

Character is irrelevant.

.


----------



## BillyP (Aug 29, 2014)

Pogo said:


> BillyP said:
> 
> 
> > Pogo said:
> ...


I'm living in Canada right now, we have no AAs here, nor do we have such a thing as African-Canadian, they're simply called black people.


----------



## Pogo (Aug 29, 2014)

House said:


> Pogo said:
> 
> 
> > Would you address, say, your female co-worker as "hey c**t"?   If not -- why not?  Just a word, right?
> ...



Yeah I know _you _will.... 

You might want to read the context; that question doesn't spawn from a vacuum.  The context (that's why we have nesting ) is the emotional baggage that words carry (which you've already acknowledged above with the conditional "_if_").  And that came out of Billy's questioning of the function of the term "African American".  Can't just dive in in midstream here; all of that's already addressed.

This is like doing a radio show, listing back all my segues...


----------



## Pogo (Aug 29, 2014)

Mac1958 said:


> House said:
> 
> 
> > Pogo said:
> ...




It doesn't have anything to do with color or character.  It has to do with _empathy_.


----------



## Mac1958 (Aug 29, 2014)

Pogo said:


> Mac1958 said:
> 
> 
> > House said:
> ...



Well, that's very sweet and all, but I'd rather see you folks stop "caring" about American blacks quite so much, because your version of "caring" has caused them generations of damage, and they deserve much better.

.


----------



## Pogo (Aug 29, 2014)

Mac1958 said:


> Pogo said:
> 
> 
> > Mac1958 said:
> ...




"You folks"?  Who might that be?
And what do we mean by "your version of caring?  The point here is etymology.  What's your alternative to the question of the term's derivation?

Does this tangent, wherever it's going, mean you concede the actual point then?


----------



## Mac1958 (Aug 29, 2014)

Pogo said:


> Mac1958 said:
> 
> 
> > Pogo said:
> ...




"You folks" - Primarily the American Left.  The PC Police.  Liberals who are animated by their emotions.

"Your version of caring" - Isolating American blacks from rest of American society by lowering standards for them, making excuses for them, calling anyone who dares to criticize them "racists", and refusing to hold them accountable for pretty much anything.

Do I concede the actual point?  Yes, I do.  All you care about is "empathy", and you're not thinking about the ramifications of your actions (as long as you maintain political advantage).  I'm more concerned with seeing them improve their quality of life, crazy me, you're more concerned with "caring" and keeping them steeped in victimhood.

Easiest questions I'll get all day.

Anything else?

.


----------



## Pogo (Aug 29, 2014)

BillyP said:


> Pogo said:
> 
> 
> > BillyP said:
> ...



Nor did Canada have anything resembling the racism/slavery/civil rights history the US had.
That's the entire *point* here.

Where are you in Canada?

Btw when a nest starts to get this big it's time to do the responsible thing and start pruning it back.  If you don't do that, nobody's gonna read your post.  I did it this time.


----------



## Pogo (Aug 29, 2014)

Mac1958 said:


> Pogo said:
> 
> 
> > Mac1958 said:
> ...



You're *completely *off the topic.  This is why I just mentioned context.  This discussion is about the etymology of the term "African American".

But feel free, as long as you're spewing blanket generalizations and have conceded that point, where I've posted anything of "you folks"'s agenda.  Show me where I've "called anyone who dares to criticize them 'racists'" or where I've "refused to hold them accountable" or where I've "lowered standards".  Bring it on, right here.

Long as your intent on derailing the train you might as well pick a destination, right?


----------



## Mac1958 (Aug 29, 2014)

Pogo said:


> You're *completely *off the topic.  This is why I just mentioned context.  This discussion is about the etymology of the term "African American".
> 
> But feel free, as long as you're spewing blanket generalizations and have conceded that point, where I've posted anything of "you folks"'s agenda.  Show me where I've "called anyone who dares to criticize them 'racists'" or where I've "refused to hold them accountable" or where I've "lowered standards".  Bring it on, right here.
> 
> Long as your intent on derailing the train you might as well pick a destination, right?




Uh, YOU responded to MY post, and then you complain that I responded to your response.

Sure, okay.

I'm tempted to provide any number examples of my points, but why bother?  If you truly can't come up with any examples of lowered standards, of people critical of a black person being called a racist, or of liberals not holding blacks accountable, you're so deep into your ideological cocoon that no amount of proof would matter.

You could even Google it.  But you will not.

.


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## House (Aug 29, 2014)

Pogo said:


> If words DO exist without context, then you have no complaint about "African American".  Can't have it both ways; either they have context, or they do not.



"African-American" *is not an accurate description of black people.*  99% of black people in the US have no more connection to Africa than I do.  Oh and besides that, there are white people in Africa too, so there's a ton of reasons the word is just PC bullshit.

"Black" is an accurate description - well, unless you want to split hairs and make the argument that black people are brown.  Still a hell of a lot more accurate than African-American.

So no, there doesn't need to be context to object to the ridiculous term, "African-American".

Frankly, when some pretentious prick says "African-American", I hear, "jungle bunny".  When people say, "black (man, woman, person, etc)", I think Tyrese, Lawanda, Sam, Paulette, Edward, Lamonte, etc.


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## House (Aug 29, 2014)

Pogo said:


> Nor did Canada have anything resembling the racism/slavery/civil rights history the US had.
> That's the entire *point* here.



Your point is pointless, as "black" was not a term used during that era.  Do I need to list the ones that were? 

If you're offended by the word black,  you really don't want to say yes to my question.


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## Pogo (Aug 29, 2014)

Mac1958 said:


> Pogo said:
> 
> 
> > You're *completely *off the topic.  This is why I just mentioned context.  This discussion is about the etymology of the term "African American".
> ...




I don't need to Google myself; I already _know _what I've posted.  What I'm asking is --- do you?
Apparently not, yet you're all ready to board me on your crazy train.  

You won't "bother" to cite these examples because you don't have any.  Because you fucked up.  But you won't admit it.  Right?  So --- deflection denied.

I used to Google myself.  I had to quit when it gave me hairy palms.  But it's interesting when you find your own works being used by people out there you never heard of.


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## House (Aug 29, 2014)

"Persons of color" is getting pretty popular among the PC crowd, and that term is a hell of a lot closer to a segregation-era term ("colored / colored people") than "black people" ever was.


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## Mac1958 (Aug 29, 2014)

Pogo said:


> Mac1958 said:
> 
> 
> > Pogo said:
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Wow, you've really got me here.

As an intellectually honest, open-minded, curious individual, you've never seen examples of the PC Police lowering standards for blacks, calling people who are critical of blacks racist, or not holding blacks accountable.

That's really quite amazing, maybe none of that happens, huh?  Because I'm sure a left-winger like you would jump right up and admit it if it were true.

And no, I'm not going to wade through your post history to find examples, sorry.  

One of the standard techniques of partisan ideologues is denial, and that's why it's not worth the effort.

.


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## Pogo (Aug 29, 2014)

House said:


> Pogo said:
> 
> 
> > If words DO exist without context, then you have no complaint about "African American".  Can't have it both ways; either they have context, or they do not.
> ...



"Accuracy" has never the point; if you'll read my context you'll see the entire reasoning was to _avoid_ that direct accuracy.  "Accuracy" is not the one and only function of words; their meanings, especially terms of social class, are deeper than what can fit in a dictionary entry .  If technical accuracy were the only point, we would have no need to speak or use body language or intonation.  So your premise is inoperative in this.  You're looking entirely left-brain.  That's how you miss context.

I can't even address the last paragraph -- don't know what it means.  P


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## Pogo (Aug 29, 2014)

Mac1958 said:


> Pogo said:
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> > Mac1958 said:
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Mac1958 said:


> Pogo said:
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*You posted* -- and I quote:


Mac1958 said:


> Well, that's very sweet and all, but I'd rather see *you folks *stop "caring" about American blacks quite so much, because *your version of "caring" *has caused them generations of damage, and they deserve much better.



-- which now you're trying to run away from by expanding to "PC Police" and "the left" to evade your faux pas.  And now you're whining about how you're "not going to wade through my posts to find examples" -- because you can't defend it.  It's "not worth the effort" because you dug yourself into a hole, can't get out of it, and now all you can do is fling ad hominem poo.

Thaks for playin'.  Give it some thought next time.


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## Pogo (Aug 29, 2014)

House said:


> "Persons of color" is getting pretty popular among the PC crowd, and that term is a hell of a lot closer to a segregation-era term ("colored / colored people") than "black people" ever was.



I've always found that one even clumsier.  We're all persons of color.  If we didn't have color we'd be transparent.


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## House (Aug 29, 2014)

Pogo said:


> House said:
> 
> 
> > Pogo said:
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Precisely the problem!

Libtard logic: "Better to call somebody something that isn't even vaguely descriptive of who they are, thereby creating a lie about them in order to create a false sense of offensiveness for previously used terms which are actually descriptive of them."

Let's apply your PC logic to you, Pogo.

You are no longer a man.  Men are brutish boors.  You are now a gecko. Geckos are cute and make wonderful car insurance commercials.  You must now get offended when someone refers to your gender, as you no longer identify with your masculinity.

MAKES COMPLETE SENSE!


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## Mac1958 (Aug 29, 2014)

Pogo said:


> Thaks for playin'.  Give it some thought next time.



You've successfully deflected to a place miles away from my original point, the damage being done to American blacks.  

Miles.

Standard operating procedure for, "you folks".

"Playin'", indeed.

.


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## Pogo (Aug 29, 2014)

House said:


> Pogo said:
> 
> 
> > Nor did Canada have anything resembling the racism/slavery/civil rights history the US had.
> ...



Nothing in this thread is about what *I'm* offended about; my emotions are irrelevant and not a participant here.  The question raised was the origin and function of the term "African American".  I don't need to be invested in that _personally_ to analyze a simple etymology.  Do you get that?  Because you're the one getting emotional and tossing value judgments.  Mac already loaded me on a leftist crazy train.  You people gotta come down to earth.  

"Black" was a term used, maybe not as much, and I'm already familiar with the others so no we don't need to list them.  We all know _negro_ is the Spanish and Portuguese (neutral) word for the color black; _gato negro_ means "black cat", a simple statement of fact, words uncharged.  In the context of a cat owner who lives in Argentina, there's no historical background context with which to charge it..  Then we also know what the American English corruption _******_ represents, which is far more complex.  To pretend that context does not exist is just not honest.

{edit here:  note that like the word "****", the word "******" --which I typed -- will not show up here.  So the site owners and software designers are themselves aware that words have context)

Summa y'all can't have a simple disinterested discussion about etymologies and how social class histories affect them without going all soap opera.


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## House (Aug 29, 2014)

Duck Dodger to the rescue!


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## Pogo (Aug 29, 2014)

Mac1958 said:


> Pogo said:
> 
> 
> > Thaks for playin'.  Give it some thought next time.
> ...



You didn't have a point.  You jumped on mine and tried to hijack it using a blanket generalization.
Let me make it even simpler:
Don't do that.


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## Mac1958 (Aug 29, 2014)

Pogo said:


> Mac1958 said:
> 
> 
> > Pogo said:
> ...




I don't really know what you're talking about, but I realize you don't want to defend the "caring" and the "empathy" you're inflicting on blacks, so we can drop it.

.


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## Pogo (Aug 29, 2014)

House said:


> Pogo said:
> 
> 
> > House said:
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See what I mean?  "Libtard"?
Are you unable to engage in simple analysis without the personal soap opera?  Is that where you live?
As long as one party can't keep his head on straight, no discussion can progress.


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## House (Aug 29, 2014)

Pogo said:


> House said:
> 
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> > Pogo said:
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Are you done ducking my points and justifying my terms?


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## Pogo (Aug 29, 2014)

Mac1958 said:


> Pogo said:
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What you can drop is your blanket generalization fallacies, even if you can't own up to committing them.  You just did it again -- bolded above.

All of this was about_ how the term works_ ---- not about how anyone "feels" about it, let alone fantasies of what "you folks are doing" out in some fantasy.  This is about the _past_, not the present.


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## chikenwing (Aug 29, 2014)

Delta4Embassy said:


> Do terms like African-American, Asian-American, Muslim-American, etc. contribute to racism? I believe they do. Rather than making people out to be something other than a regular ol' "American" hyphenated forms seem to highlight how they're somehow different. Only time you should hyphenate yourself is if you have dual citizenship. But unless an African-American is also a citizen of an African country, or is a naturalized American citizen born elsewhere, just say you're "American." All well and good to be proud of your ancestry, but there are other ways to do that.




If we stopped putting people into different categories,counting head s and skin color,and just called everyone Americans,we would be way better off.


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## House (Aug 29, 2014)

chikenwing said:


> Delta4Embassy said:
> 
> 
> > Do terms like African-American, Asian-American, Muslim-American, etc. contribute to racism? I believe they do. Rather than making people out to be something other than a regular ol' "American" hyphenated forms seem to highlight how they're somehow different. Only time you should hyphenate yourself is if you have dual citizenship. But unless an African-American is also a citizen of an African country, or is a naturalized American citizen born elsewhere, just say you're "American." All well and good to be proud of your ancestry, but there are other ways to do that.
> ...



Gotta have obtuse labels in order to dictate what a person thinks about someone, brudder man!


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## Pogo (Aug 29, 2014)

House said:


> Are you done ducking my points and justifying my terms?



I  have "ducked" no points.   You're not listening.





By analogy -- one of us (A) is talking about the mechanism and design behind how an Uzi works, while the other (B) wants to babble about how evil killing is. 

B would be you.


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## Pogo (Aug 29, 2014)

chikenwing said:


> Delta4Embassy said:
> 
> 
> > Do terms like African-American, Asian-American, Muslim-American, etc. contribute to racism? I believe they do. Rather than making people out to be something other than a regular ol' "American" hyphenated forms seem to highlight how they're somehow different. Only time you should hyphenate yourself is if you have dual citizenship. But unless an African-American is also a citizen of an African country, or is a naturalized American citizen born elsewhere, just say you're "American." All well and good to be proud of your ancestry, but there are other ways to do that.
> ...



Maybe that's what Mathbud was trying to get at, I dunno.  But I agree with the way it's put here- that's why I've never checked a survey or census form that asks for "race".


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## Pogo (Aug 29, 2014)

House said:


> Duck Dodger to the rescue!



Thanks for coming out.


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## House (Aug 29, 2014)

Pogo said:


> House said:
> 
> 
> > Are you done ducking my points and justifying my terms?
> ...



Nice try, but you're still obviously oblivious.

Unfortunately for you, I'm not.  Any proclaimed "mechanism" is thinly veiled rationalization for using an unnecessary fabrication.  

Here, let me break it down for you in terms you can understand...



> Allow me to play doubles advocate here for a moment. For all intensive purposes I think you are wrong. In an age where false morals are a diamond dozen, true virtues are a blessing in the skies. We often put our false morality on a petal stool like a bunch of pre-Madonnas, but you seem to be taking something very valuable for granite. So I ask of you to mustard up all the strength you can because it is a doggy dog world out there. Although there is some merit to what you are saying it seems like you have a huge ship on your shoulder. In your argument you seem to throw everything in but the kids Nsync, and even though you are having a feel day with this I am here to bring you back into realty. I have a sick sense when it comes to these types of things. It is almost spooky, because I cannot turn a blonde eye to these glaring flaws in your rhetoric. I have zero taller ants when it comes to people spouting out hate in the name of moral righteousness. You just need to remember what comes around is all around, and when supply and command fails you will be the first to go.
> 
> Make my words, when you get down to brass stacks it doesn't take rocket surgery to get two birds stoned at once. It's clear who makes the pants in this relationship, and sometimes you just have to swallow your prize and accept the facts. You might have to come to this conclusion through denial and error but I swear on my mother's mating name that when you put the petal to the medal you will pass with flying carpets like it’s a piece of pie.



_(Stolen from Facebook with a couple corrections made)_


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## House (Aug 29, 2014)

Pogo said:


> House said:
> 
> 
> > Duck Dodger to the rescue!
> ...



Oh look, a PeeWee Herman response.  That wasn't _at all_ predictable!


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## Pogo (Aug 29, 2014)

House said:


> Pogo said:
> 
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> > House said:
> ...



Hey, if you don't want snarkback, don't post snark.


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## Pogo (Aug 29, 2014)

House said:


> Pogo said:
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> > House said:
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I love it.  

Look dood, if you think you're gonna get on my good side by posting a bunch of cheap puns, you're absolutely right.


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## House (Aug 29, 2014)

Pogo said:


> House said:
> 
> 
> > Pogo said:
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Variants of "I know you are, but what am I" don't qualify as snark, as the original source of such remarks is 20 years old.


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## House (Aug 29, 2014)

Pogo said:


> House said:
> 
> 
> > Pogo said:
> ...



I don't know the guy that wrote that (he posted it on a friend's timeline), but after reading his comment I strongly considered friending him just to hunt down similar content from him.


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## Pogo (Aug 29, 2014)

House said:


> Pogo said:
> 
> 
> > House said:
> ...



More etymology then-- 
Pee Wee didn't invent that term.  His whole schtick in using it was that it was _already _trite.

And that wasn't the snark; that was the snarkback.  The snark was your'n.  For every reaction haveth an equal and opposite reaction.  When I'm involved some reactions are more equal than others.


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## House (Aug 29, 2014)

Pogo said:


> For every reaction haveth an equal and opposite reaction.



Witty remark followed by a dumbass retort.  Equally opposite, alright.

You certainly called that one.  Kudos!


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## Pogo (Aug 29, 2014)

House said:


> Pogo said:
> 
> 
> > I love it.
> ...



Ah, you don't need to; I put that out for free here on a daily bay, sis.

See, this is where you should go check out Pogo (the comic strip).  It wood give you addle east wan insight to where I come up wit it.


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## Rikurzhen (Aug 29, 2014)

Pogo said:


> House said:
> 
> 
> > Are you done ducking my points and justifying my terms?
> ...



Your entire posting persona is to duck points. Look at how you're still ducking the plagiarism point - you won't tell anyone which website you plagiarized.


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## Huey (Sep 7, 2014)

He'll be like you running around impersonating "yellow americans".


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## Pogo (Sep 7, 2014)

Rikurzhen said:


> Pogo said:
> 
> 
> > House said:
> ...



One can't tell what does not exist.  

Oh by the way I fluoridated your water too.

Wackjob.


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## BillyP (Sep 7, 2014)

Hyphenated Americans are fake Americans.


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## Unkotare (Sep 7, 2014)

All this hand-wringing over "hyphenated Americans" just plays into the hands of the leftists behind the curtain.


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## House (Sep 7, 2014)

Unkotare said:


> All this hand-wringing over "hyphenated Americans" just plays into the hands of the leftists behind the curtain.



I don't know, I'm starting to like being an Irish-German-English-Polish-Spanish-African-American.


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