Slight differences
 

We are all human beings with slight differences.

Be those differences skin color, sexuality, gender, or political leanings.

Why do we feel a need to divide ourselves into smaller and smaller groups?

Whoa dude. If this is about the other thread, that's a thread for people of colour to discuss the racially based attitudes that still definitely do affect them.

It'd be great if white folk didn't charge in there and derail.

Do you see any problem with your above statement?

Do you?

Spooky word count

The automatic assumption of my skin color.

Touche. I'm sorry about that, I didn't even take time to think about that. But, your original post is very discerning. It's over simplified and washes out the fact that different people are affected by many different things. Equality doesn't exist, no matter how much we really want it to.

Equality does exist. Getting there in a positive way is another matter.

The reason I say Equality in a positive way instead of leaving things vague at just "Equality" is because like everything else there exists two extremes.

Negative Equality= Digging a large grave for everyone to be piled into.

Positive Equality= Planning out and building a home for everyone to live in.

Both take a long period of time to accomplish, but only one is a worthwhile venture.

I kinda want you to try to explain your ideas a bit better.

On the other hand.

I kind of just want to write you off as incredibly and optimistically moronic.

Do as you please.

I was waiting for that. I was gearing up to apologise in case I guessed wrong - but in my experience it tends to be white people who breezily dismiss racism and frame its discussion as divisive.

Explain to me then how racism is not divisive.

Also I never made any such claim that racism does not exist (clearly it does as per your reply), I simply made the statement that we are all human beings given those differences.

Racism is divisive. PoC talking about how they're affected by racism isn't.

If I've got my wires crossed and your problem is with racism itself, I'll call off my dogs. But 'not seeing colour' actually isn't as helpful an approach as you'd think.

My problem is indeed with racism, even more so as it relates to your initial assumption of my race when it was never stated, nor was brought up as the main thrust of my opening statement.

How is a conversation solely about skin color the answer?

What is worse to only see someone as a skin color or to see them as an individual?

This is what I have said in the other threads. In context with the threads in question, what is the problem with my statements?

"To me the whole issue of race should be a moot point. We're all human beings no matter where our ancestors came from or with whom they fucked."

"Something I've noticed.

The most racist among us seek to make race an issue no matter what."

That's the thing... with certain skin colours comes a different set of experiences, and you are not speaking like someone who has had those experiences. Racism is fucked, but to just sweep it under the rug with 'colour blindness' and derail the discussion that PoC are having is not the answer.

Ok, I'm just going to step out and let others argue this. There are members on here that have got a better understanding and vocabulary than I do, especially on this subject, and I don't want to speak for people.

I hope you understand that I was not sweeping any singular individual experience under the rug by the statements I made. I am very sure that if my statements did such those involved in the conversations would have come forward and voiced their disagreements with what I said as well as the reason for their disagreements.


If the people agree or disagree with my statements, that remains to be seen. They are more than welcome to voice either of such sentiments as they choose.

Sorry guys Versus had to go to lunch as soon as he saw this and asked I post in his place.

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mbamoaJr1N1qcjqew.gif


But seriously I smell a troll.

What do you mean by that?

What I mean by that is that you're not welcome to the conversation in my thread if you don't have any experience with the topic of it.

You did sweep our experiences under the rug. You marginalized them by specifically saying that they're moot. They are not. They're very tangible and they make our lives distinctly different from people who don't share them. I didn't say anything because I'm already exhausted from saying a lot of things - It's Black History Month - and I already have my plate full of dealing with this shit without the internet.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GxyqskhXtk...U/s1600/02.gif

But race is an issue. Just look at the Martin/Zimmerman trial as an example. While Zimmerman's like myself with a White name but clearly Hispanic, did you notice how fast they tried to make him seem like he was white? Had it been a white kid Zimmerman shot, they would have crucified his ass and called him a Hispanic.

The fact is, people will always look at it in a racial context, no matter how far we think we've come in combating racism. The people of European ancestry where I live still make racist terms, they just try to do it in a more subtle way as opposed to fifty years ago than calling Mexicans "Be@ners" and African Americans "N!ggers."

Thinking this is a moot point is ignoring the problem in the first place.

Please read the quote in question again.

I did not say that race IS a moot point, I said it SHOULD be a moot point.

I would like for you to do the same as the poster above you in reading the quote again as it was typed out.

I think that I read it right the first time. Unless you're being cute and have some mind blowing revelation that's inconsistent with everything else you've said about this.

Oh, you mean "should" then I shall restate my opinion regarding "should" vs. "is" then. Trying to ignore racism isn't going to combat it since it's still very much alive and well in the U.S. and around the world. That's like saying, "I don't understand why we should bring up poverty, because I think that's a moot point" when it clearly isn't.