Racism

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mōdgethanc
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Re: Racism

Postby mōdgethanc » 2016-07-14, 3:21

vijayjohn wrote:I'm not sure how useful this comment is going to be at this point, but I just wanted to say something about this anyway (I've actually been meaning to for a while and figure I might as well now since this is part of the post that Marah just quoted today; I just never got around to it until now. I must've forgotten). The way I understand the definition of racism as institutionalized discrimination, the idea is that yes, it is theoretically possible under this definition for a POC to be racist against a white person (that's Aamer Rahman's point in the video linguoboy posted), but the whole point of saying that we can't be racist (whereas white people can be) is that the practical reality on the ground today is the opposite.
In our culture, yes. Is that true in every culture? Can Koreans be racist against me if I'm in Korea? Or is Mighty Whitey still on top even in a culture in which he is a tiny minority?
Caveats, though: I'm still not sure whether this is universally applicable per se (I mentioned Anglo-Indians and such earlier as an example of why it might not be). Also, white people are not the only people in the world who are guilty of colonialism or anything like that; heck, South Indians colonized parts of Southeast Asia, too. It seems hard to assess how much damage we inflicted as a result, though, because it was like a thousand years ago or something, so who knows? I think that in turn makes it difficult to talk about things like colonial reparations in that context.
Yes, but European colonialism started 500 years ago and we still talk about reparations for it. Or do you mean that South Indian colonialism ended that long ago?
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Re: Racism

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-07-14, 3:48

mōdgethanc wrote:In our culture, yes. Is that true in every culture? Can Koreans be racist against me if I'm in Korea? Or is Mighty Whitey still on top even in a culture in which he is a tiny minority?

Well, South Korea does exist in part because of the US, but like I said, I'm not sure about universal applicability. *shrug*
Yes, but European colonialism started 500 years ago and we still talk about reparations for it. Or do you mean that South Indian colonialism ended that long ago?

Oh, that's a good question. I think it did, roughly speaking. Let's see, the Chola dynasty invaded the Srivijayan (heh!) Empire (in what is now Malaysia) in 1025...then continued raids on parts of Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula for the next 20 years. But then that seems to have just resulted in the formation of new indigenous kingdoms in that region, rather than a South Indian colonial power taking control for long. Hmm.

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Re: Racism

Postby mōdgethanc » 2016-07-14, 4:02

I laughed at "Chola" myself.
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Re: Racism

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-07-14, 4:11

Even in Malayalam, it sounds like the word for 'corn'! (EDIT: Only if you assume that the <l> represents a lateral, though. The fact that it's spelled with an <l> is like how Tamil is spelled with an <l>; the sound both words really have is supposed to represent [ɻ], although that's also changed to [ɭ] for a lot of Tamil speakers and is perhaps a relatively recent development).

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Re: Racism

Postby mōdgethanc » 2016-07-14, 5:06

Must be why I see all these weird spellings for Tamil like "Thamir" and "Tamizh".
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Re: Racism

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-07-14, 5:07

mōdgethanc wrote:Must be why I see all these weird spellings for Tamil like "Thamir" and "Tamizh".

Yep. (<Thamir>, really? I've never seen that one before!)

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Re: Racism

Postby mōdgethanc » 2016-07-14, 14:24

vijayjohn wrote:Yep. (<Thamir>, really? I've never seen that one before!)
I think the <th> is an ad hoc way of writing the dental stop (the <h> doesn't mean it's aspirated, just not the same as <t>). Do you have any idea where the <zh> in the romanization of Dravidian languages comes from, by the way?
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Re: Racism

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-07-14, 14:43

mōdgethanc wrote:I think the <th> is an ad hoc way of writing the dental stop (the <h> doesn't mean it's aspirated, just not the same as <t>).

Yes, it is. I've never seen <r> being used to transcribe that sound in an Indian context, though.
Do you have any idea where the <zh> in the romanization of Dravidian languages comes from, by the way?

Not really, although it kind of makes sense when you consider things like how <zh> is used for Russian [ʐ] and the fact that that's not hugely different from [ɻ]. It's honestly not even any Dravidian languages other than Malayalam and Tamil that have that sound in the first place, but I don't think that sound is considered a rhotic in the context of either language (or that it necessarily makes sense to consider it as such in that context).

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Re: Racism

Postby mōdgethanc » 2016-07-14, 14:48

vijayjohn wrote:Not really, although it kind of makes sense when you consider things like how <zh> is used for Russian [ʐ] and the fact that that's not hugely different from [ɻ]. It's honestly not even any Dravidian languages other than Malayalam and Tamil that have that sound in the first place, but I don't think that sound is considered a rhotic in the context of either language (or that it necessarily makes sense to consider it as such in that context).
I noticed when listening to some Tamil that it doesn't really sound rhotic (and forget trying to define what make a rhotic sound like it does; we had a thread about that years ago with no consensus). I just find it interesting because most people would read <zh> as some sort of /z/-like sound, which it isn't even close to.
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Re: Racism

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-07-14, 15:02

mōdgethanc wrote:I noticed when listening to some Tamil that it doesn't really sound rhotic

I feel it's getting increasingly hard to find anything where it doesn't sound like some sort of lateral. That pronunciation seems to be really popular among Tamil-speakers by now (I definitely remember BBC Tamil uses a retroflex lateral for that sound whoops, apparently not. Maybe it's changed over the years). Malayalam-speakers are much more likely to keep those sounds distinct, though.

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Re: Racism

Postby linguoboy » 2016-07-14, 15:47

mōdgethanc wrote:In our culture, yes. Is that true in every culture? Can Koreans be racist against me if I'm in Korea? Or is Mighty Whitey still on top even in a culture in which he is a tiny minority?

Maybe General Vincent K. Brooks, Commander of United States Forces Korea with 28,500 active service personnel under his command, could answer that question from his office in Yongsan Garrison in Seoul.
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Re: Racism

Postby mōdgethanc » 2016-07-14, 16:05

28 500 USAmericans in a country of 50 million SKoreans. Yep, white people dominate everywhere.
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Re: Racism

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-07-14, 16:11

Well, those 28,500 Americans are all soldiers, though. Doesn't that count for anything? EDIT: I mean, I think it's pretty clear that South Korea would be fucked if it seriously opposed the US or something.

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Re: Racism

Postby linguoboy » 2016-07-14, 16:18

mōdgethanc wrote:28 500 USAmericans in a country of 50 million SKoreans. Yep, white people dominate everywhere.

Because there's no difference between a member of an armed occupying force and a common civilian. Nope, none at all.

I guess India was never colonised then since the number of British military personnel there was proportionally far less.
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Re: Racism

Postby linguoboy » 2016-07-15, 15:47

Yasna wrote:Surprising New Evidence Shows Bias in Police Use of Force but Not in Shootings

I usually find myself on the more conservative side of this debate, but even I was expecting they would find at least some racial bias in police shootings. It's such an unexpected finding that I think we need another group to reproduce it. Unfortunately the NRA blocks federal funding of research on guns so we might be waiting a while...

https://medium.com/@samswey/stop-using-that-one-study-to-pretend-racism-doesnt-exist-in-police-shootings-17a9e47a7117#.x3n5lntor

tl;dr: It's one study that hasn't been peer-reviewed using data from one city (Houston). Moreover, the methodology is suspect because the selection was based on what crimes the suspect were charged with. But other studies show that (a) Black subjects are often overcharged for the same crimes and (b) police frequently lie about a suspect's actions in order to protect themselves from charges of misconduct.
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Re: Racism

Postby Yasna » 2016-07-21, 2:12

http://wsvn.com/news/local/video-shows-moments-before-north-miami-police-shot-unarmed-man/

Incredible. So incredible I don't think I would believe it if there wasn't this video.
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Re: Racism

Postby linguoboy » 2016-07-21, 2:21

Unfortunately I have no trouble believing it without even having to watch the video. But then, I live in a city that has paid out half a billion dollars over the last 12 years to settle police misconduct lawsuits.
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Re: Racism

Postby Varislintu » 2016-07-21, 8:56

Yasna wrote:http://wsvn.com/news/local/video-shows-moments-before-north-miami-police-shot-unarmed-man/

Incredible. So incredible I don't think I would believe it if there wasn't this video.


"I asked the officer why he shot me, and he said "I don't know"."

I can almost believe that. This type of American police officer comes across as having zero training, zero common sense, zero natural aptitude for the type of job he is in, zero awareness of his own cultural baggage, and zero ability to take in or learn anything from the years and years of criticism targeted at the police force about this exact problem.

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Re: Racism

Postby razlem » 2016-07-21, 9:37

And the officer is just gonna be on paid leave until the spotlight moves away to the next tragedy. There will be no trial and no justice.

And I have people on Facebook saying that "If you just comply, you won't get hurt!" :headbang:
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Re: Racism

Postby Yasna » 2016-08-14, 15:47

There Are No Successful Black Nations

"Early African-American intellectuals and cultural elites saw that the future of their race could not be advanced by endless protests or marches of “equality” or “justice.” It could only be done through the restoration of the trampled dignity of the black man. Great men like Marcus Garvey, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Malcolm X all knew that a people is only respected when it has a nation worthy of respect."

"Everywhere from Ukraine to India, nearly every day, black indignity, black helplessness, stares us in the face. And all we do, we who hold the platform can do, is scream “racism!” and court the sympathy of others."

"The Yoruba say, “Eniyan bi aparo ni omo araye n’fe,” meaning the world loves a person who is like a partridge. The partridge is a poor bird that, enfeebled by its creation, has little ability to hunt, gather, protect, or feed itself. The Yoruba believe that the world loves these birds because they provide the space for people to show both sincere and insincere sympathy while holding firm to their position as the superior and maintaining the place of the partridge as the weak. Which is to say that if the partridge relies on the sympathy of others, it will not elevate its position."
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