Moderator:Forum Administrators
mōdgethanc wrote:Even my own mother, a bleeding-heart liberal, trolled my brothers about selling us to the Gypsies if we didn't behave. My own hypothesis about why the Roma get it so bad compared to other groups in Western culture is because they are one of the most deviant in their lifestyle. They don't conform to European norms, and get judged as depraved for it.
Babbsagg wrote:Awareness is a big problem I think. Discrimination against and persecution of other groups like Jews, African-Americans or homosexuals has at some point or other received more attention in society, be it from the victims standing up, others standing up for them, press, education etc., leading to a slow change in thinking and acting. But Gypsies? Few care, few talk about it, few stand up, and so discrimination and prejudice can just live on forever mostly unchallenged. Few even want to know, people are just glad if the "dirty/begging/stealing lowlifes" are moved somewhere far away.
linguoboy wrote:Prowler wrote:Back in the 80s/90s there wasn't much Islamophobia in Europe either.
Um...there was, it just wasn't so visible. Don't mistake a lack of visible racism for a lack of racist thoughts and feelings.
Yes, there is a well-studied effect by which negative reactions increase once a "foreign" population exceeds a certain threshold (generally about 10-15%). But that doesn't mean that negative attitudes weren't already present in the population. To suggest otherwise amounts to a sort of victim-blaming, as if there wouldn't be any problems with bigotry of the minority population just laid low and didn't draw attention to itself. But often the reason why these populations clump together is because there exists so much casual hostility within society.
The term "Islamophobia" is over a century old. Negative European views of Islam are a millennium older than that. If you didn't live through the massacres, hijackings, and bombings of the 70s and 80s (do the names "Black September", "Abu Nidal", and "Achille Lauro" mean anything to you?), you may not realise how far back the stereotype of the murderous Arab terrorist goes. It's been around my entire life.
Caroline Criado Perez wrote:Of the 253 statues of women, 71 were of women who actually existed. The vast majority of those were of royal women (with the vast majority of those being of Queen Victoria, whose love of erecting statues of herself I have a grudging respect for).
Only 25 female statues (remember, out of a total of 925) were of non-royal, historical women. The corresponding figure for men was 498. There were almost twice the number of statues of men called John (43), as there were of non-royal historical women.
rektlinguoboy wrote:To get back on topic, I don't imagine many people outside the US have heard about the controversy around the Fearless Girl statue on Wall Street. This commentary by Caroline Criado Perez pretty well sums up my take on the topic
Prowler wrote:Weren't we more concerned about all of those far-right and far-left groups committing terror acts back in the 70s-80s?
Prowler wrote:I mean, ofc the whole "Muslims are terrorists" thing didn't just come up overnight, but 9/11 seems to have been the turning point to where people stopped looking at Islam with the same eyes as before forever. And those attacks in Madrid and London a few years later also added more fuel to the fire. And I'm pretty sure it wasn't until this century that people began talking about how "there's way too many Arabs/Muslims in Europe".
linguoboy wrote:To get back on topic, I don't imagine many people outside the US have heard about the controversy around the Fearless Girl statue on Wall Street. This commentary by Caroline Criado Perez pretty well sums up my take on the topic.
linguoboy wrote:There was definitely a change of rhetoric in the public sphere after 9/11. Whether there was really a shift in perception is another question. I know that many Balkan Christians have always viewed Muslims in Europe as a foreign presence with no real right to be there.
Anti-immigrant feeling was already high in places with large Muslim populations like France and Germany back in the 70s and 80s. It wasn't necessarily specifically anti-Muslim in character, but that doesn't mean people there felt positively about Islam and welcomed its practice. Even if most of Western Europe is only nominally Christian, there's still a lot of Christian chauvinism around. Just ask the Jews.
Car wrote:Weren't people mostly just ignorant about Islam?
linguoboy wrote:Car wrote:Weren't people mostly just ignorant about Islam?
As opposed to now?
The attractiveness of crime victims has always been a thing. See: missing white woman syndrome.md0 wrote:Today's news headline reads: P. Alexandrou's sentence for the atrocious murder of beautiful Danielle to be handed down on 13/06.
Who in their right mind feels the need to emphasize a murder victim's attractiveness?
md0 wrote:Who in their right mind feels the need to emphasize a murder victim's attractiveness?
That's so cringey on so many levels.vijayjohn wrote:Yesterday, at work, one of my co-workers and I were IMing each other. At some point, he told me about some comment he made on a Facebook page or something for pet-lovers once using the words "boobs" and "tits" in reference to boobies and tits, which he thought was witty. I wrote something like "I wonder whether women would find that joke offensive," then started to get worried that he might get offended by me saying that and added "lol" so maybe he wouldn't.
Alas, he did get offended, but to my surprise, it wasn't me he found offensive. "Oh my God Vijay, don't get me started!" he wrote before going off on a mini-rant about how "women these days want too much, it's like they've gone completely nuts" and something about how true gender equality is "biologically impossible anyway" (as if that was ever the point...). He also said this was why he avoided discussing things with anyone except a few people he felt safe doing this with, one of which is me and another of which is, ironically, a woman. My brain begged me to change the subject.
Body Jane is the only existing designer men’s jar based on a woman’s figure. She is the colorful approach to handheld urinal jars. She is breathing a new life of aesthetics, art & humor into a practical, utilitarian item for the first time. She is a high quality product designed to perfection and made from the highest quality of recyclable plastics. Traditionally, this kind of product has always been approached from a purely practical standpoint. Body Jane is here to break the tradition, providing a fresh, modern & sexy take on men’s handheld urinals! Body Jane’s design reflects the curves and form of “the perfect woman,” the male ideal while concurrently being aesthetically pleasing to the female population as well. She is ready to embark on the journey of her life travelling the globe! Her mission is to relieve those who need her, to attract attention and be pleasing to the eye. She will inevitably bring about happiness and excitement to the people who will be lucky enough to meet her. Body Jane is every man’s dream and he can now finally own a piece of her! “Body Jane, the other woman”
Return to “Politics and Religion”
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 14 guests