Racism

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IpseDixit
Re: Racism

Postby IpseDixit » 2014-12-29, 16:00

Saim wrote:The charter's a joke anyway because you can pick and choose which articles you want to apply to which language. It's nice that it exists but it would be great to revise it and make a new one with some more input from sociolinguists and with more focus on normalization than just vague "promotion" and "protection".


Had it been a serious thing, I guess nobody would have signed and ratified it. :lol:

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Re: Racism

Postby vijayjohn » 2015-01-08, 3:21

A friend of mine who is white is really interested in India but has certain preconceived notions about us Indians and really doesn't seem to understand the concept of white privilege. I wonder how to explain it to her. Trying to do that sure is a painful process. :|

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Re: Racism

Postby Johanna » 2015-01-08, 5:53

vijayjohn wrote:A friend of mine who is white is really interested in India but has certain preconceived notions about us Indians and really doesn't seem to understand the concept of white privilege. I wonder how to explain it to her. Trying to do that sure is a painful process. :|

Maybe you could start with an area where she is the disadvantaged one, like male privilege, and then go on to other types?
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Re: Racism

Postby vijayjohn » 2015-01-08, 5:57

Yeah, maybe, and that's good to know.

Thanks! :)

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Re: Racism

Postby loqu » 2015-01-14, 16:14

Ludwig Whitby wrote:And I'd like to end this post on a funny and typically Balkanic absurdist note. The Croatian Party of Rights that was founded by Ante Starčević and that is extremely nationalistic and serbophobic is currently lead by a person called Daniel Srb.

:lol: oh, I love that kind of irony.

In Valencia there's something similar going on. The Valencian Ministress of Culture, member of the anti-Catalan party PP, and who is trying hard to eliminate any reference to Catalonia or the fact that the native language is shared with Catalonia from the educational system, is called María José Català. :lol:

IpseDixit wrote:For an outsider it's always difficult to understand who hates whom in Eastern Europe. My general impression though is that everybody hates everybody.

I have the same impression. I still don't quite understand how everyone can make a distinction based on 'race' between Serbs and Croats. Aren't the differences between them plainly cultural? I often wonder how similar that problem is to the nation clashes in Spain.
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Re: Racism

Postby linguoboy » 2015-01-14, 16:31

loqu wrote:I still don't quite understand how everyone can make a distinction based on 'race' between Serbs and Croats. Aren't the differences between them plainly cultural?
Well, "race" is a multivalent word whose meaning has fluctuated and evolved over time. The use of it to denote a subclass of humans based on shared physical characteristics dates only to the 18th century in English, but the word had been in use for centuries before that to refer to "a tribe, nation, or people, regarded as of common stock" or "a group of several tribes or peoples, regarded as forming a distinct ethnic set".
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Re: Racism

Postby Ludwig Whitby » 2015-04-22, 17:46

Hey, I got a question.

I can say that it's not okay that African-Americans, that constitute 13% of the population of USA constitute 25% of the poorest Americans. And that's okay to say. It's also ok to say that Latinos are in a similar predicament.

BUT! What if I notice that Jews constitute only 3% of the American population, yet that there are 8 Jews in the list of 25 richest Americans. That's like 30% of the richest Americans! And not to mention Hollywood, an institution of immense influence on the world; the majority of people in Hollywood are Jews, an ethnicity that constitutes a meager 3% of the American population. If I'd like wealth and power to be equally distributed (that is, taken away from the Jews and given to others ethnicities) does that make me an anti-semite?

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Re: Racism

Postby vijayjohn » 2015-04-22, 18:01

In my opinion, no, it doesn't. Of course, lots of people here would say that you were because God forbid you should say anything negative about Jews at all in this country. But I agree that Jews do have a lot more wealth and political power overall than any other minority in this country.

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Re: Racism

Postby linguoboy » 2015-04-22, 18:14

Ludwig Whitby wrote:the majority of people in Hollywood are Jews

[citation needed]

Ludwig Whitby wrote:If I'd like wealth and power to be equally distributed (that is, taken away from the Jews and given to others ethnicities) does that make me an anti-semite?

Depends: do you just want it taken away from Jews or from everyone who's rich?
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Re: Racism

Postby Varislintu » 2015-04-22, 18:23

Ludwig Whitby wrote:Hey, I got a question.

I can say that it's not okay that African-Americans, that constitute 13% of the population of USA constitute 25% of the poorest Americans. And that's okay to say. It's also ok to say that Latinos are in a similar predicament.

BUT! What if I notice that Jews constitute only 3% of the American population, yet that there are 8 Jews in the list of 25 richest Americans. That's like 30% of the richest Americans! And not to mention Hollywood, an institution of immense influence on the world; the majority of people in Hollywood are Jews, an ethnicity that constitutes a meager 3% of the American population. If I'd like wealth and power to be equally distributed (that is, taken away from the Jews and given to others ethnicities) does that make me an anti-semite?


Observing something like the statistic about blacks is useful in making us go "Hm, I wonder why?", and "Are there faults (unfairnesses) in our system that produces this result?". And then if we locate the unfairness, we can attempt to fix it. But observing the statistic about Jews should lead to a similar line of questions, i.e., is the system somehow rigged/faulty? Jews just being "old money" or entrepreneurish or valuing education in profitable lines of work is not a fault in the system.

So yeah, to second linguoboy: it depend on if you are seeking faults in the system or just wanting to pull down Jews speficially a notch.

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Re: Racism

Postby Ludwig Whitby » 2015-04-22, 21:53

linguoboy wrote:
Ludwig Whitby wrote:the majority of people in Hollywood are Jews

[citation needed]

Really? You haven't noticed the fact that a lot of actors, directors and production house CEOs are Jewish?

I've googled 'Jews in Hollywood' and one of the first hits was this article:
http://rense.com/general21/bet.htm

Crafty 60 Minutes had studied the top slots in town. Their research showed that "only" about 60 percent of the most important positions in Hollywood were run by Jews. What did I think?

I managed to disqualify myself by saying that while Hollywood was not really "run" by anyone (it's far too chaotic for that), if Jews were about 2.5 percent of the population and were about 60 percent of Hollywood, they might well be said to be extremely predominant in that sector.


linguoboy wrote:
Ludwig Whitby wrote:If I'd like wealth and power to be equally distributed (that is, taken away from the Jews and given to others ethnicities) does that make me an anti-semite?

Depends: do you just want it taken away from Jews or from everyone who's rich?

From everyone who's rich. It just happens that the Jews are the richest ethnicity in the USA.
Varislintu wrote:Observing something like the statistic about blacks is useful in making us go "Hm, I wonder why?", and "Are there faults (unfairnesses) in our system that produces this result?". And then if we locate the unfairness, we can attempt to fix it. But observing the statistic about Jews should lead to a similar line of questions, i.e., is the system somehow rigged/faulty? Jews just being "old money" or entrepreneurish or valuing education in profitable lines of work is not a fault in the system.

Jews prefer to work with other Jews. Whites prefer to work with other whites. Men prefer to work with other men. Why is it that the latter two examples are considered discrimination, while the former shows no evidence of the system being rigged?

And why can't we explain the difference between the wealth of whites and blacks the same way? White people generally come from richer families, they are more entrepreneurish and value education more than black people. The fact that blacks are poor is thus no fault in the system.

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Re: Racism

Postby Levike » 2015-04-22, 22:07

Ludwig Whitby wrote:If I'd like wealth and power to be equally distributed (that is, taken away from the Jews and given to others ethnicities) does that make me an anti-semite?

Well, if you explicitly only want to take the money of the Jewish population only because they are rich and because they are Jewish then that is anti-semitism.

Патрислав Андреевич

Re: Racism

Postby Патрислав Андреевич » 2015-04-22, 22:13

All that talk about taking other people's money makes me cringe. When you want to only take away from the Jews, then you hate Jews. So if you want to take away from everyone, then you must hate everyone. Both equally bad. Protesting to one but not the other is dumb.

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Re: Racism

Postby linguoboy » 2015-04-22, 22:16

Ludwig Whitby wrote:
linguoboy wrote:
Ludwig Whitby wrote:the majority of people in Hollywood are Jews

[citation needed]

Really? You haven't noticed the fact that a lot of actors, directors and production house CEOs are Jewish?

Now you've changed claims (colloquially known as "shifting the goalposts"). "a lot" ≠ "the majority"

Ludwig Whitby wrote:I've googled 'Jews in Hollywood' and one of the first hits was this article:
http://rense.com/general21/bet.htm
Crafty 60 Minutes had studied the top slots in town. Their research showed that "only" about 60 percent of the most important positions in Hollywood were run by Jews. What did I think?

I managed to disqualify myself by saying that while Hollywood was not really "run" by anyone (it's far too chaotic for that), if Jews were about 2.5 percent of the population and were about 60 percent of Hollywood, they might well be said to be extremely predominant in that sector.

Notice how he does the same. "60 percent of the most important positions in Hollywood" ≠ "60 percent of Hollywood". What is the definition of "most important position", how did 60 Minutes supposedly determine what these were, and how did they go about ascertaining whether a person in one of these positions was a "Jew" (which is particularly tricky, given the plethora of competing definitions)?

Ludwig Whitby wrote:
linguoboy wrote:
Ludwig Whitby wrote:If I'd like wealth and power to be equally distributed (that is, taken away from the Jews and given to others ethnicities) does that make me an anti-semite?

Depends: do you just want it taken away from Jews or from everyone who's rich?

From everyone who's rich. It just happens that the Jews are the richest ethnicity in the USA.

Are they? I imagine that there are some smaller ethnicities who might skew the stats even more. What percentage of Parsees in the USA are "rich", for instance?
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Re: Racism

Postby Ludwig Whitby » 2015-04-22, 22:58

Goal-post shifting and your attempts to relativize and misunderstand every word I write don't change the fact that an ethnicity that constitutes 3 percent of the population of USA constitutes MUCH MUCH more than 3 percent of Hollywood.

Parsees? Are you for real? Are Parsees overrepresented among the richest and most influential people in USA? I don't think so.

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Re: Racism

Postby linguoboy » 2015-04-22, 23:21

Ludwig Whitby wrote:Goal-post shifting and your attempts to relativize and misunderstand every word I write don't change the fact that an ethnicity that constitutes 3 percent of the population of USA constitutes MUCH MUCH more than 3 percent of Hollywood.

Your point being what exactly?

Ludwig Whitby wrote:Parsees? Are you for real? Are Parsees overrepresented among the richest and most influential people in USA? I don't think so.

Why not? Have you actually checked?
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Re: Racism

Postby Ludwig Whitby » 2015-04-22, 23:52

If the ideal is equality than how can you ignore the blatant income and power inequality between Jews and gentiles? If the fact that African-Americans are overrepresented in jails and that men are overrepresented in conference halls bothers you, why doesn't the fact that Jews are overrepresented among the billionaires, in the business world and in the top positions of media conglomerates bother you as well?

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Re: Racism

Postby linguoboy » 2015-04-23, 0:27

Ludwig Whitby wrote:If the ideal is equality than how can you ignore the blatant income and power inequality between Jews and gentiles? If the fact that African-Americans are overrepresented in jails and that men are overrepresented in conference halls bothers you, why doesn't the fact that Jews are overrepresented among the billionaires, in the business world and in the top positions of media conglomerates bother you as well?

Republicans in this country are always saying that the ideal is equality of opportunity not equality of outcomes. The concentration of African-Americans in the penal system is concerning because of how it suggests that opportunities are not equal. By itself, it proves nothing--but study after study furnishes evidence of systematic racial bias at every stage of the criminal justice system. It starts in school, where Blacks and Latinos (particularly males, but also females) are disproportionately disciplined for the same infractions as Whites. From here they are fed into a school-to-prison pipeline that most struggle to escape. But everything is stacked against them, from racial discrepancies in policing, to prosecution, to sentencing.

Where is the comparable documentation that Jews with disproportionate wealth and influence (who are, it must be remembered, still a minority in the larger Jewish population) are using what power they wield to deny opportunity to those of other racial and ethnic groups? On the contrary, as a group, Jews are one of the most politically liberal groups in the country. They are extremely disproportionately represented in progressive groups (like ACLU and the Civil Rights movement) which have fought for greater equality of opportunity for minorities of all sorts. As a political progressive myself, it's in my best interest to have more Jews in positions of power, not fewer.

As I see, the rules of this society (explicit and otherwise) have long been fashioned to straight White cisgender male Christians. The Jews who came here successfully beat these gentiles at their own game, and I say more power to them. Their success doesn't mean that the deck was stacked in their favour, nor does it refute the fact that it is stacked against members of other minority populations. Changes which favoured less concentration of individual wealth would have the overall effect of disfavouring them, but that shouldn't be the motivating factor behind instituting them.
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Re: Racism

Postby linguoboy » 2015-04-23, 0:53

It's interesting that you focus so narrowly on the example of Hollywood. There are quite easily understood historical explanations for how this dominance came about. Recall how for centuries Jews were systematically excluded from most professions. One which has always been open to them, however, is entertainment. Why? Because during this same period, it was disdained by the elite. In Europe and the USA, actors were long considered little better than prostitutes. (Many were prostitutes, since it was often a more reliable source of income than acting.) Pogroms in Europe sent thousands of entertainers to the USA, where they concentrated themselves in urban areas and came to dominate vaudeville.

When the movie business was founded, it was marginal. Movies were considered a curiosity; like personal computers in the 70s, no one envisioned the world-spanning multibillion-dollar industry they would eventually become. The studios needed talent quick and they drew on the existing pool they had--the New York vaudeville scene. This was, as mentioned before, dominated by Jews so they were overrepresented among early performers and impressarios. The result was a sort of "founder effect". Jews were attracted to Hollywood because they knew they wouldn't face the same prejudices there as they did in other industries. So the original anomaly was reinforced.

So really, it was more dumb luck than anything. The Jews were prominent in an industry right at the time that it suddenly changed from something despised to something prestigious--and, ultimately, well-paid. Occupational specialisation among ethnic lines isn't unusual--examples abound from all parts of the world at all times. If running motels were to switch overnight from being something looked down upon to something vastly important, suddenly Gujeratis would become the most wealthy and influential group in this country. Not because of a longstanding systematic societal bias in their favour but because of a quirk of history which they are well-positioned to exploit.

Now that anti-Semitic prejudice is much less (although not gone completely), I would expect to see a reversion to the mean. What is the counterevidence? Instead of looking at what proportion of the "most powerful people in Hollywood" are Jews, you should look at the up-and-coming players. Are they still disproportionately Jewish and, if so, are there explanations which account for this beyond "they must be favouring their own"? (Compare the gender imbalance in STEM fields. The evidence is that it's small in grade school and grows over time [the so-called "leaky pipeline effect]. Here the most likely explanation is a systematic bias against women, from societal enforcement of traditional gender stereotypes to outright professional discrimination.)
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Re: Racism

Postby Varislintu » 2015-04-23, 6:29

Ludwig Whitby wrote:Jews prefer to work with other Jews. Whites prefer to work with other whites. Men prefer to work with other men. Why is it that the latter two examples are considered discrimination, while the former shows no evidence of the system being rigged?


Who says it doesn't show problems in the system? EDIT to add: Racial nepotism wasn't on my list of "not cheating" for a reason. I do think that's unhealthy for competition and skews the system, even if I understand that humans are really prone to it and have been doing it since forever. And yes, Jews and whites and men and women and everyone can be called out for doing that.

Ludwig Whitby wrote:And why can't we explain the difference between the wealth of whites and blacks the same way? White people generally come from richer families, they are more entrepreneurish and value education more than black people. The fact that blacks are poor is thus no fault in the system.


Now you would be looking only at whites in order to find the problems that blacks face. Which is not sufficient to be able to decide that "there is no fault in the system". To put it another way, those qualities you list for whites are not where the problems in the system lie. If this was the entire analysis of the system, it would basically boil down to "Look, whites can make it in this system just fine! Therefore there's no reason anyone else can't!". And we know that's not an accurate description of how the system treats different people.


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