When is racism racism?

That's surely the crux of all racism.

Also when its not humour, but just general ignorance.

Can I be clear that I don't want this thread to be about Scotland. I just wondered about boundaries of acceptability with regard to race/culture divisions, and since being Scottish and having a chip on my shoulder about people assuming that England = Britain is all I know, that's the angle I came at it from. I told you it was badly worded.

To take it further, can white people ever legitimately complain of racism (since they are considered the "top" race in damn well every place on earth)?

Of course they can. Racism is racism. I don't think there should be a prerequisite oppressive power structure in place before you can feel you've been mistreated for your race.

run it off - OK, not always 'minority' - substitute the word 'group'

Like, N. has mentioned way up that the general feeling is that Scotland aren't an oppressed minority any more. Whose general feeling is this?

(x-post)

that's a non-starter. are you saying that because blacks have been historically oppressed on account of their race, they are immune to racism?
Because that's mythology at best.

See, this is what I mean. How is this the case? What about white farmers run off their land in Zimbabwe for example?

"It's shite being Scottish! We're the lowest of the low. The scum of the fucking Earth! The most wretched miserable servile pathetic trash that was ever shat on civilization. Some people hate the English. I don't. They're just wankers. We, on the other hand, are colonized by wankers. Can't even find a decent culture to get colonized by. We're ruled by effete assholes. It's a shite state of affairs to be in."

Funny, but there are few Scots I know who won't identify with that a little, especially when bombarded with Jonny Wilkinson, David Beckham, 1966, Tim Henman etc (funny how sport tends to exacerbate these feelings). This is undisguised racism, but how is this less offensive than other forms? Is it based on the feeling of the person on the receiving end? Can you have racism-lite?

So:

Taking race into account when the people involved are not oppressed = racial
Taking race into account when the people involved are oppressed = racist

It's okay, then, to rag a Scot with racial stereotypes, because by and large his race isn't negatively impacting his life chances. But not to rag a British Asian with same, because his race is.

But, given that by definition racism operates using race as the justification of discrimination, isn't this just a way to take off the agenda precisely the topic that needs to be discussed and acknowledged in these people's case? Why is it precisely the 'difference that makes a difference', the 'signifying difference', which cannot be mentioned to those whose lives it most changes, and who are constantly aware of it? Isn't this just a way of shuffling 'things we all know' off into the realm of 'the unspoken'?

Or is it just a question of adverbs: how one talks about race, and to whom? In that case, we can imagine the odd paradox of a British Asian man listening out for jocular racial slurs as the sign, in fact, that his race is no longer a significant social handicap.

Ailsa, you, er, jock!

Dismantling corrupt systems is one thing, inflicting violence on people because of their race is another.
Sometimes the two must go hand in hand, but replacing one corrupt system with another is just other-footism.

(Sorry)

...the Irish brought it all on themselves by invading England; and, the Scots have got it easy compared to the Brits!

Militant black groups targeting all whites for violence is an example of racism.

Two very different situations.

We might see women treating men badly as often as we see men treat women badly, but that doesn't count against the systemic inequality between men and women.

We might hear stories about how factory workers steal off their bosses, take sickies, sneak off for fags in the toilets and all that, but that doestn't count against the systemic inequality between bosses and workers.

Racism is a system, not a lifestyle choice. That's all I'm saying.

Cracker, honky, whitey, The Man, are not of the exact same nature, because of the historical (un)balances of military, economic and political power.

In order to counteract racism (or sexism or etc) the oppressed group has to target the oppressive group and therefore, targetting some groups (ie oppressive ones) is not only acceptable, it is beneficial.

So yes, in that specific sense: the targeting of one culture/gender/class by another is more acceptable if the culture/gender/class doing the targeting has been historically oppressed by the culture/gender/class being targeted

Do you mean, it is the case and any good argument based on it will refer back to the fact that it is the case? (Some circularity is not vicious!)

At Primary school I thought the words ‘Jew’ and ‘Jewish’ were simply slang for someone who was stingy. There were jokes about the stinginess of the Scots, but if someone held onto their sweets, you wouldn’t say, ‘don’t be so Scottish’; you’d say, ‘don’t be such a Jew’. I don’t think any of us knew what a Jew was. Nevertheless, we ‘knew’ that a Jew was stingy.

Nigger was the name of my Nan’s dog. There was nothing hateful about the name; the dog was dearly loved. There was no irony either and no insult intended towards the dog. He was called Nigger because he was black. That simple fact, at the time, seemed enough. In other words, black connoted nigger effortlessly. Nigger was part of everyday speech and everyday thought; an unremarkable observation: the closest thing to a fact. Like the conflation of Jew and stinginess, then, the use of the word ‘nigger’ in reference to something black, in my experience, preceded any direct or noticeable racist use of the term.

Oddly, then, racism seemed to have nothing to do with our use of terms like ‘nigger’, ‘golliwog’, ‘Paki’ and ‘Jew’. This is because the racist connotation came first; the denotation of a race later. So that by the time you discovered that the words ‘Jew’ and ‘Jewish’ referred to a people, or that nigger and Paki were terms of racial abuse, you already ‘knew’ something about ‘them’.

About the original question I think racism is not racism when it is classism or culturism. Racism I think should be a more narrow definition than its usually used for. I think racism shouldn't be used when it's just a criticism of a group, but only when it also implies that there is a superior group, based on ideas of inborn or genetic supremacy. For example a white guy talking about "lazy jews" might also talk about "lazy white trash" and be more culturist or classist, but a white guy talking trash about jews and also suggesting white supremacy would be racist.

stooping to the same level = poor argument for the idea that racism DOES discriminate.

i watched a short feature on News 24 last night about how Hispanic people are 'the new blacks' in Memphis, black people there now actually being the MAJORITY but obv. the caucasians still maintaining a power of sorts leading to (excuse generalisations) Hispanic (most of them illegal immigrants) people caught in the middle and often victims of attacks on both sides (a new scapegoat) - which i'm sure is not a problem exclusive to one state in the South. So how do you think the Hispanics (not just pouring in from Mexico but also Guatemala and othe Central American nations) feel about racism facing hostility from both white and black people out there as they do? A similar thing has occurred in the UK with incidents surrounding tension between minorities and ex-minorities in boroughs of London (e.g. Somalians clashing with Pakistanis and Indians in Hounslow - some of the latter adopting the original view of white 'natives' accusing the newer and often illegal immigrants of ghetto-izing the area which they had actually been working to improve via development of local businesses etc.) resulting in the grim scenario of a three-way fracas where Africans, descendants of long established Caribbean immigrants, Caucasians and Asians all live within close proximity and overlap - but this is hardly news (another interesting thing being the way 'black culture' has been adopted by every other race in the UK to varying levels, causing a tension of it's own, yet also building bridges on another level).

I know I say this kind of thing all the time when it gets down to a philosophical debate, but its all a matter of semantics and especially so with something like 'race'. Unfortunately, I'm a believer in that linguistic uncertainty, post-modern kind of thing.

Jim has said what I think I meant by this. I don't believe that the general chip on their shoulder that a lot of Scots feel is racism. There seems to be a hard-line aspect to racism, a hatred that I don't feel applies in the examples I gave at the top of the thread, but I just wondered about the difference, and how to define it as it seems intangible, and demarcation seems impossible. When I think about it more deeply I wonder what stops it just being me being narked about people failing to recognise what it feels for me to be Scottish and starts being something more than that, and can that be applied more widely across other races and nations and groups? Is it purely a question of semantics?

(xpost)

Broadly, I think that anyone can be a victim of racism or discrimination because an individual's relationship to the group nearest them determines how they will be treated by that group. If the group is in power and the individual is in any way 'different', that individual becomes a sacrificial lamb for the sake of that retention of power. This is why people should focus on oppression in its 'bullying' form and work on the very human impulse of socking it to a vulnerable Other once you/r group has finished being oppressed itself. In other words, don't pass it on.

And although I realise that media directed at people of colour has an agenda of representation, and rightly so, it made me squirm, when working on a black women's magazine, to hear people who were not racist in any other way complaining about whiteness, when their counterparts on 'mainstream' mags who came from all walks and shades deployed muticultural imagery always, reflecting their lives. I think I resented being a stand-in for historical issues my colleagues may have had with white-owned media, like a totem - and then I realised what it might have been like to be them in any other work situation.

Also: "If racist consequences accrue to institutional laws, customs or practices, that institution is racist whether or not the individuals maintaning those practices have racial intentions."
The Commission for Racial Equality

I'm not saying that black people do not behave differently to you because of your race, or even that they don't treat you badly because of your race. I know that's exactly what most people think of as racism, but I want to put it into a bigger context and say something like this: obviously some individual white people suffer from racism against non-white people because they become the targets of resetment against a racist culture, society, legal system, economy, etc.

btw, I never met my nan's dog 'nigger'. She had him in the 60s, I think.

General feeling that Scots aren't really an oppressed minority anymore so it's not worth getting worried about.
That's surely the crux of all racism.

Well, no: it's a complicated situation of course but the Scots are not an oppressed minority; Scotland was subdued by the English for sure in 1645, but its cultural identity is hybrid. There's no 'authentic' Scots culture any more than there is an 'authentic' English culture: both have informed each other, and the (Lowland) Scots influence 'down here' has been massive. It'd take a pretty heavy Scottish nationalist to discern 'real' from 'fake' Scots.

I don't believe there's such a thing as 'Britishness' but even if there were, that wouldn't be a race either.

When I've been in the US I quite often find people on the one hand telling me that England colonises Scotland and Northen Ireland (and how unfair that is) (I don't think many of them know that Wales is a country). On the other hand when I tell them that England is a country but not a nation and only a part (albeit the part with the biggest population) of the UK and that people from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland don't live in a country called 'England' and that it's rude to suggest they do, they don't seem to get the point at all.

I don't think it's racism exactly just in ingrained preference for the image of the world received from familiar sources rather than being prepared to reshape ones concepts according to the perceptions and sensitivities of the natives.

No, England is a nation but *not* a country is what you mean, ditto Eire. England is a part of the UK, but despite my last email, is effectively the boss, same as Austria was Top Nation in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, or Serbia within Yugoslavia, or Russia in the USSR, etc. So in a sense people in Scotland *do* sort of live in a country called England, because, despite being, in a complicated way, a nation, culturally they have long been patronized by the English (Lowland culture confuses this issue, it's a whole 'nother thread, I should think).

...that last bit might be useful

Yesterday I had to interview this writer Luke, a black guy who grew up in a white family which moved to Orkney when he was six or something - which quite unsurpisingly fuels a lot of his work (both in 'what happened' plus he's totally down with Orcadian oral traditions). Everyone I spoke to about this before going said something along the lines of 'fuck! That must have been rough' and of course it was. We wound up talking about the MORI poll which showed 4 in 10 Britons would prefer their neighbours to be the same colour as them and Luke mentioned that he once saw some Chomondeley-Warner type say that there is a silent majority of 20 million white Britons who would take steps to ensure that, but would never ever own up to it.

If you emigrate to Britain, or are someone of whatever class who is not white, it takes an age and a half to meet on a social level the kind of Home Counties middle-class who aren't mad keen on asylum seekers, would not dream of living in even ex-Council accomodation, and mostly come into contact with people from other backgrounds when dealing with the service industries. They don't think of themselves as racist at all, since they'll go anywhere, they have impeccable manners, a few 'rap' albums and Grandfather was something in Kenya or India. They're C of E, and might even go occasionally. These views tended to come from people who had been cossetted their whole lives, in 'the professions' or the privately educated children of same who hadn't really gone to work yet. And when you are visiting these people they can make you feel like an ambassador from Bohemian Liberaland if you contradict them in any way.

I told Luke that I thought in most cases the real issue is class, that the well-off have become that way through a lack of concern for anyone unlike them (a new feudalism) and that as long as factors like race and gender can be used to pit groups against one another, the ensuing distractions allow the well-off to continue to shout the odds and squeeze the margins. The strain I always hear in the run-up to a racist outburst is a perception that x arbitrary group 'has it better' ie. an unfair economic advantage, the subsequent 'discovery' of skin colour or asylum sought seems always to come second to that. Disparity between poor and rich is the worst it has been in some time, and of course down at the crumb end people are wrestling with each other and doing everything possible to avoid confronting the rich, because when they do the rich say 'what bad manners!' or some variant on the 'hata' meme.

My hope is that this situation, which is at is most manifest in America, will reach a tipping point and people with racist or bigoted tendencies will wake the fuck up and realise they've been bitching about the wrong folks all these years. Because the only people I can think of who really sit around on their asses all day doing whatever the fuck they want while the rest of us are down the mines or whatever is not an asylum seeker or a crack ho but some fuckup company chairman who's just gone on gardening leave with a 6m golden goodbye from the company he looted to the ground, causing the loss of how ever many jobs. That's your real oxygen thief.

xpost

Is this the only place left where there's a distinction between nations and countries? Is any definition of country that includes Wales useless?

xpost, use nation instead of country if Enrique's right.

Suzy -- OTM, I think, though my grandfather was something in Kenya (can't be helped) and I do own (more than) a few rap records. Better than no rap records, I should think.

xpost

run it off -- yes, blatantly.

'jive'? I dunno, Suzy, a lot of rappers talk about 'rap'. I usually call it hip-hop, but then I call some major label rock 'indie,' so who are you gonna believe?

... I would have thought that nationhood was a legal, constitutional or political arrangement, in which case, you can't be a nation before you are a country. If a country is equal to a land mass, though, then I would guess you could have a country (an identifiable area) that is not yet a nation...

Nationhood is formed in unusual, contingent ways, and it does not always precede statehood. However, it is often hard to maintain statehood if national feelings exist -- this was the case in Yugoslavia, which was a state created by outside powers following the break-up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918-19.

Statehood = seat on the UN, sure. But nationhood is much harder to define since it's much more hotly contested. A legal definition won't cut it -- it would be crazy to say that no German nation existed *until* Germany existed as a state. Ditto India.

a nation-state is when that nation is a recognised political entity, such as New Zealand or Denmark.

a state-nation overrides national/cultural concerns, like Yugoslavia. there was never a Yugoslavian nation. Many african states follow this model, colonial boundaries overriding existing tribal boundaries.

Russia is an interesting one, because its arguable either way. There is, of course, a Russian nation, a Russian people, but there are many nations within Russia, such as Tatarstan or Dagestan, with distinct nation characteristics.

Macedonia is also interesting, recognised by all bar its neighbors

before Germany existed AS A STATE the German NATION did not exist. Germanic culture, germanic people, etc etc, I can go along with, but a German state or a German nation did not exist prior to its existence AS A STATE. Isn't that obvious?

The German nation preceeded the German state. Definitely. It only became a state *because* it was a nation. The national dream motivated its builders.

What if you said that America was a nation before the civil war (some argued it should be a nation, and some argued it shouldn't - who was right, and who was wrong? are you right if you win the war?)

American history and politics are almost beyond me, so I can't answer that! Just too cuckoo!

"Nation" is quite plainly a state of mind. You can have a nation but no state i.e. Palestine. Implicit in nationhood is the desire for a state. That's one of the reasons why the "Nation of Islam" is scary to people, it's like they're biding their time until they demand a chunk of land or something.

You can also clearly have a state but no nation - like ALL states until sometime around Napoleon's time, where governmental legitimacy (the right to monopolize the legitimate use of force, and the right to raise taxes) changed from a top-down model (from God, from the king) to an (ostensibly) bottom-up model (from the people UP to the government).

I think ailsa's asking about the difference between nationalism and ethnic nationalism. In the US we have a very strong undercurrent of nationalism but it doesn't derive its power from ethnicity.

NB I think suzy's answers are phenomenal here.

A Nation is a sovereign territory, not a state of mind. A nation is synonymous with a country. The Nation of Islam is not a nation, even if it is a nation-in-waiting.

"Country" just means a sovereign territory, synonymous with "state." It's cartographic.

State isn't cartographic, its a particular type of social organisation. Ancient Athens was a City State but is no longer a City State without the difference being cartographic.

Enrique: Well, no: it's a complicated situation of course but the Scots are not an oppressed minority; Scotland was subdued by the English for sure in 1645, but its cultural identity is hybrid.

Enrique, I see now that what I wrote was poorly worded. I was agreeing with the general feeling that the Scots aren't an oppressed group anymore. The 'crux' was not the falaciousness of the preceding sentence - I was trying to say that unless the target (someone correctly pointed out that it doesn't have to be a minority) is culturally disadvantaged/oppressed, it's not really worth crying 'racist!'.

Scotland, or England or Northern Ireland for that matter, would not be a 'state'. In legal terms Scotland is pretty unique I think, as it operates like a federal state (eg California or Bavaria or New South Wales) within a system that is not federal. In fact, Scotland is overrepresented within the UK, in that it's MPs can decide on (most)matters affecting English citizens, but English MPs can't decide on (most) matters affecting Scotland. Also, the representation (proportionally) of Scotland in the House of Commons is 'too high'.

NB: Republic of Ireland is a state and so is 'The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland'.

When faced with semantic arguments like this, I find it handy to resort to the law. It can make divisions and definitions that are 'official' and when faced with a borderline question, it can plough on anyway/ask a judge to decide.

The 'German nation' existed as a very popular concept before Germany was ever unified - even before the expansion of Prussia's borders, the Frankfurt Parliament were pushing the idea of a German national interest, Goethe considered himself to be a 'German' writer without there being a 'German' state. Even in the twentieth century, nationhood versus state was incredibly important: there could not have been a Polish unification without the idea that Poland was somehow a nation that needed to be take on the form of a state.

I think that people who attack the Scots and Scotland are silly and nasty. I have always thought this.

Eire is or has been an official name for the nation state that is also called the Republic of Ireland, or Echoland for short.

*merry* I tried to get some of his books as Xmas gifts but alas nobody had luck digging them up. I must investigate. His new album as Music AM was quite enjoyable.

http://www.inteambereich.de/bilder/gallery/richtig/firstdate.jpg

That picture was funny a long time ago.

(13 minutes ago)

minutes months

top thread, congratulations to all involved. starts off a bit lost with non-britishes not really understanding what the UK is and then gets well and truly driven into a hole halfway through by enrique's woeful attempts to 'explain'. much to enjoy here.

that picture was funny?

http://i49.tinypic.com/aljii8.jpg

(lol fried chicken)

3.95 is a good price for tempura prawns

If the restaurant staff were actually trying to be racist about it, the receipt would have read "Upstairs Canadian Couple", right?

Ha, Hoos has worked in a restaurant with racists before!

Actually, I read a thread on ilx about working in a restaurant with racists before, and I've got to ditch this confusing screen name.

When I used to waitress at my parents' place I had an incident with one of the customers one night. A black couple came in for dinner who I knew because the man was the former principle of the middle school I went to. His waitress asked if I could bring his drink to him and when I did he turned to me and asked how I knew the drink was his. I looked at him sort of bewildered for a minute before I realized he was trying to get me to say that she had said it should go to the black guy. Finally I just said that she'd used his name and that I knew who he was from school. Even if she had said "the black guy" in that context it wouldn't have been racist. There's a difference between descriptive and racist. Jesus. Still, pretty dumb to print on a receipt I guess.

haha once in mexico i saw "gringos" written on mine and my siblings' bill

I don't get the receipt thing. Their table number is on there, why add anything else? Fake?

fucking hell, £2.15 for a J20?

That's about standard I think. Never buy 'em, it's not like they're very nice or anything.

They don't even have alcohol in them!

(this is the worst thread I ever started, btw)

I think I know what yr initial point was getting at but I'm not touching it on ILX with a 30 foot barge-pole.

If I buy soft drinks in a pub when I'm with my dad I have to get the barman to whisper the price in case my old man has some kind of apoplectic seizure.

so someone on my Facebook friends list posts this video on Youtube -- this isn't a peer that I know well, this is 50+ year old mother of two who has progressive views. It's clear from her comments (and the people who 'liked' it) that she was posting it for LOLs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ua-OqYZC1DA&feature=player_embedded

Is it me or is there nothing funny about someone who almost got raped, and am I wrong for thinking the only reason she and other people liked it="OH GHETTO BLACK PPL SEZ THE FUNIEST THINGS!". I mean I didn't think it was funny -- seemed more like the brother being the type of guy who is tired of the bullshit he sees daily in his hometown and trying to take it in his own hands.

So am I overreacting? or valid response?

what exactly do you mean by "the brother"

synonym for sibling

slow down, david duke

Yeah I haven't watched that video yet, based on the caliber of people I've seen posting it.

like forks and Fetchboy

No,,,I mean people I know IRL. I guess I shouldn't be talking about something I haven't seen though.

I saw it on Facebook posted by this black hardcore/punk kid I know who thought it was hilares. I found it mostly uncomfortable but the brother's delivery was pretty damn wacky.

this is like the new version of that leprechaun video

Like, really, are you earnestly suggesting that "hide your husband, coz they rapin' everybody out here" or are you hamming it up just a wee bit for the lulz, but in regards a subject matter that is so inappropriate that it reaches Solondzian territory?

probably a lil hamming by a guy who was for real angry but also making an opportunity of unexpected television appearance.

But it's extremely saddening that they live in an environment where violent behavior is commonplace enough that she refers to the rapist as "an idiot" with such a blase tone, like she's less absolutely horrified and more just sort of pissed off.

i think he just got into a kind of flow listin out possible relatives tbh but yeah he's obviously still pretty angry. maybe didn't have all that much to say for the length of time the camera was on him, w/e

i think there's a difference between finding this funny in a "lol black ppl" way and finding it funny in a "yo that dude kinda went in there" way, and you can probably tell which is which by the person showing you the video. and no nothing funny about the rape situation

nb this is the first i've heard of this video

I guess I shouldn't be talking about something I haven't seen though.

only allowed on film threads

@StevieD - agreed. @kevink - good point. for reference, this person on facebook is white and recently was seen joining a group called "No, I Shouldn't Have to Push 1 to Hear English, You Should Speak the Language when You Get here" or some crap like that...

Maybe they thought it was funny because the guy left evidence behind and everyone is out to get him.

I know all these things code differently in the States than here, but (go on and slap me if I get this wrong, I'm an idiot Britisher) - is it the slight *campness* of the brother's delivery that people are responding to? That was the only thing even slightly noteworthy in the otherwise general awfulness of the clip.

In US this is a fairly normal reaction to being messed with, whether you are black white or something else - whether you have money or not. At the same time there are people who just don't live with a lot of crime and don't get it.

Dude is clearly doing this so the perpetrator doesn't think about messing with him or his family again. People who expect them to cry and engage in other hysterics don't get it, life has to go on in a housing project, going "ooo how horrible" as an outsider is kind of exploitative.

not just exploitative, but very condescending as well

So did anyone see this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hdC16-cTQ0

i got tremendous respect for Antoine, tho i'm kinda worried that the extra visibility will cause a retaliation....

I know I catch hell for saying stuff like this on ILX, but it seems to me that giving offense through sheer ignorance or cack-handedness should not be called racism, even though it is in a racial context. Ignorance is universal. Social offense is a common occurance. It takes extreme vigilance to avoid successfully all occasions for offense and few of us can do it.

It seems to me more helpful to include all such common faults under a less volatile heading that acknowleges their source in human fallibility, rather than to equate them with behavior that originates in malice, bigotry or hatred.

The fact that such malice, bigotry and hatred do exist makes it especially hard to rely on fone's feelings as a guide for evaluating the situation; when it hurts the same, it is difficult to recognize there is a difference of intention. But the key test is: if you make a bigot aware of your hurt, he won't apologize, feel shame or distress, or try to make amends. The inadvertant author of a hurt will most likely do all these, once they know they gave offense.

yeah nobody should ever have to watch themselves. its the victims responsibility to call them out

If someone says something to or around me that I think is racially / culturally insensitive (out of ignorance, not aggression), I try to avoid that person. I'm not inclined to start a fight about it because I find arguing draining. Those people have to change on their own.

My philosophy, however, is that I'm not going to put a lot of energy into that person's social sphere - whether it's a workplace or club or church or activity, whether it's online or off, because I don't want to reward people who don't make an effort to make everyone comfortable.

What's sad is how this is taken as "judgment" or hostility. I am trying to avoid hostility because I know I can't change people by getting angry at them. This is baggage of mine that goes back to high school.

plax, either you are not a very attentive reader or you are trolling me.

(hums a little tune) A troll or just a silly goose? Which could it be? Which could it be?

White people have stacked the line against racism. Racism has moved from being outward and bold to institutional and veiled, so now many of us get away with saying "racism just isn't a problem anymore, WHINING ABOUT IT is", because it's not as obvious and over the surface as it used to be.

When anybody whines about it, they're "over sensitive" or "want special rights". It doesn't help that the media only focuses on the marginal instances because they are headline generators, which undermine the valid claims that people have.

It's no different to me than the asshole people I see on Facebook joining groups like "I'm saying 'Merry Christmas' to you, I don't care if its not PC".

When anybody whines about it, they're "over sensitive" or "want special rights"

this is the trick ruling/privileged classes have done across gender race & class lines imo - it's their defense against the movement of history

for reference, this person on facebook is white and recently was seen joining a group called "No, I Shouldn't Have to Push 1 to Hear English, You Should Speak the Language when You Get here" or some crap like that...

ahem, not to be presumptuous, but why the fuck are you fbook friends with dumbshit people like this?

i mean, i don't unfriend people very often, but joining such a group would be a reason to do so.

It's mostly because the whole concept of race relations has been dumbed down into very static, black and white terms, which really don't capture the magnitude of it.

if a black man calls me a "cracker", the kneejerk reaction is that it's as bad as me dropping the N-word, but that's such horseshit in context.

I actually took a course in college about Psychology of Race Relations which was real eye opening.

xxpost -- actually, I have removed many of these people as friends, I trim my friends list every month.

one of my friends that joined that group, instead of defriending (as I've known her for 8 years and ahve given up on her having any modicum of intelligence on the matter), another friend and I both posted similar messages on Facebook asking what the benefit in saying Merry Christmas to everybody, regardless of what religion they might belong to serves as opposed to actually finding out first.

i want people to say "Merry Athiest" to me

oh, okay. i only trim people who offend me with their homophobia or racism. luckily, i don't know many homophobic or racist people.

i've thought about trimming religious people, but then i'm like, 'eh, satanism is a cult, too, and i don't want to trim my satan-worshipping friends.'

the only recent conundrum has been whether to trim this girl who i went to middle school with who i've seen around once in a while. she's become a cop. but then i looked at her profile and interests/activities, and it seems that she's also a vegan and a HUGE environmental protection/ animal rights person. so, a liberal cop. eh, kept her.

I mean I don't drop people for having different opinions than me. I have a lot of Christian friends and ya know if they want to post things about how much God means to them and how much they love him, that's fine. The moment they start writing shit like "so and so feels sorry for all of the people who haven't found God" and condescending shit, then they're gone.

I have quite a few conservative friends too, I like having good healthy debate with them. The histrionic ones, usually don't last long. I tend to trim any friend that I don't really know that well either as I'm not interested in collecting 1,000 friends that I barely know IRL.

I've secretly joined some of those "push 1" groups just to see what people are saying. I joined some anti-animals groups even though I'm a vegetarian and stuff like that. I'd rather read that stuff of my own volition than have someone send it to me as if I agree.

oh, okay. i only trim people who offend me with their homophobia or racism.

this is the weirdest kink I've ever heard of, just fyi, no offense

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

And now we have:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CoUD5MRrDs

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/01/chicken-and-waffles-mlk-day.html

UCI Loliday Special: Chicken and Roffles

idg the waffles. Is that a thing?

It's legit soul food, but definitely on the cheap side of soul food, and one that might attract ridicule because it's an odd pairing, maybe?

Eh,I think the issue is that mlk day equals stereotypical black food is a bit gauche.

http://thingsthatblackpeoplelike.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/roscoes1.jpg

A classic L.A. joint, however.

My college dorm food service did ethnic theme dinners one Sunday a month, and the German one happened to fall on April 20th one year, which turned out to be Hitler's birthday. There was some shit brought up about that afterward. I guess now they can reserve 4/20 for junk food.

Mexico complains about BBC show's "offensive" slurs

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110201/lf_nm_life/us_britain_topgear

Most American racist perspectives on Mexicans are more refined than that.

Seriously, why do we frown on Jim Davidson, Bernard Manning etc and yet Clarkson still gets let loose all over the place? I hope he gets run over.

Please sue the shit out of them so they can't afford to make any more programmes. Thanks.

grow my hair grow my hair i am jim davidson

ha

is that "anyone can play guitar"?

leaning against a fence asleep looking at a cactus with a blanket with a hole in the middle on as a coat

also lol@'the mexican ambassador won't complain, he's too lazy/asleep' -- famous last words y'all!

oy, why oh why did I scroll down to the comments

Brian 1 minute ago
When Mexican crime lords stop murdering and enslaving Guatemalans who are seeking a better life, I will call upon the British to apologize for making fun of Mexicans.

Those crime lords don't sound too lazy

SOLUTION TO MEXICO'S CRIME PROBLEMS: build more comfortable fences + interesting cacti

http://forums.klipsch.com/forums/storage/4/721247/600_Inside_T.H..jpg

kind of assume Clarkson bumped this in his youth, if this is 'refried sick' put me down for some tbh

Clarkson probably never actually eaten Mexican food, he's British after all

When I bought that on CD, it did not have that gatefold ;_;

xxpost

Beans with cheese on top? Enchiladas peeking out from a blanket of yellow goop? Shredded jack on tacos? You're in a den of gabachos for sure. That's not to say that Mexicans don't eat cheese; they do, just not melted all over everything. Real Mexican restaurants use cheese as an ingredient, not a topping. The only things covered with melted cheese you're likely to see in a real Mexican place are alambres or clayudas.

Mexicans should try cheese as a topping then, because it's pretty fucking good!

gilbert & george dont seem to understand the word 'paki' is racist

"Soul food" during Black History Month was pretty much routine when I was in high school/college.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-renaming-mountains-20110220,0,2311127.story

Sen. George Edwards, a Western Maryland Republican, offers the tongue-in-cheek suggestion to rename Sugarloaf Mountain near Frederick to "Healthy Mountain" — "since we now know that sugar is bad for us and don't want to be promoting it."

"Maryland, My Maryland," the Civil War-era hymn that became the state song in 1939, has survived periodic attempts at a rewrite. Its pro-Confederacy lyrics refer to President Abraham Lincoln as a "despot," "tyrant" and "vandal," and to the Union as "Northern scum."

:)