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Originally Posted by silas777
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Well, according Byrd himself, the change began in 1982 when - as he put it - after the death of his grandson he came to realize that black people love their children as much as he does his. In other words he'd been dehumanizing Blacks (as racists generally do for those they rail against) and it suddenly hit him that Blacks were indeed human too. Sometimes it takes a personal tradgedy to shake someone up and make them face the truth about themselves. Apparently this was the case with Byrd.
In regards to Byrds "White N*gger" comment on FOX News, no one really knows for sure what he meant but my guess is that he was using the term in place of "Poor White Trash" - in other words lower class Whites or the bottom of the social pecking order. Not a good choice of words to be sure (considering the controversy it was bound to stir up) but it's laughable to think that the statement somehow means he is racist against Whites.
Which brings us to the key question of "Why is Racism bad anyway?"
In of itself, it seems to me that pride in ones' race is no more offensive or dangerous than pride in one's town or high school football team. There is nothing wrong with having that kind of pride - what is wrong is what some folks DO with that pride. This is where the difference comes in between White Pride and Black Pride - and why I dont' tend to get nearly as innerved by folks chanting "Black Power", "HIspanic Power", or even "Gay Power" or "Women's Power" as I do with folks chanting "White Power".
While at an individual level ALL folks are technically equal - at a racial level or even at a gender level this is not actually true in practice. This is not because of any specific shortfall of America or Americans but rather reflects a basic fact of life for people all over the world - folks tend to feel more comfortable with and watch out for folks who are more like themselves and disassociate themselves from and distrust those that are "different". Thus a lone Conservative will probably feel uncomfortable living among a community of Liberals and the Liberals will distrust the lone Conservative. Same is true of course at the Racial Level. For good or bad it's a simple reality. This is true in regards to Political Leanings, Race or Religious Preference and is more or less universal across both time and space - occuring in every age and on every continent. It always has been and always will be the case. Folks will always prefer to do deal with, do business with, and live with folks that are more like themselves.
So, you ask, what am I getting at?
What I am getting at is that this easily translates into discrimination of some kind or another - and that's where the danger lies, for in any society there is a tendency for those who control the economic and political power to end up suppressing those who don't. In some countries - such as Iraq - this translates into one religious group (the Sunni's) suppressing another religious group (the Shia's (while under Saddam)) and then the situation reversing (Shia's terrorizing the Sunni's after Saddam's collapse). In both cases, those WITH political power oppressed those WITHOUT political power.
In America of course, it's not RELIGION that provides this distinction of the "HAVES" and the "HAVE NOTS" but generally race. This is because Freedom of Religion was intrinsic to the foundation of the original colonies. Folks came here specifically to have that freedom of religion without risk of persecution and by and large they have achieved it (a TREMENDOUS achievement historically speaking). We have however NO SUCH foundation of freedom in regards to race - and in fact we began as a nation with a complete absence of any such freedom. True enough, such freedom was eventually imposed (by force in some parts of the country) but it wasn't intrinsic to the foundations of America - and as such it's always been a sort of "overlooked stepchild" when compared to freedom of religion - and even today closet racism is pretty common.
The reason why those who promote "White Pride" and "White Power" disturb me so much more than those who promote "Black Pride" or "Black Power" is really quite simple - Whites have the economic and political power and thus have the capability to abuse racial minorities at the societal level (in other words - institutionalized abuse). America was founded on the idea that the state must protect the "little guy" (ie minority) when it comes to religion because as former Europeans, Americans had seen what happens when you do not (oppression (often brutal) of religious minorities). In fact MANY Americans came here specifically to escape that oppression so it was pretty ingrained into the country that the religous minority MUST have protection from the religious majority. Since there was little racial mixing (culturally speaking, not sexually speaking) at the time however - and what little there was of it overlayed with a natural inclination of assumed racial superiority of the White Man - the protection of racial minorities was not really considered important at the time.
Thus it seems to me that those in power have the additional responisiblity to protect those in the society who do not have the power to protect themselves. The strong should PROTECT the weak, not ABUSE them. Thus at an individual level we have police to protect the weak from the strong and at the societal level we have legislation to protect minorities from abuse by the majority.
Those that chant "White Power" are disturbing because they actually have the economic and polical power to abuse - while those who chant "Black Power", "Gay Power" or "Women's Power" do not.
And human nature being what it is, I never trust anyone who has the power.
Ken
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