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You really dont believe that, do you? You call that reverse discrimination? You think white girls across American feel left out because they cannot participate in Black Miss America?
This is like that recent Black History vs White History Month debate.
it doesn't matter whether white girls feel left out or not. To have a pagent explicitly excluding other races is wrong. Whether other girls are interested or not is irrelevant.
Just have one damn Miss USA and encourage every races to participate. What good does Miss Black USA do anyway?
To to mention the notorious Affirmative Action in the US which pretty much says the blacks and hispanics are dumber and have lowers bars to get into college than Asians and Caucasians. It is not protection of anyway, it is outright discriminate against all the race in different ways, and keeping tellhing children in America: you are defined by your skin color, which even decides your chances to be admitted into college!
Well for public servants like teachers they are representatives of the state so this is very different from simply walking down the street.
There are plenty of things that people can wear walking down the street that I would not consider acceptable for my kids' teacher to wear.
None of what you said makes any sense.
We dont want our teachers in primary schools wearing funny hats and we dont want representatives of our state to have tattoos on their faces. Right? If you want to wear funny hats and have tattoos ... do it in your backyard!
But having tattoos on your face and wearing funny hats is not a right protected by law. Is it? But if you allow burqas as an article of religion, then you cannot stop a teacher from wearing it ANYWHERE, since it is a right (and protected)!
It would be considered discrimination. But, if you define it as being WRONG from DAY 1 .... then such problems would never arise.
Like I said. You guys are the masters of pseudo-libertarianism (something that you criticized yourself).
For those who are pro-Burqa, maybe we should open to allowing female genital circumcision in some cultures as well, since it is their culture and the girls do it "voluntarily".
Like Burqa we don't know the spit between those who are forced to and those who feel natural to do.
We as a society will have to decide if something causes harm or not before banning it through the courts, and this is somewhat a subjective determination. It always will be. This particular practice sounds pretty harmful and I'd probably be dead set against it as I'm sure most will be.
Last edited by johnathanc; 08-23-2013 at 01:41 PM..
it doesn't matter whether white girls feel left out or not. To have a pagent explicitly excluding other races is wrong. Whether other girls are interested or not is irrelevant.
Just have one damn Miss USA and encourage every races to participate. What good does Miss Black USA do anyway?
Botticelli, from your posts over the months I know that you are well travelled and educated. So I will not lecture much ...... but you are completely wrong.
All over the world, minorities feel the need to celebrate/ commemorate their culture/ heritage in some way. Jewish this and this, Asian this and that, etc. This happens almost everywhere.
When it comes to the Blacks in America, you cannot ignore history. For a very long time Blacks in America have been treated as second class (and worse) citizens. Much of things like Black history month, Black this and that were created to negate the harm done to a group of people (because of their color) for far too long. If nothing, events like Black Miss American make the invisible people visible. They are designed to bring a whole generation of people (that were forcefully left behind) up to speed with the rest of the country.
Even today, how many Black models do you see on magazines and ads? Maybe events like Black Miss America will help.
This is considerably off topic. But needed to be addressed ...
But what if an ethnic group in our multicultural society wants to have celebration with their traditional ethnic garb and they want to wear burqas? Say they want to do this in a public park or in someone's backyard. I don't think the government should stop them from doing this just because people don't like the outfits. So no, I don't think government employees, schoolteachers, private offices (can officially make their own rules and I'm sure 95% will not permit it) should wear a burqa but to ban it 100% in all circumstances is just too much big brother, which is my (subjective) opinion.
You make a decent point, but I have already adressed this issue somewhere in this thread.
We are banning X because it is bad. If X is bad, it is bad in the church, it is bad in my home and it is bad in a park. Simply put, I have been saying that burqa is BAD - it is a sign of oppression, brings with it a message of hate/ misogyny, etc.
Whether you want to wear it to a church or to a pool party is irrelevant. We have already concluded that it is BAD. Get my line of argument now?
I can form a religion tomorrow that requires all the followers to wear a T-shirt that says "Holocaust was a hoax". Would this be allowed in the privacy of my back-yard even? No.
Now you would tell me .... well, this message offends Jews. And that would be a good reason to ban such hateful messages on T-shirts. But then why use a double standard against burqas? It offends not only the women who wear it, but everyone who sees them wearing it ...
You make a decent point, but I have already adressed this issue somewhere in this thread.
We are banning X because it is bad. If X is bad, it is bad in the church, it is bad in my home and it is bad in a park. Simply put, I have been saying that burqa is BAD - it is a sign of oppression, brings with it a message of hate/ misogyny, etc.
Whether you want to wear it to a church or to a pool party is irrelevant. We have already concluded that it is BAD. Get my line of argument now?
I can form a religion tomorrow that requires all the followers to wear a T-shirt that says "Holocaust was a hoax". Would this be allowed in the privacy of my back-yard even? No.
Now you would tell me .... well, this message offends Jews. And that would be a good reason to ban such hateful messages on T-shirts. But then why use a double standard against burqas? It offends not only the women who wear it, but everyone who sees them wearing it ...
Perhaps we can continue to discuss in other thread on the Canada page but I just had a conversation with a co-worker while heading out of the office who worked in Dubai for many years and asked him about the topic. He said the burqa is an old-fashioned concept but still popular there. He said some women don't like it but many with more conservative views don't mind wearing it at all either but he couldn't quantify the percentage, but he also said the majority of younger people don't like wearing them and end up wearing western-style dress underneath which they reveal once out of public eye. I also asked him about oppression and he said it has nothing to directly do with oppressing women through abuse or anything like that because people are just used to wearing them as part of their cultural norms. He also said one would be shocked how many women in fact "worn the pants" in many marriages. I know this is just one conversation and not a scientific study by any means but I am trying to get information to understand things better, which frankly many don't do at all and form very hard line opinions based on solely on media stories which typically report exceptions rather than the norm. It is after conversations like this that I am not ready to conclude that burqas "always" represent something "bad" and "evil" and must be banned everywhere including one's property (essentially your argument above). Like I said, my argument is that I don't think it is appropriate wear to do business or teach students in our western society (and I do think it a very odd and foreign way of dress to me) but if someone wants to wear it at home or in a public gathering, I could care less and it is within their rights unless they are harming someone.
Last edited by johnathanc; 08-23-2013 at 06:36 PM..
We dont want our teachers in primary schools wearing funny hats and we dont want representatives of our state to have tattoos on their faces. Right? If you want to wear funny hats and have tattoos ... do it in your backyard!
But having tattoos on your face and wearing funny hats is not a right protected by law. Is it? But if you allow burqas as an article of religion, then you cannot stop a teacher from wearing it ANYWHERE, since it is a right (and protected)!
It would be considered discrimination. But, if you define it as being WRONG from DAY 1 .... then such problems would never arise.
Like I said. You guys are the masters of pseudo-libertarianism (something that you criticized yourself).
And yet it's very clear. A string bikini is perfectly acceptable for wearing on a public beach, but not by the same person in front of a class in a school.
And I don't believe the right to wear a burqa on the street is related to freedom of religion. It's related to the more fundamental freedom of being able to wear what you want, whether it's because of religion, or simply self-expression.
As has been said here, freedom of religion is not absolute in this country, and some things that are acceptable elsewhere (honour killings, female circumsion) are forbidden here. But they are far more harmful than someone wearing a burqa (regardless of my view on where a burqa should be acceptable dress or not).
And yet it's very clear. A string bikini is perfectly acceptable for wearing on a public beach, but not by the same person in front of a class in a school.
And I don't believe the right to wear a burqa on the street is related to freedom of religion. It's related to the more fundamental freedom of being able to wear what you want, whether it's because of religion, or simply self-expression.
As has been said here, freedom of religion is not absolute in this country, and some things that are acceptable elsewhere (honour killings, female circumsion) are forbidden here. But they are far more harmful than someone wearing a burqa (regardless of my view on where a burqa should be acceptable dress or not).
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