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And thats why saying "you must first earn my respect" is so bad. its not just racist, its labeling someone based upon the actions of others. And in this case specifically the color of their skin. Thats pretty much the definition of racism.
LOL, you got to be kidding gray war, so your saying people should give blacks respect just because they are black. wow. No one gives anyone respect, not whites, not blacks unless it's earned. PERIOD.
This is something I am having a hard time with. I am a black young male who grew up as a Military Brat. I lived most of my life in different European countries. Growing up race was always an after thought it seemed like. I guess for me I am pre-disposed to think differently because of how I lived. It was very common for an Asian person to be married to a White person who are best friends with the Black people next door whose children's Hispanic and White friends come over to spend the night (I could go on and on). Scenarios like that are soooooo common growing up on a military base. Other Military Brats understand this. I guess you're forced to try and get along when confined to the perimeter the security gates. We were not without our social problems, but we (or at least us dependents) were so blind to color and at least showed sympathy towards one another.
Here in America it seems to be so much different. So my question is this, specifically from Whites and Blacks, why do you HATE each other. Yes various black people have hood and heathen ways, but not all of us are like that. Yes various Whites think they are the sweet and delicious nectar of the Gods and deliberately oppress others, but not all are like that also. So with that being said, what is driving all of the hatred. For a kid to dress up as a KKK member for Halloween is disturbing. (link at the bottom) WHY, honestly, WHY. I just do not understand where all of this hatred could possibly for the love of God even come from. Why is there so much effort taken to put others down.
Why do you feel and think the way you do about other races and what have been your experiences with them? Seriously guys/gals, if you consider yourself an adult, act like one and keep it civilized. This is a chance to gain a perspective from someone else's eyes and ears.
My number one wish, although controversial, is for a poll for the USA to be taken. It would say, "should we go back to the Jim Crow days?" Unfortunately, the polls may be very one sided depending on race. I would start an anonymous poll on here, but the little voice in my head says I shouldn't.
You'd have to ask the person with the KKK costume what they were thinking; I could only guess they like watching liberals go into conniption fits. And while you probably won't hear from anyone admitting they "hate" those of other races (for whatever reason), your question is valid and I hope others will join me in answering honestly and openly.
I grew up in lily-white southern NH in the late 60s, 70s and early 80s, hearing nothing but the Boston party line of all humans being basically identical, except for the depth of their tan. After graduating college, I settled in Florida and spent 5 years working for local government in Florida. With about 50 co-workers in one building, I had one African-American co-worker, and while I was working on my Masters degree at FAU, I had one African-American professor. Both of which were financially successful and well respected, and told me they had never been discriminated against.
As someone who had to interview for countless jobs after moving long distances, and finding that 19 times out of 20 I didn't get a job offer, despite having what should have been the "perfect" education and experience, it occurred to me that I would definitely think I had been discriminated against if I had been black. And considering how I am consistently either ignored by customer service people, or picked to be the customer that was inconvenienced (like when a cashier decides to count up the bills in the register just when it's my turn to finally be checked out), there's no way I wouldn't attribute it to racial discrimination if I had been African-American. But those were just musings; my understanding of the world hadn't changed.
Then I saw an opening at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, where one of my (white) co-workers was now working--the next step up in my career. I was given strangely cryptic warnings by my older, more worldly co-workers: that I would not "like" working for HUD (I had loved working for the Planning Division and had a stellar reputation there). By that time I thought I had learned how to get along with anyone, since my co-workers often came to me for advice on this subject. I was offered the job and took it.
My boss and I were only white people in the HUD building, where about 200 African-Americans worked; she had gotten the job due to her professional specialty of affordable housing and her stellar reputation with the members of the citizen's Affordable Housing Committee (which directed the County's affordable housing efforts). While my boss and I saw our black co-workers as peers, I quickly found out that the Director of HUD, who was outwardly supportive and happy with us, absolutely hated my boss and I and did everything he could to sabotage us--like endlessly holding up the hiring of additional staff members that were already approved and budgeted for. It was not personal, but it was openly acknowledged by everyone in the industry: we were white, and he didn't want any white people seeing how HUD operated.
I soon understood why he was trying to get us to quit. For the first time in my life, I was exposed to openly illegal activities, like the Director making a deal to awarding grant money to the company that reserved a very nice apartment for his 25-year old son--free of charge. Like when a HUD worker was found to have stolen a significant amount of the funds she had access to, and the Director quietly reassigned her (with no loss in pay or benefits), and made no attempt to recover the money--or prosecute her. Like when I tried to fulfill the part of my job description requiring me to account for where the affordable housing money had gone, and instead of getting the required information, receiving a scary warning from another HUD worker that something really bad would happen if I didn't "mind my own business." Upon going to the Director (my boss after my previous boss quit), he told me he'd take care of it--and I never heard another thing about it (including never getting the information I needed).
Everything about these two organizations--one almost exclusively white, one almost exclusively black, was a polar opposite. All of us in the Planning Division hung around to do extra (unpaid) work after 5 p.m.; we were rarely late to work, never put in a work week of less than 45 hours, and only took 2 or 3 of the 25 sick days we could have taken each year. HUD workers almost never put in even a 30-hour week, they wandered in around 9:30 or 10 a.m., took 2-hour lunches daily, and made sure they took every one of the potential 25 sick days every year. Workers in the Planning Division were embarrassed if they spent 5 minutes talking about non-work subjects at the copy machine; HUD workers actually had televisions on their office desks and watched talk shows and soap operas--supposedly while they did their work.
Now let's talk about the real-world costs, to both myself and the taxpayers in general. The main affordable housing program I administered was funded through a local add-on tax on "doc stamps," meaning you paid extra tax when you got a mortgage or refinanced a loan. This tax cost my spouse and I over $1,600 dollars ($800 for the mortgage when we bought the house, and another $800 when we refinanced as interest rates dropped), which we could ill afford after wasting our first 5 post-college years to the very low pay and high costs of military service. Over the next year I processed about 200 applications for grants of up to $5,000 to help with housing costs (available to low-income families only, so a two-income couple was out). The Director told me that since the intent was to give away the money, I should only write down the information that would qualify the applicant for the program, and to ignore any mention of additional income.
Of the hundreds of applications for grants to help with housing costs, only one stood out. While every other application I'd received requested the full maximum amount of $5,000, this person only wanted $750--the amount she needed to buy the materials to fix the leaky roof in her trailer (she was trading babysitting for having a friend's husband do the work for her). And she insisted on paying the money back, even though there was no requirement to do so. While this was one of the earlier applicants, and they had to appear in person to pick up the check, I wasn't particularly surprised that she was the first white person to take advantage of the program. I was surprised that despite my telling her otherwise, she actually did insist on returning the $750 a few months later--saying that others could then benefit from the program. And by the time I left, after about 2 years, she really stood out. Considering that African-Americans were only about 15% of the population of the County, and that there were large numbers of white people in the County that qualified as low-income, it was pretty telling that in my 2+ years at HUD, she ended up being the ONLY white person I ever saw apply for help at HUD.
After my boss left, I was the only professional staff left--meaning two of the three professional positions were unfilled (my old position, and the one that the Director was stonewalling when I first arrived). I lasted over another year, trying to do the job that three people with Masters degrees were supposed to be doing. Despite very strong support from the citizen's Commission, and the fact that I was Acting Manager for more than a year, the Director refused to either appoint me as the permanent Manager, or start the hiring process to choose someone else. It finally sunk into my thick head that he was simply going to wait until I gave up. The day I quit, I was called by several people in the private sector, and I had a better paying job within a few days.
I later found out that all 3 of the open positions were filled within 2 weeks of me leaving--including the position the Director had refused to post for over 2 years. My new boss wasn't joking when he remarked, "You were the wrong color, weren't you!" Despite all the positions officially requiring a Master's Degree, only one of the 3 new hires had even a college degree--and it wasn't in urban planning or a related field. In the industry of meeting government requirements for new development, where everyone knew everyone, all 3 were African-Americans that were total unknowns to my former peers in the Planning Zoning & Building Dept, my fellow graduates of FAU's urban and regional planning program, and my contacts in private industry. A few months later I learned that, despite paying the new workers at higher levels than my boss and I got, all of the actual "work" done by my former office was now sub-contracted out--a lucrative deal for those now processing paperwork.
Still caught in the liberal mindset, I thought I had an obvious case for reverse discrimination. I went to see an attorney that specialized in such things. He was blunt: I didn't have a case, because the laws can only be used to benefit racial minorities. He had never even heard of anyone filing a case of reverse racial discrimination.
I don't hate other races, and in fact I greatly resent our government's War on Drugs, its tax policies that rewarded businesses for gutting the inner cities of jobs, and its welfare programs that richly awarded single mothers while penalizing both work and marriage. All of these put African-Americans in an impossible situation.
But on the other hand, I cannot discount my personal experiences. I saw that many blacks actively hate and undermine even the whites who fully support the liberal Party Line and think they are working with friendly peers. I have seen that African Americans who get through college will get virtually any job they apply for in either Big Government or Big Business, and after they are hired they get raises and promotions regardless of their performance--in politics because of the liberal insistence of giving power to blacks, and in business because large corporations need to keep politicians and lawyers off their backs.
I have seen an attitude of both arrogance and entitlement from African Americans that dropped out of school at the first opportunity and put little or no effort into working--based on the media endlessly harping about their forefathers being treated badly. Well, my forefathers never owned a single slave, and none of them were even lower Middle Class; instead, they were indentured servants and/or worked long hours for low pay in NH and Mass shoe factories. As for me and my spouse, we would have been thrilled just to not LOSE hundreds of thousands of dollars of our earnings to taxes--forget actually getting a penny back from any of the endless programs (even in the future).
You can probably figure out why I now believe that government programs to aid "the poor" impose huge costs on the working class taxpayer, while helping virtually nobody that legitimately deserves help. Everything I have experienced, and researched, tells me to have nothing but contempt for the Big Government that cripples and drains the productive economy, the corrupt politicians that use it to support their upper class lifestyles and their desire for power, the government workers who steal from and cheat the taxpayer despite being compensated far more than the private sector worker, and the immoral wretches that take advantage of the endless taxpayer give-aways set up by both naive and corrupt liberals.
I have seen an attitude of both arrogance and entitlement from African Americans that dropped out of school at the first opportunity and put little or no effort into working--based on the media endlessly harping about their forefathers being treated badly.
You can probably figure out why I now believe that government programs to aid "the poor" impose huge costs on the working class taxpayer, while helping virtually nobody that legitimately deserves help. Everything I have experienced, and researched, tells me to have nothing but contempt for the Big Government that cripples and drains the productive economy, the corrupt politicians that use it to support their upper class lifestyles and their desire for power, the government workers who steal from and cheat the taxpayer despite being compensated far more than the private sector worker, and the immoral wretches that take advantage of the endless taxpayer give-aways set up by both naive and corrupt liberals.
Well said... and they're still harping because it works.
This is something I am having a hard time with. I am a black young male who grew up as a Military Brat. I lived most of my life in different European countries. Growing up race was always an after thought it seemed like. I guess for me I am pre-disposed to think differently because of how I lived. It was very common for an Asian person to be married to a White person who are best friends with the Black people next door whose children's Hispanic and White friends come over to spend the night (I could go on and on). Scenarios like that are soooooo common growing up on a military base. Other Military Brats understand this. I guess you're forced to try and get along when confined to the perimeter the security gates. We were not without our social problems, but we (or at least us dependents) were so blind to color and at least showed sympathy towards one another.
Here in America it seems to be so much different. So my question is this, specifically from Whites and Blacks, why do you HATE each other. Yes various black people have hood and heathen ways, but not all of us are like that. Yes various Whites think they are the sweet and delicious nectar of the Gods and deliberately oppress others, but not all are like that also. So with that being said, what is driving all of the hatred. For a kid to dress up as a KKK member for Halloween is disturbing. (link at the bottom) WHY, honestly, WHY. I just do not understand where all of this hatred could possibly for the love of God even come from. Why is there so much effort taken to put others down.
Why do you feel and think the way you do about other races and what have been your experiences with them? Seriously guys/gals, if you consider yourself an adult, act like one and keep it civilized. This is a chance to gain a perspective from someone else's eyes and ears.
My number one wish, although controversial, is for a poll for the USA to be taken. It would say, "should we go back to the Jim Crow days?" Unfortunately, the polls may be very one sided depending on race. I would start an anonymous poll on here, but the little voice in my head says I shouldn't.
You mentioned why Caucasians and African Americans hate each other so much.. I grew up in an Asian community, and Asians can be very racist, too, especially towards Blacks and Latinos, and other Asians.
I never understood the concept for so much hate, but for me I always took it as the self-hatred of oneself onto others. For someone to hate another race so much, especially one that's been so severely oppressed, knowing that one has privilege over the other? The only thing I can fathom is the lack of love one feels for oneself. But, that's coming from someone who observed their own loved ones mistreating people of another race very poorly (ex- janitors and food service workers) my rich family members would inflict pain and suffering onto others.. I always felt seething anger towards them for that.
LOL, you got to be kidding gray war, so your saying people should give blacks respect just because they are black. wow. No one gives anyone respect, not whites, not blacks unless it's earned. PERIOD.
Of COURSE you would take it that way. LOL.
Petch, i am saying human beings in general deserve a certain minimum level of respect until they personally demonstrate otherwise. I dont define that level based upon their color or the actions of others.
Actually, if you ignore this particular problem then yes it will go away. Without liberals out there fanning the flames of racial resentment, the problem absolutely would go away. It has been dwindling for years. It's only because of liberal irrational obsession with race that it is an issue. Without their abnormal fixation on it, race relations would be far better than they are. The era of rampant racism is long gone. The era of rampant sexism is long gone. They were problems of the mid 20th century and we are now in the 21st century. It's evident from the way women used to crusade for wanting the vote and blacks used to crusade against being lynched wheras now the great war on women is just about asking them to make a copay on their birth control and the great war on blacks is using "Chicago" as a racist code word. The trivial silliness of the things that are treated as major issues of prejudice today compared to the issues of decades ago makes it blatantly apparent how little prejudice actually exists in today's society.
But as long as liberals can use whatever resentment they can find to fire up their voter base, they will certainly continue to shriek about it.
Saying that someone must first earn your respect is not racist in the slightest bit. It is rational human behavior to reserve your respect for those who earn that respect.
How do you define the "Problem" of race? As I wrote in another essay in this forum, "The price of harmony is the acceptance of inequality. You are not looking or advocating that the issue of racial inequality go away, rather, you are just advocating that the issue of race goes away because it produces the corollary of racial inequality going away because the metric of race will not therefore be measured and juxtaposed and hence.....no racial inequality.
I am sure that you know that its the inequality that keeps the issue of race alive and well. If black poverty was not 3 times that of whites and if black unemployment was not twice that of whites and if black wealth was not multiple times less than whites then what would be the platform for race? The distinction and difference of "Race" is kept alive by the inequality.
So given that......what is racism today? I will tell you what racism today looks like. Racism today is spotted when people think that people who are poor are mostly that way from their own internal flaws RELATIVE to those who are more successful in life. In other words, poor people are inferior people due to inferior choice making (intellect), inferior levels of personal responsibility (emotional intelligence), laziness, addictions and excuse making. Thus when you apply this "Mantra", which is pretty much the conservative/Republican mantra (although I am apolitical.....this is what I observe) to the realities of black poverty rates being 3 times higher than whites, the logical conclusion, based upon the premise and inferences......IS THAT BLACK PEOPLE ARE INFERIOR TO WHITES!!!
You see.....the "conservative" wants to get ride of the metric of race......because the conservative cannot keep him or herself from being a racist. Since they cannot and will not change who they are on the inside....they have to change the way things are defined on the outside. If you do not keep track of race.....then you cannot keep track of their racism. In other words, their racism will not exist IF YOU DO NOT POINT IT OUT!. The absence of evidence then becomes EVIDENCE OF ABSENCE (of racism and its impact past and present).
Last edited by Indentured Servant; 11-04-2014 at 06:34 AM..
I hope some day, when I'm long dead unfortunately, that race and skin color is looked at the same way as hair and eye color.
That may come long after my GRANDCHILDREN are long dead...
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