Misnomers
During a conversation about juries and popular reaction this morning something occurred to me that is fairly obvious and so prevalent that I had never noticed it at all; any time the word Racist is applied it is instantly assumed that the person or people being referred to is/are white/Caucasian. How is it that in order to be a bigot someone must be white?
The KKK is to blame I think, and the Aryan Nation, and to a larger degree Adolf Hitler. However in most ethnicities there are equivalent, although addressed by the media less often, “organizations”, I won’t get into those organizations as I believe they are equally as stupid and pointless as the previously mentioned “organizations”. So on to the point.
Even though it is out of the order that I began with I want to start with Hitler; here is a man (an insane man) that publicly criticized just about anyone that wasn’t German. Now Hitler was a racist in the extreme, he had a self loathing going on that I am sure there have been studies, but I don’t care enough about them to get into or even read. Although he felt anyone that wasn’t blonde haired, blue eyed 6 foot plus was less than perfect, he was indiscriminant in that statement. Yep that’s right it included whites as part of his less than perfect group. This is not to mention that Judaism is not a race but a religion, mostly populated by white people. We won’t even get into the part where a white dominated society along with pretty much everyone’s support, excluding Japan, hunted him and his followers (the German military and majority population) down at great cost. So he is one misnomer (and was a very confused individual in my opinion). So what I mean by all this rambling is that he is not what I would call a good example of white culture.
The KKK, oh boy… where should I start? Here is a bunch of white, insecure, idiotic sheep that couldn’t tie their own shoes without a guide (the grand dragon maybe?). Although I believe they should be able to state their opinion (it’s a right that comes with being American) I don’t think they should be assumed to be representative of the entire white race. This is possibly the single largest collective of idiots I have ever encountered. It saddens me that the other 90% of the white race is too timid to stand up and say “Shut Up! We don’t’ want to hear it” because although they are allowed to have their opinion the rest of us are allowed to have and state ours too. Mine happens to be (and I dare say a large majority of whites share this) Sit down, Shut up, and Get a Real Freaking Job. Anyhow I could sit and trash on the KKK all day but I won’t, I think you get the idea.
The Aryan Nation, this one is simple, and so are its members. It’s a defensive mechanism established in Prisons primarily. In the absolute worst community of any culture you will get the absolute worst outcomes. Prison is good for keeping these things away from the general public except that eventually those idiots get out and find other free roaming similar minded individuals and spread the stupidity. Memes work that way unfortunately. As a whole I consider the Aryan Nation in the same light as I consider the KKK. I will leave this as is because I like to think you get the idea here too.
Now on to the bigger picture; how is it that the word Racist has somehow become a white thing? Is the Hispanic that hates blacks and whites not racist? Or the Black that hates Asians? Or the Asian that hates *insert culture here*? Although I sound hypocritical in those statements I am not saying that all Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Indians, Whites, etc. hate any particular group, or anyone for that matter, just that there are individuals in those cultures (and others that I am not mentioning) that do have those particular feelings. Somehow their image is never rendered when the word racist is thrown around.
Racism~
Function: noun
1 : a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.
2 : racial prejudice or discrimination.
I don’t see anywhere in that definition a particular culture being mentioned as the sole bearer of the title.
Just for the sake of clarity I don’t foresee this issue ever changing. In all of our minds we have words like this that draw certain assumptions and those instances are not excluded from helping to define us all as at least a little racist and/or prejudiced. As long as we (yes all of us whites too) continue to reactively assume a racist to be white, or a crack dealer to be Black, or an immigrant to be Hispanic, there is a little racism in all of us.
Closing thought:
There are two kinds of people in the world; Assholes and Non-Assholes. Everything else about a person defines them as well, but I think that rounded out quality defines how much we choose to interact with that person. And I haven’t noticed a color (skin, eyes nor hair) qualifier to that particular personality trait.
The KKK is to blame I think, and the Aryan Nation, and to a larger degree Adolf Hitler. However in most ethnicities there are equivalent, although addressed by the media less often, “organizations”, I won’t get into those organizations as I believe they are equally as stupid and pointless as the previously mentioned “organizations”. So on to the point.
Even though it is out of the order that I began with I want to start with Hitler; here is a man (an insane man) that publicly criticized just about anyone that wasn’t German. Now Hitler was a racist in the extreme, he had a self loathing going on that I am sure there have been studies, but I don’t care enough about them to get into or even read. Although he felt anyone that wasn’t blonde haired, blue eyed 6 foot plus was less than perfect, he was indiscriminant in that statement. Yep that’s right it included whites as part of his less than perfect group. This is not to mention that Judaism is not a race but a religion, mostly populated by white people. We won’t even get into the part where a white dominated society along with pretty much everyone’s support, excluding Japan, hunted him and his followers (the German military and majority population) down at great cost. So he is one misnomer (and was a very confused individual in my opinion). So what I mean by all this rambling is that he is not what I would call a good example of white culture.
The KKK, oh boy… where should I start? Here is a bunch of white, insecure, idiotic sheep that couldn’t tie their own shoes without a guide (the grand dragon maybe?). Although I believe they should be able to state their opinion (it’s a right that comes with being American) I don’t think they should be assumed to be representative of the entire white race. This is possibly the single largest collective of idiots I have ever encountered. It saddens me that the other 90% of the white race is too timid to stand up and say “Shut Up! We don’t’ want to hear it” because although they are allowed to have their opinion the rest of us are allowed to have and state ours too. Mine happens to be (and I dare say a large majority of whites share this) Sit down, Shut up, and Get a Real Freaking Job. Anyhow I could sit and trash on the KKK all day but I won’t, I think you get the idea.
The Aryan Nation, this one is simple, and so are its members. It’s a defensive mechanism established in Prisons primarily. In the absolute worst community of any culture you will get the absolute worst outcomes. Prison is good for keeping these things away from the general public except that eventually those idiots get out and find other free roaming similar minded individuals and spread the stupidity. Memes work that way unfortunately. As a whole I consider the Aryan Nation in the same light as I consider the KKK. I will leave this as is because I like to think you get the idea here too.
Now on to the bigger picture; how is it that the word Racist has somehow become a white thing? Is the Hispanic that hates blacks and whites not racist? Or the Black that hates Asians? Or the Asian that hates *insert culture here*? Although I sound hypocritical in those statements I am not saying that all Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Indians, Whites, etc. hate any particular group, or anyone for that matter, just that there are individuals in those cultures (and others that I am not mentioning) that do have those particular feelings. Somehow their image is never rendered when the word racist is thrown around.
Racism~
Function: noun
1 : a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.
2 : racial prejudice or discrimination.
I don’t see anywhere in that definition a particular culture being mentioned as the sole bearer of the title.
Just for the sake of clarity I don’t foresee this issue ever changing. In all of our minds we have words like this that draw certain assumptions and those instances are not excluded from helping to define us all as at least a little racist and/or prejudiced. As long as we (yes all of us whites too) continue to reactively assume a racist to be white, or a crack dealer to be Black, or an immigrant to be Hispanic, there is a little racism in all of us.
Closing thought:
There are two kinds of people in the world; Assholes and Non-Assholes. Everything else about a person defines them as well, but I think that rounded out quality defines how much we choose to interact with that person. And I haven’t noticed a color (skin, eyes nor hair) qualifier to that particular personality trait.
posted by Capt. Obvious at 8:20 AM
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