'to Be White Is To Be Racist'

Culture is a condition of mind, something we humans have learned to program into ourselves through habits, rituals and associations. The most obvious example of this is the sheer diversity that is American culture. Take jazz for example. For a long time people who wanted to hear it had to seek it out or learn to play it. The wealthy racists who owned the media forbid progressive black music to get beyond wax.

But the rest of America refused to let it die on the vine and it became an icon of American culture. Not because it was black in origin, but because it is American. I grew up in Marin county where nobody really cared what you are as long as you're not an asshole. And from what I see, all races produce assholes.

What if all the "race" problems we hear about were really just common asshole problems all along?

 

Culture is how people organize in large groups. Around 300 people is the limit that sociologists recognize where organizing along the lines of everybody knowing each other well starts to become rapidly difficult to manage. A woman from a primitive stone age Yanomamo-like tribe once visited NYC and when asked her impressions she noted that she had never known people could be so lonely and pressed together like so many cattle. The more abstract we treat one another in the name of convenience or some other reward, the more habituated we become and the more rituals we adopt such as opening doors for women and children.

You're right as far as I'm concerned and all races produce assholes. However, the more abused any race becomes the more scum floats to the top. My own father is Irish catholic and they became infamous for violent gangs in NYC because they were treated like trash by everyone else. The same thing is happening today in black communities across America because they know from long experience that the money and the guns are doing all the real talking and they can't get any justice in or out of court. They can't afford the best justice that money can buy, so they are fighting to ensure those dumping on them pay the price. Killing cops, rioting, and looting and exploiting the drug trade and whatnot are just the natural responses of a people who have been left no viable alternatives. Half a century ago it was the white rednecks in the country who had more of that reputation, but times change. The Mexicans are now earning more of a reputation for violence and crime which just makes sense when they can't even become legal citizens and are only tolerated here because they work cheap.

 

That would suggest they didn't already have a reputation for violence and crime before they walked across the border, illegally, (something Americans cannot do without being arrested immediately). There are too many double-standards being bandied about these days, most of it based on old grudges and settling old scores. Imagine being compelled to exact "revenge" onto the descendents of your grandfather's butcher because he sold bad meat once?

America is a composite of the world, a grand experiment in true diversity. For the most part it has been successful. That's skewed a bit by walking on the moon and feeding so many people around the planet. But hey, I've seen people bitching at Disneyland.

 

The US has fewer gun laws than most third world countries, the largest prison population in the history of the world, and in every respect the worst imaginable social problems which are all concentrated in the Bible Belt where they blame the rest of the world for their problems. Mexico has merely become the ghetto to the US which has always had the worst social record in the developed world just as the Palestinians have become a ghetto to Israel. Its where both countries get cheap labor, drugs, weapons, or anything else that is illegal. Notably, the US originally stole a third of its land from Mexico on the pretext that it was Manifest Destiny.

The money and the gun are doing all the talking which is why people are now killing cops sniping them from rooftops and we have two presidential candidates who I wouldn't elect as a dog catcher.

 

The people ambushing cops are fucking cowards. Their psychotic deeds aren't helping any of the latest whining movements any more than they helped back in the 60s and 70s. That last war on cops didn't end so well for the cowards.

As far as the "Bible Belt" I would have said you were preaching to the choir a dozen or so years ago. But after living in Atlanta so long my whole paradigm on "The South" has changed. I moved here expecting to see the KKK directing traffic and the cops beating minorities in the streets. I thought I'd see a cross burning every month or so. And I expected to see wall to wall toothless rednecks waving confederate flags. None of that turned out to be true and only revealed my own prejudices.

As for social pathologies, I've seen them all over the country. Which ones do you think are predominant to one geographical section of the country? It's a broad brush, but are you really suggesting the rest of the country is free of this? Unless you just like bagging on the south, sure seems like a fashionable thing these days. You might be surprised to know they have indoor plumbing, all the new car plants and nuclear power in the south. I'd call that some progress.

But every so often I run into a walking stereotype, usually at yard sales, farmer's markets and auctions. Go figure.

 

Thankfully the south has started to finally recover from the civil war, but "reconstruction" was a euphemism for destruction and punishment. I grew up there and both my parents are from Saint Louis. Evidently, you've only seen it after the worst of the disaster but I could tell stories that would make William Faulkner blush. These days most people just keep their antebellum opinions more private.

The Bible Belt literally has the worst social record in every regard to this day. The highest divorce rates, murder rates, child abuse, rape, you name it. The evangelical Barna Group couldn't believe the results either and ran their own surveys only to confirm what the academics stated. The Fundamentalists were especially upset to discover that statistics for their congregations were no better and often worse than those for other religious groups. The only exception was the vanishingly tiny minority among them who actually did charitable work with their own two hands on a regular basis, but that idea never caught on. In the 1990s the Southern Baptist preachers got carried away competing with one another for the best hell fire and brimstone sermons only to chase off half their congregations and in the last decade young adults have fled Fundamentalist churches en mass complaining the pulpit has become a political stump. Its Three Stooges slapstick all the way baby with see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil ruling their world while they all argue over the definition of stupid and who is the better example.

The snipers are just doing what the revolutionary war soldiers did ambushing the redcoats. You can call them cowards if you want, but they know there is no justice for them in or out of court and the gun is the only way to get what they want. The same sentiment is spreading to every race in the country now that our constitutional rights have been suspended indefinitely. In Arizona the courts said the pigs could bust down any door they wanted without a warrant if they just claimed they smelled pot, which the supreme court upheld, only to have them shoot a veteran of two wars 32 times in front of his mother when they got the wrong address. No warrants, no constitutional rights, and cops arresting even newspaper reporters. Sooner or later you'll either catch on or you won't, but you've been sold down the river.

 

Nearly all the major urban areas in the south are reasonably progressive. You can't hear the banjos till you get about 40 miles out of town. Most people are surprised to discover that all the majot Texas cities are split pretty well right down the middle on the political spectrum.

 

Yeah, as soon as Texas started making a little money the Yankees moved into the cities looking for jobs. Still, these days Americans in general are more private about their negative opinions even in the country. No sense talking about such things to absolute strangers when you can go to a KKK rally or the Tea Party and spout all the nonsense you want. A lot of the worst of them are also rapidly aging with the latest estimates being that the republican party will be defunct within two decades. Seniors who watch way too much Fox News, professional wrestling, and reality TV.

 

Atlanta also enjoys the benefit of the MLK National Monument. Unless you are abjectly racist, that facility is a very visible and powerful reminder to check your privilege.

 

Saying "check your privilege" to someone is not only rude, but hideously bigoted. The very term "white privilege" is racist to the core. As if all white people are on easy street when they are most of the poor in the US. This sort of divisive shit serves nobody. No "justice" is created, only deepening resentment over issues nobody can "fix" from the past. It gets old hearing the same stuff over and over. Hate is hate.

 

Just to clarify further, I wasnt the term "you" to refer to *you,* GeorgeJetStoned. I meant the general you. Actually, I was referring specifically to myself. I had the good fortune to (inadvertently) find myself at that spot over the summer, and that was exactly what it did for me. I apologize if you felt I was targeting you.

 

No they are not. There is no goal of a new nation or independence in these horrible acts. This is disconnected psychopaths using a convenient excuse to murder unsuspecting people. Cops are not another "race" (contrary to recent opinion).

The colonists didn't turn on the British out of the blue. It came after years of oppression by the crown of all colonists. We don't have anyone forcing citizens to quarter cops in their homes. The British treated the colonists like slaves, very different from what's happening today. Your comparison is downright strange.

 

Forget about another race, anyone who supports money doing all the driving isn't human anymore. Only cattle follow the food around wherever it leads, right into the slaughter house! If blacks feel like at least putting up a fight I can certainly understand. Even some of the cops have quite their jobs protesting money doing all the driving and the indefinite suspension of our constitutional rights. Forget about taxation without representation, these days money is buying up all the justice while we now have the lowest social mobility and voter turnout in the developed world.

Notably, the US government promised anyone who fought in the revolutionary war a small penchant if they stayed for the duration, then taxed them even more when the war was over. Back then I could understand, it was new country and they were broke, but now they're just plain greedy and loyalty is no longer possible when money is all that matters.

 

That's still greed more so than "white racism". Which is why I think black Americans are making a grave error in ramping up their hate. Fighting with the cops is the wrong way to go. The last war on cops ended very badly.

Understand I'm not siding with the oinkers, I avoid them every way I can. There's almost no time that an encounter with a cop didn't cost me money. I only ever had 1 cop start to get physical with me, but he was obviously trying to get me riled up over chickenshit. When he realized I wasn't going to be goaded by a low-wage asshole, he gave me my invitation to court and left.

I'm all for taking the cops to task, but it has to be by the rules of law. Shooting people in cold blood is something psychotic cowards do. Right up there with bombing buildings full of innocent people or sucker-punching old people.

I'm fairly certain we have strayed from the topic, so I will disengage this before I collect even more warnings points. I didn't mind those at first, then I discovered you don't actually win anything!

 

This isn't a war on the cops, its terrorism plain and simple which is the last resort of desperate people. If the only thing the US government understands anymore is money then their job is to make it too expensive to keep treating them like animals. The Chinese turned rioting into an art form thousands of years ago as their way of responding to being exploited. They can kowtow with the best of them and sacrifice forever for the greater good, but the minute they think they are being exploited and nobody is going to stop it they will riot by the millions making it an expensive proposition. The IRA did the same in Ireland and eventually won serious concessions because even the bad publicity will cost them. If guns and money are all you understand then instant karma is gonna getcha baby!

The rule of law is no more. In case you haven't been paying attention the two presidential candidates we have should both be in jail. The bankers should be in jail, OJ Simpson should be in jail, the billionaire mayor of NYC should be in jail, and the list goes on and on.

 

Boiling that premise down, it claims to know the motivations and create stereotypes about a group of people based upon the color of their skin. It's textbook racism.

If you can't make your argument on race without creating a dichotomy where you're literally saying something racist to make people consider racism, and not be aware of the absurdity of it, you're probably too dumb to be teaching a class.

I don't know what people's whole deal with race is though. Talking about it really brings the stupid out in people.

 

Stereotypes are so accurately portrayed though.
Don't sit there and pretend they aren't. Don't do it. You oughtta know better.

 

White people live on easy street but they cant dance, black people like fried chicken and watermelon (seriously who doesnt), asians are smart with small penises, indians smell like curry, muslims are terrorists, germans are efficient, british people have bad teeth and they're very proper, americans are fat and stupid,mexicans steal jobs but they're hard workers, thats all i can think of now

Stereotypes really just show everyone is ridiculous

 

Triggering, it's not just for commies!

Really though, I speak from a nostalgic perspective. Back in the 70s, after Vietnam finally ended, the war on cops as well, we had a weird kind of calm in the US that I really miss. Music was incredible, I still have my Donna Summer, Parliament Funkadelic and Fleetwood Mac albums. ELO too!

But all of us, regardless of race, really got along well during this time. I know I'm spoiled a bit being from California, but I saw it all over the country after I joined the Navy. People were just cooler then. Sure, the racists were loud and proud, but that made them easier to avoid. I had friends in high school from every genetic continent. When Disco magically appeared, I learned it from friends I had known for years who happened to be black and Hispanic.

Disco not only saved my adolescent sex life from ruin (I was a ham radio nerd), but I was way ahead of my fellow honkies when it came to dance moves. I still have a trophy from a disco contest I won in 1977 with a girl I had only met 2 hours before. An hour before that I learned my partner was on her way to Laguna with her coke dealer and didn't give a shit about a contest we practiced weeks for. AND I paid an entry fee. </tangent>

 

I love it!!!

• But let's not forget the array of dancing honkies like Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly and even John Travolta (disco mood today).
• I often wonder who could be the one that first thought to fry a bird, what drove them to it? I'm picturing a grease fire that wipes out a whole village.
• Asian folks DO have a lot of smart cookies, look at any US engineering school. As for male organs, I learned in boot camp, like it or not, none of the stereotypes about them are true. However, nature does seem to assign the smaller penis onto the biggest dickheads you'll ever meet while assigning 11 inches of terror onto a scrawny dude with buck teeth and a forcep-derived profile. It's all so unfair.
• I smell like curry, sue me.
• All of the Muslims I have ever met were not terrorists. Just like all of the white southerners I know are not in the KKK. Both groups talk funny though!
• Germans have been riding that reputation for centuries, but I learned how it works on a project in the Caribbean. German engineers will let a piece of equipment overheat to the point of flying apart, so they can dissect it and learn why. They are masters of trial and error. Just ask a Volkswagen diesel owner.
• The British, are the British. I like a lot of their TV shows. And Gordon Ramsey.
• Saaaayyyyy, I AM fat and stupid!!! I got fat eating Louisiana cooking. I'm not sure why I got so fucking stupid.
• I love Mexican food. Here in Atlanta we have really authentic Mexican restaurants. It's as if they truck in REAL Mexicans to do the cooking!!!!

Really though, I know a lot about stereotypes. I rely on the stereotype of the "Typical Corporate Geek/Dork" when I have to work undercover at a massive corporation that would never knowingly hire a hippy. I'm not actually a capitalist pig, I just use them for resources. If they knew the truth, I'd be escorted from the building. The lesson here, LIE on your resume at least once to get a job that pays you far more than you're worth even if it only lasts for a month.

! <------- That's not an exclamation point. It's an emoji for Lance Armstrong.