[dktorode]

I came across this just now and was going to post it in the "is it racist to support your own race thread" but decided to rather open a new thread just for this.

Michael Richards better known as Kramer from TVs Seinfeld.
This was his defense speech in court after making racial comments in his comedy act. He makes some very interesting points....

Quote

Someone finally said it. How many are actually paying attention to this? There are African Americans, Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, Arab Americans, etc.

And then there are just Americans. You pass me on the street and sneer in my direction. You call me 'White boy,' 'Cracker,' 'Honkey,' 'Whitey,' 'Caveman'... and that's OK.
But when I call you, Nigger, Kike, Towel head, Sand-nigger, Camel Jockey, Beaner, Gook, or Chink .. You call me a racist.

You say that whites commit a lot of violence against you... so why are the ghettos the most dangerous places to live?

You have the United Negro College Fund. You have Martin Luther King Day.
You have Black History Month. You have Cesar Chavez Day.
You have Yom Hashoah. You have Ma'uled Al-Nabi.
You have the NAACP. You have BET...
If we had WET (White Entertainment Television), we'd be racists. If we had a White Pride Day, you would call us racists.

If we had White History Month, we'd be racists..
If we had any organization for only whites to 'advance' OUR lives, we'd be racists..

We have a Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, a Black Chamber of Commerce, and then we just have the plain Chamber of Commerce. Wonder who pays for that??

A white woman could not be in the Miss Black American pageant, but any color can be in the Miss America pageant.

If we had a college fund that only gave white students scholarships.... You know we'd be racists.

There are over 60 openly proclaimed Black Colleges in the US . Yet if there were 'White colleges', that would be a racist college.

In the Million Man March, you believed that you were marching for your race and rights. If we marched for our race and rights, you would call us racists.

You are proud to be black, brown, yellow and orange, and you're not afraid to announce it. But when we announce our white pride, you call us racists.

You rob us, carjack us, and shoot at us. But, when a white police officer shoots a black gang member or beats up a black drug dealer running from the law and posing a threat to society, you call him a racist.

I am proud.... But you call me a racist.

Why is it that only whites can be racists??

Discuss...

[Gothos]

I think he does have a point. then again my voice here doesn't mean much since I'm not american and my country is filled with white boys and girls from border to border (though vietnamese are invading warsaw, so I hear).
I'd love to hear something 'bout that for you guys tho.

[beru]

ive heard simmilar things before and people that think envery thing is racism

here is one situation i found amusing
we got our tests back
one in class is from kurdistan(afganistan for those that dont know that)
he gets a low grade
he proclams
"I only got this beackuse the teacher is racist!" (in the teachers face too...)
i was shocked...
i think its only a racist free comunety if you can use jokes about skinncolur as enny insulting joke...

[Cold Iron]

wtf is with all these threads? I think this is tied to financial tough times. We usually tolerate this because we are rich and we don't care. If we are competing for 7/11 jobs with migrants, suddenly we get touchy about the racism issue.

[dktorode]

There's only one other race thread that i know of CI...

Sorry i didnt start another discussion about science vs religion

[Skywalker]

Wow... I can't believe he actually said that. Did he run it past Jesse Jackson first?

I think this whole deal is idiotic. So a comedian has a pseudo-racist meltdown. Or a movie star (Mel Gibson) does an anti-semitic rant. Big deal. More significant symptoms of America being racially divided are around.

Just ask any American.

It's not just in America thought - the whole world is split. Along ethnic, racial, religious lines. e.g. If Hindus, Christians, Zoroastrians, Sikhs etc. declare they want a homeland where they are in the majority, we won't tire of telling them to be secular and democratic. Not so with Israel.

We're just one big happy bunch of bigots who pretend to be humanists.

All that said though, there have been real injustices in the world (Slavery/ Holocaust) that need correcting. In the short and medium term at least, the world will go through these perturbations. Maybe in the long term too. Who knows.

Skywalker -

[The Tyrant Lizard]

I've had the same thoughts as Richards for ages. Almost all of what he's put there Ive already said. I know that in the past minorities didnt have there own 'things' and they werent allowed to get involved in white 'things', but that isnt the case anymore, so if the minorities want equality, why dont they embrace equality?

The you rob us carjack us and shoot at us was a bit stupid. As far as I know robbers and carjackers and shooters dont care what skin colour they've got, and dont care what skin colour they're attacking.

The man makes a valid point, but I dont doubt some people will view the OP statement as racist in and of itself.

This post has been edited by The Tyrant Lizard: 02 April 2009 - 11:36 AM

[Thelomen Toblerone]

The point is that the white majority population doesn't need things to advance them in general, because they are alreay the dominant population that holds much of the power. It's the same argument (roughly) that feminists had decades back, the western world and most positions of power are controlled by wasp men.

However you feel, you cannot really deny the fact that ethnic minorities are on average less likely to gain positions of power than white men, that women on average earn less than men for the same jobs, and so on. Personally, in the case of minorities I would make the point that economic cicrumstance has more to do with it, and more minorities tend to live in poor areas - I would say a kid born in a council estate in Glasgow East to a junkie mum that goes to a poor school and is surrounded by crime and poor circumstance is less likely to succeed regardless of race, but the fact is that minorities do tend to be poorer, and so have less prospects. That needs to be addressed.

Now, I dont agree with positive discrimination, but it remains that something needs to be done and that is the way the US has chosen to do it. If you ask me, remove inequalities in education and economic circumstance, and that will do a damn sight more for minority prospects than stirring up alot of ill-feeling.

There's no doubt that accusations of racism are sometimes false, like in Beru's case, and people need to be told to shut up and stop being stupid in such cases. However, that doesn't diminish the fact that racism does exist and needs to be countered. Sometimes a white man will claim his white boss fired him because he doesnt like him, rather than he didnt do his job, even if this is not true - people always look for an excuse, and it's the same thing really. Unfortunate, but that's the way it is, people will always look for some other explanation for why something bad has happened to them rather than any deficiency in their actions or character.

[dktorode]

Whats gets me is Richards was hauled to court for racist jokes in his show, but when a black comedians uses race in their shows its perfectly ok.

[Gothos]

beru, on Apr 2 2009, 12:20 PM, said:

one in class is from kurdistan(afganistan for those that dont know that)

hi.



NOT the same.



anyway, the issue here is, to me, that there seems to be some public stigma for acknowledging that you're white, that white people got their culture, traits, or want to support each other. I have a very peculiar point of view that, in a democracy, anyone should have a voice, and I think it's wrong to, as an example, ban communist / facist / nazist political parties that would want to participate in the system. same here. just because someone doesn't like what someone else is saying, doesn't mean it should be penalized.

[Cougar]

I'm with the chav on this one. We don't need a White History month, as we have history which is effectively white history as it's massively Eurocentric.

If you are a white male, you still hold all the cards, if you think of the modern world as a card game you got dealt a Full House, especially if you were born into a family of upper-working class or better, the only difference between now and the 1800s is you aren't allowed to murder the opposition and steal their cards as well.

[The Tyrant Lizard]

Cougar, on Apr 2 2009, 01:44 PM, said:

I'm with the chav on this one. We don't need a White History month, as we have history which is effectively white history as it's massively Eurocentric.

If you are a white male, you still hold all the cards, if you think of the modern world as a card game you got dealt a Full House, especially if you were born into a family of upper-working class or better, the only difference between now and the 1800s is you aren't allowed to murder the opposition and steal their cards as well.

What about white men who try to join the fire brigade and are told they can't because they need to recruit ethnic minorites to appease quota filling? It happened to me, and I was given this reason. I didnt feel like I was holding all the cards. In this scenario I lost out because I was a white male.

[Abyss]

dktorode, on Apr 2 2009, 07:53 AM, said:

Whats gets me is Richards was hauled to court for racist jokes in his show, but when a black comedians uses race in their shows its perfectly ok.

Go to YouTube. Watch the performance Richards got slammed for.

He wasn't making jokes. He was telling two black hecklers that 'back in the day, we would have strung you guys up'. He then realizes he's screwed up and tries to turn it into some kind of stream-of-consciousness social statement.

Everything he has done since then has been a sad attempt to reclaim some thin shred of his thoroughly tanked post-Seinfeld career.

Whether Richards has a point or not, he has no credibility to be the one trying to make it.

- Abyss, uncomfortably on the fence on the hiring-policy thing.

[Cougar]

The Tyrant Lizard, on Apr 2 2009, 02:02 PM, said:

What about white men who try to join the fire brigade and are told they can't because they need to recruit ethnic minorites to appease quota filling? It happened to me, and I was given this reason. I didnt feel like I was holding all the cards. In this scenario I lost out because I was a white male.

Yes it's unfortunate, positive discrimination is a blunt and ineffective tool, but this situation only exists because the fire service etc are a closed club for white boys, if they behaved responsibly in the first place it wouldn't be a problem.

I mean positive discrimination of any kind doesn't work because what you do is strengthen the resolve of the particular institution to stay the way it is. My friend who I studied with wrote an excellent article on how positive discrimination by the Labour party (the infamous all female lists) had failed because all it had done was force in women when the institution (politics) was not ready for it. Consequently the women who succeeded just adopted the behaviours and beliefs of the men in the positions of influence and in particular neglected to advance the cause of women and feminism.

This is one of the most often touted criticisms of positive discrimination in SA that I have heard. I'm uncertain of the voracity of the statement but I've heard it said that it has created a class of black people who are unconcerened about 'black issues' and essentially behave like white people historically have.

[Bent]

Usually I stay in the inn, I try not to get into heated debates about this kind of thing, but this one is an issue that I actually have alot of experience in. By that I mean "racism". I live in the southern part of the U.S. Tennessee to be exact. Down here people are often stereo-typed as being rascist. Reasons stem from the Civil War usually, but there are other reasons the south is seen as a racist area.

About 45 miles from my hometown, there is a small town called Tellico. The town is located on top of Tellico Mountain. THe population is around 1200 people, so its a decent sized place. The have electricity, running water, wear shoes, work in factories, clothing stores,resturants, etc. A normal small town. Except for one thing. There are no black people,no spanish people, no Indians (Native Americans or people from India). It is an entirely white town. As you enter the city limits, beside the sign that says "Welcome to Tellico" there is an old tree, maybe an Oak. And in this tree is tied a rope, ending in a noose, draped around the neck of a "dummmy". Like a scarecrow or something. A sign is on that dumm, and it says "NO NIGGERS ALOUD".

Personally I am not a racist or prejudice except to say this. People who hate me because I am white, I in turn do not like. Thats fair, imo. And I don't think it makes me racist to sa that. Anyway, I don't agree with the opinonstated or reflected by that town. But that my friends is true rascism. The occasional slur mumbled by an idiot that thinks he's funny is not in my opinion racist. Actively trying to harm someone because of the color of their skin on the other hand, is. I saw his bit, and I ask this. Had he said that to a white person, would it have been that big of a deal. Or maybe had he said, "In my day, had you heckled like that, we would have had security take you out and beat the shit out of you for ruining everyone elses time", would that still have been rascist?

I say this, because we need to realize that people get offended all of the time over somethings, but that doesn't mean that the offender is evil. Lableing him a rascist, is what is really wrong with this country. Hell, he makes a good point in his defense of himself. And its not hate, its fairness. Watch an act by Dave Chapell or Carlos Mencia. A white man can't tell those jokes. Like I said, I think the term rascism is too often used by the media and others. Sure the guy probably doesn't like black people, and that makes him a rascist. But the generalization of the term is weak, especially for those of us who have seen a black kid walk into a high school in Tellico, and be forced to quit that day, because the other kids call him terribl names and never even knew his real name.

~Again, I feel in no way connected to these people and feel that the whole town should be nuked. But I don't think the guy above should be strung up for speaking his mind.

[stone monkey]

Why do I even look at threads like these? The urge to become impolite is almost unbearable... But anyway.

I would argue that the occasional racist slur muttered under the breath is considered to be racist behaviour from the point of view of the person who is being muttered at...

From what I gather, Richards wasn't trying to make a point, clever, relevant or otherwise; he was trying to insult two members of his audience based entirely on the colour of their skin. And was therefore being a dick. The very fact that he immediately tried to justify what he'd said is a pretty fair sign that he was being deliberately racist and knew it wouldn't go down well; somewhat along the lines of a person who starts a conversation with the words "I'm not a racist but..." Guess what? It doesn't wash.

Every time I hear a racially motivated epithet pointed at me, or someone like me, by a white person (which fortunately, hasn't happened in a while) I'm fairly forcibly reminded that the person doing so is making a distinct point of saying that I don't count, in any way, as a human being and that people like him should own people like me. The casual (or not so casual) usage of racially charged terms is a symptom. Yes, racially motivated violence is more immediately harmful to the individual, but living in a society where racism is tolerated, openly or not, is spiritually toxic to everyone.

As Cougar says, if you're born a white male in a western democracy; congratulations, you won in the random lottery of life. You are the beneficiary of hundreds of years of your ancestors' voyaging around the world to where the brown people live and taking their stuff (and, in the case of Africa, spending four centuries shipping tens of millions of them half way round the world for the express purpose of working them and their children to death) The world is still run by and for people like you. And whilst the efforts to redress the imbalances that history has caused in the modern world can be a little overzealous, I'm not so sure that they're entirely misguided. Something still remains to be done. Whether the right things are being done is, for me, difficult to judge; I have a certain amount of bias, after all, as for me this particular aspect of the poltical is very personal.

I'm also a bit... intrigued... as to why so many of these threads have popped up in recent weeks myself... And I think I'm with probably CI on this (if, it would appear, nothing else ); when times are hard the first thing that happens is that the majority turns on "the other", they form convenient scapegoats. Which is completely ignoring the fact that if the white folks are suffering financially, then the non-whites (who, statistically, are far worse off than the whites) are likely to be suffering more. But that's applying rationality to an inherently irrational set of beliefs, and no one should want to do that, should they?

[Gothos]

stone monkey, on Apr 2 2009, 05:47 PM, said:

You are the beneficiary of hundreds of years of your ancestors' voyaging around the world to where the brown people live and taking their stuff (and, in the case of Africa, spending four centuries shipping tens of millions of them half way round the world for the express purpose of working them and their children to death)

what about those of us that never did that? coming from a country that never excercised slavery beyond our own kin (yay feudalism), I'd still probably fall under your generalisation just because I happen to be white. it just doesn't make sense to me.

[Bent]

Gothos, on Apr 2 2009, 01:09 PM, said:

stone monkey, on Apr 2 2009, 05:47 PM, said:

You are the beneficiary of hundreds of years of your ancestors' voyaging around the world to where the brown people live and taking their stuff (and, in the case of Africa, spending four centuries shipping tens of millions of them half way round the world for the express purpose of working them and their children to death)

what about those of us that never did that? coming from a country that never excercised slavery beyond our own kin (yay feudalism), I'd still probably fall under your generalisation just because I happen to be white. it just doesn't make sense to me.

According to this statement, it would appear that stone monkey is a rascist. And need I remind you that the Irish had it nearly as bad when they were imported over. Or the Chinese who were forced to work on the rail-roads. All of that was in the past, and leaps and bounds have been made to change the equality of all races. But it seems to me SM, that you expect more, at least from readin your post. Being a white man, I don't know what its like being black or brown, so would you elaborate as to what you feel needs to be done to stop rascism. Whats really funny to me, is that as I type this, I find myself watching my words and statements so as to not be seen as being prejudice. I typed and retyped this to make it less aggressive sounding. I find that interesting in itself. The original statement was this....What is it going to take to make black people forgive white peoples ancestors for making their ancestors slaves....see that sounds terrible, but the point remains, how can me as a white man, prove to you as a black man, that I hate you not because you are black, but because you are a dick...lol. That was a joke, but you take my meaning I hope. Would you help me to better understand this. there are a total of like 15 black people in my entire county, and they are "Whiter" than me. Listening to country music and wearing cowboy boots etc. lol. So any input you give would be helpful in my trying to understand your point of view.

[Macros]

...

I tried to resist, I really did.

But I can't.

Once again I would like to state I don't consider myself a racist, I don't care what colour your skin is (except for the greens, those guys are sponging dicks).

I CAN NOT be held responsible for what some upper class white dick did 300 years ago.

Non of my ancestors were ever in a position to own a slave, in fact, far enough back I'm sure my family were the slave like bonded men farming the land.
To be told that I can't get a job because, basically, I'm white is the height of ridiculousness. If I can be hauled to court for hiring some white guy over a black, purely on that merit, surely I can take someone to court for hiring a black guy over me, based purely on the colour of my skin.

I am struck by this being a considerably larger and more serious version of the nerds revenge when he sees a chance to belittle him in later life.
except, its not the nerd, or the bully. Its people unrelated to the original bully, and its 200 years later. but HEY he looks like a picture of that bully so its only fair.

Pah
I was going to go bentesque and retype for easier reading and lease chance to offend. But my opinions are my opinions, I argue with my workmate (a catholic) over similar bullshit regarding religion and the police force here on a regular basis so I get more than a bit cheesed off.

[Assail]

I agree, for the most part. I don't believe it's okay to live the mentality of an 'eye for an eye', in terms of name calling. However, that is how it largely is within our society, within limits of course. Such constant degradation by both parties, whoever is using said names, can only lead to more distrust, dislike and eventually destruction.

I agree though, I find it amazingly hypocritical to have marched against segregation, for equal rights and a fair time in the U.S.A. when the minorities themselves practice segregation themselves. Miss Black American Pageant, the Black colleges etc etc.

@stonemonkey

Considering the circumstances, and by no way am I defending him, he was duly provoked when he said the words he did. In the middle of a show he was interrupted and pissed on by said members of the audience, and so happened to respond in a way that he deemed fit. This is no defense here but we cannot always consider only one side of the story because "Omg he said something worse and did something worse then what they did!", you also need to look at what motivated his response.

Concerning your idea that when times are tough, the majority turns to the majority and looks for a scapegoat. I think that's purile, bullshit. Unless you have found that during other various 'tough times' in the history of the USA that people bring up racially motivated discussion threads, then don't make such a stupid remark. I'm sorry but it's a completely ignorant statement to say that the majority singles out the minority JUST BECAUSE financially, times are difficult.

@Abyss

So because Richard's was serious about what he said that excuses a nonchalant use of it as a joke, thus leading to a precedent within our cultures? I mean shit, if it's such a big deal, which it is, within our societies, then why do Blacks, or Mexicans or any other 'minority' use such euphamisms so freely as a joke. It just seems very hypocritcal and stupid. If you're going to persecute people for using it, then why use it yourself? People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.