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    Default Re: Racism

    Joe,

    It is truly awful that your ancestor was conscripted into the British Navy. I wonder what rank he finally ended his career at. You know what the rest of your article does? Talks about Class warfare and how the Capital Class keeps the working class down. I didnt know you were a Marxist?

    Furthermore, for you to imply that Avalon is left in any way is laughable. This place is firmly reactionary. In fact, it is so reactionary at times that I am waiting for Voice from the Mountain to start demanding a Bourbon restoration.


    EDIT

    I wanted to add: Since your ancestor was a victim of Extraordinary rendetion into the British navy, I wonder what your position on Extraordinary rendition to Guantanamo bay is? And what of that prison itself?
    Last edited by Praxis; 6th June 2019 at 14:26.

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    Default Re: Racism

    This is an epic thread; I've enjoyed contemplating all the various perspectives and comments. So much rich conversation has ensued it's hard to add anything useful to the conversation, but perhaps the best attempt is to define racism as precisely as possible and then clarify how commonly employed definitions are problematic.

    As far as I understand it, and simply put, racism describes the phenomena of structural marginalization in society based on race.. We can debate how and why this marginalization exists, its historical roots, where it's heading, and what we can do to eradicate the problem--and we will all have differing ideas and opinions for sure based on our personal experiences--but there is really no debating the underlying problem. Racism is a social problem; it is a humanitarian problem; it is a spiritual problem. The evidence here should surprise no one with even a modicum of awareness.

    Unfortunately--and here is the elephant in the room: cultural institutions have weaponized and co-opted the phenomena to advance political agendas to foment tribal tensions and divisions, as DNA and others have eloquently pointed out. Racism has thus been used to ascribe victimizing attributes to groups at large and has summarily rendered other groups at large to victims. This dialect is both a conscious and subconscious inculcation in the collective psyche that serves to de-individualize persons accordingly per their group affiliation. So humanitarians tackling the problem in good faith will often find pushback against the elephant in the room, or from those who simply resist being de-individualized, regardless of the validity or fallacy of the underlying reality. Moreover, the pushback is often mischaracterized as a "racist protest" (and even more confusing and complexing, as sometimes it is a racist protest--who can claim racism on the individual level doesn't exist?); but more to the point the individual pushback is often against something deeper at play. We should sort this out carefully in order to understand what's truly going on here.

    In other words, I would submit racism has become an emotionally charged enigma in our Western society and is rarely understood for what it is. The pushback by President Trump (and his supporters) against political correctness, for example, has nothing to do with an underlying proclivity for racism or sexism as much as it characterizes a protest against weaponizing social injustice prevalent in society to advance agendas entirely unrelated to social injustice. Yet is it commonly accepted by popular culture that Trump and his supporters are racist and sexist (not to mention ignorant and deplorable). One hears this blanket charge against millions of people 24/7. In this milieu the vast majority of thinking people who rarely experience racial marginalization (let's just say white men of privilege and get it over with) often tend to avoid the topic altogether, or, perhaps more commonly, succumb to a highly charged mob to signal their virtue and empathy on a problem we already all agree exists. The vast majority of thinking people who do experience racial marginalization, perhaps as much as on a daily basis (people of color and women, among others, for example) often fall into the trap of using the weapon to fight the battle. In my view, both positions are counterproductive to the cause of ameliorating the problem.

    All said, and contrary to some earlier definitions laid out in this thread, racism isn't the belief that one's race is superior to another. I'm not suggesting these sentiments do not exist among people; they do. But when I talk about racism I prefer to focus on what is structural in our culture and what causes the marginalization of individuals based on race, not on the delusions of racial superiority prevalent at the very extremes of the population. I'm suggesting this later characteristic is blatant racism in the extreme but not a structural problem in society ; at the risk of advancing a provocative generalization, I submit for consideration that the structural racism that currently exists in society has nothing or little to due to White Supremacy or because folks of a certain race belief en masse (either consciously or subconsciously) that their race is superior. Something else is going on, and we should discuss what it is. But we should discuss the root problem, not a fallacy.

    Similarly, I also see discussions that cite White Nationalism as problematic. Again, I am not saying there are not White Nationalists out there. There are. But this is a distraction and hardly a structural problem in society. Those who make you believe otherwise, or even more generally that racial hatred is rampant in our culture, e.g. CNN, MSM, and even some in academia who weave together slanted studies that suggest all three are on the rise, have a political agenda and are magicians of sort performing slight-of-hand tricks. They are provocateurs with agenda. Their tactics work very well to silence folks who do not directly experience racial marginalization (to challenge the claim would serve to provide evidence supporting it) and on the flip side, work even better to solicit for a mass condemnation of the claim and thus validating it (this is the path of least resistance to take, and who wouldn't, if true?). Falling in line signals virtue to their marginalized brothers and sisters and bestows validity to its reality. But this is a false a paradigm that doesn’t address the root issues. Either case plays right into the hands of the provocateurs.

    Moreover, it is equally easy for those who do experience racism (and perhaps also the path of least resistance) to subscribe to the notion of White Nationalism or White Supremacy or generally believe a culture of racial hatred exists based on their direct and very real experiences of structural marginalization. It serves as a tidy narrative describing cause and effect. However, we could also incessantly cite incidents involving White Nationalists and racial hatred en masse as much as we could gather a convention of albinos protesting the sunlight. Just because one can gather up a group of picketing albinos in front of a CNN camera doesn't mean albino activists are overrunning our culture. In other words, I would submit for consideration, and this is just my humble view on the matter, that White Nationalism, White Supremacy, and Racial Hatred are not structural problems in society.

    But why is this important and what is the point? The more important point, in my view, is that it would appear we are all being misled to advance the fomentation of identity politics and to align ourselves accordingly, which is insidious and dangerous, and frankly, is actually creating and deepening the racial divide. Others have described this dynamic in detail, and I would echo their observations. To take it further, I would also submit this approach does not address the genuine root of structural racism, i.e., the how/what/and why of it, nor does it serve to lift its yolk on our society.

    This is an especially difficult discussion to have, because it is very hard to talk about racism without talking about the politics of group identity. And it’s equally hard to talk about the politics of group identity without employing an oppressed vs. oppressor narrative. I strongly believe the dynamic of structural racism is a byproduct of cultural propensity that has been inflicted upon all of us, regardless of one’s group identity. We are all subjects of the yolk of culture the moment we enter the world, as individuals, and to its various structural problems that cause tribal divisions, inequality, and ethnic marginalization. Perhaps if we begin to view the dynamic as such rather than as a dialectical struggle between racial groups can we have more productive and fruitful discussions about specific ways to raise awareness to rectify social injustice and racial marginalization.

    This, of course, is just my subjective take, admittedly founded on a lifetime of personal experiences with peoples of all creeds and colors and based on my understanding of human condition. Carry on….

    With Kind Regards,

    T Smith
    Last edited by T Smith; 6th June 2019 at 15:51.

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    Default Re: Racism

    This discussion is long and fraught. I'm not interested in who had it worse off than who and derailing this thread and its current direction with that discussion. I'll just leave this as a proof of the validity and "supremacy" of individual and group perspective and how it is always complicated and multi-faceted. Drumpf is a fan of Frederick, as we all know. This was his experience of this issue. I will defer to his judgement, as he was actually enslaved, himself.

    Were the Irish slaves? Frederick Douglass and his Irish awakening



    Analysis: how a 1845 trip to Ireland helped the anti-slavery campaigner to refine his thinking in regard to human rights

    By Christine Kinealy, Quinnipiac University

    The first anniversary of a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia proved to be largely uneventful, the small showing being attributed to the alt-right being divided and its leadership in disarray. But while racism might not have appeared on the streets in August 2018, as it had done a year earlier, it remains all too visible at some of the highest levels of American society.

    The same weekend as the rally, Kellyanne Conway, counsellor to President Donald Trump, struggled when asked to name a prominent African American in the White House. Days later, the President publicly referred to an African American woman as "a dog". And only weeks earlier, Kanye West caused controversy when he claimed that American slavery "sounds like a choice". He also seemed surprised that it had lasted for 400 years. Where are the role models for positive race relations?



    In February 2017, President Trump famously said at a Black History Month event that "Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is getting recognised more and more, I notice". His use of the present tense led people to suspect that the President did not know who Douglass was or that he was long dead.

    Yes, Frederick Douglass is long dead but his words, actions and humanity remain relevant in these troubled times. In particular, his relationship with Ireland, a country defined by its poverty and recurring famines, forced him to redefine his own views on race, oppression and social justice.

    A "transformative" visit to Ireland

    In 1845, the 27-year-old runaway slave sailed from Boston to the port of Liverpool. Douglass had escaped from slavery seven years earlier and his primary motive for leaving the U.S. was to avoid being seized and returned to his previous "owner." Under legislation passed in 1793, he was deemed to be a "fugitive slave," even in the free Northern states. Moreover, the publication of his autobiography in May of that year - the best-selling Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave —had put him at even greater risk of recapture.

    Two days after landing in England, Douglass sailed to Dublin. He visited with the intention of spending four days in the city to arrange a publication of his Narrative. but the warmth of the welcome meant that he stayed for four months. In his own words, Douglass’s stay in Ireland proved to be "transformative."



    On arrival, Douglass wrote to his mentor, William Lloyd Garrison, informing him that he was "safe in old Ireland, in the beautiful city of Dublin". After a few weeks in the country, he elaborated by saying that for the first time in his life, he felt himself to be not simply free, but an equal. "I find myself not treated as a color, but as a man."

    At the same time, Ireland perplexed Douglass. As an Anglophile, he had to confront Ireland’s position as a British colony and as a country in which Catholics, the vast majority of the population, were second class citizens. Catholics had only gained the right to be members of the British parliament as recently as 1829, but his Irish hosts, who were Quakers, continued to be denied that right.

    Douglass’s visit coincided with the campaign to restore an Irish parliament and to repeal the Act of Union of 1800. The Repeal movement was led by the charismatic Daniel O’Connell, also an outspoken critic of American slavery. Ironically for Douglass, he was in a country where, for the first time in his life, he felt truly free, yet he was surrounded by people who were agitating for their own political independence.

    At the time, Irish nationalists frequently used the term "slavery" when describing their condition. As a former slave, and now a fugitive slave, Douglass had a first-hand understanding of the inhumanity of slavery. Despite the extreme poverty of many Irish people and their subjugation to Britain, Douglass rejected the use of the terms slave or slavery to describe Ireland’s history or situation.

    During his time in Ireland Douglass gave almost 50 lectures, during which he avoided engaging with Irish politics directly. However, while lecturing in Limerick in November, he addressed the issue of Irish "slavery" head-on, declaring that he had "met with the objection that slavery existed in Ireland, and that therefore there was no necessity for describing its character as found in another country (hear, hear). My answer is, that if slavery existed here, it ought to be put down, and the generous in the land ought to rise and scatter its fragments to the winds (loud cheers)."



    But there was nothing like American slavery on the soil on which Douglass now stood. While he agreed that Irish people were oppressed, he did not believe that they were slaves. He went on to explain that the Irish, unlike slaves, had the freedom to marry, to protest, to move around and to emigrate.

    In contrast "Negro-slavery consisted not in taking away a man’s property, but in making property of him, and in destroying his identity—in treating him as the beasts and creeping things. GOD had given the negro a conscience and a will, but his conscience was no monitor to him, for he had no power to exercise his will—his master decided for him not only what he should eat and what he should drink, what he should wear, when and to whom he should speak, how much he should work, how much and by whom he is to be punished—he not only decided all these things, but what is morally right and wrong.

    "The slave must not even choose his wife, must marry and unmarry at the will of his tyrant, for the slave-holder had no compunction in separating man and wife, and thus putting as under what GOD had joined together."

    READ: When Frederick Douglass came to Ireland - in his own words

    Douglass made the case for differentiation even more forcefully following his return to the US: "the Irishman is poor, but he is not a slave. He may be in rags, but he is not a slave. He is still the master of his own body … The Irishman has not only the liberty to emigrate from his country, but he has liberty at home. He can write, and speak, and cooperate for the attainment of his rights and the redress of his wrongs."

    During his time in Ireland, Douglass refined his own thinking in regard to human rights. To him, the Irish were not slaves, but he could empathise with their poverty, political marginalisation and negative stereotyping. Born a slave in 1818, Douglass died in 1895 as a champion of human rights and social justice. His words remain relevant and vibrant today and, just as he never forgot Ireland, Ireland continues to remember and revere Frederick Douglass. More importantly, in these troubled and divided times, Douglass is a role model for healing and uniting.

    Professor Christine Kinealy is director of Ireland’s Great Hunger Institute at Quinnipiac University. Her latest publication is Frederick Douglass and Ireland: In His Own Words

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    Default Re: Racism

    This one is very interesting. It was probably the least "biased" of the articles I could find and I thought it could very well add a more balanced perspective by delving into the actual political conditions that led to the wholesale movement of Irish into the Caribbean.

    Were thousands of Irish people sold as slaves?

    Thousands of Irish people were subjected to years of abuse and cruelty after being sold as slaves during the 17th and 18th centuries. That is the claim made by London based historians and authors Don Jordan and Michael Walsh.

    The two men have written a book, White Cargo, which says that one of the darkest periods in Irish history may have been swept under the carpet for centuries.

    The book details how thousands of Irish men, women and children were shipped across the Atlantic Ocean to the Caribbean and America to work as labourers during the 17th and 18th centuries.

    There was a term at the time known as indentured servants. This meant that labourers would work for their employers for free for a fixed length of time in return for being granted their freedom and given some land at the end of their service. Many Irish people travelled to America and the Caribbean under these terms.

    Many of them were treated badly and even betrayed at the end of their service when the landowner reneged on the deal.

    However, Jordan and Walsh claim that the cruelty and injustice went further than this. They say many of these indentured servants were effectively slaves. They also believe that thousands more Irish people were transported to the Caribbean from the 1600s up to the 1800s, not to work as indentured servants, but to be sold into a lifetime of slavery.

    Henry VIII wanted to regain control of Ireland

    The atrocity began towards the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Britain claimed sovereignty over Ireland following the Norman invasion a few centuries earlier. In actual fact, Ireland was still separated into several family clans and mini-kingdoms and was difficult to govern. Many of the Anglo-Norman settlers had inter-married and formed allegiances with the native Irish clans. The British had even raised the concern that the Norman settlers had become ‘more Irish than the Irish’!
    King Henry VIII

    Henry VIII decided to address the issue. He declared himself ‘King of Ireland’ and granted several positions of Irish nobility to English settlers. He wanted to control Ireland from afar, and alter their customs and cultures to make them more English. The main stumbling block with this was his Protestant religion, with most of Ireland being Catholic. Henry used force to take control of large areas in Ireland.

    His invasion into Ireland was continued by his daughter, Queen Elizabeth I. During this same period, British sailors had begun capturing native Africans and selling them as slaves to New World settlers in the Americas.

    Britain needed to get rid of Irish political prisoners

    Towards the end of Elizabeth’s reign, Britain finally defeated the Irish rebels at the Battle of Kinsale. This victory left more than 30,000 Irish soldiers as political prisoners. Britain tried to solve the problem of what to do with them by creating a policy of banishment. The Irish soldiers were forced to leave their country, with many moving to Spain and France to join foreign armies.

    However, this enforced banishment wasn’t enough. Thousands of rebels remained in Ireland and the British needed to find a way to get rid of them. James I had inherited the crown from Elizabeth, and he ordered the transportation of Irish prisoners to work as labourers. At the time, slavery was not considered barbaric and cruel. Thousands of men were being taken from Africa and sold into slavery in America. It was a profitable business.

    The first record of Irish people being sold in this way comes from 1612 when a group of men were sold to settlers in South America. It is highly likely that similar events took place before this though, as records of Irish matters in this period are scarce.

    The demand for labour was high in the Americas and the Caribbean, as European settlers began to set up new communities. Regular trips to Africa to purchase people to be sold into slavery were taking place by the 1620s. However, the trips were expensive, and the people had to be purchased.

    In 1625, the British made it law that Irish political prisoners should be transported and sold to English settlers in America and the Caribbean. The policy was a profitable one for the British sailors, but there were not enough prisoners to keep up with the demand. To combat this, any minor infringement became punishable by transportation. Rogue gangs also roamed the streets in Ireland searching for potential kidnapping targets that could also be transported. Jordan and Walsh describe the Irish people at this time as “nothing more than human cattle”.

    Cromwell finally crushed the Irish resistance

    A group of Irish clans rose up to fight the British in 1641. Oliver Cromwell stamped this out with a brutal and violent sweep across the country, fully establishing his rule by 1652. Irish land was taken and given to British settlers. Those Irish that hadn’t been slaughtered were made to work as peasants for their new landlords. Any Irish resistance was dealt with by transportation.

    Jordan and Walsh believe that thousands of Irish people were transported over the next hundred years, even for minor crimes.

    The journeys were highly dangerous for the Irish captives. Overcrowding and disease were major problems on the ships and life was cheap. The book, White Cargo, describes how on one voyage, more than 1,000 captives were dumped into the Atlantic Ocean to make sure the crew had enough food to complete the journey after the ship had run into difficulty.

    The Irish were cheap to buy for the Caribbean settlers. A price of 900lbs of cotton was the standard amount paid. The African slaves were more expensive, averaging around three or four times that amount. This made the lives of Irish slaves less valuable to the landowners, and they suffered terrible cruelties because of this.

    Any disobedience or attempt at escape was punished with severe brutality. Slaves would be bound by the hands and lifted before their feet were set alight. Heavy beatings and thrashings were also commonplace. The Irish labourers in Barbados were known as ‘Redlegs’, because their fair skin would burn more rapidly than those of their dark skinned counterparts.

    Women raped to produce more cheap labour

    Jordan and Walsh also highlight another horrific act that took place on these new settlements. The settlers would breed with the female workers, to produce more cheap labour. The child would be under the ownership of the settlers, and the mothers would rarely leave their children in such conditions, even after their terms of labour had expired. Another method settlers used to produce cheap labour was to breed the Irish women with the African men. The resulting skin tone of the offspring was more valuable to landowners in the slave markets.

    This practice was made illegal in 1681, not because of the horrific acts of rape and dehumanisation, but because the cheap labour being produced was not in the interest of British slave traders.

    Back in Ireland, the Jacobite Wars ended in 1691 with William of Orange finally defeating James II’s armies. This again, left thousands of Irish Catholics unwilling to accept the rule of the Protestants. They were given the opportunity to leave the country for France. Around 30,000 Irish people took this opportunity and they became known as the Wild Geese. Most of those that refused were transported to labour camps.

    The United Irishmen’s unsuccessful 1798 Rebellion created the opportunity for the British to ship thousands more Irishmen and women overseas, with Australia now also a common destination.

    The sequence finally ended in 1839, when Britain finally decided to end their involvement in the slave trade.

    There is little documentary evidence to support many of the claims made in White Cargo. It is possible that this because the events were never recorded or the records have been deliberately lost over the years to protect the British reputation.

    Whether the Irish labourers were transported and sold as slaves is unproven. What is certain is the suffering and brutality they endured at the hands of the European settlers.

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    Default Re: Racism

    Quote Posted by T Smith (here)
    This is an epic thread; I've enjoyed contemplating all the various perspectives and comments. So much rich conversation has ensued it's hard to add anything useful to the conversation, but perhaps the best attempt is to define racism as precisely as possible and then clarify how commonly employed definitions are problematic.
    Thank you for your clarity of mind and being able to "see" beyond the things that are working to obscure clear thought and communication. You've raised some excellent points that do indeed help to clarify the issues at hand.

    Quote Posted by T Smith (here)
    Racism is a social problem; it is a humanitarian problem; it is a spiritual problem.
    This is how I see it as well. Which is why I believe it is the issue that, once we have collectively come to the realization of how it affects our very perceptions of reality as well as our communications, the doorway will open to moving through and beyond it, which is what the future of this human family must be if a critical number of us are to survive the coming times.

    Quote Posted by T Smith (here)
    Unfortunately--and here is the elephant in the room: cultural institutions have weaponized and co-opted the phenomena to advance political agendas to foment tribal tensions and divisions, as DNA and others have eloquently pointed out. Racism has thus been used to ascribe victimizing attributes to groups at large and has summarily rendered other groups at large to victims. This dialect is both a conscious and subconscious inculcation in the collective psyche that serves to de-individualize persons accordingly per their group affiliation. So humanitarians tackling the problem in good faith will often find pushback against the elephant in the room, or from those who simply resist being de-individualized, regardless of the validity or fallacy of the underlying reality.
    Nothing to add, really, just love how well this is stated. Exactly. Clear communication becomes impossible under this scenario.


    Quote Posted by T Smith (here)
    In other words, I would submit racism has become an emotionally charged enigma in our Western society and is rarely understood for what it is. The pushback by President Trump (and his supporters) against political correctness, for example, has nothing to do with an underlying proclivity for racism or sexism as much as it characterizes a protest against weaponizing social injustice prevalent in society to advance agendas entirely unrelated to social injustice.
    It mobilizes populations who are not aware of the deeper issues, yes. And, those mobilized populations then internalize the external definitions of the problem/issue and embody them, never realizing they are serving another and more malevolent cause. The agendas that are "entirely unrelated to social injustice" are commonly considered to be the globalizing agenda, the somnabulation and dehumanization processes being assayed against national populations and others under a multitude of different programmatic fronts. What other agendas would you include?

    Quote Posted by T Smith (here)
    I'm suggesting this later characteristic is blatant racism in the extreme but not a structural problem in society ; at the risk of advancing a provocative generalization, I submit for consideration that the structural racism that currently exists in society has nothing or little to due to White Supremacy or because folks of a certain race belief en masse (either consciously or subconsciously) that their race is superior. Something else is going on, and we should discuss what it is. But we should discuss the root problem, not a fallacy.
    Is the root problem, as you see it, the weaponization of "racism" to serve these other agendas?

    Quote Posted by T Smith (here)
    Those who make you believe otherwise, or even more generally that racial hatred is rampant in our culture, e.g. CNN, MSM, and even some in academia who weave together slanted studies that suggest all three are on the rise, have a political agenda and are magicians of sort performing slight-of-hand tricks. They are provocateurs with agenda.
    Ok. This one bears some discussion. As someone who travels the country regularly, I can speak to this from direct experience. When you say that racial hatred is not rampant in our culture, are you speaking of general, sanitized American culture? Are you speaking to the institutionalization and historic reality of redlining, segregation, loans and employment? Or are you speaking specifically to individual and ethnic prejudice expressed negatively and viciously?

    Quote Posted by T Smith (here)
    Their tactics work very well to silence folks who do not directly experience racial marginalization (to challenge the claim would serve to provide evidence supporting it) and on the flip side, work even better to solicit for a mass condemnation of the claim and thus validating it (this is the path of least resistance to take, and who wouldn't, if true?). Falling in line signals virtue to their marginalized brothers and sisters and bestows validity to its reality. But this is a false a paradigm that doesn’t address the root issues. Either case plays right into the hands of the provocateurs.
    The root issue, being, again - if I am understanding you correctly - the deployment of skin color as a front to obscure deeper goals?

    Quote Posted by T Smith (here)
    In other words, I would submit for consideration, and this is just my humble view on the matter, that White Nationalism, White Supremacy, and Racial Hatred are not structural problems in society.
    I would ask you the same as above, in regards to institutional forms of repression against select minority groups. Do you not consider these structural/institutional?

    Quote Posted by T Smith (here)
    The more important point, in my view, is that it would appear we are all being misled to advance the fomentation of identity politics and to align ourselves accordingly, which is insidious and dangerous, and frankly, is actually creating and deepening the racial divide.
    Absolutely.

    Quote Posted by T Smith (here)
    This is an especially difficult discussion to have, because it is very hard to talk about racism without talking about the politics of group identity. And it’s equally hard to talk about the politics of group identity without employing an oppressed vs. oppressor narrative. I strongly believe the dynamic of structural racism is a byproduct of cultural propensity that has been inflicted upon all of us, regardless of one’s group identity. We are all subjects of the yolk of culture the moment we enter the world, as individuals, and to its various structural problems that cause tribal divisions, inequality, and ethnic marginalization. Perhaps if we begin to view the dynamic as such rather than as a dialectical struggle between racial groups can we have more productive and fruitful discussions about specific ways to raise awareness to rectify social injustice and racial marginalization.
    Amazing contribution. Thank you for taking the time to assist in the honing of this discussion, taking us to a deeper and more formative level.

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    Default Re: Racism

    It started after the conquering of Native Americans/Y'srealites that were brought here by the Medes after they were released. They listened to the prophets and left crossing the seas. Their tribe is GAD one of the sons of Y'acob. He told them the prophecy of Enoch about the last days and how the sons would be led by the flesh. He told them to resist the temptations of the flesh, or you will be "ensnared." Prophecy told them of the Eagle and they would watch the seas for this prophecy's entrance to know they would be punished by the Most High for building idols/totem poles.
    I've been sojourning in truth of our history. Moms Gad by her Father and My Dad is Yudah of the kingdom through Mandinca tribe. Our blood line in EU stretches back to a family royal crest in Ireland. Lots of "revealing going on" but you won't get the answers you seek, trusting those who always hide truth. We've been awakened by the Holy Spirit to bare witness to the world's treatment of the chosen seed of Abraham, Isaac and Yacob. Esau and Yacob are brothers of their father Isaac. Born red and hairy, he's still our brother who hates us to this day. NOT all are touched by this spirit, but those that are... are causing us to pray to Our Creator for a rest from this mental mind torture of living in two worlds. One wicked and one among our tribes laws given through Moses during the "first exodus." This is the 2nd one and what you are seeing in the weather is Yah's mighty precise hand taking all they took from us from them. Sorry but HE said HE would and HE is.
    The awakening is a revealing understanding of the laws and scripture as the prophets did through Christ/Yahshuah.
    It's really a experience to pick up from where they shut off the history before the slave ships and Atlantic Slave Trade.
    We are sealed now.... He is gonna send the chariots for us to be out of the lands of the enemy HE means to punish. Bill I saw I told you things. And just as I know just two weeks ago the price of a tomatoe will be close to 4 dollars to buy, I saw from inside the chariot and a presence with with me.
    We've decided to listen to Him and rely on Him. He is our redeemer and evidently the turning of the curses has started. The crops are not going to survive this storm session of the Most High Yah. We cannot rely on man because they haven't done anything to stop our children from being murdered as the police hold themselves not guilty. The daughters of Zion and Yudah mourneth and have been heard. The vibration and tossing seas are about to happen. Get to high land like the Mts you are near. If it was good enough for Reuben, it will be good enough high ground for you. The US will be split in 3 places. The MS river and great lakes will merge. and the canary island side of the volcano will slide causing a tsunami. Get flotation pool noodles for a dollar. Something to keep you from being drowned by keeping you boyant in the waters. Make sure you have some sort of long corded rope attached to toss on a tree branch and save yourself from a waterfall from the raging waters.
    Racism was created after the captivity to justify enslavement of the darker races by labeling like animals with the same rights as animals/no rights.
    Our children fed to alligators, our men's private parts taken after hanging for a souveneir. Burned alive. Yet they still think this will go unpunished and never even apologizing. YOU and I both know, that no stone... goes 'unturned."
    Shalawam Bill.

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    Default Re: Racism

    Quote Posted by Joe (here)
    The racist comment is the proposition that the white race is sociopathic. If you want to talk about various aspects of “western” culture that are sociopathic, then I think that could lead to a more productive conversation without labeling an entire race.

    I accept that your comments were intended to refer to a toxic culture, and not a general race of people, if that’s what you meant to say. I think that T Smith has some really good comments regarding the root causes of racism that would be really interesting to hear some discussion about.
    Got it. I accept your understanding as valid. It is a relic of language and, as you sort of evoked earlier, academic training, to speak in gross generalizations. Adding "some" to these statements would be more accurate and more meaningful and less evocative. I do not accept the generalization in my statement as being tantamount to racism. I could go bolded phrase by bolded phrase and explain my underlying meaning and intent but I'd rather move forward with accepted terminology and a commitment to being as specific as possible in the future when engaging in this discussion so as not to unduly inflame by crass generalizations.

    My point about the sociopathy of any culture that cultivates perspectives that require the denigration and subjugation of any complete or partial population was my point. It is a burning question, I think, one that deserves some consideration.

    Clarifying it, is difficult. Words are hard. Maybe pictures can help.

    EDIT: I've been told by a Mod not to post the images directly. One can click on the link to get to them.

    Pictures at GettyImages of historic lynching community events.


    Can we agree that these images are showing sociopathic/psychopathic behavior? By large groups? Are you aware of the historicity of these types of events? Of lynching? The fact that the "crimes" were often not commiserate with the punishment, if valid at all? Can we speak of the Black Codes and Jim Crow as being evidence of sociopathy/psychopathy in action?
    Last edited by Mark; 6th June 2019 at 18:03. Reason: add link, take away images

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    Default Re: Racism

    The roots of racism is based in nationalality. After a thousand years these nations do in fact represent different races. And it should be cherished. We are not all the same.

    When the talk of racism turns to historical records one must consider the attitudes of the day and their underlying factors, primarily the ignorance and dogmatic ideologies that were rampant in times past (I would argue not much has changed since).

    We've argued this back and forth with my black friends over the years. I have always felt the need to appologize for white people and to distance myself from the racist stigma attached to all whites.

    I don't appologize anymore. I had nothing to do with it and I do not endorse it. There is no more I can do.

    Whites have been used just as much as any other race. Why shouldn't we be proud of what us peons have accomplished in the name of our masters?

    Also, the way I have interpreted the available data, sketchy as it is, is that we are different races probably from diffetent planets in this galaxy or nearby ones. We were placed here together for some sort of purpose probably not much to do with our own best intetests. We are an experiment as best I can figure.
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    Default Re: Racism

    Quote Posted by Ernie Nemeth (here)
    The roots of racism is based in nationalality. After a thousand years these nations do in fact represent different races. And it should be cherished. We are not all the same.

    When the talk of racism turns to historical records one must consider the attitudes of the day and their underlying factors, primarily the ignorance and dogmatic ideologies that were rampant in times past (I would argue not much has changed since).

    We've argued this back and forth with my black friends over the years. I have always felt the need to appologize for white people and to distance myself from the racist stigma attached to all whites.

    I don't appologize anymore. I had nothing to do with it and I do not endorse it. There is no more I can do.

    Whites have been used just as much as any other race. Why shouldn't we be proud of what us peons have accomplished in the name of our masters?

    Also, the way I have interpreted the available data, sketchy as it is, is that we are different races probably from diffetent planets in this galaxy or nearby ones. We were placed here together for some sort of purpose probably not much to do with our own best intetests. We are an experiment as best I can figure.
    Yes Ernine you may well be right.
    There are four different races-- Yellow, Black, Redskin and White.
    Ones colour can not be accounted for because of the different climates in the world.

    As far as Racism goes the Redskins suffered greatly at the hands of the whites.
    Slaughtered ---their land stolen from them.
    I could go on.

    Chris
    Be kind to all life, including your own, no matter what!!

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    Default Re: Racism

    Quote Posted by Ernie Nemeth (here)
    The roots of racism is based in nationalality. After a thousand years these nations do in fact represent different races. And it should be cherished. We are not all the same.
    So what is ethnicity, if nations represent races? What is the definition of a nation? Where do people come from?

    Quote Posted by Ernie Nemeth (here)
    When the talk of racism turns to historical records one must consider the attitudes of the day and their underlying factors, primarily the ignorance and dogmatic ideologies that were rampant in times past (I would argue not much has changed since).
    Right. And the "historical record" goes back to a second ago, as all that is past is history. Times past are times present and future. Those same ideologies and their children remain present, just technologically enabled now.

    Quote Posted by Ernie Nemeth (here)
    We've argued this back and forth with my black friends over the years. I have always felt the need to appologize for white people and to distance myself from the racist stigma attached to all whites.

    I don't appologize anymore. I had nothing to do with it and I do not endorse it. There is no more I can do.
    I hear you. Whenever a white friend of mine tries to apologize, I always ask why. The epigenetics of it is not a conscious inheritance, although the responsibility of working through that endowment is incumbent upon each of us and there is a level of deteminism there, although free will and the conscious manipulation of materiality underlies and is the solution. We change ourselves and we change the world.

    Quote Posted by Ernie Nemeth (here)
    Whites have been used just as much as any other race. Why shouldn't we be proud of what us peons have accomplished in the name of our masters?
    All is as it should be. I would not be here if the past hadn't happened as it had. None of us would. Seeing the past through the lens of the present moment and the world as it currently exists, is the only way to be able to see beyond the limitations into the realms of potentiality and envision and way "there" from "here". Living that though, is easier said than done, especially for the majority of souls caught up in the world who can conceive of no way beyond the morass.

    Quote Posted by Ernie Nemeth (here)
    Also, the way I have interpreted the available data, sketchy as it is, is that we are different races probably from diffetent planets in this galaxy or nearby ones. We were placed here together for some sort of purpose probably not much to do with our own best intetests. We are an experiment as best I can figure.


    One galactic race of beings that can interbreed. One people. The universe, if not multiverse, across. Wouldn't that be something?
    Last edited by Mark; 7th June 2019 at 15:12. Reason: grammar, fix image

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    Default Re: Racism

    “Race science” is on the rise in academia and being used to justify racism in broader society

    By Lesley Le Grange, Stellenbosch University May 30, 2019
    Distinguished Professor of Curriculum Studies, Stellenbosch University



    There has been justified outrage about a recently published—and hastily retracted—academic article written by academics from Stellenbosch University in South Africa.

    The article suggested that “coloured” women in South Africa “present with low cognitive function and which is significantly influenced by education”. Coloured is a racial classification legalized during apartheid for people of “mixed race”. This allegedly low cognition was also linked to unhealthy lifestyle behaviors.

    A myriad of articles have been written that criticize the authors’ work, and take aim at their university’s ethics committee for allowing the study to be conducted. They have been accused of racial essentialism; of methodological flaws; and of connecting race with medical conditions.

    There’s one particularly important concept that’s been given a lot of attention in the debates – the notion of “race science”, which is also called scientific racism. The article and the opprobrium that followed are a reminder that race and racism are still deeply embedded in science, and must be exorcised.

    This can only be achieved by decolonizing modern western science. By “decolonize”, I mean “decenter” rather than destroy modern western science. It must be stripped of the epistemological and methodological privileges it enjoys. It must be placed on the same plane as other approaches to knowledge and research. In this way, it can be compared equitably with other ways of knowing. If this approach becomes commonplace, then new knowledge spaces will be created. In these spaces, those from different knowledge traditions can produce new knowledge through the negotiation of trust. They can apply different lenses and ask different questions that won’t lead them to racialized ways of thinking and operating. But, this will require a willingness to accept that modern western science is one way and not the only way of understanding the natural world.

    Over the years progress has been made to excise racism from science or to compensate those who were victims of scientific racism. One example is the compensation of the families of the African American men who were denied diagnosis and treatment for syphilis in the well-known Tuskegee study. Another is the universal acceptance of the principle in ethics that states “do no harm”. However, this has not arrested enduring racism in science.

    Race science rising

    Race science concerns the use of science as a vehicle to advance racist agendas, or where race is used as a variable in science for the purpose of labeling certain groups of people negatively or defining them in deficit terms.

    There are many examples of this in history. Carolus Linnaeus, who developed the modern system of classifying living things, classified Khoisan (first nations people of southern Africa) as Homo monstrosus: monstrous or abnormal people. And in 1937, scientists in the Zoology Department at Stellenbosch University used 80 measurements to confirm the category “coloured man” as distinctive from “white man”.

    British science journalist Angela Saini points out that race science is on the rise again internationally. And, she argues, it’s being advanced in subtle ways by well-educated people who wear smart suits. This includes academics at leading universities around the world. It’s important to be alive to the dangers of race science because it can be used to justify racism in broader society. But it continues to exist because it is part of a system of thought that I call modern western science. I’m referring here to science embedded in Eurocentrism: a way of thinking that prioritized anything from the western world – and particularly from Europe – and that was spread and entrenched through colonization.

    Given its original site of production, this school of thought necessarily centers European history. Through its various incarnations, an ideal identity of human was formed that is male, white, heterosexual, able-bodied – and this is a screen against which others are declared different. Positing others as “different” (and inferior) opened the door to race science.



    Of course, modern western science did not develop free from the influence of other knowledges. Through colonizing places, it picked up certain ideas and approaches from different countries or regions. For example, Indigenous peoples in North America helped settlers to treat life-threatening scurvy through the application of tonics made from conifer needles, which were rich in Vitamin C.

    However, such knowledges were absorbed into a western cultural archive and represented in western terms. For example, the pain-reliever Aspirin was first discovered by Indigenous people—they used willow bark, which contains the active ingredient from which Aspirin was created. More importantly, modern western science has not paid homage to the influence of other knowledge systems.

    There is no denying that modern western science has brought some benefits to humanity. But this does not mean it shouldn’t be interrogated and, as I suggested earlier, de-centered. The upshot of this would be the democratization of science in two ways. First, by broadening who participates in the production of scientific knowledge; and second, by broadening what counts as science. This would help to root out race science.

    Science has always been and will always remain the product of human will and intention. Scientific knowledge will always be culturally and historically produced. And if we are to speak in any sense about objectivity in science, this must be produced by science that is multicultural and not universal.

    Lesley Le Grange, Distinguished Professor of Curriculum Studies, Stellenbosch University

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    Default Re: Racism

    Despite the fact that the four Bushmen come from neighbouring parts of the Kalahari, their genetic diversity is astounding. Pick any two and peer into their genomes and you’d see more variety than you would between a European and an Asian.

    https://www.nationalgeographic.com/s...a-bushman-and-

    Hope this link works. So yes, I hope that anybody reading this article fully appreciates how it supports Rahkyt.

    You wouldn't refer to different breeds of dogs as 'races' for example. You could possibly think of the different breeds as different ethnicities. WE regard the difference in the breeds as being superficial and to a degree, environmental. For example, spitz breeds with longer thicker fur were bred from Northern dogs. And hound dogs have short thinner coats for obvious reasons . They are genetically pretty identical to Spitz dogs.

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    Default Re: Racism

    You've asked some good questions there, Rahkyt. I had to look up the various definitions, they were illuminating...and it higlights an interesting fact: the words and their definitions are virtually interchangeable!

    ethnicity: ethnic quality

    ethnic: a member of a minority group who retains the custom, language or social views of the group; heathen; of or relating to large groups of people classed according to common racial, national, tribal, religious, linguistic, or cultural origin

    race: a family, tribe, people or nation belonging to the same stock; a class or kind of people unified by community of interests, habits, or characteristics; an actually or potentially interbreeding group within a species

    racial: of, or relating to, or based on, a race

    racism: the belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race; racial prejudice or discrimination

    nation: nationality; a community of people composed of one or more nationalities and possessing a more or less defined territory and government

    nationality: national character; a legal relationship involving allegiance on the part of an individual and protection on the part of the state; people having a common origin, tradition, and language and capable of forming or actually constituting a nation-state; political independence or existence as a separate nation

    All from my trusty Merriam Webster's Dictionary (tenth edition)

    We may be confusing the definitions and ascribing different meanings to the words when the words are actually synonyms.

    What we are actually talking about is race as defined by the color of the skin. And racism as defined as the general deprivation of visible minorities.
    Last edited by Ernie Nemeth; 7th June 2019 at 21:31. Reason: the most important definition was missing, highlighted
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    Default Re: Racism

    Quote Posted by Rahkyt (here)

    It mobilizes populations who are not aware of the deeper issues, yes. And, those mobilized populations then internalize the external definitions of the problem/issue and embody them, never realizing they are serving another and more malevolent cause. The agendas that are "entirely unrelated to social injustice" are commonly considered to be the globalizing agenda, the somnabulation and dehumanization processes being assayed against national populations and others under a multitude of different programmatic fronts. What other agendas would you include?
    Mostly the globalizing agenda, as the larger umbrella over it, but also a subset within, which comes directly out of the Frankfurt school. The Frankfurt school and its thinkers (who have become very influential in academia, and who are producing droves of unwitting foot soldiers for the cause) embrace a specific ideology that seeks to dismantle the various cultural institutions of Western civilization. I would argue most of these philosophers do not have malevolent intentions, per se; they likely believe in a just society, a utopia of sorts, and most definitely believe that in so achieving utopia the ends justify the means. In other words, the Frankfurt school embraces a sort of post-modernist variation of the Marxist utopia, which has tremendous appeal, especially to those who can be convinced without too much controversial evidence that Western civilization has done a very good job marginalizing and disenfranchising them. A very effective tactic is to employ various social injustices Western civilization has produced against itself, of which "racism" is but one its tools.

    Simplified, the Frankfurt school is basically a social engineering program that seeks to achieve a completely classless society. The basic pushback against this school of thought, however, is not just academic; it has already played out in reality. Namely, we know it is impossible to create a classless society without employing tremendous force against the people and without errecting an authoritarian tyranny, and ultimately employing mass genocide as means to justify the ends.

    Quote Posted by Rahkyt (here)
    Is the root problem, as you see it, the weaponization of "racism" to serve these other agendas?
    I'm not sure if this is the "root" problem, but it is definitely a big problem. It aligns groups and tribes against each other which exacerbates the root problem instead of encouraging creative cooperation among groups and tribes to eradicate it.

    Quote Posted by T Smith (here)
    Those who make you believe otherwise, or even more generally that racial hatred is rampant in our culture, e.g. CNN, MSM, and even some in academia who weave together slanted studies that suggest all three are on the rise, have a political agenda and are magicians of sort performing slight-of-hand tricks. They are provocateurs with agenda.
    Quote Posted by Rahkyt (here)
    Ok. This one bears some discussion. As someone who travels the country regularly, I can speak to this from direct experience. When you say that racial hatred is not rampant in our culture, are you speaking of general, sanitized American culture? Are you speaking to the institutionalization and historic reality of redlining, segregation, loans and employment? Or are you speaking specifically to individual and ethnic prejudice expressed negatively and viciously?
    I'm speaking to individual and ethnic prejudice expressed negatively and viciously. I would say the former examples of racism you have cited, to the degree that we can document and and demonstrate are prevalent in culture, are structural, but not founded on hatred.


    Quote Posted by Rahkyt (here)
    The root issue, being, again - if I am understanding you correctly - the deployment of skin color as a front to obscure deeper goals?
    Yes. The deployment of skin color as a front to obscure deeper goals. But more specifically, the deployment of skin color to incite those who have been disenfranchised and marginalized, because of skin color, to create the tension necessary to dismantle institutions of Western Civilization that have been in a state of progressive development since, say, the Magna Carta.

    Deployment of skin color, btw, to clarify, is not just deployed against persons with brown or black skin, but also white.

    Quote Posted by T Smith (here)
    In other words, I would submit for consideration, and this is just my humble view on the matter, that White Nationalism, White Supremacy, and Racial Hatred are not structural problems in society.
    Quote Posted by Rahkyt (here)
    I would ask you the same as above, in regards to institutional forms of repression against select minority groups. Do you not consider these structural/institutional?
    Yes. It is a multi-varied equation. But I would say the various forms of repression are mostly structural. I also believe it is something that is ultimately correctional.
    Last edited by T Smith; 8th June 2019 at 19:00.

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    Default Re: Racism

    Quote Posted by Rahkyt (here)

    Can we agree that these images are showing sociopathic/psychopathic behavior? By large groups? Are you aware of the historicity of these types of events?
    The pictures are very hard to look at. They should trigger an emotional response from any functioning person who is not sociopathic... But here's the thing we should look at underlying these specific type of emotional triggers. Given we agree in principal that only one with a sociopathic sensibility could endure these types of pictures without experiencing remorse or emotions ranging from rage to sorrow, does that necessarily imply that every single onlooker in the mob of people depicted are sociopathic, or even society at large is sociopathic?

    In my humble opinion, the answer is categorically, no. And here's why. The historical photos depict something I alluded to earlier, namely a condition of structural racism instilled en masse that we should not conflate with sociopathy, or hatred, or delusions of racial superiority. And we should certainly not cast a wide net of sociopathy (as far as I could tell, most of the onlookers to the crimes were white) upon an entire group of people, based on skin color, even though one can easily cite the photos as specific evidence of such. Exploiting historical injustice is a very sophisticated tactic employed by social engineers who understand very well how to employ operant conditioning en masse to manipulate specific types of responses desirable to advance a deeper, or even an entirely hidden agenda.

    In my view, something deeper is going on in the photos than the obvious crimes being committed. They depict a type of unconsciousness inculcated via social programing that renders people of all creeds and colors utterly unconscious and capable of executing atrocious crimes against humanity. I chose my words carefully. These are crimes against humanity, and not just crimes against a certain ethnic race.

    To be clear, all this merits repeating. I'm saying we should not underestimate the power of structural programing; it renders people utterly unconscious. But that's something entirely different from sociopathy. We also have the luxury of a higher degree of consciousness (thus better resolution of reality) looking at the photos today due to what advancements our society has attained in its struggle to raise awareness and understanding of structural racism. So onlookers today may better see the blatant racism of the photos (some see racial hatred, malevolence of the white race, mass sociopathy, etc.,) but the point is, I would submit society at large is more conscious today of structural racism than we were then. Moreover, we still have a long way to go and to a large degree we are still unconsciousness.

    To provide a specific example, I would argue, as a conscious observer (or put more accurately , as a more conscious observer), I see savage violence and murder in those photos, based on race, and likely only based on race, but the unconscious, i.e. the people who sanctioned en masse and who were assessors to the crimes in real time, see something entirely different. They likely see a black man who raped a white woman (innocence or guilt is irrelevant to the reality they see), or they see a thief who stole food or property from a white person, or they see a person of color who committed some other unthinkable crime commensurate with a death sentence. In other words, their resolution of reality is highly spurious and skewed. To be clear, I should point out I'm not condoning their collective judgments or lack thereof; I'm simply saying the mob depicted in the photos, and without implying any other value judgment to the observation, is a group of unconscious actors. And of course all of this is structural racism, e.g. the victims are all guilty until proven innocent, especially when their crimes are waged against whites; often they are totally innocent and framed of crimes they did not commit (the latter is blatant racism and sometimes even blatant hatred, but on the individual level, not en masse), and sometimes the victims' only real crime has been the color of their skin. The takeaway is the unconscious cannot see the so-called "real" crime, which we all understand is a non-crime, simply because they are utterly unconscious.

    Joe is absolutely right. None of us truly own our own minds outright...it is a very dangerous aspect of the human condition. And most of us, regardless of color or creed, have no original thought. If the truth be told, in my estimation, this is at the root of structural racism.

    In my humble opinion, we need to cultivate individuals (not groups) to think critically and in a Descartesian sort of way, especially if we are trying to unravel specific social injustices prevalent in society that have been perpetrated and propagated by utterly unconscious actors. And we certainly need to develop a recognition of the traps of further programing and conditioning and learn how to avoid them.

    Kind Regards,

    T Smith
    Last edited by T Smith; 10th June 2019 at 01:28.

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    Default Re: Racism

    T Smith,

    I think that whole societies can have sociopathic traits, particularly when it comes to the treatment of the 'other.' Empathy is not extended to those who are judged as that different, belonging to a different tribe...etc... And if empathy is not extended and repulsion added to the mix it can become horribly cruel. This is best exemplified in atrocities of war, but it can happen within a culture as well.

    Currently our treatment of domesticated farm animals in agri-business wins awards for sociopathic behavior. Those who eat meat, in an unconscious way, are no different than Germans who didn't give a thought as to where Jews, Poles, Gypsie, the disabled, were disappearing to, during the Holocaust.

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    Default Re: Racism

    Quote Posted by AutumnW (here)
    Those who eat meat, in an unconscious way, are no different than Germans who didn't give a thought as to where Jews, Poles, Gypsie, the disabled, were disappearing to, during the Holocaust.
    I don't agree with this at all, but it would be interesting to have folks walk through the industrial style (for lack of a better term) farms and see if they chose their meat differently thereafter. Ya know, like how Patton made citizens walk through concentration camps.
    Today is victory over yourself of yesterday. Tomorrow is your victory over lesser men.

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  34. Link to Post #278
    Avalon Member T Smith's Avatar
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    Default Re: Racism

    Quote Posted by AutumnW (here)
    T Smith,

    I think that whole societies can have sociopathic traits, particularly when it comes to the treatment of the 'other.' Empathy is not extended to those who are judged as that different, belonging to a different tribe...etc... And if empathy is not extended and repulsion added to the mix it can become horribly cruel. This is best exemplified in atrocities of war, but it can happen within a culture as well.

    Currently our treatment of domesticated farm animals in agri-business wins awards for sociopathic behavior. Those who eat meat, in an unconscious way, are no different than Germans who didn't give a thought as to where Jews, Poles, Gypsie, the disabled, were disappearing to, during the Holocaust.
    Yes, societies can have sociopathic traits, but that doesn't mean whole societies are technically "sociopathic", per se. It means they are operating in full unconscious mode, or in quasi-conscious mode at best, but nonetheless are in denial (as in the examples you cite).

    The difference is, as I see it, one can't cure a sociopath by raising her or his awareness. Sociopaths are unable to experience empathy as the result of her or his biochemical constitution. The same society, at large, that is in denial or seemingly sociopathic about one set of circumstances can be very empathic on another set of circumstances.

    The issue of not extending empathy to others judged as different dissipates almost immediately (save for those who are truly sociopathic) when one comes to the epiphany that supposed differences are spurious and founded on an ignorant understanding of reality.

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    Default Re: Racism

    Those who eat agri-business meat have been fully exposed to information about how these operations function. Turning a blind eye to suffering because those that suffer are 'other,' and regarded as inferior, (in this case, animals )represents empathy being withheld or not felt. You could definitely say that it is quasi-conscious, or even a form of mild cognitive dissonance.

    I don't have an issue with meat eaters, provided they know where their meat is sourced from. Otherwise I regard them as exhibiting cultural sociopathy. This form of sociopathy belongs to the whole realm of, 'out of sight, out of mind.' It also holds true for those Amnesty International advocate for. Does it mean the people engaged in willfull blindness are sociopathic? Likely not clearly so. It's the culture, as a whole.

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    Default Re: Racism

    Quote Posted by Strat (here)
    Quote Posted by AutumnW (here)
    Those who eat meat, in an unconscious way, are no different than Germans who didn't give a thought as to where Jews, Poles, Gypsie, the disabled, were disappearing to, during the Holocaust.
    I don't agree with this at all, but it would be interesting to have folks walk through the industrial style (for lack of a better term) farms and see if they chose their meat differently thereafter. Ya know, like how Patton made citizens walk through concentration camps.
    Germans were stressed, had been shat on by foreign powers, demoralized and etc... They didn't WANT to know what happened to people they considered weak, inferior, part of their past problems...on and on. But fascism with an emphasis on strength, vitality, survival of the fittest and other mythologies, encouraged cruelty because it encouraged aversion and revulsion.

    As far as people being taken through an agribusiness facility as a way of changing behavior...yes...it would work for some. I agree completely.

    Anyway, BACK ON TOPIC There are enough animal rights threads on the forum. Sorry I derailed. Its a topic that's been on my mind...a lot...as I am currently changing my diet in the hopes I will be healthier and less sociopathic
    Last edited by AutumnW; 8th June 2019 at 22:05.

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