Sure is. I was once lectured on what I'm supposed to find offensive as a person of mixed race.

It doesn't take a genius to spot the irony there.

How can anyone do that and keep a straight face.

Morgan Freeman makes a great point, black history month doesn't matter, but what he says about ignoring race isn't a blanket statement to pretend that everything else is fine.

Saying "I treat everybody the same" is fine and dandy, but it doesn't change the fact that institutional racism still exists, and that black history month, or school scholarships are really nothing more than meaningless gestures.

I dont ignore racism, I know it exists. But the best way to deal with it imo, is to stop making it an issue.
All it does is make people racist, and give racists more ammo.

Slight misunderstanding.

I know what you mean. Whenever America and race is brought up I get a little hot under the collar... I wish I could say more, but alas -- no politics allowed.

In history class we basically get punched in the face about the importance of blacks. We even had this assembly, and it is all fine and dandy, until they say they want to sing their national anthem. I thought to myself, that peoples goals are for everyone to be equal, yet some separate themselves like their own national anthem. When they said national anthem I thought they were going to just do the normal anthem trying to show how they're Americans to.

...Then the girls behind me heard national anthem and said the pledge of allegiance.

Do all Americans need to take the pledge of allegience at some point in their life?

Im pretty sure their schools have them do it regularly. Not sure where I heared that.

It actually creeps me out, seeing stuff like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpELWKUico0

I'm not American, but I don't believe children have the cognitive or emotional development required to pledge allegiance to anything.

Once a day your first 5 years, then once a week for 7 more years of school.

I just think its brainwashing. If someone wants to pledge allegiance to America, thats fine. But they should do it becuase they want too, not becuase they are riased too.
That child cant say the words properly, I doubt she even knows what she is saying.

One could apply the same argument to those dismissive of someone else's status due to this mythical privilege.

I've moved around a lot. The first time I had to pledge allegiance to a country was when I was 5, in order to get citizenship. I have no idea what I said.

The person overreacted. Aunt Jamima is a black lady on the front label.

Are you revering to the person I was talking about? It was a matter of intelligence, they said national anthem (it was actually the black national anthem) and they said the pledge. Two different things completely.

What country did you have to pledge too ? I didnt think any did pledges aside from the US. I have never hd to make a pledge to the UK, I have lived here all my life, so maybe its just a thing if you immigrate.

We should have a UK pledge. I'm not sure what it would involve; I guess something about speaking loudly to Johnny Foreigner at all times and enduring the cricket with feigned interest however excruciating it may be.

I remember taking one at the cub scouts.

As far as I recall it was something like:

"I promise to do my best
To do my duty to God and the Queen
To help other people
And to keep the cub scout law"

The last part is crucial. Complaining about how horrible something is and still doing it, is as British as it gets.


I dont see why the queen is even mentioned in anything anymore (aside from culture). She has no power/duty.

Whether or not it seems blatantly obvious in your life, "white privilege" is not mythical in any way. It is a factual aspect of modern society.

Maybe. I just can't help noticing that most times I've seen that particular phrase used, it's said by someone who's obviously quite privileged to someone who's less privileged. I think that's quite interesting.

Does she still ultimately decide what laws get passed and what doesn't?
I thought thats how it worked once it succeeded in parliment it went to her then it became law or was that in the days of old

That's ridiculous. Aunt Jemima is a brand name.

I once got [censored]ed out for saying "jerry rigged" when explaining something, because apparently it's offensive to Germans?

I feel like this thread got derailed from post two on. The incident in the OP has nearly nothing to do with racism. The issue is whether or not it's OK to use formerly offensive terms as part of everyday conversation, using their new meanings. It's pure language, and I think everyone here agrees that once the offensive term's meaning becomes an obscure trivia question, it's fair game. That's why I don't get pissed when people use terms like "hooligan" or "jipped". It's also why I don't "inquire as to the forseen status of the firmament" when I want to know if it's going to be cloudy later. Antiquated words don't entirely count as words anymore.

Nazi soldiers were called "Jerrys" by the Allied Forces in WWII. Then it was applied to German people in general. The rigged aspect is a result of Germany's history of exceptional engineering.

While I can see how a person from Germany would not want a Nazi-era term applied to them, that expression is actually quite a compliment on the technical skills of the person doing the "rigging".



As for the concept of racism, it boils down to this: Humans form societies of similar people in order to survive. When something is different we tend to be suspicious of it as part of our survival instinct.

That inherent suspicion earned the name "racism" when it is applied to our suspicion of people due to a difference in skin color. To that effect, all humans are "racist" as all humans are innately suspicious of different humans. I know most people will flatly deny this fact due to the negative stigma that has been given to the term "racist", however it is true, every single person on the planet is a racist to some degree or another. Of course, being a racist is not wrong as it simply means you are suspicious of things that are different, which is a healthy degree of caution to have. Where racism gets its bad rap is actually from a related but different human activity known as Discrimination.

Discrimination is the act of favoring one over another, which, again, is not inherently bad. Without going into theology, lets just say there are two theories of morality (good/bad) and they are Social Expectation and Divine Truth. In either case, the morality is predetermined and your discriminatory choices are graded as good or bad using whichever scale you and your neighbors subscribe to. When I choose to wear a helmet while riding a motorcycle, I'm using good discrimination from a logical standard, when I choose to make certain people ride at the back of the bus, I'm using bad discrimination by the moral standards we use today, but good discrimination from the racist standard that is a part of my survival instinct.

The mark of a civilized society is the ability to put the common good over one's own survival instinct. Civilizations must suppress some degree of their racism in order to avoid making bad discriminations against other members of society.