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Racial Microagressions
- Thread starter Joe Nerve
- Start date
I knew that was coming.
The end result is the same. Anyone who's seen war hates it and the people here who promote it from their armchairs are clueless. You'll notice the ones promoting that crap are not the ones sending their own kids there. The ones that trouble me are the ones enjoying all the freedom promoting their ideas without consideration of, respect to, or even disdain of, all the things other people do in order for them to do that.
Myself, personally, I don't like a whole lot of things we're involved in, but it's not the soldiers fault....they're doing their job. It's all the higher-ups who've nothing to lose and much to gain. They're not in harms way.
I don't think we have any business having a presence in 120+ countries around the world meddling in other peoples business and securing resources for ourselves by force (whether military force or economic force. The phrase "American interests" pretty much refers to what our corporations want ya know.). Then again, without that happening, we would never enjoy the standard of living we do here. My God, we got people who's only concern in life is what the Kardashians are doing....poor people here got food stamps, a roof over their head, clothes to wear, cellphones and cable tv. It's not that hard. But it's not because of some crazy societal ideas some professor is spouting....it's because there are people from here, out there, doing the dirty work and shedding blood, so us back here have the luxury of worrying about such things.
I don't think that makes it right, but it is the way it is.
I knew that was coming.
The end result is the same. Anyone who's seen war hates it and the people here who promote it from their armchairs are clueless. You'll notice the ones promoting that crap are not the ones sending their own kids there. The ones that trouble me are the ones enjoying all the freedom promoting their ideas without consideration of, respect to, or even disdain of, all the things other people do in order for them to do that.
Myself, personally, I don't like a whole lot of things we're involved in, but it's not the soldiers fault....they're doing their job. It's all the higher-ups who've nothing to lose and much to gain. They're not in harms way.
I don't think we have any business having a presence in 120+ countries around the world meddling in other peoples business and securing resources for ourselves by force (whether military force or economic force. The phrase "American interests" pretty much refers to what our corporations want ya know.). Then again, without that happening, we would never enjoy the standard of living we do here. My God, we got people who's only concern in life is what the Kardashians are doing....poor people here got food stamps, a roof over their head, clothes to wear, cellphones and cable tv. It's not that hard. But it's not because of some crazy societal ideas some professor is spouting....it's because there are people from here, out there, doing the dirty work and shedding blood, so us back here have the luxury of worrying about such things.
I don't think that makes it right, but it is the way it is.
Yes, it is the way it is. But that does not in any way answer my question. Again, what makes you and Your views different from those who you personally oppose? And how can you be sure that you would not be enjoying Your current standard of living without this happening? Couldn't that be just another corporate/government lie?
I don't think I engage in any RACIAL microaggressions.
I believe that ethnicity isn't a good enough reason to have a bad attitude about anyone. Just get to know them and you'll get better reasons to hate them.
Everyone that I hate is because I have a good reason. After my time in the military, I didn't come away with a disdain or hatred for middle eastern people. I did come away with a fairly notable antipathy to people who shoot at me. I think that is fairly reasonable.
The closest thing I have to racism is political. One of the two major parties REALLY angers me. This doesn't mean I am a fan or member of the other major party. It just looks that way sometimes because on a scale of one to ten, I hate one party a six and I hate the other one a thirty-four.
I believe that ethnicity isn't a good enough reason to have a bad attitude about anyone. Just get to know them and you'll get better reasons to hate them.
Everyone that I hate is because I have a good reason. After my time in the military, I didn't come away with a disdain or hatred for middle eastern people. I did come away with a fairly notable antipathy to people who shoot at me. I think that is fairly reasonable.
The closest thing I have to racism is political. One of the two major parties REALLY angers me. This doesn't mean I am a fan or member of the other major party. It just looks that way sometimes because on a scale of one to ten, I hate one party a six and I hate the other one a thirty-four.
Mine are founded in common sense....at least according to me.
Well, that's fine. I actually agree with you on many points.
But this I don't understand:
It seems to me that you are all for defending democracy and free speech at all costs, yet you are somehow opposed to those very freedoms. You do realize that freedom of speech means that there is room for all kinds of views, even those you do not agree with, no? And that the whole point of democracy is to ensure that one side never dominates the other right? Because if not, all we are left with is tyranny. And we don't want that, do we?
Defending to the death somebody's right to say something doesn't mean you like what they're saying. It might even mean you wish you'd never hear that crap and wish they couldn't even say it, but by God the minute you stifle someone elses speech, you open the door for someone to stifle yours.....so, you just plain don't do it, no matter how much you don't like it. That usually means protecting speech you really don't like, in the hopes that something I say that may rub a lot of people the wrong way would be just as vehemently defended, even though it may offend a lot of people.
Then what's the point of getting so upset about people thinking differently than yourself? Wouldn't it be easier to just accept and tolerate it?
I didn't think so. I was just commenting from the POV of someone who's seen a lot of what goes on out of the public eye and the ease with which such things can be hidden in a deluge of deliberate misinformation and misdirection.
i think it's a "North Carolina" thang....
@TwoFingers,... you know the ol' addage,.. if ya gotta ask, ya proably can't afford it!
What is a North Carolina thing?
I edited my last two posts because they would have been seen as "too political" and that's the reason I didn't elaborate.
As has been said many times, in order to get anywhere in the covert world, it's necessary to associate with many incredibly bad people. It's bad enough to associate with them but it's even worse that someone has to become one of them in order to be credible. Secrets must be kept, although many want the agencies doing the snooping to show their cards to everyone without realizing that doesn't work if they're going to keep up with the threats. Monitoring EVERYONE is clearly not making any friends, though. They said they wanted to be able to watch people who were said to be involved in terrorist operations, but they eaves-dropped on foreign heads of state? That's dangerous. Eaves-dropping on law-abiding citizens? That's dam scary and, while some would say people are being paranoid, a healthy dose of skepticism of our leaders may just keep us from going down the drain.
Information overload makes coverups much easier- when so much info is disseminated, people don't have enough time to investigate and weed out the chaff.
I'm in love with her. And I said that right in front of my wife.That woman is ...... well....... something.
She's a beautiful girl. And her voice is astounding.
I saw the title and I thought it could be one of two things, one good, one bad. It was the bad one.
"I'm suspicious of these terms I'm unfamiliar with regarding experiences I'm unfamiliar with and it makes me uncomfortable" said the white dude lol.
"I'm suspicious of these terms I'm unfamiliar with regarding experiences I'm unfamiliar with and it makes me uncomfortable" said the white dude lol.
I caught myself in an act of racism yesterday.
I had just pulled into a parking spot at the corner store and someone comes flying into the lot and parks nearly sideways in the Handicap spot. Instantly I thought to myself: "This dude better have a handicapped placard or plate - or I'm going to give them a serious piece of my mind."
She got out of the car - and she was black. No permit.
I did not say a single word.
I had just pulled into a parking spot at the corner store and someone comes flying into the lot and parks nearly sideways in the Handicap spot. Instantly I thought to myself: "This dude better have a handicapped placard or plate - or I'm going to give them a serious piece of my mind."
She got out of the car - and she was black. No permit.
I did not say a single word.
This made me remember a partner I had on the ambulance. He was born in El Salvador, but adopted at less than a year old by a couple from St Louis. He could recognize the names of several Mexican food items eventually. But otherwise spoke less Spanish than Peggy Hill.
It was always funny when we'd pick up a Hispanic patient who either preferred Spanish or even spoke no English. They'd see Nick's face and KNOW he'd speak Spanish. They'd just know it. So the patient would say something at really rapid speed and wait for him to answer.
He would smile a blank. panicked expression, turn towards me and say "What did she say?"
They were often more confused by Spanish coming out of my big old pale Irish face than the lack of Spanish coming outof his.
This happened, with minor variations in the dialogue involved, about eighty-five times while he and I worked together.
Why didn't you teach him the two most useful sentences an Anglo can ask a Latino- "¿Donde es el baño?" and "En Ingles, por favor"?
I took two years of Spanish in high school and got straight A grades for most of the time but the one thing I learned after graduation is that in school, they do not teach Spanish in a way that's useful in everyday life. I remember quite a bit of it and when I'm around people who speak it as their primary language, it's like I'm in slow-motion and they're at normal speed. For me, it's better if I can read it, not hear it.
Why didn't you teach him the two most useful sentences an Anglo can ask a Latino- "¿Donde es el baño?" and "En Ingles, por favor"?
I took two years of Spanish in high school and got straight A grades for most of the time but the one thing I learned after graduation is that in school, they do not teach Spanish in a way that's useful in everyday life. I remember quite a bit of it and when I'm around people who speak it as their primary language, it's like I'm in slow-motion and they're at normal speed. For me, it's better if I can read it, not hear it.
I taught him quite a few useful phrases over the years. We worked together on and off for almost three years. And even when we weren't partners, he'd come up and say "How do you say __________?" fairly often.
My favorite phrase I taught him was "Gracias por no riendo a mi accento ridiculo gringo."* I'm not sure it's actually grammatically correct. All the Spanish I remember is from childhood. When my grandparents came to Texas, they bought the house they could afford. So their neighborhood was two gringo families and about a bazillion Mexican families. When my parents divorced and my sister and I went to live with the grandparents, I could either learn Spanish or have no one to play with.
I wish I'd practiced it much more while growing up. You can forget a LOT of something between the age of nine and your forties.
* "Thank you for not laughing at my ridiculous gringo accent." - I think. That's what I told him it meant, anyway.
By definition, "Democracy is a form of government in which all eligible citizens participate equally—either directly or through elected representatives—in the proposal, development, and creation of laws. It encompasses social, economic and cultural conditions that enable the free and equal practice of political self-determination.", there's nothing that prevents one side from dominating the other. In practice, one side or the other will control (have a majority) in the House of Representatives or the Senate and at times, they'll control both. That doesn't mean they always do anything constructive, though. One side can have a majority, but if their legislation doesn't have enough support, it won't pass and if they pass Bills that aren't supported by the President, he can veto. If they really want to pass the Bill(s), they can override his veto. President Clinton had a Republican Congress and still did a lot of things that were popular. When the House or Senate have members who are seen to be ineffective, not representative of those in their districts, failing to do much of anything or just angering people, they may be replaced. When they say things like "We have to pass this Bill, so we can see what's in it, free from the fog of controversy" (the part in italics is usually omitted), they SHOULD be replaced. This comment was made WRT the Stimulus Bill and if that's not a stupid and irresponsible statement, I don't know what else to call it. Lawyers write Bills, in language that is incomprehensible to many people and the adage "Never sign anything before reading the fine print" has never been more appropriate. Anyone who advocates signing a 2700+ page Bill is either an idiot or they're trying to pull a fast one. It's like a used car salesman saying "That's just standard boiler-plate. You can sign here, here, here and initial here, here and here". Neither should go without full comprehension of what it contains and the real meaning behind it.
We have a Federal Republic (a confederation of states, without a monarch), not a pure Democracy and a Democracy can exclude some from participating. One of the ways someone can be excluded here is by committing felony crimes. Once they have completed their sentence, they can have those rights returned but unless they fall outside of the guidelines for what's allowed, everyone has the same rights, in theory. Far too many think that they should have rights not afforded to others and labor unions are firmly entrenched in this kind of idealism. They have collective bargaining "rights", but the rest of us don't. If it was a "right", we'd all have it or it would apply to all of us, not only those who join and pay their dues every month.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_republic
vs Democracy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy
Our form is supposed to have a division of power, with the individual States handling roads, infrastructure and education, among other items and the Federal branch handling national security & defense and monetary policy, etc. In no way did the US Constitution intend to install a Federal government that has complete sovereignty over all aspects of our lives but in the last 100+ years, this has been violated by people who wanted to replace personal responsibility with allowing the government to care for people under the guise of "helping them achieve equality". Nothing guarantees equality in terms of possessions, nor should anyone expect to have what someone else has, just because they feel bad about their lack of money and personal property. People used to work for what they wanted and needed. Now, it's a matter of filling out the correct paperwork. I have no problem with helping people when they can't fend for themselves but when someone makes the decision to drop out of school/become active in gangs, crime, drugs, etc and generally stop their own development, they need to step up and turn their lives around.
The allowance for Freedom of speech depends on who's speaking and who's being spoken to, or about. Some are seen as allowing free speech regardless of who says what and others think free speech applies to them, but those who oppose them should sit there and be quiet.
My grade school teacher went to Mexico during Summer vacation and taught us some Spanish, which I remembered and I don't think I had to actually learn anything to ace my first test in Spanish class. When I was 9, we took a family trip to Phoenix, where my disabled uncle lived in public housing. Some of the local kids saw me and my brother, so they came over. Some of what they said was in Spanish and I understood a bit of it. Some was said without thinking that I knew what they meant, but they saw my reaction and stopped. I didn't like being called 'El Gordo'.
At least you didn't tell him to finish every sentence, in Spanish, with "y'all".
