She didn't say that you Kobi are a sexist racist.

She said that she has called out some things you've said as sounding racist or sexist.

Nobody is calling names.

Thank you. Apology accepted.

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We are back to standards... and can you go back in time and apply todays standards to yesterdays reality. Kind of difficult to do. What people believe changes over time thru experiences and new thoughts. What is appropriate today wasnt seen as totally acceptable at the time of the civil war. Can we apply todays standards and judge people for having adhered to the prevailing thought? It is counterproductive.

I think that there are times we can. If, for instance, someone asked me if I thought that the Nazi take on Jews was at all correct, had any basis in fact, I would say no it didn't and that what happened in Germany between 1932 and 1945 was immoral. In the same vein, I would say that the idea that, say, my grandmother (born in 1903) wasn't really a full human being such that she was capable of the full range of thought and ability and that therefore, her constrained choices were no worse than she deserved was wrong. I understand that you do not think that we can say that it was wrong and therefore cannot say that what happened to her was unjust but I disagree. So, okay--to you segregation wasn't an injustice but my family experienced it as an injustice and we were fully human back in 1903 and in 1922 and in 1963 and in 1967. I get it that you think that maybe those folks in those years who said we weren't might have had a point, again I disagree. I didn't become human because the mores changed, the mores changed because enough people finally started to internalize the idea that blacks were human.
I understand that, to you, expressing absolutes--even the absolute that I am a human being--is problematic but I disagree.

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[At any rate does this have to do with ANYTHING? I was using race as an example of an idea because you claimed that the diversity of ideas--without qualification--is what makes America strong. I was asking--and you have avoided answering--what about racist ideas made America stronger such that now that those ideas are (or were) in attenuation the nation is less strong than when racist ideas were widespread and socially acceptable? So are you saying that my using the history of race in America to demonstrate how intellectually bankrupt the idea that any idea is something that should be accepted no matter how sound it is or isn't, I am somehow saying that white people are responsible for the conditions of my life? I will answer you tho I am not sure what you are truly asking here. And let me finish before you jump on me cuz what I am saying and what you might think I am saying are two different things. Hatred of any kind does make us stronger people. Why? Because it gives us room to grow and develop and see things differently. If we were all purple and all thought the same and did the same and had the same, we would be a pretty boring species. But we are different.

I'm going to tell you something about my family. My father grew up without a father because some white folks decided to hang his father from a tree. My mother lost one of her brothers because some *other* white folks decided to hang him from a tree. My father's brother wasn't able to go to college because he couldn’t serve in WW II because some white man ran him down and his leg never fully recovered and he never was able to walk right again. Now I want you to keep this in mind as I tell you what I am reading here.

Translated what you are saying is that the lynching of my grandfather and uncle and the wounding of another uncle, as well as my parents being beaten with sticks, having dogs set upon them and being sprayed with fire hoses is all just so many broken eggs necessary so that we can all sit back now and be smug. Pardon me for not wanting you or anyone else to be able to feel quite so smug because we overcame it but I would just as soon have met my grandfather and my uncle thank you very much. To you, perhaps this was worth it, the unfortunate cost of doing business. To me, if the benefit was that we could be stronger, I think we could have done with a little less strength and a little more justice.

Now, you had no way of knowing that relatives in my family had been lynched and I do not blame you for not knowing. However, when I read what I quoted above it appears, to me, that you are saying that all the horrors that were visited upon black people were justified or at least made okay by the fact that we were able to grow. Well, not my uncle and not my grandfather. They weren't able to grow because they were dead. Death has a way of reducing ones reproductive fitness and learning ability to zero.

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I might be misreading you but I hear you saying I think immigration is a bad thing. I dont. My family was immigrated here and we Italians in Providence were not allowed to walk on the sidewalks or the Irish would kick our asses.

You are misreading me. You said that immigration was what made us strong as a growing industrial society. I was saying to you that true as that was, when the Irish got here they were discriminated against--and then they became okay. When the Italians got here they were discriminated against--and then they became okay. What I was saying is that America has been down this road before, the rhetoric being used today could be lifted straight out of the 19th century and applied to the Irish or the Italians when they got here. The justifications could be lifted right from the 19th century anti-immigration paroxysms. This is nothing new.

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I still find it hard to believe that the aclu and the feds require months and months to get an injunction. Maybe I am naive but it seems there might be another reason for the delay.

Okay, but that doesn't mean the ACLU hasn't filed for one and it doesn't mean that the Justice department isn't figuring out the best way to attack the problem. I suspect that what Justice is waiting for is for the inevitable test case to go before the SCOTUS (it's what I would do) and then they will file an amicus brief. Citizens are going to be stopped and they are going to sue on 4th and 14th Amendment grounds because this law really DOES make US citizens strangers to the laws of their homeland.

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[I'm sorry but I don't see folks who are arguing against a racist law as being racist.] dread, again, who is saying it is a racist law? A legislature passed it, a governor signed it.

So? The Supreme Court, in the Dred Scott decision said this:

A free negro of the African race, whose ancestors were brought to this country and sold as slaves, is not a "citizen" within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States.

They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect, and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit.

Now, I would say that those two passages are pretty unambiguously racist. I recognize that you do not. I recognize that you think that, perhaps, blacks had no rights to which a white man was at all obliged to respect. That does not change the fact that it is racist.

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Who's perspective makes it racist? Yours? Mine? Without judgement, it is just a law. With judgement applied by differing groups of people, it is a good thing or a bad thing depending on your perspective. Does this make you right and me wrong or me right or you wrong? Or does it mean we just are looking at something given our respective experiences and coming to somewhat different conclusions?

I am starting here--all human beings are human beings. Whether or not the majority thinks they are human beings at any given locus in history is *entirely* irrelevant to the question of their humanity. Where there is a conflict between the claims of humanness by one group and the disavowal of that claim by another group, I will ALWAYS fall on the side of the group claiming humanness. The group disavowing the humanity of another group is always wrong. Always. This law is racist because it targets a group of people based on ethnicity. This law is taking place in a context where OTHER events are occurring that also target this same group. It is racist because it takes a group of people, separates them out from the community and then says that they will be treated differently because they look different. From the logic you are deploying here, George Wallace might have been right when he said "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever" and Martin Luther King, Jr. was wrong. I reject that premise on its face.

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Isnt that what this country is about? We, as a people, cannot even agree on "all men are created equal" means. When it was written it meant alll white men. Then it meant white and other men. People can fall back on that tidbit and say constitution says nothing about women so what are women?

Deploying your logic, women are only as human as the society says that they are in any given historical period and, as such, only have a legitimate claim to justice AFTER the society has decided that they are human enough to be deserve justice. I disagree. And, in fact, all men are created equal seems pretty straightforward to me. Again, I understand, that to you it isn't and who has a claim on equality depends upon when we are talking about. I reject that idea as well because--not to be insulting--I don't EVER want it to be left to someone with your ideas as you have expressed them here to have to decide whether or not I am human enough to be deserving of justice. Given what you have said in this discussion and your utter unwillingness to call a moral evil by what it is, I think that you could very well happily support the idea that I am not human enough to be covered by justice. Am I calling you a racist? Not at all. I am saying that I don't trust your moral compass as you have expressed it here because I am unconvinced that you would say that my grandmother was fully a human being in the year of her birth (1903) simply because in 1903 the prevailing zeitgeist in America was that she wasn't.

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Absolutes are problematical in anything because knowledge and values and beliefs change. All I ask for is to not be belittled or called names because I state a reality different from someone elses reality.

I'm not going to call you names and I'm not going to belittle you. But I am going to say that I think you are wrong. However, you prove a point that I have been making here and on the dash-site for going on five years now. That point has to do with this 'who is to say what is right or wrong'. I have maintained that this view is wrong because, taken to its logical conclusion, it renders us UTTERLY mute on the subject of justice. Given your stated beliefs I'm not sure you can even say *TODAY* whether or not I am a human being simply because there are people (Nazi's for instance) who deny my humanity and therefore it might be possible that they are right and I am wrong. Any ideology, philosophy or worldview that cannot look at, say, the Holocaust and given the facts *inevitably* arrive at the conclusion that it was unambiguously evil is not one I will trust at all.

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I dont think it is too much to ask.

It's not too much to ask.


[/FONT][/QUOTE]

Kobi;

Not to put too fine a point on the matter but I don't think that's true. I think you don't have a problem with differing standards applied to skin color provided one of two conditions are met:

1) It's not happening to you
2) It's not happening in a time contemporaneous to yours.

Based upon your OWN posts, Kobi, I would say that you would, for instance, have no problem at all with racist standards being applied to blacks in any year before you were born. This is based upon YOUR posts and YOUR statements that we can't say who was right and who was wrong about issues that happened in the 19th century or the early part of the 20th century. So, depending upon when you were born, the year before that I see no reason--based upon your philosophy as you have expressed it--to believe that you would have ANY problem with differing standards applied to blacks and whites because neither condition is met. After the year you are born you would have a problem--at least in theory--because condition 2 was met.

Now, you can correct me if I'm reading your philosophy incorrectly but it certainly appears to be what you are saying. Again, this is NOT calling you a racist. When I think you are a racist, I'll let you know. I am saying that the real-world consequences of your philosophy are very disturbing to me.

Kobi,

I think you missed the point of my entire post. Im not saying that you are a bad white person. I think you probably have some examination to do around race (like most all of the white people that I know, myself included). That becomes especially apparent to me when you say things like "someone pulled out the race card."
You (apparently) haven't even examined race enough to know that saying someone "pulled the race card" is a red herring. I don't think it makes you a bad person, I think that it makes you in need of education and a deeper thought process around race. It's fine if you don't want to do that or don't think you need to do that, but I'm telling you from one white person to another that you will keep encountering angry reactions, irritated people, and people who think you are ignorant as long as you keep making that statement. People will (mostly) automatically dismiss what you say as racist when you couch it in a "race card" conversation.

Why will people do that? Because it IS offensive, racist, and dismissive.

You keep asking "by who's standards?" and I'm willing to answer that for you.

By the standards of thoughtful, enlightened people. By the standards of people who do not want to add another layer to the ugly and oppressive weight of living in a racist society to people like The_Lady_Snow, and AJ, and Corkey and Adele. And hopefully one day, by the standards of the world at large as we move toward a more evolved society. One where AJ can make a very thoughtful post about historical racism, give examples, and be absolutely present and patient in a conversation with someone who says she is playing the race card. Where one day People of Color will no longer have to stretch their willingness to educate people who do not want to be educated into unimagineable, contorted acrobatics in order to be heard over the drone of such heavily ingrained privilege.

You mentioned that you feel like People of Color have free reighn to call you names and belittle you and yet you are willing to keep saying things to People of Color when they have told you that they feel belittled and name-called. There is no double-standard there, except that you want to be able to say racist and privileged things without the people whom it hurts coming back at you with anything other than acceptance. Even AJ's incredibly measured patience was not enough?

Again, I don't think you are a bad person. I have seen you say things that are smart and enlightened and hope that you will consider the things that are said here with levity. It is a painful and embarrassing process to try to do the work to unlearn all of the racism and privilege that will come pre-packaged with white skin in this world but you must take the first step in order to do that.

The first step is listening. HEAR the pain, the anger, the information, the stories, the words, the lives. Hear those things without creating a soft bed of denial or anger for them to land on. Listen and hear.

I can tell you are defensive right now. Just listen. Don't defend. Listen.

M

Kobi,

Proof texting is a process whereby preachers take a verse of Scripture from here, a verse from there, pluck another from over yonder, etc. with the purpose of "proving" a point. Of saying what "G-d" says. It is a poisonous process insofar as it takes out of context, out of culture, out of history, and out of a particular people's society and twists it so that it suits the ideology of the preacher. Prooftexting "legitimates" the words from the pulpit because it came from Scripture. And, oh yes, it is of course used to dehumanize and condemn GLBTQI people as well as POC, and to justify the superiority of humans over nature, among other things. Prooftexting is often used by those who are ignorant of the historical, social, cultural and literary conditions which signified the need for the text in the first place.

Now, I bring this up because you have taken a web link as well as claimed specific ideas originated by African American leaders. As a person of mixed race, who puts down African American in the check box because I'm older and used to doing so, I have a stake in your argument. Moreover, I state that in your examples, you have prooftexted great African American leaders. For instance, Malcolm X in addition to saying not to blame the white man for everything, also critically discussed the "white man" as being the most murderous, warmongering people on the face of the earth. He also uttered the famous line, " ... by any means necessary" as a position of force to get the white man off our necks. You forgot that?

So, you have played your own card ~ in arrogance, in prooftexting, and displayed a certain lack of historicity with regards to racism in America. That is your privileged, WHITE opinion. But the African Americans that you cited, and any other person of color that you even think about citing ... I ask that you do not do so by way of prooftexting. Read all of it, CRITICALLy (and I see that you dislike this word ..), from its context. That is, the history, AND CULTURE. The words inscribed by our great leaders are SACRED to many of us. Whether they be Du Bois, Malcolm, King. Or, Cesar Chavez and Oscar Romero. These are sacred people to us and you do them a disservice by prooftexting and by your patent lack of comprehension ... that is what I call showing your white card.

I thanked you because I do hope you take some time out to read us, to hear us and to *listen* to us..

Maybe when you come back and re read the things you said and how you said them, you will get why some of us are upset and seem angry as you so put it.

Good luck!

You should read some Tim Wise if you have not already.

The majority of those "Japanese," relocated and interned in camps were citizens of the United States. Actually there were people, who thought twice, and some of them, have dedicated their lives to reminding others, of what happened.

http://www.heartmountain.us/

Wax:

Thank you for this. Prooftexting is a perfect phrase and I wish I had thought to invoke it here. In the same general area is the invocation of MLK, Jr. If one more white politician says "I marched with Dr. King" when the reality is that they were alive and walking circa 1962 and since King held marches in '62 they were walking at the same time as him therefore they marched with him, I'm going to scream. Any of you who have started a pool to see if there is anything that can make me loose my cool--put your money there, it's a sure winner. :)

Along the same lines, is quoting the "content of our character" line. I find it somewhere on the spectrum of infuriating to hilarious that people who couldn't quote anything else King ever uttered will repeat the character line time and time again as if over the course of his life the only words the man ever spoke were those. I'm reasonably certain--based upon what my parents have told me (King died when I was a year old so the one time I got to meet him, I don't remember)--that his first words were NOT "will be judged by the content of our character and not the color of our skin..." Yet, a lot of very conservative people treat that phrase sort of like Rev. Wright's "God damn America" in reverse. Reverend Wright preached for some 40 years and as far as the American media would have us believe every sermon he ever gave can be written as follows:

"The lesson this morning is taken from the book of Damn America. "And then the people did speak saying unto all, God damn America! Thus endeth the lesson.

Beloved, when I woke up this morning I said God damn America. When Jesus was on the cross, God damn America. If you are struggling today, not sure how you going to make a way out of no way, God damn America. Now will the congregation rise while we sing God damn America.

Singing: "God damn America. God damn America! God damn America! God damn America."

In the same way King's *entire* career has been reduced to:

"I have a dream...judged by the content of our character." Again, to take the media's spin on his life everywhere he went he said "I have a dream...judged by the content of our character."

People who would never even think to read something as short as Letter from Birmingham Jail think nothing of quoting those lines to burnish their "see, I was there with the civil rights marchers" cred.

Aj

Unexamined white privilege..........shaking my head.........

Aside from the obvious (to any thinking human being) racism in all the AZ laws around immigration and ethnic education, let me just say this:

The AZ law bringing huge sanctions against employers who knowingly hire undocumented workers is flat out unconstitutional......period. full stop.

The AZ 'papers please' law is flat out unconstitutional.....period. full stop.

Immigration is the responsibility of the federal government. States have no authority or right to make immigration laws. If the states have issues with immigration enforcement and laws then they need to take it up with their federal representatives in Congress and with the President.

---------and one other thing..........to suggest that all ideas have equal worth is just ludicrous, no matter the time period the idea was hatched.

Wow.

You really are clueless, I feel sorry for you at this point...

No matter how people explain it, no matter how much patience is used, you just don't see it..