Pretty much, the definition of racism has expanded until it now includes almost everything.

Is stating the fact that half of all murders are committed by blacks racism? Or that they score lower on IQ tests?

How about checking Mexicans for citizenship when no one really needs to come illegally from Europe anymore?

How about the fact that mixed children also have crime rates and income rates equal to the average of the races of their parents?

Or that Asians have a smaller body size and smaller eyes?

Or that different races generally have different skin colors and eye colors, and a different look altogether.

So I ask you, what is racism?

if you're white, then yes, anything there is racist.

if you aren't white, then i think you're good?

my question is then, is that not racist?

it is fear and hate.

my $.02

treat others how you want to be treated :)

Both IQ tests and laws favor majority populations. The fact is that standards for IQ tests and laws are not objective.

Elvesrus has the right idea though. In most cases you get better results by ignoring the question of racism entirely. Although there are always exceptions, just being kind to people tends to produce positive results from all cultures and ethnicities.

By contrast, making judgements about people based on their culture or ethnicity without consideration for the individual tends to cause resentment in all parties.

As far as citizenship goes, I don't want anyone who doesn't pay taxes in the US taking a job in the US. Screaning them according to ethnicity is a mistake though when it is entirely workable to force employers to document the citizenship of their employees. I had to prove my citizenship to my employer. I'm white and it was no big deal. Everyone should have to.

I don't think statistics or pointing out physical characteristics or most the other examples you cited are racism. IMO Racism is when you treat an individual differently based on their race, when all else is equal.

Then racism doesn't exist since all else is never equal.

That is not what I meant. I mean if you would treat a black person differently than you'd treat a white person because of race.

Klown is correct on this one.

I listened to a woman complain about filling out race on a medical intake form. I bit my lip until she challenged the intake staffer on the importance of race and general background by pointing out it's not a Black/White/race thing, but it's a serious health question. I mean Cajuns, French Canadians and Ashkenazi Jews are far more likely to get Tay-Sachs disease. This woman had no idea what the disease was and she was then pointed out to me she wasn't Jewish, which made it all the more amusing.

The mistake is in assuming that correlation and causation are tied in other racial respects such as test-taking. Social environment/upbringing/exposure are influences and there are often correlations to race, but cognitive ability is not defined by race. Body structure is a combination of multi-generational diets and evolution in a region more so than race itself.

Anyway, I find the fact that we're still hung up on visual differences to be pretty silly in today's interconnected world. But that's just me.

hehe. i don't trust doctors who need my family's complete medical history to make a diagnosis up.

Sounds like a racist tryin to justify his prejudice to me... Save it for your klan meeting dude

they wear white sheets in europe also? thought those were just ghosts from the castles.

wonder who is taking advantage of Sauron's race card.

You're too stupid for me to even respond to.

dowt! then why bother posting a response? duh.

Sauron NBK said very little Dibs. What is your agenda? Chasing a person away. It kinda look like you are being a bully. I despise that.

my agenda? coffee, tobacco and booze. despise? ahh, an emotional reaction. interesting. i doubt Sauron is weak enough for me to bully, even if i was actually interested in doing it. take your psycho babble elsewhere.

Why is this thread here? There is a dictionary for a reason =P

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/racism

:/

Lol thanks terror but dibs is right he couldn't bully me if he tried:P

And dibs that is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. How is calling someone a bully psycobabble? If you posted a response that wasn't merely trolling I might respond to you with some actual respect. Until then I will merely resort to insulting your intelligence.

seems like psycho babble to me. meh, might just be the current political atmosphere. teachers have to make sure kids aren't getting bullied.

I actually happen to be a teacher by trade, but in no way do I support trash talk. It's ignorant from either side.

Racism is systematic oppression, that's why you can't be racist against white people

But being white is a minority.

determining that based off the colour of my skin is racist, blid :(

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMeU_szhZ6E

That's the stupidest thing I have ever heard, blid. So if I walk into a room full of black people and they decide to beat my ass because I'm white and they hate white people, that's not racist?

post

I have found more racism from blacks to blacks and blacks to whites than I have seen from whites to blacks.

and asians to other asians for that matter..
wow some of it is intense..

no merit

Racism is giving different treatment because someone has a different skin color/race.

Something like pointing out the fact that criminals in country X consists of x% white, y% asian, and z% black, is not.

But that "racism" is next to meaningless compared to the institutional racism that leads to cyclical unemployment, poverty, imprisonment, etc. Black kids being sent to an underfunded public school that fails them: that's racist. Meanwhile ??? happening to white people, I don't even know.

Political correctness has gone mad in the world. To say anything against or even defend yourself against a minority group lands you in trouble whether you are in the right or wrong.

institutional racism left with jim crow laws. oddly enough not with the civil war "fought over slavery", but a hundred years later championed by the democrats, the same people the civil war "fought over slavery" was against.

the way i see it, within america, the whole of the education system is under funded. whether you're in "white" rural kansas or the "black" inner city of atlanta. those kinds in kansas not starting or joining gangs isn't racism, i'd wager that is upbringing, both familial and environmental (location, friends, etc)

No it didn't end then and what's with "fought over slavery" being in quotes

because it wasn't, but gets credit for being so.. it was a joke more than anything :(

i have weird views on history, the truth (joking, again..)

I mean I know people sometimes say it was a war for states' rights, but the particular right in question was the right to own slaves, so I don't know..

had the south not seceded in 'sixty, would the north still have declared war to end that particular state right?

why didn't they in 1850, or 1840? it was still quite unpopular in the north at those times..

Don't know why it matters considering the south took proactive steps for the purpose of protecting their right to own people as property which they saw as under siege, hence slavery is the cause of the civil war

Education is overfunded IMO. I send my kids to a private school and still I help pay for public education. Institutional racism isn't what leads to unemployment, poverty, imprisonment etc, bad parenting is my theory for what leads to those things. Bad parenting, no parentiing, lack of fathers, etc. This is coming from someone that came to the US 11 yrs ago with just $100.

But where does bad parenting come from? It comes from decades and centuries of black families being broken up, be it from slavery or from a racist justice system or from the crime people have been driven to out of poverty and circumstances. We can't just stop wearing white hoods and using the n-word and expect everything to instantly get better on its own, especially when capital profits from surplus labor...

When the black community did start to pull itself up in the form of heroes like the Black Panthers, J. Edgar Hoover declared them a threat to security and began turning the community against itself through a program of black ops and murder against a group that had been organizing breakfasts for children, negotiating peace between rival gangs, and patrolling their communities.

Just reading this page about Fred Hampton enrages me:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hampton

you can't forget crack- white people have been using that to hold back the black man for decades now, and quite effectively if i may add.

if slavery was the cause of the civil war then at any time previous to secession slavery would have started the civil war.. what am i missing here? anti slave sentiment in the north is not why the north declared war..

my proof of this is federally instituted jim crow laws for the next hundred. we'll fight a war because some people hate some other people *too* much, they can only hate them as much as i we do?

history is fun, i guess..

This is some strange logic. the institution of slavery was not always under equal threat, the south attempted to secede only when that threat reached a certain pitch that convinced southerners their rights as slaveholders were going to be whittled away.

The Black Panthers are a threat to security. Always have been, always will be.

where do bad parents come from? in a lot of cases these parents received poor parenting themselves. but why is this? what's the root cause? assuming you reject racial explanations like blacks are bad parents, blacks are more prone to commit crime , or whatever, you'll probably end up citing "culture." but the same question persists: where did this culture come from and why does it exist? eventually one must confront the historical and material conditions that led to the current state of affairs. Slavery, jim crow, and a resulting cycle of poverty. The only way to break this cycle is by replacing the current economic system with one that provides people with the basic security of housing, food, heating, and so on (like the socialism championed by the black panthers). With these necessities ensured, people will then have the luxury of continuing with their schooling instead of dropping out looking for work, people won't turn to drug trade or other crime out of desperation and need, and these people can finally be lifted out of the hole they've been thrown into. Capital loves the current culture in these communities that replaced the culture of the 60s and 70s because it serves as distraction and prevents the people from achieving class consciousness.

good, so you're paying my february rent for me right, blid?

i'm not black, but you'll still take care of my housing food and heating, won't you?

i dont have the means, i found my apt on craigslist by searching for 'hovel' and live with mice, roaches, and bedbugs, the bedbugs being the worst of the three

so.. you had bad parents?

myself? i blame nobody but me for my problems in life..

Nah, my parents were great and my life is good. i have shelter, food, and heat. just not great comfort, but comparatively, not bad. i dont want to have too much anyway, it's sinful. that's why even though I have a law degree and passed the bar I took a job a low-paying job at a state institution (i didn't want a job at a profit-seeking private enterprise)