I have a question.

[ImaGuyGeek]

That's easy to say when you are the standard and you've never been discriminated against or had derogatory comments made to you or at you because of who you are or what you believe. And I say that as a general "you," not you specifically Charles.

The writer of this article (from Jewish World Review ) has "never been discriminated against or had derogatory comments made" about him or his people? So are you saying Jews don't count because they "are the standard"?

Try growing up in a small Texas town with a single mother and a gay Grandfather. You think I wasn't "discriminated against or had derogatory comments made" about or towards me. My Grandfather was the only constant male figure in my life and I Loved and Respected him greatly. He taught me to never be a victim and I am proud of who he was and of who I am because of what I learned from him.

I know your comment wasn't about me specifically but I don't know enough about people to make generalizations assuming all white males know nothing about discrimination. I am a successful, conservative white male and I don't feel I should have to share my upbringing in order to be validated in the minds of others. In fact, I feel discriminated against by being invalidated openly because of my gender and the color of my skin.

[thekarens]

Mark, I'm shocked! I'm not sure we can be friends any longer.............

And I'm not saying a white man cannot be discriminated against, but if you're honest you'll have to admit it's a lot less likely than if you're a woman, gay, black, hispanic, etc etc etc.

PS.............I don't think Obama was elected because of his skin color. He was elected because his opponent was McCain and Palin.

[wesleydnunder]

I'm discriminated against on a daily basis because of my height. The world does not conform to my height and they didn't ask my opinion when the built it. Try being 5'4" tall and ask a woman 5' 5" or taller to slow dance...

Back on topic now. )

Mark

[marauder_77868]

That's easy to say when you are the standard and you've never been discriminated against or had derogatory comments made to you or at you because of who you are or what you believe. And I say that as a general "you," not you specifically Charles.

Are you really trying to say that a white person cannot be discriminated against based on skin color?

And, Delock, I'd love to see you be a bit more intellectually honest. In your first post you talked about how Obama had death threats and the like because of his skin color. I agree that is wrong, but with the caveat that it is a belief held by fewer people than those in the race business would have us believe. I find equally wrong what you didn't point out. Obama was elected, at least in part, because of his skin color. We saw that time and time again in interviews on election night. Why is that not equally wrong and why are you not calling those people out as racists as well with your examples?

[thekarens]

I believe skin color is primarily a factor because it is a big business for the people who play the race card.

The only cure is to adopt a single standard for all Americans and�to use a phrase of the '60s�tell it like it is.

That's easy to say when you are the standard and you've never been discriminated against or had derogatory comments made to you or at you because of who you are or what you believe. And I say that as a general "you," not you specifically Charles.

[thekarens]

I think you don't see it Traci because you work at home. I've heard people say things like "Mexicans are lazy" (which in my experience is the total opposite of what I know) Blacks are....well, I won't say what I've heard said. I've also heard the word FAG associated with several derogatory things such as stupid. I can't even count how many times I've been asked who is the "man" in my family and that I must be the "man" because I don't even come close to looking feminine. My response is always the same, "There is no "man" in the family. That's the whole point of being a lesbian!"

People have preconceived notions of who people are and what they are like based on where they are from or what they look like. I'll freely admit if I had met D on a dark street without having known him in the box it would have immediately crossed my mind that he might be violent. He's a big black man and so often in our society that is equated with anger or violence or criminal activity. I know better, but the thought would have crossed my mind.

I know people even in my very own family that won't step foot in Texas or in the South period because they think southerners are a bunch of ignorant rednecks. Racism and profiling is very much alive and well and I think most of it is due to exactly what Mark said. I would like to think though as people get to know and meet others who are different in whatever way that we learn that we have more in common and less differences than we thought.

[Kiovo]

Kim,

I'm not a fan of X, but sometime what you see is only a small part of what he do. He works closely with HPD and Harris County Sheriff Department on bring suspect into custody.

He does do that part, but then he ruins it when he gets on the news and spews his hate and reminds everyone its all about race.

[ImaGuyGeek]

I believe skin color is primarily a factor because it is a big business for the people who play the race card.

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/horowitz022200.asp

Jewish World Review Feb. 22, 2000 /16 Adar I, 5760 David Horowitz

Racial Shakedowns http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- A NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE COACH has a mediocre season and is released by the team. Jesse Jackson fires off a letter of protest. In Michigan, a thirteen-year-old murderer faces sentencing as an adult. Al Sharpton flies into the state and holds a press conference accusing racists in the criminal-justice system of trying to take "our children." (Shades of Decatur, Ill. where Jackson defends teenage thugs expelled from school in the same familial voice.) Hollywood launches a season where black characters rarely make the cut on the television shows on the big four networks. The NAACP threatens boycotts and two networks agree to racial quotas. The largest "civil rights" demonstration in nearly a decade is organized in South Carolina to protest the flying of a rebel flag.
These recent events have two features in common: From the perspective of the civil-rights movement they claim as their legacy, they are all laughable charades; and their only shared purpose is to keep alive the idea that whites are racists and are responsible for the problems of African Americans. The reality is quite different. The civil-rights struggle was won 30 years ago. What passes for civil rights these days is a political shakedown and a racial hustle.
FROM THE BOTTOM OF THE DECK
Sixty-five percent of the millionaires on the Green Bay Packers, the team that fired coach Ray Rhodes, are black. Rhodes had presided over the first season in seven years that the Packers did not make the playoffs. Even Rhodes says he was embarrassed by Jackson's claim. Coupled with Jackson's attempt to turn a bunch of young gangsters in Decatur who nearly caused a riot at a football game into civil-rights heroes, this crusade makes him something of a public menace and, insofar as he is a role model, a threat to black achievement.
Of course, Sharpton notwithstanding, the fact that homicide is a prime killer of young black males is integrally connected to the number of homicides committed by young black males. (A black is six times as likely to die of homicide as a white, while 94 percent of the killers of blacks are also black.) Treating youthful black murderers as adults is about taking black life seriously. Sharpton has no interest in black children in the inner city, however, or in anyone, in fact, except himself.
Forget all the arguments about the Confederate flag. The question is this: Is the flag a symbol of regnant racism? Are the gubernatorial mansions or the legislatures of states where flags incorporate the Stars and Bars bastions of Confederate diehards who want to keep blacks down? Don't make me laugh. The holiday itself during which the rally against the Confederate flag was held�Martin Luther King Day�is the only day that Americans set aside to honor an individual. Elements of the Stars and Bars are incorporated into the flags that fly over many state capitols. Among them is Arkansas, which flew the dreaded symbol during the entire twelve years that Bill Clinton was governor. Yet he still enjoys 90 percent support among African Americans, despite his willingness to fly the rebel symbol when he was governor. The flag means a lot less, evidently, than meets the eye.
This is not about racism. It is about playing the race card.
A NEW KIND OF EXTORTION
Hollywood gave the black actress Hattie McDaniel an Academy Award in 1939. Twenty years ago, network TV created Roots, the most-watched program in history�an eleven-hour epic that portrayed whites as uniformly evil and blacks as long-suffering saints. Throughout the 1940s (Pinky, Home of the Brave) and 1950s (Sergeant Rutledge, The Defiant Ones), and early '60s (Guess Who's Coming To Dinner), Hollywood pioneered civil-rights issues and the cause of black America. Anyone who believes that liberal Hollywood is a hotbed of racism and practices systematic discrimination against African Americans is either certifiable or�how shall I put this�somewhat loose with the facts.
Not too long ago, I was on Jesse Jackson's Both Sides Now CNN show with ER actor Eriq LaSalle. The two black men complained that African Americans are "locked out" of Hollywood and only get demeaning roles. Don't make me laugh. LaSalle plays a doctor on ER, and signed a three-year, $27-million contract. Yet, under NAACP threat, NBC and ABC signed quota agreements for black hires because�well, they were afraid of retaliation. Call it "trick or treat" if you want. It is extortion all the same.
Now Jackson has set up a shakedown shop in Silicon Valley, home to probably the most racially diversified industry in America. Jackson is demanding that technology firms go out of their way to help promote African Americans. If they do not, they risk being branded racists.
Why are the media silent about this (Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly and a few others excepted)? The reason seems obvious. Democrats and leftists run the media, and the race card is the ace-in-the-hole for Democratic and leftist politicians who need 90 percent black support to hold their power. That is why Bill Bradley and Hillary Clinton have rushed to kiss the ring of Sharpton, the anti-Semite, convicted liar and racist demagogue (without visibly holding their noses to do it). In fact, the race card is so important to Democrats that Bradley and Gore have even begun to use it against each other.
Whatever people say in public, no intelligent person really believes the charge of racism anymore. On the other hand, everyone is afraid to say so.
TELL IT LIKE IT IS
If the race card is power to Democrat politicians, it is money and power to race hustlers like Jackson and Sharpton. Once upon a time, Jackson would make demagogic harangues in inner-city communities about "racist" liquor distributors who were targeting the African American population. Budweiser is currently running commercials featuring black racial stereotypes. Ordinarily, this would be a Jackson two-fer. In the old days, Jackson attacked Anheuser-Busch for a lack of minority ownership among its distributors. But today Jesse Jackson's lips are sealed. Possible reason: Two of Jackson's sons were recently given the No. 1 Budweiser distributorship in Chicago, worth $33 million in annual revenues. And they got it, against all competitors, for almost no cash down.
Was the favor to the Jackson sons a form of protection money? You think?
It is time to wake up, America. The civil-rights scam is becoming a cancer on our body politic. The only cure is to adopt a single standard for all Americans and�to use a phrase of the '60s�tell it like it is.

[imagirlgeek]

I don't see it. In my everyday life, I don't see skin color mattering. I DO hear people who are not older, white, and male say that they are discriminated against because they aren't older, white, and male though. I just haven't seen it personally in my day to day life. D, if it's been your personal experience, I certainly can't argue that. I'm not in your shoes...or skin, in this case. ) I guess I'd need a more specific example of when and where this is happening. I know we all hear about it on the news, but that's the problem...I only 'hear' about it, but don't actually 'see' it first hand. I'm not going to be all PollyAnna and pretend like the world is perfect, because it's not, and I know that there are some people out there who do actually make judgments based on skin color alone, but I honestly believe they are the minority these days. My family is made up of white, black, korean, mexican, gay, straight, rich, poor, big city people, smalltown country people, college educated, high school dropouts, conservative, liberal, oil company executives, small business owners...heck, we even have a schizophrenic among us! And these are all just the family members I know...I wouldn't be surprised if I have a 3rd cousin someplace who I've never met that fits into another category. I listed all that to say that I just can't believe that I'm the only person out there who has this diverse mixture of people in their lives and doesn't see any of them as any better or worse than myself based on those things. When I make a judgment, it's because of someone's actions, not their skin color (or whatever classification they happen to fit into). And yes, people are described as these things. We are not all plain vanilla. Thank God!

Every president has enemies. There was even a movie made about assassinating Bush called 'Death of a President'. Kennedy WAS assassinated. Neither of them are black, yet they were hated just the same.

As to my opinion of Obama, I don't like him. And it's totally because he's black. I'm KIDDING!! I don't agree with his vision of the country, but I'm not going to go any further with this here. This thread is not about that.

[Delock]

I think it comes from a very primitive side of our nature. Many animals in the wild will shun an albino or melanistic member of their species. In certain aboriginal cultures the word for enemy and stranger are the same. "If you ain't like us, there's something wrong with you." It is unfortunately something that I don't think will ever go away. I've even seen it within the black community where light-skinned blacks look down on dark-skinned.

Do I agree with any of it? Of course not. Having lived in various parts of the world, among various shades of skin, I learned a long time ago that the amount of melanin in the skin has only as much to do with the person wearing that skin as that person chooses. I'm probably the least racist person I know. My workout partners are black men and my ex-girlfriend of over two years, as many of you know, is also black. Like D, I don't see just the hue of a person. Do I notice? Of course. Everyone does, just as they notice red hair from brunette.

When asked to describe physical characteristics, skin color, epicanthic eye fold, hair color and type, eye color, size etc all are part of the picture.

I've seen folks on both sides of a racial issue use race, either as an excuse to hate or an excuse for their actions. I had the race card pulled on me a few weeks ago. A man falsely accused me of calling him the N word. That's bullsh_t, and he knows it. It caused me to have to get pulled into my boss' office, his boss' office and spend a session with the City Attourney. The man used his skin color as a means to what he thought would be an end. Nothing happened to me, but he has now made many people look at him unfavorably. I'm quite sure that wasn't his intent.

The short answer to your question, D, is beause we are for the most part dumb, mean, panicky animals, just the right speech away from mob mentality. I truly believe that until we socially evolve some more it's not gonna change.

Mark

That right there! We are tied for first .

[wesleydnunder]

I think it comes from a very primitive side of our nature. Many animals in the wild will shun an albino or melanistic member of their species. In certain aboriginal cultures the word for enemy and stranger are the same. "If you ain't like us, there's something wrong with you." It is unfortunately something that I don't think will ever go away. I've even seen it within the black community where light-skinned blacks look down on dark-skinned.

Do I agree with any of it? Of course not. Having lived in various parts of the world, among various shades of skin, I learned a long time ago that the amount of melanin in the skin has only as much to do with the person wearing that skin as that person chooses. I'm probably the least racist person I know. My workout partners are black men and my ex-girlfriend of over two years, as many of you know, is also black. Like D, I don't see just the hue of a person. Do I notice? Of course. Everyone does, just as they notice red hair from brunette.

When asked to describe physical characteristics, skin color, epicanthic eye fold, hair color and type, eye color, size etc all are part of the picture.

I've seen folks on both sides of a racial issue use race, either as an excuse to hate or an excuse for their actions. I had the race card pulled on me a few weeks ago. A man falsely accused me of calling him the N word. That's bullsh_t, and he knows it. It caused me to have to get pulled into my boss' office, his boss' office and spend a session with the City Attourney. The man used his skin color as a means to what he thought would be an end. Nothing happened to me, but he has now made many people look at him unfavorably. I'm quite sure that wasn't his intent.

The short answer to your question, D, is beause we are for the most part dumb, mean, panicky animals, just the right speech away from mob mentality. I truly believe that until we socially evolve some more it's not gonna change.

Mark

[Delock]

This is true, but when people's criticisms of him have nothing to do with skin color, the way he might be perceived to act, speak, or dress - but instead are focused on his policies and the policies of his administration, then I think that's where their true motivation lies.

For example, the second I hear someone griping about Michelle Obama because she disrespected the office of the President by wearing shorts on Marine 1, Obama putting his feet up on the oval office desk, "bumping" fists with people, playing basketball, or anything hip and modern, I know they're just being bigots with no real dog in the fight. However if they start talking about his connections with certain political action groups/persons, his stance on certain policies, and its the same criticism you'd hear of any person in the office, then I know they most likely don't care about his skin color.

If they talking about policies and have fact I can go with it. But when you look at Fox, CNN, or MSNBC you see all this "hate" being spew out. Why? Do search on face book of Obama. You will find alot of pages based on hate. There was one page for support to kill Obama........Keyboard Gangsta got to love them!

[Delock]

I think it does matter, but it shouldn't. Not one person is going to admit their opinion of Obama has anything to do with his skin color, but I guarantee you it does for some people whether they admit it or not. I'm not referring specifically to people on the box, but people in general.

Hey you! It does matter. Just look at some of the videos that people take at the Tea Party meetings and others.

Hell, I have a frat bro who was on assignment with McCain during the elections and some of the stuff he saw had him amazed. . This is a guy who undergrad at Harvard. So what he told me that went on behind the scence (out of camera range) was amazing.

Kim,

I'm not a fan of X, but sometime what you see is only a small part of what he do. He works closely with HPD and Harris County Sheriff Department on bring suspect into custody.

[Delock]

If you are asking this question, you also need to be answering it.

(Thanks for deleting my double post, Traci. I was literally doing the same thing when you were, but it takes about 5 minutes to do it on my phone, LOL)

I think I already answer in my first post.

[jeebus]

I think it does matter, but it shouldn't. Not one person is going to admit their opinion of Obama has anything to do with his skin color, but I guarantee you it does for some people whether they admit it or not. I'm not referring specifically to people on the box, but people in general.

This is true, but when people's criticisms of him have nothing to do with skin color, the way he might be perceived to act, speak, or dress - but instead are focused on his policies and the policies of his administration, then I think that's where their true motivation lies.

For example, the second I hear someone griping about Michelle Obama because she disrespected the office of the President by wearing shorts on Marine 1, Obama putting his feet up on the oval office desk, "bumping" fists with people, playing basketball, or anything hip and modern, I know they're just being bigots with no real dog in the fight. However if they start talking about his connections with certain political action groups/persons, his stance on certain policies, and its the same criticism you'd hear of any person in the office, then I know they most likely don't care about his skin color.