Is it me, or is America a tad more racist than the rest of us?

You said he wanted to prevent Maoris from becoming the majority.

"up·rise (p-rz)
intr.v. up·rose (-rz), up·ris·en (-rzn), up·ris·ing, up·ris·es
1. To get up or stand up; rise.
2. To go, move, or incline upward; ascend.
3. To rise into view, especially from below the horizon.
4. To increase in pitch or volume; swell."

See definition 4. Your problems seem to start with vocabulary.

You are obviously just running away because you, after telling me I was looking in the wrong place, can't provide the evidence you said was present.

Maybe you misinterpretted. I was refering to our differing experiences with racism in South Africans. But if you want me to tell you about racism I've experienced, I will tell you.

In my school I have seen a bit of racism, mainly towards Asians, but that is more to do with New Zealand male teenagers always trying to get an edge on eachother. Most of it is in good humour, and is taken well, but in the cases where it is genuinely malicious, it is less to do with hatred of a race, and more to do with hatred for a person and trying to find ways to put him down.

Notably the son of some South African friends of my parents is best mates with a very dark Maori.

Oh well, there's proof positive for you.

This is a damned silly thread, and the author has nothing useful to offer in the way of ideas about racism.

What, exactly, is a "Maori" ?
Is that a race that is native to New Zealand ?

Don't worry abouut High Seas.

She has trotted that Piggy Muldoon stuff out before, and clearly agrees with what she asserts to be his obsession.

What she claims to know about would have been in secret communications she claims to have been privy to.

Even if her claims are true, Piggy would represent the same constituency in NZ that Pauline Hanson did here.

High Seas will not engage you in any rational discourse, she will just attempt to insult you.

If we are getting down to personal experience, and don't forget Oz appears to have half of New Zealand here, I have found New Zealanders to be amongst the least racist and sexist people I have met.

You guys have taken in numbers of the would-be refugees so shamefully expelled by Australia.

However, I have to say that my experience of Maori culture, such as it is, is that it shares many of the problems of Australian Indigenous people.....high alcohol and drug problems, high rates of domestic violence, high youth suicide rates etc.

I used to work in an area with a high Maori population (for Oz) in child and adolescent mental health, and we were approached by that community for help with their young folk.

That'll be one of the problems with making sweeping assertions as you did when you opened the thread!!!


To be fair, I think you have acknowledged that quite openly.

I think so, too.

We have here one of those rare examples of someone listening to the more rational and informed arguments of others, and being persuaded to change their views!!

On ya aperson.

Then the unfortunate Battle of South Africa broke out.

Oh dear. Yes, it is the native race. Pure Maori (of which there are none now) are said to be very dark-skinned. They have a warrior/tribal culture, but are also very spiritual and artistic in some cases.

Yes, Maoris, like many other native races, are in quite an unfortunate position.

Hey thanks, it's appreciated. I'm kind of tired of the usual hostile and closed-minded debates that happen here.

Yea haha. I just got angry at someone indirectly accusing my parents of being violent and racist.

Glad to see someone else here supports open-mindedness.

Actually, you will find many of the folk here very open-minded and highly informed and great fun. Robert Gentel would be amongst these in spades.

Thing is, you kind of sowed what you reaped on this one.

You made an accusation, and didn't like it when you thought you were being insulted, in quite a similar way, really.

I just looked at your profile and note you've been around quite a while, sorry I was speaking to you as if you were new!

I think you got a lot of reasoned debate, plus some normal knee-jerk stuff from our normal knee-jerkers.

I wish more people had noticed your acknowledgement of error, though. It's a rare thing to see.

Fair enough, looking back I have been a bit hypocritical.

Ouch, I'm shocked. I certainly know you! I haven't been very active, however, so I suppose I can't really expect you to. That's the problem with the new site: you can't see people's posts count or how long they've been here.

Being able to admit you are wrong is the mark of a true scientist!

Indeed it is.

I THOUGHT I knew you....but I do get confused by not being able to see people's post counts, and for some reason you sounded new to me.

Sowwy.
!!

Na it's all good ae.

Wanted to address a bit of your post that I skipped earlier. I didn't know about your South African roots so this isn't personally directed towards you, or your family.



Well South Africa has a long long history of racial friction. With apartheid, experimentations on blacks and all. So I don't think the more recent violence is generating all of it. I think it contributes to a vicious cycle that started generations ago.

That being said, the individuals I met were certainly influenced by it. The violence they spoke of was mostly stories of being robbed and killing or wounding the attackers. But it was the glee they would show in what they did to "the savages" (things like dragging them in a car when they reached in to try to snatch something) that struck me as having racial overtones.



No they aren't lying, there is some pretty horrific stuff happening there. But the fixation on it is usually telling. You can see a good example of the same thing here: http://able2know.org/topic/109651-1

Pamela Rosa is a quite open racist and that thread about crime in South Africa is her attempt to portray blacks as primitive and backwards. The crimes may well be true, but there's some pretty clear motivations for the fixation on them.

That's what I'm talking about. Every South African I met was just like her (again, with the disclaimer that I'm sure they aren't all like her). It was very difficult to talk to them because of this. Here's an old room mate of mine who was here when we started able2know: http://able2know.org/topic/124-1

He's being very tame on a2k, but in person his opinion was that Africa was dying because blacks are an inferior race, and lost no time in telling me about it. It was hard to live with him, he was a friend and I found it hard to be friends with someone who thought that way.

Now like I said, I'm sure not all South Africans think like this, but these experiences combined with the history of the country suggests to me that there's more to this than just my personal experience and that race relations in South Africa are, in fact, worse than most other countries.

The history of apartheid is full of a lot more extreme recent cases of race wars than almost anywhere on earth. The violence was brutal (ever heard of necklacing?) on both sides.

With that history, and with the experiences I have had personally I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that South Africa has had one of the more rough histories of race relations and that the rates of racism are likely much higher than average.

That doesn't mean I think all South Africans are racist, I made that very clear in my first post here on the issue. It just means I think that they have much higher rates of this kind of thinking than any other country I have personal experience with (and to answer your earlier question, no I have not been there, my experience was with expat communities of South Africans. They had an immigration deal with Brazil, so a lot of white South Africans moved there after apartheid fell).

Anywho, I hope you don't feel personally insulted over this. Looking at the history of the country I don't see how it's a polemic accusation to say that South Africa has higher rates of racism than most countries.

When involved in warfare, or fighting, high
morale
is imperative to success; its sine qua non.

Its absence, or hesitation tainted with self-doubt,
is near suicidal. In warfare, single-minded, devoted striving
for victory is indispensable to success. It is very, very understandable
that your friends felt gleeful upon, in the same motion,
practicing self-defense and vengeance upon the predatory foe
and degrading the enemy 's offensive capability
(assuming that the intruder was injured by the dragging).
Hopefully, it woud also serve as a dissuasive example.

I understand that the commanding admiral at Pearl Harbor
(post-Dec. 7, 1941) put up a large sign visible to all ships
saying:
" KILL JAPS
KILL JAPS
KILL MORE JAPS "

The presence of a positive mental attitude is acutely,
and pivotally important in defensive warfare; the alternative
is just to put up the white flag and say: " OK, here I am.
Take me, take my mother, wife and child; do whatever u want.
Its OK."

If a military commander sees that his troops
take no joy in their success, then he must know
that his side is in very severely serious trouble;
doom is at hand.





David

ERRATUM:

The said sign visible to all ships
saying:
" KILL JAPS
KILL JAPS
KILL MORE JAPS " was erected by order of Admiral Bull Halsey,
not by the admiral in command of Pearl Harbor.





David

Barack Obama isn't black. His mother was white. To say that he is black would ignore half of his ancestry. He is of mixed heritage. There are very few Americans that are "pure" anything. Yet many kinds of paperwork require us to label ourselves for statistical reasons. If I checked anything other than white, I would be called a liar, even though I have Cherokee and Algonquin blood in me. I have pale skin and blond hair, and mostly grew up in the south, so I must be the usual white ignorant bigoted redneck lynching black people and dragging homosexual people behind my truck.
No, of course you're not stereotyping. It's only when OTHER people label Americans and Southerners as racist, that they are stereotyping. No, you're just so much smarter, sweeter, and more tolerant than the rest of us.

By asking that very question, you are proving yourself to have the exact same "us versus them" mentality that you are accusing us of having. You have shown yourself to be one of those people who say "I'm not racist but...". At least you do admit that you do have racists over there. When a minority of people who do have racist attitudes are more outspoken than "the rest of us", everybody gets labeled the same way.

The world population was estimated at 6.72 billion in 2008. Have you spoken to everyone of those people? How about one in a hundred, or even one person from every country? All 195? I doubt it. Than how can you possibly say that Americans are more racist than "the rest of us"? Or do you just mean New Zealand? Have you seen these articles?
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/24/053.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3192425.stm

Is this addressed to someone or something? I'm trying to see whence you are coming, but it isn't working.

looks like she is addressing the first post Roger - that's my best guess.