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

Is a racist someone obsessed with NASCAR?

HA!

that sure is a cute puppy pic Set

That's cuz she's a cute puppy Cuz . . .

Probably so, mismi, but aperson has followed the discussion and conceded that he had a weak thesis, so I'm still wondering she bothered.

got her dander up apparently

Head and Shoulders will take care of that . . .

We've already been through this, and yes, I have conceded to having a weak thesis. It was more sh!t-stirring that an actual argument anyway.

I'm sorry, I did get a bit emotional, and irrationally, but I'm sure you can understand. In any case, I am going on a 7 week holiday to South Africa in 2 weeks, so I'll let you know of my findings sometime.

Hey roger, did you get your sig from the article?

I bothered because I don't appreciate being labeled, same as everyone else. In my experience when people use the word racist, most of the time they mean white supremacists. Discrimination against white people they call reverse discrimination, as if its not real discrimination. Just because I am white doesn't mean I go around hurting people and treating them badly just because they don't look like me. It also doesn't mean I don't experience racism. When I was a little girl, we lived in a mostly black neighborhood. Because my sister and I were sometimes the only white kids on the bus, the officials in charge kept kicking us off and putting us on another bus. It wasn't because of our behavior. I was so shy it was a trial for anyone to get me to speak. Eventually, my mother started driving us to school. By high school it didn't matter anyway, because she worked there anyway as a lunch lady. My sister was raped by a black classmate who she thought was her friend. My husband went to a mostly black school when he was a kid and was often beat up by the other black kids. The principal, who was black, wanted to suspend him because he must have somehow caused it, even if a teacher supported my husband. He is only 5'2" as a grown man by the way so he was an easy target. Racism affects everybody no matter what their race. Crime is not always committed by the white person against the black person or the majority against the minority. Most everybody who replied on her said bigotry was worldwide. That would be my experience. My husband and I were in the navy when we met, and have traveled a lot of the world and met many different kinds of people. There is both good and bad everywhere and in all people. It is easy, however, to only see the bad when you don't actually meet people who are different. Most people are less concerned by other people and other races and more concerned by their own personal survival and comfort. I bothered to reply because I have an opinion and I have as much right to state it as everybody else, even if my opinion is pretty similar to many other people who have replied before me.

Yes, and you also have a right to beat a dead horse. I wouldn't bother, but that's just me. Note that I didn't question your right; I question why you bother.

Aperson, I stole my current sig line from someone on a different. I don't know who he stole it from.

My husband also accuses me of beating a dead horse. Lol.

My husband went to a mostly black, somewhat hispanic student population school (one of two whites in his class) and wasn't beaten up. What does that prove? Nothing at all.

As to the thread, I've enjoyed the discussion, and include aperson in that, and certainly PDog and RGentel's comments, but not limited to them. Aperson is young and sharp, has been here quite a while, can be blustery, but also pays attention. Aperson, you can click on a person's name, and see their profiles, including thread and post history, and tag history.

This is somewhat tangential but also interesting to me: various populations' susceptibility to alcohol and its abuse for genetic reasons - re the relation of binge drinking/low tolerance and institutional racism. Not to deny institutional racism, but to add complication. I suppose that is not only another thread, but one already present here in a2k archives.

I've actually been reading (in a very good book about cholera in London in the 19th century 'Ghost Maps') about genetic tolerance to alcohol. It isn't a myth. Apparently populations that urbanised early routinely drank alcoholic beverages because it was the easiest way to get germ free H2O when your crowded living conditions and poor waste disposal systems made drinking from your 'fresh' water supply problematic. Much the same way these same populations built resistance to species-hopping diseases because they lived in crowded conditions with their domestic animals - then travelled to the new world and wiped out populations without the same genetic history.

R u saying that wine or booze has antiseptic properties
when drunk or when mixed with "fresh water" ?
If u have a bacterial infection u shoud get drunk ?

OmSig - that statement is actually true. European cities in existence since antiquity are all built on rivers - Rome, Athens, Paris, London, Berlin, Geneva, St Petersburg and so on. The inhabitants always added wine to their drinking water to kill germs, so we, their descendants, naturally have a high tolerance for alcohol.

"Native" populations (all those in the Americas, from the Inuits of Alaska all the way to their relatives in Tierra del Fuego) descended from natives of Siberia, able to drink melted snow year-round, lack that European gene - they can become alcoholics much faster and die of fatty liver a lot sooner. Background on DNA:



http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pgen.0030185

We also used to drink "small beer" as the water was unreliable. This I think was made from the second or subsequent fermentation of the hops, and lacked the alcoholic content (lower specific gravity) of porter.

The only objection i have to your thesis, HS, is in including St. Petersburg in a list of "cities in existence since antiquity." St. Petersburg was founded, on the orders of the Emperor Petr Alexeevitch, in the Spring of 1703--May, i believe.

Berlin's not all that old, either.

I'd never really investigated that, but it doesn't surprise me. The Hohenzollerns only arrived in Brandenberg, i believe, in the 13th or 14th century. I think i've read that Berlin dates to about the 12th century at the earliest.