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Tue 25 Sep, 2012 08:09 am
Racism or Reality is the President racist.
There is a peculiar custom today for people to be described, and describe themselves, as black or white.
The present USA president would appear to favour being called black.
In fact the vast majority of people in the world are neither black or white, but some pinkish, brownish, greyish, colour in-between. The President is a league away from the coal black of some Africans. More significantly he is the son of a white parent and black parent, so he might just as well be called white.
If a person uses the terms Black and White for himself [a bisexual term in normal language, lacking a neutral term] and others they are being racist, are they not.
If they describe themselves and others as black, brown, etc. as a plain description of physiognomy, only then are they being ethically neutral.
In addition:
If our legal system is such as to refer to an ethically neutral matter such as skin colour, in terms of black and white, or 'coloured' is it not being racist. If the law is to be neutral as regards race, it must deal with abuse - for instance - as abuse, with no mention of colour.
But then, if people are proud of their inherited physiognomy and indeed inherited innocuous culture, is this other than desirable, providing they do not denigrate other types.
@RW Standing,
When other people see the President, they see him as black with all the baggage that comes with that. Were he to call himself white as you suggest he could, he would just be laughed at. The "reality" is that we are all the race society perceives us as regardless of the tribe we come from.
@engineer,
To piggy-back on your opinion, why should anyone else determine what one wishes to identify themselves as?
Suggestion: Try to live in their shoes first, if that's possible.
@RW Standing,
If one thinks that one is a particular race, even if one is mistaken, one is not a racist. And, since one cannot read minds, this thread is possibly making assumptions about how a person perceives oneself.