Why is it considered racist....

You should petition the student body council and school administration for a lobby, sufp.

Well, skin color has power, which seems to ramify for no reason defensible through tbe ages, and has eddys and whirls in equal and opposite directions...
but I think a keynote is that xenophobia has power.

Well, ne'er mind xenophobia, how about just plain fear.

Uquality, wouldn't that be nice!...I wish! I also agree that no person, whether black, white, red, purple...whatever...should be treated equally no matter what the situation, try telling that to the rest of the world!

Just like it's common for black comedians constantly joke about white people, while if it's the other way around, it's very "edgy." I'd say that's a form of racism.

That's what I like about South Park. It holds no boundaries when it comes to making fun of people. That's the way it should be.

Like when Sacha Baron Cohen impersonates Borat, the anti-Semitic Kazakh.

it is wanton foolishness to be proud (or ashamed) of some arbitrary physical attribute over which one has no control.

if one wishes to show pride, show it in your contributions to humanity, not your individual distinction within its variety!

[would it make sense to rave about having the largest or most extensive wart imaginable?]

No kidding bogowo.

Here's the storey that brought me to the question: When I was at work a couple days ago, a few of us were having a harmless conversation while on our lunch break.....suddenly the one guy(native) stands up, looks at me and says " I can, because i'm native" it sounded very rude, and intended that way. He was going on about how he (natives) get free health care, and stuff about custers last stand and all that....like as if!

stand up, I said no such thing. It's not necessary to put words into my posts. Please just ask if you have any questions.

Third world living conditions is quite accurately applied to many reservations. Concentration camps, though? You may have some misconceptions about either reservations, or concentration camps.

I can understand and sympathize with all sorts of answers on these questions. I dont know in my own personal wisdom how I would work it so that all understand each other as things work out...

but it wish i would, and then,













however long it takes for understanding,
not just a day
or a month
or a year
or a decade
or a century


but really, we need to look at this as a way to find out common views.

Not the slight thing it seems, it is instead all the world.

The reservations are where Native Americans, descendant war refugees, have been concentrated.

Mind your thoughts, weigh your words, and act with compassion. You can do that, and offend no one. Those who are thoughtless, careless of their expression and who act without regard to the effect on others are beyond your control. We can insure that the laws which govern our society are fair and impartial, and that has been done. We can not legislate the human heart, nor change opinions that are never questioned, nor should we wish to do that even if we could. Efforts to censor or control speech and expression is a direct threat to our way of life, even when that speech is patently offensive to many.

No matter how carefully we try to think and behave, some will misunderstand us, resent us, and accuse us of thoughts we never had. It may be unjust, but it will happen. Be patient with those who can't control themselves, they will cause themselves more suffering than they are able to inflict on the mindful.

Let the past bury the past. What today is considered crimes was not so long ago commonly regarded as perfectly acceptable behavior. We can learn from out collective past, or we can be haunted by it. Past injustices are not rectified, nor made less by picking at the scabs. Apologies and recompense for deeds that happened a hundred years ago are of little comfort to the descendants of victims and are themselves an affront to the innocent who are urged to make them. We are responsible for ourselves, for our own thoughts, words and actions, and not for those beyond our immediate control. Is it justice to hang the grandchildren of mass murderers?

We dearly hope that racism will someday be fully erased from the human heart and even memory. That time is not yet, but if want to hasten the demise of racism and prejudices the answer is within ourselves.

Then you misunderstand both terms.

Enlighten me with your understanding, roger.

Being part of a minority (or majority for that matter) does not automatically confer 'wisdom' on one; being aware of past abuses, and understanding the origins of questionable comments, and fielding them compassionately, is the least a member of the historically offending party can do to contribute to future equitable relations.

Infrablue,

Listen to Roger. We here in the Southwest live in the midst of many Indian Reservations. Often the living conditions on the Rez are poor, but they have the status of sovereign nations. On the Rez, the tribe governs itself with its own elected representatives and law enforcement agencies. No AmerInd is required to live on the Rez, and many choose to live part of their lives there and part of their lives in the Anglo world. Men and women of Native American extraction have earned professional degrees from some of the most distinguished universities in the country. Traditional religious societies and practices still have large followings.

The Indian Nations are not uniformly poor and without resources either. The Navajo and Apache have both done very well in raising livestock. Mineral deposits and other resources are sometimes exploited, and sometimes left undisturbed. Oil made millionaires of some Oklahoma tribes. Gambling has become a billion dollar industry on Indian reservations and provides money for education, health and housing at little or no cost to members of the tribe.

What exists on the Reservations is nothing like the concentration camps of the Axis Powers, the Soviet Gulag, the killing fields of Cambodia, the re-education camps inside the PRC, or the secret camps in the DPRK. There are no similarities at all.

American Indians do continue to have serious problems. diabetes and obesity are much more common than in the general population. Alcoholism and drug abuse ruin countless lives. Unemployment, especially on the reservations is far too high. Traditional ways are difficult to maintain in a world where mass communication offers attractive alternate values to the young. Some Indian kids I know are so urbanized that they are totally lost on the Rez, and would perish if they had to live a traditional life. They've lost their language and much of their culture. That is a sad loss to the tribes. Popular ideas about Indians is itself a bit of a problem. Modern Indians don't wear blankets and feathers and speak in monosyllables. They were the same cloths as everyone else, and sometimes are far more literate and verbal than Anglo college graduates. A person like that can easily be offended by stereotypes, or by folks comparing their country to a concentration camp.

My understanding?

No one is forced to live on a reservation in the US. No one need ask permission to leave. The same cannot be said of the occupants of Dachu, Tule Lake, or Fort Sumner.

I already have your understanding, of course.

Coming in from the side here, I think a lot of the panoply of racial acknowledgement comes from a kind of defensive posture, when the group has been battened down or more than battened, bludgeoned.

Do we not all want the end point to be ... in some ethereal future, that we are all equal? Mostly, people don't want to be shat on one more time.

Wouldn't we all, everywhere, like to be parties to the table?

I didn't notice any post on this subject that the "whites", for example were as brutal to each other as they have been toward others. Maybe I missed it!
There is absolutely no doubt that our forefathers did their progeny no favors in behaving as they did. Their arrant stupidity in the name of religion combined with their technological superiority at the time was a deadly combination. Aside from the miserable legacy of the conquistidors, black slavery á la the american style where a slave was not allowed to learn to read or write (I know there were some enlightened exceptions- there always are) lest they may prove themselves equal in ability to their masters, I find most detestable. Even in Rome - as brutal as that civilization could be and was - the most desirable slaves were usually the educated ones. The Romans did not feel so much intellectually superior as they felt superior in power.

Nevertheless...I've had on many occasions a hard time controlling my own prejudices. To be made to feel that "I" have to make up for it now in an age where EVERYONE should know better is crap. The poor and uneducated will alway exist. The "difference" is if they are white, they don't have the option to blame anyone else but the misery is no less for them...and I would add the INDIFFERENCE shown by EVERYONE else!

"Reverse discrimination" goes beyond its usual meaning. It breeds contempt in those who never had any and so the cycle, though certainly diminished, remains unbroken. Those who attempt guilt feelings for "historical" wrongs do not HELP themselves in the least. The stupid and ignorant acts of the past should not be allowed to breed contempt in a world that "seemingly" knows better. But it will because there are too many who still can't figure it out. What drowns in the ocean many times comes back to the surface.

Yeah, Asherman, I live in the Southwest also. I know about the various situations and conditions of many reservations here. There's a "reservation" right in my city, and the "Indians" there are urbanized and integrated with the rest of the community in that part of the city. The state of Texas shut down their casino operation.

I wasn't referring to them when I talked about concentration camps with third world living conditions, however, although an average middle class American visiting their community might come to think otherwise.

I know of reservations in Arizona where the living conditions are at truly third word standards, and I don't think the people there would get too offended to hear that either. I don't think it would make much difference to them. It is mainly those which come to mind when I think of concentration camps.

That conditions for the occupants on the reservations are different from the occupants of Dachu, Tule Lake or Fort Sumner does not negate the applicability of the term "concentration camp," roger. The conditions are very different, starkly different from Dachu, Tule Lake, or Fort Sumner; or those of Axis Powers, the Soviet Gulag, the killing fields of Cambodia yes, but the reasons they exist are the same. They were put up for the war prisoners of the US/Native American wars. Severity of condition does not negate the fitness of the term, roger.