Racism

Yeah its pretty sad...around here there are alot of muslim, and that seems to be the biggest racist stuff going on, since 9=11 of course. which is sad.....granted dealing on the phone can be difficult with the language barrier, and it would seem your getting yelled at and your not. but thats with ANYONE not just yeah..anyways. I have issues with some co workers on that one.

I have encountered some of the nothing to do with you caucasian tude as well.

You must have seen my recent thread in the lounge where I recounted tales of often being called a skinny a** white girl...which is funny to me, as I don't have a skinny ass..

Around here though there is a pervasive animosity between aboriginals and whites.
Its very prevalent. There is alot of anger on both sides and no one seems to be able to see the other's point of view. They would simply rather use empty rhetoric than really come together to create a solution...
In this case, its the extremists on both sides (as usual) that causes the strife.

I always remember when I was a child, probably 8 or 9, and my parents were off doing something when there was a knock at the door. I answered the door and there were two people there wanting to talk to me (or whoever answered door) about racism. I must have looked at them like they were from Mars. They said something explaining what racism was, and I just responded with "My best friend is Filipino." (Which she was.) They got all twittered and flustered and said something like "Oh, I guess you don't need this pamphlet then" and left. I remember being so mad at them and practically slamming the door in their faces because they just assumed that I was racist.

At least in my little bit of the world, I really don't see racism except for one person. He says he's an "equal opportunity racist - he hates everyone". But other than one person, I don't see it in my day to day life. I guess I'm lucky to be mostly surrounded by good people.

I've experienced racism because of the fact that I'm blonde, blue-eyed and white. One fairly recent incident happened while I was at a board meeting where the other women attending were all women of colour. I was singled out because of my race, and I ended my post as secretary shortly thereafter.

In fact, when I questioned one of the women I was actually somewhat close with why she didn't defend me, she said she would have been seen as a "traitor" by the other women.

Singled you out in a personal way in a professional meeting? How horrible!
I believe in the new socio-political arena, this is actually referred to as "reverse racism" and is seen as a natural consequence of hundreds of years of oppression by whites.
I find it so sad when society moves two steps forward that we also seemingly move one step back in the process.

i took a multicultural gender studies class and it was by far my fav class i've taken ever! we were discussing how these kind of classes should really be taught at younger ages to help acknowledge and appreciate differences..while im sure everyone here is very open minded and doesnt like racism..in some small way we may judge/criticize w/o even realizing it..no matter what..we read this book..awesome book!! and there was a study done where they had a certain amount of resumes with common/sounding african american names and common/sounding white names..and the ratio was like for 1 in every 5 resumes with white names got a call..and one in every 10 african american ones got a call (example of things we discussed)..they were made up resumes..but..there were soo many so many interesting little cases in this book! not even about race..gender too..there was one from an asian girl who wrote a suicide note to her parents about not being perfect and if 'only she were a son'..i wish i still had the book! talked about every issue..even about kids in elementary school saying they were gay/homosexual..if anyone really wants to know the book i can ask my teacher..but i strongly recomment any multicultural gender study class..we watched stuff on WWE and how women are portrayed..one about homeless women who dont look homeless at all! and we watched the two towns of jasper...which was very eye opening yet chilling.
our teacher was only 1 of the 2 african american professors on our campus too! which we were suprised to know our teacher was so cool tho
.it sucks how race/power is still instilled in poeple..and i doubt it will every really fade away..i hope it would tho. if anyone has even taken a MCGS class they might know what im mean about the interesting stuff to learn!
sometimes i think the problems are not so much racism as it is prejudice:

prej·u·dice ( P ) Pronunciation Key (prj-ds)
n.

An adverse judgment or opinion formed beforehand or without knowledge or examination of the facts.
A preconceived preference or idea.
Irrational suspicion or hatred of a particular group, race, or religion.

because we also discussed how racism isnt really what everyone thinks it is..its more so prejudice, race is more about power..but i dont have a PhD thats just what i remember, lol.

I spent most of my early childhood with my grandma ath her small motel. She had 2 ladies that worked with her, and would bring their grandkids to play with me. We would all have breakfast together, then they would put us in the fenced yard and go to work. They were Miss Rose and Miss Polly to me, and it took me years to realize that they worked there. This was in the early 60s and when I started hearing about black people on the news, I thought it was something new. I was very shocked to learn that they were referring to the same kind of people the I had breakfast with every morining. My dad put a stop to it. I still never developed the kind of racims that I grew up with.
I developed a friendship with a black lady in school, and even tried to help her get her business started. She turned out to be a compulsive liar, and I backed off from the friendship. Now she says I am racist because I do not want to be friends any more. She just does not get it that it is not because of her skin color, it is because of her actions.
I am sure it can't be all black people, but it has been my personal experience that is the first words out of someone's mouth if they do something, and get called on it "it's just because I am black." I don't get it. There are some very fine people of all colors in the world, why does it have to be such an issue? I understand that they got to this country in the worst way imaginable, but those days are long over. I have lived all my life with people assuming that just because I am white and Southern that my family owned slaves. My great grandparents on one side came from Ireland and Scotland, my grandma was from Germany married to to an Irish man. Not one member of my family ever owned anyone! Oops! I'm ranting! Sorry.

incidentally, i should point out that black oppression is sort of messed up in and of itself. the slave trade started because african tribes wer selling other africans to the portuguese and dutch settlers. White people didn't go to africa and trap/trick a bunch of africans onto a boat and jet it for the new world, which is much of what is assumed by the black population. also the africans were not the first slaves- let's talk about Jews. Or Romanians? how about Seljuk Turks? Mongolians? yes. All slaves at some point.. but it's somehow different to be an african american because african americans were oppressed by all white people? i don't think so.

to be quite honest, I feel a bit like the phrase "black oppression" is a crutch for those specific african americans who want a hand out and not a hand up- or even to do something fro themselves. I don't care if you are black, white, asian, muslim, or indian. If you antagonize me, for no reason, I won't like or help you. If you are kind and considerate to me, then you're cool and I'll bend over backwards to help you out.

And by the way, no, *MY* family history doesn't include any black slaves. Yes right. My parents are immigrants, than you, and not from the background of those particular people who had black slaves. and *I* didn't have anything to do with selling diseased blankets to the indians, sorry. please don't accuse me without knowing my own family history. simply because I'm white doesn't mean that I in any way oppressed your people.

I always did find it odd that people assume that because I'm fair skinned, blonde haired, green eyed, that means that I'm the typical southern baptist white chick whose family's been in America for 300 years or more. Guess what.. the majority of todays' people, especialy in the north, have been here a shorter time than you have. Italian and Irish, that's 1900's, not earlier- they didn't oppress blacks either. In fact, when they were immigrating, they came to find hope and promise, and a great number of them died because they couldn't find homes, or work, and many of them worked side by side with african americans.

Now, I must say, my bestfriends have been African-American, Turkish, Jewish, Russian, Mexican, Italian and Taiwanese- I seem to think I'm fairly well balanced there... so if anyone is offended by the aforementioned rant on "black oppression" please, IM me, and don't berate my educated opinion because you don't agree with it, and do look up some of what I have said if this is new information.

African Americans are the only people who were slaves *in America*. And I do think that makes a difference. All other races came here, generally, seeking opportunity. Does it justify racism? No, of course not, never. But I do think that kind of history still makes a difference today.

I have never personally felt racism against myself.

It's interesting you came up with this topic though. Yesterday I heard my coworker (who isn't white or black) rant against black people, which is a semi-frequent topic of his (sometimes it's hispanics).

Oh wait! Ok, I just remembered something. It wasn't against *me* BUT:

My father told me one year when I was young on Martin Luther King Jr day we received a racist call where someone ranted about black people and how awful they are, etc. etc.

As we are all naturally of a pasty white complexion you may wonder why this happened?

Our last name is Black.