So Who Is Going To Call It Racism?


Fiannan
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I understand. However, one could say that the American Indians had poor immigration laws and enforcement -- and look where it got them.

Of course, the first peoples on the North American continent were Caucasians/whites. Later other groups wiped them out or assimilated them. Between then and now other groups landed on the shores of the Western Hemisphere (Nephites/Lamanites) and contributed to the population.

Land is just where people live -- peoples come and go. The Middle East was much more racially diverse than it looks today (the original Arabs, the Afghans and Iranians and even the Jews were fairly indistiquishable from Europeans a couple thousand years ago, while Asiatic and black populations also existed as distinct tribes), Europe had different peoples three thousand years ago than we think of today, western China was inhabited by very large red-headed people, southern China was inhabited by black people -- wars, trade, importation of people for slaves, conquest and immigration changes things around. If we all had to go back to where our ancestors came from that would be extremely difficult.

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.......... My point was to discover where his family of orgin (roots) were from. Are they Native American? Mexican? European? When they came to this country, were they kept out? .......

I am all for border security and regulating immigration. IMO, illegal immigration needs to be a felony and illegal immigrants agressively deported. Although I live in Twin Falls, I work in Jerome,ID...in the past a pleasant small farming town, now a literal barrio fraught with drugs and crime. And, tuberculosis.

Probably the most poorly understood aspect of the nineteenth and twentieth century great immigrations was that the US blindly accepted anyone's "poor and huddled masses". This has never been the case. That is what Ellis Island was used for. Incoming immigrants needed to prove they were of sound body, submitting to actual physical examinations. Also, of sound mind and character. What we'd today call "criminal background checks" were done, inasmuch as then possible, on every incoming immigrant. And, immigrants had to prove, at Ellis Island, that they had jobs and at least temporary homes waiting.

Many were kept out, even for the most trivial of reasons. I have a friend whose grandmother immigrated from Lithuania in the early 1900's. She came as a young single woman with a job as a household servant in Manhattan waiting and she traveled with a friend who had a similar arrangement awaiting her. At Ellis Island it was determined the friend had trachoma,an eye infection that can lead to blindness. This friend was sent back to Lithuania as were hundreds of thousand of others just for health reasons, usually tuberculosis.

We now have, all over the western US, a burgeoning epidemic of tuberculosis imported from Mexico, and, it is resistant to treatment by many of the common drugs used to treat tuberculosis in the past, as well as combinations of these drugs.

If you look at statistics you can also see that these hard workers and their families, in the end, collect much much more in entitlements than they ever pay into the system in taxes, because if you work and are paid "under the table" in cash, you don't pay taxes. Illegals CAN pay taxes, but who does? They think that the paperwork necessary for filing taxes will get the caught and deported, but the fact is that nobody really cares and even multiply incarcerated felons are generally released back into our general population rather than even brought to the attention of the INS for deportation.

So, the US has never had anything even remotely approaching open immigration. And we have enough home grown criminals that we don't need to be letting those from south of the border set up shop within our borders.

Don't labor under the impression that these are "just hardworking folks who are willing to do dirty jobs that our own unemployed will not do". Don't kid yourself that the illegal immigrant population represents a cross section of the Mexican population. Nothing could be further from the truth. A more proper analogy would be that they are analogous to the multigenerational welfare, crime ridden underbelly of any large US city, say Baltimore, being rounded up and shipped off to Mexico.

And, it you have not spent considerable time visiting and living in Mexico, don't think Mexico is h*ll on earth and we NEED to let these poor souls come here to escape living there. Yes, there ARE slums in the large cities and hard scrabble subsistence farmers (among whom I lived for a year) in some pretty desolate outlying areas. The same could be said for the US.

Don't think there are no jobs in Mexico and those that can get work are working for pennies an hour. The current minimum wage in Mexico is $4.00/hr, which is, adjusted for cost of living, somewhat higher than the US. People IN Mexico who are NOT criminals CAN get jobs, although they may have to move, but that move would not entail illegal immigration into a bordering country. Mexico has scientists and professionals and a growing middle class while the middle class in the US is shrinking to the woint where we are becoming a more and more economically polarized society.

Mexico also has some of the most strict immigration policies in the WORLD. If you want to imigrate to Mexico,it's darn hard. You cannot be a criminal and you must be able to prove a monthly income (net) of 1000 times the prevailing Mexican minimum wage, or, at this time, $4000/month. In only a very few areas (medical and scientific) is it possible to get a visa allowing one to work as a resident alien in Mexico.

There's also a more humanitarian flip side to this. Illegally here, illegally hired, illegally paid Mexican workers in the US are also exploited workers.

A whole other, very ugly, topic.

My point being, of course, that this is a topic about which it is easy, seeing only one side from a distance, to make erroneous snap judgments based more on emotion than the actual facts.

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The oldest skeletons are not in any way Indian. Check out Kennewick Man and the Spirit Cave Mummy. These bones far pre-date any Indian peoples. Also, I read a story on BBC (if I remember right) a couple of years ago that suggested the original inhabitants (or oldest) of South America were black. Perhaps they may have suffered the same fate of black peoples of Asia.

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I am also opposed to the United Negro College Fund, BET, Black Panthers, Nation of Islam, etc., etc. I know for a fact that if I started a United White College Fund or White Entertainment Television, or worse yet, instead of the NAACP, how about the National Association for the Advancement of White People, people like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Louis Farrakhan, and Kwesi Mfume would all have a conniption fit.

What most people do not seem to understand, especially those outside the South looking in, is that racism was not as widespread as people think. Yes, you had Selma, Talladega, the students killed in Neshoba County, MS, and others. But let's be fair. Most of the riots occurred in places like L.A., Chicago, and Detroit. If you are going to measure racism using violence as a standard, the South would win that comparison hands down.

Here is a philosopical question. What is racism? If, for example I refuse to serve non-English speaking customers, is that racism? If I am a cop and I catch an Arab doing 25 mph over the speed limit, is that profiling? It seems that the liberals have really been doing some backwards thinking on what constitutes racism and/or profiling.

Equality means just that, equality. No affirmative action, no funding for minorities for college and businesses, no special considerations for minorities. Period. Ideally, that is how it should be, operative word being "ideally". I truly believe that as long as we have institutions that favor or cater to a particular race, such as NAACP, then yes, there will always be racism. That would put people like Jesse Jackson out of work, now wouldn't it?

Much of what Dr. Martin Luther King said was on the money. Granted, his moral character left a bit to be desired, but the ideas he espoused as far as equality goes...those were on the mark.

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Here is a philosopical question. What is racism? If, for example I refuse to serve non-English speaking customers, is that racism? If I am a cop and I catch an Arab doing 25 mph over the speed limit, is that profiling? It seems that the liberals have really been doing some backwards thinking on what constitutes racism and/or profiling.

You know when racial profiling is okay? It's when the Democratic Party targets non-whites for voter drives, special promises, etc. during election time. The Republicans target but that's generally based on issues -- the Democrats, on the other hand, treat blacks as if they are traitors to their race if they vote for Republicans (even black Republicans).

Now that's racism.

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I know for a fact that if I started a United White College Fund

Actually, they already exist. They're called alumni positions. The children of alumni in many Ivy League schools get favorable consideration. And, back in the day, those alumni were almost exclusively white.

or White Entertainment Television,

Perhaps the Country Western Music station--can't think of the actual name, comes close to qualifying.

or worse yet, instead of the NAACP, how about the National Association for the Advancement of White People,

Been done. Ever hear of David Duke?

people like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Louis Farrakhan, and Kwesi Mfume would all have a conniption fit.

Louis Farrakhan talks tough, but the White Supremist religionists actually went out and commited domestic terrorism. Gave white racism a bad name. :wow:

What most people do not seem to understand, especially those outside the South looking in, is that racism was not as widespread as people think. Yes, you had Selma, Talladega, the students killed in Neshoba County, MS, and others. But let's be fair. Most of the riots occurred in places like L.A., Chicago, and Detroit. If you are going to measure racism using violence as a standard, the South would win that comparison hands down.

People are most comfortable with people like themselves. Since whites are still a majority, that means, whites tend to subtley favor whites in their relationships. How much can or should be done about this is the open question.

As an example, I grew up in Seattle, so was frequently around people of different races and nationalities. So, I was comfortable with it. Then I spent six years in Korea, followed by four years in the Ozarks of Missouri (98.6% white). After this, I went up to St. Louis to take a flight out to Seattle. Suddenly I noticed I felt kind of nervous, and was looking around a lot. I realized there were many African-Americans, and I had grown unaccustomed to them. WOW, I thought. Imagine people that grew up in a near all-white society.

I'm not sure government can do much to mediate human relationships, but a little extra consideration is not an outrageous request. Remember, the Bible--especially the Old Testament--is full of passages calling for fair treatment of strangers amongst us--for you were once slaves in Egypt.

Here is a philosopical question. What is racism? If, for example I refuse to serve non-English speaking customers, is that racism?

Yes.

If I am a cop and I catch an Arab doing 25 mph over the speed limit, is that profiling? It seems that the liberals have really been doing some backwards thinking on what constitutes racism and/or profiling.

Did you stop him because he was speeding or because he was Arab?

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