Being Patriotic Now Unamerican?

[Timsup2nothin]

I grew up in a time when journalists did this so that we did not have to, since most of the time there was no way to do any research to determine if it was true in the first place. So it's not that I'm not willing to double-check facts, but when there are no contradictions in the story as it has been presented to me, and no red flags going up right away, I'm willing to give the "journalist" the benefit of the doubt and assume he/she is not trying to pull one over me. Which might not be a good assumption in this day and age, but most of the time I don't really care enough about the issue at hand to write an essay about it.

I didn't check to see if the original story was actually written by a journalist. It's usually easier to investigate the matter yourself than to figure out if there was a real journalist or some half baked social media maven with delusions of journalism behind it.

No matter how it slices though, we collectively have certainly defied the "failure to examine" criteria. So it isn't the "knee jerk assumption" of racist motivations that was complained about. It's that all of us, after a reasonable amount of jointly performed examination, have yet to imagine any other motivations that seem remotely plausible.

 

[Ryika]

Man, even I could have come up with a better excuse for why it's totally "reverse racism" and not just "racism" than this "Oh, it's reversed, that's why it's reversed!"-nonsense. Here it goes:

Racism is prejudice and power. Black people have no power, so they cannot be racist. When black people are prejudiced against their evil oppressors we call it reverse racism, because the powerless are prejudices against the powerful. That sort of prejudice however is more than justified because they are just oppressed people rising up against their oppressors.

 

[Farm Boy]

It's that all of us, after a reasonable amount of jointly performed examination, have yet to imagine any other motivations that seem remotely plausible.

That's still just projection. It's telling.

 

[warpus]

No black people have power? Not even in Africa? Yeahhhh about that..

 

[Ryika]

No black people have power? Not even in Africa? Yeahhhh about that..

I'm just repeating the proper argument. I don't actually believe this nonsense.

 

[warpus]

I thought you were quoting something from somewhere, did not mean to imply that you were one of those racists, sorry for the confusion

 

[aelf]

Man, even I could have come up with a better excuse for why it's totally "reverse racism" and not just "racism" than this "Oh, it's reversed, that's why it's reversed!"-nonsense. Here it goes:

Racism is prejudice and power. Black people have no power, so they cannot be racist. When black people are prejudiced against their evil oppressors we call it reverse racism, because the powerless are prejudices against the powerful. That sort of prejudice however is more than justified because they are just oppressed people rising up against their oppressors.

I don't buy that argument anyway, sorry.

When people say reverse racism, they typically just mean racism that goes in the opposite direction than is usually perceived or understood, like in cases where black people are racist against white people. Reverse racism is not anti-racism or whatever - it's just a subtype of racism, and sometimes it's simply used as a figure of speech to make it clear who is being racist against whom.

I'm sorry you guys have such trouble understanding or accepting certain terms that people actually use.

 

[Ryika]

Well, my "trouble" with the word is that it is usually used in the context that you've marked as bold; or to differentiate it from "normal racism" as being "less severe" or "justified racism". If both directions of racism are equally bad then in my opinion there is nothing gained from calling it "reverse racism" in a situation where the power structures aren't of importance to the discussion.

The phrase does have some validity when we're talking about institutional racism and the "reverse racism" that people develop against their oppressors (so it's born as a response to actually experiencing being mistreated, not because of prejudice), but other than that it's a useless modifier that just adds baggage by implying that that sort of racism is somehow different.

 

[aelf]

Oh, there is a difference between saying it's "more justified" and saying it's "more than justified" or that it's a form of "rising up against their oppressors"; what more the less affirmative notion that "it's more understandable". Seems like you've never learned to appreciate a difference of degrees, as is clear from your usual polemic. Something has to be totally good or totally bad, I guess.

 

[useless]

I wonder if we should give these people the benefit of the doubt...

The game was held at Newton South High School, where an estimated 100 young men sitting in the student section cheering for Catholic Memorial shouted, “You killed Jesus, you killed Jesus,” according to several witnesses who asked not to be identified. Most of those chanting fans wore red shirts as a display of support for their team. Some of the witnesses, who were Jewish, said they found the chant alarming.

 

[Ryika]

Oh, there is a difference between saying it's "more justified" and saying it's "more than justified" or that it's a form of "rising up against their oppressors"; what more the less affirmative notion that "it's more understandable". Seems like you've never learned to appreciate a difference of degrees, as is clear from your usual polemic. Something has to be totally good or totally bad, I guess.

What the hell are you talking about? I literally said the exact opposite. There's basically two different situations:

- Racism that just "goes the other way" is not any more justified than racism that "goes the way we expect it to go". Why would it be more justified? It's just as stupid and uncalled for. If black people are racist towards white people that is just as bad as white people being racist against black people.

- Racism by a group that goes against people who are actively being racist that group however is certainly more understandable. If you're a black slave and all - or at least most - white people you come into contact with mistreat you, if you live in a society where these people treat you as less than human, then it's totally understandable why these people would become prejudiced against their slave-masters race. In such a situation - the situation where a race is indeed victim of institutionalized racism - the phrase "reverse racism" makes a lot of sense.

So I hope that's clarified my position, I wonder how you'll try to spin that one. You're going to claim that black people are indeed victims of institutionalized racism, aren't you?

 

[classical_hero]

I love how one of the first things they looked for was if there was a different skin colour to each group. The first thing they looked for was skin colour. That is a clear case of racism, since implies that being white and being proud of your country is against anyone who is an immigrant, especially someone who is brown. But that distinction only works when they are not against a black person, then said brown people become White Hispanic. I love this modern America.

 

[Arwon]

Our noted expert racism-spotter, ladies and gentlemen.

 

[Nexlev]

God bless America.