dheddle
Posts: 545
Joined: Sep. 2007
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| Quote (Louis @ Sep. 16 2008,07:23) | | Quote (dheddle @ Sep. 16 2008,12:37) | | Quote (stevestory @ Sep. 15 2008,22:41) | | Oh, I think racisim would definitely be a part of an Obama loss. While the GOP has primarily been the home of white racists since the 60's, it wasn't a 100% complete relocation, and there are some racist Democrats. |
Actually I know quite a few (~30) white racists, or at least those that display all the generally accepted outward signs of racism, and each and everyone, to the man, is a Democrat. |
Yeah, well I know 60 paedophile, nun killing, racist, homophobic, sexist, arms dealering anti-semites, all of whom vote Republican and Conservative AND BNP and Nazi, all of whom were responsible for the Holocaust all of whom believe in YOUR specific sect of religious drivel and all of whom attend YOUR church and were cloned from YOUR big toenail clippings.
And the useful productive discussion of the issues in that was where?
Heddle, for an intelligent and educated bloke, you sure do have some mightily fucked up mental blinkers.
Louis |
Louis,
No I'm quite serious. And I actually do not know, personally, any Republican racists. I'm not stupid enough to say there are none, I just do not know any, personally, while I personally know, as I stated, ~30 racists (or maybe not, you decide) who are Democrats.
The explanation is actually quite simple. I grew up in a lower middle class (perhaps poor is more accurate) inner-city neighborhood, in Pittsburgh’s Northside region, for those who know the city. (The stadiums are in this area.) My neighborhood and schools were racially divided, a little more that half were black. To first order, everyone in this environment grows up a racist. It’s an “us vs. them” world that if you grew up in the lilly-white suburbs (like my kids are) you’d never understand. If you had to get from point A to B, you performed a risk analysis/optimization that took into account variables like, time of day, time of year, how many people were with you, how fast you just had to get there, what streets you had to cross, and most importantly, the prevailing neighborhood atmosphere at the moment. If there had been a recent black v. white incident, the chance of another was much greater.
Again, to first order, there are only two ways out of this that I know of: religion (virtually any common variety with ethical teachings will suffice) and/or education. Fortunately I got both.
The last reunion I went to was a couple summers ago. Of the thirty or forty close friends I grew up with, only five or six of us had “gotten out.” (Another oddity for suburbanites—as kids didn’t drive to a field and play soccer with strangers, we played with the same kids, every day, year in year out. You could be in a fistfight at noon and best friends again an hour later.)
What about the rest of my friends, who didn’t get out? The rest are Pittsburgh policemen, firemen, and other blue collar workers. Many (because of their fathers) are in the Boilermakers union (welders) or Sheet Metal Workers (duct workers) or are union glaziers.
Now, after a few Iron City beers, actually it doesn’t take that much, these guys will unleash a torrent of complaints with generous application of the N-word. I didn’t get promoted because they gave it to some F**king N***… If my daughter came home with a N***,… This sort of thing.
The only other group they lash out upon with comparable animosity are the “party of the rich” Republicans. Like their union daddies before them, they are staunch, die-hard, union Democrats.
Now to be sure I don’t know if these guys, or at least if all these guys, in spite of talking the talk, are really racists. Like many people with a tough life they look for a scapegoat. And unless you’ve walked in their shoes, unless you grew up in an “us vs. them” hostile environment, you really can’t judge their attitudes. It is more complex than it is made out to be. I think the most accurate portrayal I’ve ever seen is Matt Dillion in Crash. Was he a racist or not? It’s hard to say.
Now, do you actually have a plausible story about knowing, personally, " 60 paedophile, nun killing, racist, homophobic, sexist, arms dealering anti-semites, all of whom vote Republican" ? If so, let's have it.
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Mysticism is a rational enterprise. Religion is not. The mystic has recognized something about the nature of consciousness prior to thought, and this recognition is susceptible to rational discussion. The mystic has reason for what he believes, and these reasons are empirical. --Sam Harris
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