Racism Dialogue

One of my friends hates Mexicans. She's said this before. Initially I believed that she feels this way because her upbringing has somehow prejudiced her, and those feelings may be hard for her to overcome if her parents/family, and other external influences in which she grew up taught her to hate Mexicans. And then I thought she continued in this hate because she hasn't been exposed enough to people from different background to realize that being Mexican is a really tiny portion of what a person is. After all, what makes one Mexican?

Then, last week, she made that comment again, that very general comment, "I hate all Mexicans." She followed with the explanation that she hates all Mexican even though she's only met three so far and has hated two of the three. Here, she offers an apology to my boyfriend, who is Mexican, who is also in the car. And she said she felt bad for Nomas that he had to live in Mexico, because he was going to live with Mexicans. Her final comment was "If I was Mexican I wouldn't want to be."

My dear LV Friends, what I’d like to ask you is whether you see the world around you acting this way? And how do you respond to that? Have you been guilty of a general statement like that and why? What happen to make you realize you have to change?

I hate racist ****ers like that.

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Originally Posted by artyemi

My dear LV Friends, what I’d like to ask you is whether you see the world around you acting this way?

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Yes.

I don't see that very much in my area. You'll always have a few that are like that but people of all race hang out and so on. It's quite unfortunate that certain people cannot see things differently and for most of those ignorance is bliss.

My parents were red-neck cracker bigots. Once I realized how ignorant they were about other topics, I discounted virtually everything else they had to say about all minority populations and decided I would figure it out on my own. Besides, it takes up a lot of energy to hate people.

I think racism is based primarily on ignorance, and secondarily on stupidity.

P.S. - All of my siblings and myself ended up marrying racial or religious minorities. Our family now looks like a rainbow, and this generation is WAY cool, and our children are gorgeous and smarter than the prior generations!

:-)

Aww that's great shh!

Yes, you see racism everywhere, but I don't think it's getting worse or anything. Here I hear a lot of mexicans talk shit about other mexicans. It's weird lol.

Good comments above

But...

What if I hate all insects??? :horror:

she said that in front of serg? if she would have said that in front of me i would've had to tell her some shit.

one time this korean girl tried telling me that mexicans were the reason traffic is bad in the southwest. i thought this person was so trashy and ignorant for saying that, i feel sorry for people like that.

Hm. I'm pretty sure, rather than abstracting the incident into a generalized question of racism out there in The Great Wide Open, I'd personalize the hell out of it and ask myself why I would subject someone I loved to such a friendship.

Racism...I've been trying to figure this out for YEARS. Ever since I got a taste of it from my own experience.

Mexicans are beautiful people. So are Japanese, Irish, African, and so on...

Some people don't see this, because of the way they have been raised. Some people are racist, WITHOUT EVEN KNOWING IT!

Reasons for this behavior:

family upbringing (wanting to be accepted)
wanting to feel accepted by peers
lack of education
not seeing or being exposed to people of colour or from different background

There are SO many reasons for racist types of behaviors


I don't feel anger or hatred toward racist people. I feel sorry for them instead. Because they are missing out. They have been fed poisoness information. They fail to see the diversity for beauty (for which it IS)

Diversity = Beauty

Imagine a world with NO diversity. Uber depressing!

It was Martin Luther King who said it BEST: Judge me NOT for the colour of my skin, but for the content of my charactar.

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Originally Posted by RSK

I don't feel anger or hatred toward racist people. I feel sorry for them instead. Because they are missing out. They have been fed poisoness information. They fail to see the diversity for beauty (for which it IS)

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I feel a great amount of anger towards them. They can be dangerous to minority populations.

so this girl knows 3 mexicans and she hates them?

if 3 mexicans equal all mexicans
and she hates 3 mexicans
she hates all mexicans.

wow, excellent logic!

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Originally Posted by shh!

I feel a great amount of anger towards them. They can be dangerous to minority populations.

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i'm sorry shh! but i disagree with you here.

remember: anger begets anger!

having hatred and anger toward these people, only fuels them MORE!

i remember an open racist (who i happened to be assigned to as a roomate when i lived in the dorms as a freshman), he told me his views. He clearly didn't like me.

What did I do? I became an ear. I became a friend. I don't know where he is now, or what he is doing. But imagine that - i made a friend out of someone who wouldn't even talk to me!

He told me his views were that way, because he wanted to feel accepted by his friends and family...

i guess i'm just a lost person myself!

but i do feel that's the best way to approach a racist.

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Originally Posted by misombra

so this girl knows 3 mexicans and she hates them?

if 3 mexicans equal all mexicans
and she hates 3 mexicans
she hates all mexicans.

wow, excellent logic!

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lol

that makes one of my points - a lot of racist people simply havn't been exposed to people of different backgrounds.

FOR A PERFECT EXAMPLE:

look at eastern europe. a region that has know war for DECADES. people have been born into War, and they die around the War...

...all these people know, is hardship in life...

...NOW, when they see an African for the first time, they don't know how to react - some people NEVER see black people there. And when they DO, they take out there Anger on them...

...IT IS TERRIBLE!

Perhaps, but I'd just as soon see them slither back under their rocks. Then again, I feel I am entitled to my anger - three children I know personally were victims of a racist man who went and shot them in a community center because they are Jewish. Then that man went and shot a Filipino (sp?) mail man because he wasn't white, only that poor guy died.

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Originally Posted by shh!

Perhaps, but I'd just as soon see them slither back under their rocks. Then again, I feel I am entitled to my anger - three children I know personally were victims of a racist man who went and shot them in a community center because they are Jewish.

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i'm sorry to hear that. i can understand your anger. sometimes, as hard as we try, things just don't make sense...

...and perhaps, they just arn't meant to.

I agree with the posts above, racism is wrong and it bothers me tremendously. I grew up with soem family members being very racist and it still to this day sadens me.

I also had a situation that was reversed though. I used to work for a major publishing company awhile back and I was in charge of the customer service Dept. I had an employee that I had to let go because of her attendance and her language to the customers. After she left, she filed a suit against myself and the company saying she was fired because she wasn't white. I have no idea how she got that considering we hired a wide range of people. But in any case she was using the racism card to get what she wanted and that wasn't the case. Needless to say, nothing ever came of that!

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Originally Posted by artyemi

My dear LV Friends, what I’d like to ask you is whether you see the world around you acting this way? And how do you respond to that? Have you been guilty of a general statement like that and why? What happen to make you realize you have to change?

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1st Q ; yes i do , actually , most ppl like that are "white" and come from the US ( no effence but its true)

2nd Q : i ignore it because i wont go as low as they are to insult based on color or what they eat ( beaner , chink ) , and if they do push it (start physically doing something or yelling in front of my face ) , then i release all of it and if theyr in front of me , i just let my fists do the talking .

3nd Q: no , if i do its because i only do it as a defence thing i dont go up to ex: white ppl and call them "damn cracka , go back to yo trailer , ya white trash cabron de mierda "

Having grown up in a very multicultural city, and in a racially tolerant family, I have a tough time understanding racist people. I do meet them from time to time. For instance, my bf's family, before they met me, didn't like white people because they thought they were all stupid, lazy, and hated anyone who wasn't white. Yet, they'd never interacted with a white person. So I couldn't understand where they were getting this from.

I think a lot of people become racist because they hear someone else make ridiculous comments about a specific group of people that they know nothing about, so they just assume that that's how they are. I can't believe how mindless some people are!

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Originally Posted by RSK

...NOW, when they see an African for the first time, they don't know how to react - some people NEVER see black people there. And when they DO, they take out there Anger on them..IT IS TERRIBLE!

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Well, first RSK, your racist acculturation is coming through. Since when are all Africans black?

Second, though difficult to believe, you're right. There are still some people in the world who have never seen a real-live (fill in the ethnic blank) in their lives. My first wife told me she was 19 years old before she ever saw a black person in real life. She was born and raised in Linz. As in Austria.

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Originally Posted by whaywardj

Hm. I pretty sure, rather than abstracting the incident into a generalized question of racism out there in The Great Wide Open, I'd personalize the hell out of it and ask myself why I would subject someone I loved to such a friendship.

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i agree with this post. if i were sergio i would be so offended. you need to dump this friend. or keep her around so when i go visit i can have a little talk with her.

"Racists don't cause racism. multiculturalism does"

Space aliens. Thats what we need. Nothing like a good planetary invasion to make us realize that we, HUMANS, are essentially the same. ;)

Seriously, with globalization, these issues are becoming fewer. Think how many of you are products of "mixed race/ethnic" partnerships. Though whether the concurrent loss of ethnic diversity is a good thing, I'm not sure. It would be nice to have both: tolerance AND diversity.

Case in point: my 6 year old son goes to an "ethnically diverse" school (god, I hate being PC). Anyway, we think its important for a number of reasons. So far, he doesn't seem to even realize the concept of racism. He does recognize irrational behaviour, but hasn't really connected that w/skin colour, difference in faith, etc. The other children just ARE and we are content to have him think like this. We happen to think the fact that we don't watch television has helped a lot in this, BTW.

Mexicans need to stop having so many babies.

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Originally Posted by misombra

i agree with this post. if i were sergio i would be so offended. you need to dump this friend. or keep her around so when i go visit i can have a little talk with her.

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after that incident, i have stopped asking her to hang out with us. the dynamic of the friendship just became weird.

we both still felt that maybe she wasn't exposed enough. she is puerto rican, and made a similar remark about dating a puerto rican. "i know, i stooped that low."

?? and then, what about those of us who engage in making fun of our own culture with our friends for joke?

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Originally Posted by bluesummer

Having grown up in a very multicultural city, and in a racially tolerant family, I have a tough time understanding racist people. I do meet them from time to time. For instance, my bf's family, before they met me, didn't like white people because they thought they were all stupid, lazy, and hated anyone who wasn't white. Yet, they'd never interacted with a white person. So I couldn't understand where they were getting this from.

I think a lot of people become racist because they hear someone else make ridiculous comments about a specific group of people that they know nothing about, so they just assume that that's how they are. I can't believe how mindless some people are!

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I think these mindless people who become racist are a little better than people who are mindful of their racism because there's hope that once they become mindful, they'll realize the need to change. However, the people who know for certain about how mindless they are and yet still choose to make that same statement, that's unforgivable.

I said this because when i was a kid in elementary school, I was very sheltered in an asian culture. I hated that black kid or that spanish kid or that white kid. Anyway, it was ignorance. I didn't really know many out of the culture and those I knew always, always made fun of us and thought we were Chinese and always got into fight and they were constantly taunting us and asking us if we knew karate. Of course, what I'd realize later was that they weren't just what their race was. Education.

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Originally Posted by Only-virgins

Mexicans need to stop having so many babies.

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And more white people need their asses beat.

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Originally Posted by Only-virgins

Mexicans need to stop having so many babies.

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OV needs to start having sex. Or have you already?

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Originally Posted by Tone

And more white people need their asses beat.

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:sad2:











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Originally Posted by shh!

P.S. - All of my siblings and myself ended up marrying racial or religious minorities. Our family now looks like a rainbow, and this generation is WAY cool, and our children are gorgeous and smarter than the prior generations!

:-)

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Anyone marry an Oriental (yet)? ;)

Hard to believe everyone here hates racism; either this is the most politically correct forum ever, or y'all are lying!

I, personally, am not racist; I hate all minorities equally. :D

I'm not racist, I just hate people. ;)

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Originally Posted by Lloyd95

Anyone marry an Oriental (yet)? ;)

Hard to believe everyone here hates racism; either this is the most politically correct forum ever, or y'all are lying!

I, personally, am not racist; I hate all minorities equally. :D

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My brother's wife is Japanese, and I hate all people equally who are stupid, whatever color they are. Probably all the racist bigots are hanging out on the KKK websites...

Then wouldn't that only be the white racists on KKK websites?

And I agree, I hate stupid people lol. Maybe that's why I hate myself! j/k

Yes, you are right. There is probably something similar for all ethnicities.


(You are far from stupid!!)

True. It's sad that they probably have boards made for that.

Thanks shh!, it was easier for me to go ahead and make the joke before someone else did ;)

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Originally Posted by artyemi

Here, she offers an apology to my boyfriend, who is Mexican, who is also in the car.

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Oh, and also - you guys are back together (again) ?

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Originally Posted by Tone

Oh, and also - you guys are back together (again) ?

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for a bit i was unsure whether to say boyfriend..
but yea, over a month now...

and yes, I know, I can't belive we've been that for almost a year. :horror:

and other things, i got a second night job, now I'll never really have time to hello to you guys anymore. :(

Arty - what's going on with your little boy?

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Originally Posted by artyemi

for a bit i was unsure whether to say boyfriend..
but yea, over a month now...

and yes, I know, I can't belive we've been that for almost a year. :horror:

and other things, i got a second night job, now I'll never really have time to hello to you guys anymore. :(

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come on arty, there's always time for hello :)

well... let's see, one job from 10:30PM to 7:30 AM, and then again, from 8:00 to 2:30.. and 3:30 to 9:30 I'm sleeping.

sure, i'll sneak in a few minutes because I love y'all.