The Immaculate Heart of Self Righteous Hypocrisy

Dogma:

n. pl. dog·mas or dog·ma·ta (-m-t)

1. A doctrine or a corpus of doctrines relating to matters such as morality and faith, set forth in an authoritative manner by a church.

2. An authoritative principle, belief, or statement of ideas or opinion, especially one considered to be absolutely true. See Synonyms at doctrine.

3. A principle or belief or a group of them: "The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present" (Abraham Lincoln).

Dogmatic:

adj.

1. Relating to, characteristic of, or resulting from dogma.

2. Characterized by an authoritative, arrogant assertion of unproved or unprovable principles. See Synonyms at dictatorial.

ism:

n. Informal A distinctive doctrine, system, or theory: "Formalism, by being an 'ism,' kills form by hugging it to death" (Peter Viereck).

Race:

n.

1. A local geographic or global human population distinguished as a more or less distinct group by genetically transmitted physical characteristics.

2. A group of people united or classified together on the basis of common history, nationality, or geographic distribution: the German race.

3. A genealogical line; a lineage.

4. Humans considered as a group.

5. Biology a. An interbreeding, usually geographically isolated population of organisms differing from other populations of the same species in the frequency of hereditary traits. A race that has been given formal taxonomic recognition is known as a subspecies. b. A breed or strain, as of domestic animals.

6. A distinguishing or characteristic quality, such as the flavor of a wine. [

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French, from Old French, from Old Italian razza, race, lineage.]

Usage Note: The notion of race is nearly as problematic from a scientific point of view as it is from a social one. European physical anthropologists of the 17th and 18th centuries proposed various systems of racial classifications based on such observable characteristics as skin color, hair type, body proportions, and skull measurements, essentially codifying the perceived differences among broad geographic populations of humans. The traditional terms for these populations Caucasoid (or Caucasian), Mongoloid, Negroid, and in some systems Australoid are now controversial in both technical and nontechnical usage, and in some cases they may well be considered offensive. (Caucasian does retain a certain currency in American English, but it is used almost exclusively to mean "white" or "European" rather than "belonging to the Caucasian race," a group that includes a variety of peoples generally categorized as nonwhite.) The biological aspect of race is described today not in observable physical features but rather in such genetic characteristics as blood groups and metabolic processes, and the groupings indicated by these factors seldom coincide very neatly with those put forward by earlier physical anthropologists. Citing this and other points such as the fact that a person who is considered black in one society might be non-black in another. Many cultural anthropologists now consider race to be more a social or mental construct than an objective biological fact.

(Latter Emphasis Added)

Racism is such a hotbed issue that incites so much rage, intolerance, and other emotions that the Wikipedia (an aggregate encyclopedia) article I just linked has been flagged for multiple reasons. The articles neutrality has been disputed, it may contain original research it contains "weasel words", and the articles factual accuracy is disputed. The History of Racism is so murky, so vague, so narrow often times in scope, and often independent in its research from any institutional sponsorship, and even when analyzed by an institution it seemingly cannot be helped to venture out of the gray area into a genuine critical analysis of black and white, instead keeping the focus on the narrow polarization between races we call "Black" and "White". Even scholarly articles (articles written for academic journals where the articles are peer reviewed) fall prey to their own bias, or politics, or the mystical incantations of the priest class laywer sect, that it is seemingly next to impossible to unravel this mangled yarn of emotional tension.

J'accuse!

All of use are guilty of stirring the pot, all of us toiling, double double toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble. It appears as if none of us, myself included, can escape the blame for this clear divide within humanity. Indeed, it as if we will never ever achieve the ideal of humanity, or humaneness as long as we remain hopelessly and helplessly trapped within this murky pond of grayness, and yet, we are, all of us, each and every one of us - unless those members claiming to be from an alien species are true - human. In regards to this issue, where is our humanity? How can we fix this problem? Will discussing it ad nauseum fix the problem, and is this thread just another problem being added to the bubbling cauldron of burning fire? Just what the hell do we do?

Jose Vaconcelos Calderon offers up his own suggestion on this issue in La Raza Cosmica, translated into English and can be read here as The Cosmic Race, but it is a brief essay not necessarily concerned with healing any ethnic divide as much as it is an essay analyzing the Mexican culture. It is an undeniable problem we all face, and problems always come with answers. I do not know the answer to this problem, and I cannot even offer up any solution that might help us find an answer, but maybe, just maybe, together, we members can tap into our humanity and work on finding solutions that could lead us to a practical answer.

Of course, if the question is can we solve this problem, can we find any answer to this conundrum, perhaps the the deafening silence is that answer, and that answer is an emphatic no!

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


I think it comes from a lack of being able to appreciate the differences in our one race, at the least we should be tolerant by now. Aren't we well past the time when we have had pretty good exposure to each other. At least enough to know the differences can't hurt us, only when we allow fear to turn to anger.

Siiiiigh......

We can sum up this whole issue very simply.

a] There are a certain percentage of heterosexual white males, (commonly known as the political/economic Right) who believe that they, and exclusively they alone, have the divine right to rule this planet, and dominate every other human gender and ethnic group, and/or non-human form of life. This results in numerous irrational beliefs on the Right's part, such as the belief in race in general, etc.

b] The political/economic Left, which at its' core is more commonly known as Marxism, is based on a single minded obsession with the concept of victimhood; or more specifically, the idea that the majority of humanity, and every non-human form of life, is a victim of violence, exploitation, and oppression. As a result, they consider it necessary to attempt to free said human demographics and non-human life forms. ("You have nothing to lose but your chains!" etc)

Said belief in victimhood on the Left's part, extends to virtually every known form of carbon-based life, with the exception of (you guessed it) heterosexual white males, who are considered the exclusive source of all misery in the known universe. As such, the real goal is to free every form of life in existence other than heterosexual white males, from the oppression, exploitation, and misery caused by heterosexual white males.

This, in turn, results in numerous beliefs on the Left's part as well, which can initially be viewed as paradoxical and illogical. Thus, if a white individual murders a black individual, or a heterosexual individual murders a gay individual, those things are considered hate crimes; whereas if the reverse occurs, it is interpreted as an act of justice.

The entire political/economic conflict that you see before you, therefore revolves exclusively around how a given individual perceives heterosexual white males, relative to the rest of the population; whether or not it is believed that they should be dominant, or whether it is (unconsciously, and not usually directly expressed) believed that they should be completely erradicated, or at least subjugated themselves, in order to obtain freedom and a lack of exploitation and abuse, for all other forms of life.

Originally posted by Kali74
reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux

 

I think it comes from a lack of being able to appreciate the differences in our one race, at the least we should be tolerant by now. Aren't we well past the time when we have had pretty good exposure to each other. At least enough to know the differences can't hurt us, only when we allow fear to turn to anger.

Siiiiigh......

Thank you for daring to venture into this thread and offer your voice on the matter. Forgive my pedantry, but humanity is not that murky hard to define "one race", but rather one species. I find it interesting that the first definition of race speaks to the context of this issue, but that the second definition offered speaks to the competition in sports, as if competition has nothing to do with the social aspect of race in the context of this thread, and perhaps it doesn't, but it is intriguing.

Post Script: I keep getting a problem loading page for the link I provided for the definition of race. Is anyone else having this problem?

Never mind, I fixed the link.

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


True enough but I choose the word race because people use it to separate us. I'd like to see it used to unify instead. Great OP by the way.

reply to post by petrus4


Thank you for your voice as well Petrus. I find it compelling, however, that when attempting to dissect this problem and discuss it rationally, we cannot but help fall prey to divisive language to describe our divisiveness. Attempting to be as objective as I can possibly be as a human is daunting task, and yet it my sincerest efforts to be so. That said, my attempts of objectivity compel me to admit that it is far easier to recognize the divisive language used in your post than it is in mine, but I hope you can appreciate that I have no doubt I fell prey to this language problem in the O.P.

I am not sure we can reach solutions that hopefully lead to answers by assigning a right/left paradigm. Part of the problem lies in attempting to sum up the problem before finding practical solutions to the answer. Wouldn't a sum, in this threads context, serve us better if it was treated as an arithmetic problem rather than a summary? If we are just to summarize this problem, how can we not help but to do so from an inherently subjective view no matter how hard and earnestly we try to do so objectively? If we can somehow use the language of mathematics to identify the problem, find solutions towards answers cannot we be more objective in doing so?

In my O.P., one of the links provided, regarding the history of racism, is an unabashedly "leftist" site that addresses the issue from an apologetically Marxist point of view. In doing so, their analysis of this issue is arguably dogmatic:

Racism is a product of capitalism. It grew out of early capitalism’s use of slaves for the plantations of the New World, it was consolidated in order to justify western and white domination of the rest of the world and it flourishes today as a means of dividing the working class between white and Muslim or black, and native and immigrants or asylum seekers.

This site does admit, almost begrudgingly, that there were slaves did exist in antiquity amongst the Greeks and the Romans, it insists that neither Greeks, nor Romans were racist, just slave holders:

However, historical references indicate that class society before capitalism was able, on the whole, to do without this particular form of oppression. Bad as the society of classical Greece and Rome were it is historically reasonably well documented that the ancient Greeks and Romans knew nothing about race. Slaves were both black and white and in fact the majority of slaves were white. The first clear evidence of racism occurred at the end of the 16th century with the start of the slave trade from Africa to Britain and to America.

CLR James in his Modern Politics[1] writes that “the conception of dividing people by race begins with its slave trade. Thus this [the slave trade] was so shocking, so opposed to all the conceptions of society which religious and philosophers had . . .the only justifications by which humanity could face it was to divide people into races and decide that Africans were an inferior race"

There is an argument, however, that racism existed long before the Atlantic Triangular Slave Trade, and even if we were to accept - for the sake of hypothesis - that racism began here then we must necessarily deal with the anomalous reality that these slaves of the Atlantic Slave Trade were generally purchased from Africans who had captured other Africans from neighboring tribes, whether the motive be ethnicity, war, or profit. However, the slave trade existed in antiquity outside of Greece and Rome. The first link of this paragraph argues:

"You shall not abhor an Edomite, because he is your brother. You shall not abhor an Egyptian, because you were a stranger in his land." Deuteronomy, 23.7

Very nice sentiments. Very politically correct. But let us call a spade a spade. This parasha [weekly Pentateuchal reading] contains laws that are racist. An Ammonite or a Moabite may not come into the assembly of the Lord, namely assimilate himself to the Jewish people. Such a one is, by virtue of his ethnic background excluded for ever. This is racism, pure and simple. Edomites and Egyptians were subject to a less severe rule, but it is racist nevertheless. The third generation lost the stigma of belonging to a special excluded group. Till then, they too were excluded.

Then there is the matter of the Ancient Egyptian Race Controversy. The problem is hard.

reply to post by petrus4

Originally posted by Jean Paul Zodeaux
reply to post by petrus4

 

That said, my attempts of objectivity compel me to admit that it is far easier to recognize the divisive language used in your post than it is in mine, but I hope you can appreciate that I have no doubt I fell prey to this language problem in the O.P.

I will admit that there was a large degree of sarcasm contain in said earlier post. I am guilty of that at times.

More seriously, though, I'm inclined to believe that racism is actually a product of tribalism. I remember when it was pointed out after I saw Avatar, that the translation of the name of the Na'vi tribe, Omatacaya, was, "The Real People." Apparently that was the case with the Innuit, as well; the translation was similar.

Ethnocentricity seems to have been very common among indigenous populations; and my guess is that it came from the earliest parts of our history, when human beings lived as rival bands, who probably at times had to compete for food, among other things. In that scenario, it would have been very important to distinguish between "us," and "not us," at the tribal or group level.

I've also observed that there seems to be a very strong correlation between levels of racism, and the belief in scarcity, within a given population. My reading on fascism suggested to me, that one of the most fundamental elements of that ideology, was a belief in the Zero Sum Game. Conservatism in particular seems to have a bias towards a belief in scarcity; the idea that there isn't enough to go around, and that because of that, anything that someone else gets, is something that you don't get yourself.

So if you have a strong belief in scarcity; that there isn't enough food or enough of whatever kinds of resources you need to survive, it makes sense that you're first of all going to want to identify who it is, besides yourself, that you think deserves to survive, (assuming that not everyone is going to be able to) and then be prepared to fight and kill the "others," (or those deemed unworthy of the limited resources) in order to make sure that you and yours get what they need. I think if you look at it, you'll find that that sort of belief system goes a long way towards explaining eugenics, and just about any form of discriminatory belief system, where it is felt that someone needs to die, so that other people can live.

Assuming that things are good, and you've got enough food and fuel to keep you and your family going, you're not going to mind so much if there are people who are "different," in the neighbourhood. Sure, you might distrust them, but it's not going to be a major issue. I've noticed that the only time that racism really starts becoming bitter, is if one group (usually whites, in terms of those who primarily complain about it) believes that another group is taking something that the first group needs to survive; whether it be jobs, money, land, or whatever.

It has been documented that when other types of animals become overpopulated within a given area, it leads to a very high level of social stress for the animals concerned, and conflict becomes common. So I think the biggest causative factor for racism in America right now, is primarily the ratio of people, compared with the available jobs, money, and resources. People are hungry, and a lot of the time they are also poor, and sometimes they don't even have a place to live. If they are not getting their needs met, and they can't find any other explanation for it, then they are going to lash out at other people who they perceive as having more than they do; if for no reason than it at least makes them feel as though they've found the cause, even if they really haven't.

The Immaculate Heart of Self Righteous Hypocrisy

Before I fashion a response to Petrus' most excellent reply I thought it was time to briefly address the title of this thread, and its relation to racism.

Racism, and how we handle the issue of it in these modern times has become so convoluted in its understandings, and such a tool of divisiveness that there exists the very real dogma of the Klu Klux Klan as well as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, to name just two distinct dogmas concerning race. The problem seems to have only worsened in many ways. Some may argue that the Civil Rights Movement improved race relations, but this is a dubious claim, and many members in this site, if not all of us, know full well that race relations, if improved, are still a supercharged and highly emotional time bomb. There are some who will claim they are not racist, and some of them who will use the word racism to beat over the head any person they disagree with on certain issues.

I can make the argument that the Thirteenth Amendment was absolutely necessary but that the Fourteenth Amendment was an atrocious piece of legislation that should be repealed, and this will often compel some to level charges of racism against me, and then someone will speak up and in an earnest attempt to explain why the Fourteenth Amendment was necessary will argue that it was so because "we" (read White Americans), had to create that Amendment because we had to give "them" (read Black Americans and/or former slaves) their rights. I hear or read this argument and what I see is a racist argument. It is an argument that insists that Blacks did not have rights until Whites "gave" it to them.

Of course, in fairness to some that make this argument, they could be coming from a point of view that no one has rights until government grants them those rights and their argument is not racist at all. However, such an argument is antithetical to my own beliefs that rights are natural and all people, Black or White, Yellow, Brown, or Polka Dotted, have the exact same rights that preexist any government. So, even if the argument that the Fourteenth Amendment was necessary to grant Blacks the same rights as Whites is not rooted in racism, it is most assuredly rooted in the supremacy of government over people, as opposed to the supremacy of We the People over government. I suppose either way, We the People can still use government to push racist agendas, but I still hold to the belief that when we establish governments to aid in the protection of universal rights that came before that government we are less likely to succumb to the ravages of racism than we would be by empowering an institution (government) so much so that this government alone decides what rights are given and because of this authority it is only inevitable that they will decide who gets what rights.

I guess my point is that too often, anyone of us become too smug and self righteous in our attempts to stamp out racism, and because we are so self righteous in our efforts we become unwilling to to look at ourselves and how might be exasperating the problem instead of correcting it. We dig in and build our isms.

Originally posted by Jean Paul Zodeaux

Racism, and how we handle the issue of it in these modern times has become so convoluted in its understandings, and such a tool of divisiveness that there exists the very real dogma of the Klu Klux Klan as well as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, to name just two distinct dogmas concerning race. The problem seems to have only worsened in many ways.

Sure, Jean Paul. I've had a couple of German friends, who were converts to Asatru. They'd read Mein Kampf and various unspeakable screeds about the Jewish plan to subjugate the rest of humanity.

The thing that they helped me to realise was, that the main reason why groups like the Klan exist, is because they want to make sure that people who they identify as being among "their own," group, remain dominant; and why do they need to remain dominant? Because it's a dog eat dog world in their view, and there isn't enough stuff out there for everyone...so they have to make sure that they're either getting everyone else's stuff, or if they're going to grow and produce their own stuff, that they use the labour of other people in order to get it for them.

Another point; if you read books like To Kill A Mockingbird you realise that it isn't actually, purely about race. In the South, in particular, if a white person was seen to sympathise with black people, then that white person could find themselves at the end of a rope as well.

So it's not purely about a person having skin of a certain colour. What it is really about, is whether or not a person is a member of your group or not; and skin colour is one of the easiest methods that can be used for determining that. It's exactly like different gang colours, or the different colours used on a sports team's clothing. It's the same concept.

If a person is a member of your band, then sure; you share food with him and look after him, and he is expected to do the same for you. If he isn't, however, then maybe in your own mind, you're going to be justified in killing him, because he's probably got stuff that the rest of your band can benefit from...food, or other forms of wealth.

Some may argue that the Civil Rights Movement improved race relations, but this is a dubious claim, and many members in this site, if not all of us, know full well that race relations, if improved, are still a supercharged and highly emotional time bomb. There are some who will claim they are not racist, and some of them who will use the word racism to beat over the head any person they disagree with on certain issues.

I was racist. I was raised to be. My parents read me Little Black Sambo at the age of four. They were both English boarding school educated, and Anglophiles. An autistic diagnosis, (and subsequent attempts on my life) a reading of history, and my avatar have all helped in altering my attitude where racism is concerned.

However, such an argument is antithetical to my own beliefs that rights are natural and all people,

I define rights, personally, in two ways.

a] Those things, specifically, which are needed for the continued maintenance of biological life.
b] The availability of said things, granted as specific exceptions to what is otherwise assumed to be unlimited State power.

It needs to be emphasised that the otherwise unlimited power of the State, as recognised above, is not my own ideal or desired scenario; in fact it is quite the opposite. However, if we are to assume that the State has a monopoly on violence, then we can also logically assume that the State will have a monopoly on political power. Rights, therefore, are guarantees of the least degree of mercy that you can hope for, from an institution that is otherwise inclined to give you none.

Before you ask, yes, I am an anarchist. Not even intellectually, so much as instinctively. My own anarchy can be said to exist at a muscular and intestinal level, not neurological.

before that government we are less likely to succumb to the ravages of racism than we would be by empowering an institution (government) so much so that this government alone decides what rights are given and because of this authority it is only inevitable that they will decide who gets what rights.

We think alike. This rationale is the source of my own objection to the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

I've just had another thought, about what is really confusing this issue.

It isn't socially or politically correct for someone to express the attitude that, "that other group of people over there are different from us, and they have resources we need, so because they are different from us, that makes it acceptable for us to kill them and take what we want."

That is the whole reason, I think, why the various rationalisations for racism have evolved. The claims that there is some sort of quantitative, scientifically based superiority or inferiority between different ethnic groups, even though we know that is rubbish, as one example. You can also look at things like the doctrine of Manifest Destiny, or it becoming an element of Christian thought that Christianity was supposed to dominate the planet, which supposedly made it ok to exterminate non-Christians.

So when we look at all of those, it can seem really difficult to understand why racism exists, but I think in reality, all these rationalisations really just cloud an issue which is probably less complex than it initially seems. I can remember that during the 80s and early 90s in particular, in Australia at least, was the period when race relations here seemed to be better than they have been before or since, and I believe that the reason for that, was because a larger percentage of the overall population had enough food and resources.

When people have enough themselves, they are less likely to care about what other people have, but when they don't have enough, that is when you'll see them starting to look suspiciously at the Jewish family who possibly have a much nicer house down the street. Race provides a superficial pretext or excuse, but it is not the cause; scarcity is.

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


dogma:
if the peoples of the world dont come together in unity,
and realise we are all equal and made different for a reason,
then the world will be in for great troubles

only unity can save this world from itself.
that is why evil seeks to point out differences instead of celerbrating them.

xploder

reply to post by petrus4


Your point about it not being solely about race can be brought home by the fact that both the Spanish slavers of the New World and the white slavers later both had in common that they got their new slaves from the very races they were enslaving. Native Americans sold other Native American slaves that they hunted down and captured to the Spanish conquistadors, and African tribes sold their African slaves to whites. The slaves weren't captured because of their color but because of power and domination.

Originally posted by Kali74
reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux

 

True enough but I choose the word race because people use it to separate us. I'd like to see it used to unify instead. Great OP by the way.

Thank you, Kali. I sincerely hope you will stay with this thread and offer your own voice, perceptions, arguments and agreements as often as you can. I all ready know you have much to offer us in this overwhelming task of identifying the problems behind racism, and finding solutions that lead to answers. It is, after all, one of threads, that led me this interesting article:

The Race Is On: Muslims and Arabs in the American Imagination by Moustafa Bayoumi March 2010

(Moustafa Bayoumi, an editor of Middle East Report, is author of How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being Young and Arab in America [Penguin, 2008].)

“We are so racially profiled now, as a group,” the Arab-American comedian Dean Obeidallah says in his routine, “that I heard a correspondent on CNN not too long ago say the expression, ‘Arabs are the new blacks.’ That Arabs are the new blacks.” Obeidallah continues:

When I heard that -- I’m going to be honest -- I was excited. I’m like, “Oh my God, we’re cool.” Before you know it, hot Asian women will stop dating black guys and start dating Arabs. White kids in the suburbs, instead of acting and dressing black to be cool, will now start pretending to be Arab…. Pimping their car to look like a taxi cab. Dressing like Arabs, some old-school in traditional Arab headdress…. Tilt to the side a bit. Walkin’ up to each other, goin’, “What up, Moustafa?” Sayin’, “Where my Arabs at?” “Arab, please!”

This article begins straight out with comedy, much like Petrus did in his opening post, both satirical in nature, and both attempt peel the onion of racism. Bayoumi continues with this:

It is a funny bit, but Obeidallah is on to something more than a joke, something about the mischievous power of race and representation in contemporary US culture both to incorporate and to reject. By taking an observation -- the analogy of Arabness to blackness -- to its literal extreme, Obeidallah is playing with general perceptions of blackness and whiteness along the way. And by turning a liability into an asset, he flips the script of social exclusion to one of popular inclusion. What is more American today, after all, than the African-American?

(Emphasis Added)

How many "African-Americans would agree with that last assertion? How many "African Americans" view themselves as cool? How many "Anglo Americans" view "African American"s" as cool? Does Quentin Tarantino wish he were black?

Of course, Jackie Brown may be the music selector within the movie but director Quentin Tarantino probably had more of a hand in picking which songs he would work with (though, interestingly, he doesn’t do as much virtuosis framing and editing of sound with image here as with, say, Reservoir Dogs, where he indelibly altered how many viewers would remember Stealers Wheel’s “Stuck in the Middle With You”). In Jackie Brown, a lot of the songs simply exist in a scene, creating a mood or an atmosphere, or providing an orientation point, usually for the heroine.

At the same time, having a white dude center an entire soundtrack around vintage funk, soul, and R&B (and hail the blaxploitation) is not without its problems. The same can be said for Tarantino’s put-on “black” voice when announcing that “Pam Grier is Jac-kie Browwwn” in the trailer. Clearly Tarantino wishes he could be black, for however limited a time and in whatever essentialized capacity.

Does eminem wish he were black?

possibly the gayest rap band know on the face of earth or any other inhabitated planet in the universe D 12's frontman,eminem, really wishes he was black.

There are some questions that arise when Moustafa Bayoumi dances around the issue of racial profiling:

But most people mean something else when they talk about Arabs (or Muslims) becoming “the new blacks,” a sentiment routinely expressed since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Perhaps most directly, the idea is meant to evoke the practice of racial profiling.

Bayoumi declares "Muslim Americans" as the "new blacks" seemingly with no regard for the Nation of Islam which I suppose would be the "old black" Muslim Americans.

We all have our certain prejudices, I would say it's part of our tribal nature. Maybe it is part of the evolutionary process that we are suspicious of those who do not fit into our particular tribe. Colour of skin would be an obvious distinction to make between members of certain tribes. So I'm arguing there maybe some defensive evolutionary instinct working away that effects our behavior's. I'm no expert on tribalism and human evolution, so this is mostly based on personal opinion.

The thing is, we live in a world where we have to live with one another, we cant divide up the world and put everyone back to where their race originally took on it's specific characteristics. So we have to learn to live together and get past our prejudices.

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


Thank-you. You and Petrus bring up interesting points, and this by far is the most intelligent discussion on the division within our species I've seen on ATS yet.

I do think there's probably something encoded within our DNA that causes us to behave as if there isn't enough to go around for everyone. Governments know this, they know what makes us tick. The thing is we also have other things encoded within our DNA that we get rid of without much thought.

For example there was once a time that we needed body hair, now it's been thousands of years since clothing was invented but our DNA still kicks in and much to our annoyance, we still grow body hair. Our intelligence tells us that clothing protects us better and we happen to prefer clothes over hair so we simply shave it off. My point is logic and intelligence should be prevailing over DNA and instinct.

As far as the Fourteenth Amendment...I'm struggling not to have a knee-jerk reaction in defense of it. I would be concerned about tampering with the Bill of Rights applications. I guess I don't feel confident enough with our government right now to entrust them with such a task. I think there is far too much institutionalized racism yet to even discuss on a functional platform. Plain and simply, there is too much profit involved as it stands now and I can only imagine some dude with horns salivating as he manipulates change to the Constitution so that more profits can be had.

That doesn't mean I feel it isn't worth discussing. I know you are pretty passionate about Rights and the fact that many Americans feel they are granted and not inherent, I feel much the same.

The Immaculate Heart of Self Righteous Hypocrisy

In 1989, the 62nd Academy Awards named Driving Miss Daisy as its best picture of the year. That years Academy Awards was a relatively uneventful event, with the exception of a few criticisms, the most evident being that of Kim Basinger, who openly castigated the Academy for not nominating Spike Lee's fourth film Do the Right Thing. Bassinger boldly stated: “There is one film missing from this list that deserves to be on it because it might tell the biggest truth of all”. Her remark, and the Academy's Immaculate Heart of Self Righteous Hypocrisy in naming Driving Miss Daisy best picture of that year speak volumes to the simmering until finally sweltering and ultimately bombastic heat of truth of Do the Right Thing that agitated America (namely "White" America) so much.

In 2008, New York's Magazine's Logan Hill, in an interview with Spike Lee, pointed out that upon Do the Right Thing's release, the New York Times former political columnist and their film critic David Denby were very critical of the film. Lee responded:

One of the big criticisms was that I had not provided an answer for racism in the movie, which is insane. And what’s even more insane is people like Joe Klein and David Denby felt that this film was going to cause riots. Young black males were going to emulate Mookie and throw garbage cans through windows. Like, “How dare you release this film in summertime: You know how they get in the summertime, this is like playing with fire.” I hold no grudges against them. But that was twenty years ago and it speaks for itself.

Lee was every bit as critical of his critics as they were of him, often insisting that much of the criticisms for Do the Right Thing where "White" critics imposing their own "White" view of "Blacks" and how their reaction was fear of "Blacks" reactions to the clear controversy of the film. Where Joe Klein, David Denby and other critics wrung their hands, or shouted in outrage that the film would incite riots, no such riots ever occurred. Perhaps there were no such riots because America was fortunate enough to be treated to Driving Miss Daisy that year and could feel good about how far we've come in race relations. Maybe both "Black" and "White" people, in comparing the two films, saw more value in the lessons of Driving Miss Daisy, than they did in Do the Right Thing...or maybe not.

Complex Pop Culture offers up Driving Miss Daisy as one of the 50 Most Racist Movies of all time:

Proving once and for all that there's nothing quite as awesome as benevolent whites, DMD shows black folk the benefits of being nice to curmudgeonly old cracker bitties: You get to drive them around a bunch, hip them to how your problems actually mirror theirs, let them teach you how to read, and, when it's all said and done, feed them pie in a rest home. Sweet!

While Klien and Denby were critical of Do the Right Thing in 1989, The New York Times other film critic, Vincent Canby praised Driving Miss Daisy, hardly even mentioning racial tension or divide:

Because she is Jewish and he is black, both are outsiders. Mr. Uhry does not press down too hard on this, though it is a fact of life that, at a key moment, provides an unexpected point of alliance. Miss Daisy and Hoke are as much outsiders for their age and sensibility as for anything else. Theirs is the friendship of equals.

The Rogue Critic, reviewing a local staging of Alfred Uhry's play (of the same name) that inspired the film, said of the story:

Agitating and preaching are effective means of persuasion, but few devices invite receptiveness to the message like a simple feel-good story. With its blameless yet pointed look at racism and intolerance in the mid-twentieth-century American South, playwright Alfred Uhry’s Driving Miss Daisy is engineered to have few detractors.

But Lee's Do the Right Thing avoids blaming anyone other than a tenuous truce between races in Bed-Stuy, and the heat of a really, really, really, hot day. Yet, it is always the "Whites" who ask, did Mookie do the right thing?

reply to post by petrus4


Sarcasm is a tool often used in satire. In my earlier years I spent over a decade tending bar in various states and cities, such as Las Cruces, New Mexico; New York City, New York; Chicago, Illinois, and Laughlin Nevada. No matter where I worked, no matter the environment or clientele, as a bartender I was expected to have an arsenal of jokes to amuse the customers with. In every bar, and disturbingly so, racial jokes were always popular. I was taught even before I began tending bar, but certainly it was - and perhaps this is "old school" - a bartender's ethic to never discuss race, religion, or politics...unless, apparently, they were racial jokes, some variation of a priest, a rabbi and a minister walk into a bar joke, or some familiar joke like how do you tell when a politician is lying jokes were a sort of get out of politically correct jail free cards.

I had no problems with the priest, rabbi and minster jokes, but could never remember them, and remember the punch line is key in telling barroom jokes...I guess anywhere jokes. I was more than willing to make fun of politicians same as the next guy, but I was never willing to crawl down into the mud and tell racial jokes. Besides, I was forever forgetting the punch lines to any joke...any joke except for kids jokes. I love kids jokes. Kids jokes didn't usually go over in saloons. So, instead of jokes I would regale my clientele with comedy routines, and if I was bombing and some heckler would demand a "real joke", I would fall back on my standard:

"I don't tell jokes. I don't tell jokes about "African Americans", I don't tell jokes about "Native Americans", I don't tell Pollock Jokes, and even though the French might deserve it, I don't make jokes about the French, certainly not about the Jews, Christians, or Muslims, and I won't tell jokes about politics because I just don't see what's so funny about that, so get over it! I don't tell jokes...don't get me wrong, some of my best friends are jokes..."

More times than not, that little routine bombed and I would wind up picking up the soda gun and putting it close to my mouth say: "Hello? Hello? Is this mic on?", and then I'd press the water button so that water shot out of my "mic", in some desperate vaudevillian move that would usually get laughs and bring my audience back from the boredom of pedantry. I reviled racial jokes because this was how I was raised. My Mother, in particular, was adamant that the Zodeaux's were not racist...that was..."do as I say not as I do" type of parenting as we would later discover when my little sister Katrina, the oldest of my five sisters, began dating a friend of mine who happened to be "Black".

My Mother, upon learning that Katrina was dating U. was shocked, a little outrage, and without batting an eye forbade my sister from dating my friend, U. Katrina, was of course, beside herself in her in shock and outrage, as were my two brothers, Martine another sister of mine, and myself. None of us could understand my Mothers reaction and all of us defended Katrina and U., castigating our Mother for her hypocrisy. She feebly tried to explain that not judging "Black" people was one thing, but dating them or marrying them was another thing altogether. The Zodeaux children would have none of her equivocations and ultimately she relented and Katrina and U. dated until that "cultural" thing my Mother was speaking to finally got in the way of their relationship and the parted friends.

I agree with you that as we peel this onion, at the heart of it all, we will find that the resolutions are probably very simple. Simplify, simplify, simplify. However, here we are stuck in this complexity of tensions, and we all deal with it in the ways that we deal with it. So, back to satire. Can satire help heal this racial divide, or does it only drive a wedge between the races? Is John Stewarts "Obama Downgrade" satire only just comedy, or is it racist? Was Tea Party Leader Mark Williams response to the NAACP political satire, or racist? What about the beloved underground comic book creator Robert Crumb? Was his infamous 1993 comic strip beyond the pale, or legitimate satire? (Warning for the sensitive, Crumbs comic strip was infamous and controversial for a reason, the faint of heart should not follow that link.)

Is it possible we're being manipulated?

Originally posted by Jean Paul Zodeaux
Of course, if the question is can we solve this problem, can we find any answer to this conundrum, perhaps the the deafening silence is that answer, and that answer is an emphatic no!

Or maybe it's a simple yes? Just have respect for other races, it's simple. See other races as your own, and look deeper into what the problems are. It's about awareness and perception.