Michelle Gross writes >"Michael is incorrect here. Numerous social scientists have defined racism as bigotry plus the power to back it up."<
Michelle, on the very face this is a ridiculous statement. I believe numerous eminent social scientists (possibly even a majority) once said Black people were inferior mentally to Whites. I also seem to remember that Hitler was fond of using social scientists to define and justify his "social" actions. Some of the most prominent social scientists of that day I might add. Social scientists on one side probably condoned burning witches and justify almost any political action against humanity. Having been one I can unequivocally say that social scientists can be found to support anything you wish. I invite you to attend an American Sociological Association conference or an American Psychological Association meeting. You will find eminent social scientists fiercely arguing everything under the sun. At least half of them utterly wrong! The world is half filled with fools and the other half by those who take advantage of that fact. Racism also fits that mold. To say that Black people are so helpless that they cannot be racist is preposterous. What Michael Atherton's definition left off was that racism is also the illogical assumption and belief that race EVEN exists. (A theory proposed by most social scientists as well as geneticist that I am aware of) How much more evidence is needed to stop this cultural myth. There is simply no such thing as race. Genetically there is more difference between those of us who have a propensity to be fat or skinny from each other than the factors we commonly call race. This is when you can isolate those factors. If that gene pool is at all mixed then it is impossible. There is no they and we in this. It is just we!!! We are so mixed that I dare say that no one reading this is a pure anything other than human or possibly foolish. And all of us are most of the time those things I do not happen to believe in Satan either, but that does not mean that people will easily put away that social construct. We as humans seem to need some "others" to talk about and fear. I think it is about time, right here in the old River City of Minneapolis, to put away race just as we once did witchcraft. The earth really is not flat (though that theory was around longer than racism) and there really is nothing other than one race of humans. We got fat ones, skinny ones, short ones, tall ones, dark ones, light ones, yellow ones, black ones, white ones, red ones, hairy ones, bald ones, male ones, female ones, gay ones, straight ones, cute ones, ugly ones, bright ones, dumb ones, but they are all sadly still the same race. JUST HUMAN! We have met the evil enemy and it is us! Don't believe in race for a generation and it will go away. Doesn't mean we won't come up with another just as preposterous belief, we always do. Race will fade into the smoke that it was, and the twisted image in the mirrors of our minds, which it was. Jim Graham, Just a human from Ventura Village >"The attempt to close the gap between what is known and what IS, is the temptation behind the apple in Genesis."< REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
