White child tortured by jeering Chinese crowd

[hadespussercats]

How long ago were you in Ireland? It was like that when I was a child growing up. Not any more.
Anyway I never said we weren't racist. I said we don't have a history of it. We weren't running around enslaving people, stealing their land, raping, pillaging etc... like the rest of Europe. We were practically slaves ourselves.

2004. So, a while ago-- but not that long. We traveled all over, but stayed with family in a tiny town near Galway. I just remember feeling so sorry for this one man, walking up the main drag in Galway City-- thinking he must be feeling the way I did the first time I walked around Harlem. Except in Harlem, I was the only one noticing me-- this guy had people literally craning their necks, slowing down cars, to watch him just going about his business.

And your clarification makes sense. I've heard the "blacks of Europe" designation before. The Irish were too busy being victimized to build up much of a history of victimizing other people.

But I was just remembering my brother-in-law's uncle Joe-- a dairy farmer. He had three border collies that were black and white, and he named them Sootie, Jacko (like Michael Jackson), and Tiger Woods. He remarked at one point that in the summer he got "as black as a nigger."

Funny. But... pretty racist.

(Yeah, I know-- just one guy...)

Well Irish people have always said "black as a nigger" when I was young. I never saw it as racist because there was never any malice in saying it. In fact when I was a teen and was listening to hip-hop and gaining sympathy for black people my auntie said it and my cousin said she shoudn't say that and my auntie just looked at her and said, "What?" like she couldn't see the problem.
It's compicated.

Yeah. It is. All over.

[hadespussercats]

The word nigger was not considered racist or insulting in this country when I was a kid.

Maybe not to you, but then again, you're not black, so your perceptions are somewhat more than a little skewed and inaccurate.

Yeah-- white people agreeing that something isn't racist doesn't mean anything from the non-white perspective.

[Robert_S]

The word nigger was not considered racist or insulting in this country when I was a kid.

Maybe not to you, but then again, you're not black, so your perceptions are somewhat more than a little skewed and inaccurate.

Yeah-- white people agreeing that something isn't racist doesn't mean anything from the non-white perspective.

The word has taken on racist meaning from it's history in the US. I don't know whether or not it has the same history in Europe and those Isles.

[mistermack]

Yeah-- white people agreeing that something isn't racist doesn't mean anything from the non-white perspective.

Maybe, maybe not. Black people can call each other niggers, and do. It's the meaning and intent by the speaker that counts. Most people now know that nigger would be taken as an insult, so they only say it if they mean to insult.

In the 1950s in England, it wasn't said as an insult. Black people were either negros or niggers. That was the word. NOBODY said "black people" back then.
However, black people came in as immigrants, and nigger might have been an insult where they came from, but in England it was a normal word.
It changed gradually, not overnight. And it gradually got more of an insult. At the start it was quite mild. Now it's very offensive. So I'm sure there were people saying nigger who meant no offence, and black people taking offence. That's life.

[Animavore]

Yeah. It is. All over.

My main point is that Ireland isn't steeped in deep racism like Europe and America where whole ideologies based on purity, blood and supremacy exist. The Irish are too self-effacing and humbled by centuries of religious and political oppression and repression for that. We are the antithesis of the master race. So when an old Irish person talks about them "nig-nogs" there's something almost quaint about it. It's generally not used in as strong a tone as other white countries. There's nothing funnier to an Irish person than when a black person not getting their way pulls the race card. It's met with an incredulous, "Where do you think you are? Or who do you think you're talking to? Go on out of that and quit your nonsense."

[Ironclad]

How long ago were you in Ireland? It was like that when I was a child growing up. Not any more.
Anyway I never said we weren't racist. I said we don't have a history of it. We weren't running around enslaving people, stealing their land, raping, pillaging etc... like the rest of Europe. We were practically slaves ourselves.

Now, you are quite sure about that, Ani?

my bold

[Tyrannical]

Opposition to racism and ethnic equality is primarily a Western European derived value. Most of the rest of the World is very happy to practice ethnic racism as the norm.

[Animavore]

How long ago were you in Ireland? It was like that when I was a child growing up. Not any more.
Anyway I never said we weren't racist. I said we don't have a history of it. We weren't running around enslaving people, stealing their land, raping, pillaging etc... like the rest of Europe. We were practically slaves ourselves.

Now, you are quite sure about that, Ani?

my bold

Not as a country. No. Yes individuals went off and assimilated into other groups and joined into such activities but Ireland itself never colonised lands.

[Hermit]

Most of the rest of the World is very happy to practice ethnic racism as the norm.

So...?

[Robert_S]

Most of the rest of the World is very happy to practice ethnic racism as the norm.

So...?

Anti-racism = cultural imperialism?

[Seth]

Opposition to racism and ethnic equality is primarily a Western European derived value. Most of the rest of the World is very happy to practice ethnic racism as the norm.

Very true.

[Hermit]

Most of the rest of the World is very happy to practice ethnic racism as the norm.

So...?

Anti-racism = cultural imperialism?

Racism =/= cultural imperialism?

I'm confused. Perhaps Tyrannical can enlighten me.

[Seth]

Most of the rest of the World is very happy to practice ethnic racism as the norm.

So...?

Anti-racism = cultural imperialism?

Racism =/= cultural imperialism?

I'm confused. Perhaps Tyrannical can enlighten me.

I think Robert_S means that Tyrannical's claim that most of the world practices ethnic racism as a norm could be viewed from the other perspective as efforts at anti-racism being a form of cultural imperialism from the West. In other words, by what right do we Westerners presume to try to dictate to the Han Chinese that they must be ethnically or culturally diverse and accepting of other ethnicities that Han Chinese culture views as racially or ethnically inferior?

[Tyrannical]

Most of the rest of the World is very happy to practice ethnic racism as the norm.

So...?

Anti-racism = cultural imperialism?

Racism =/= cultural imperialism?

I'm confused. Perhaps Tyrannical can enlighten me.

Perhaps it would be more obvious to you if I used misogyny as an example instead. The concept of women's rights and equality is once again a Western European ideology, one that we have been forcing on other cultures for quite some time.

[Hermit]

I think Robert_S means that Tyrannical's claim that most of the world practices ethnic racism as a norm could be viewed from the other perspective as efforts at anti-racism being a form of cultural imperialism from the West. In other words, by what right do we Westerners presume to try to dictate to the Han Chinese that they must be ethnically or culturally diverse and accepting of other ethnicities that Han Chinese culture views as racially or ethnically inferior?

Yes. Ignoring the fact that Robert_S used a question mark, I got that. What I don't get, is what differentiates anti-racism from racism in terms of cultural imperialism. Throughout history and all over the world racism has always been a rationalisation for it, be it demands for lebensraum, the plundering of other countries' populations for slave labour or other countries for coffee, tea, rubber, et cetera plantations, or what have you. Britain went so far as to annex Australia on the pretext that it was terra nullius, a land that was not inhabited by humans. How much more racist can one's imperial ambitions get than to refuse to recognise an entire ethnic strain of humans as part of the human race?