Racist Republicans? (Why American "Liberals" are the Biggest Racists on the Planet)
By Sally Bishai (11/01/08)
A person I once called friend - despite my (alleged) bookishness, her somewhat vapid nature (an act), and our severe cultural differences - just asked me which candidate I was endorsing next week. Very surprisingly, she reacted with - hmm...surprise? - when I told her "Well, it's NOT Obama, anyway." She sputtered and spluttered and gave a solid two-minute rant (where "solid" equals "impervious to comment," since 1) her vocal style is as that of a foghorn, and 2) her skills at logical thinking have never really been, erm, solid) about how I'd be enabling "the most insane candidate who's ever walked the face of the earth," then decried me and all conservatives as racists who would keep a black man - or a Hindu, a woman, etc. - out of the White House. "You just want to preserve the patriarchy of horrible Whites! You hate minorities!!" she hissed, forgetting that I am, myself, a minority on several different levels. And then came the chanting. Oh, the chanting...
Well, sir, my return to writing just had to be for an interesting reason, and this conversation was very interesting, anyway.
(My ire was more because she wouldn't shut up and give me a chance to rebut than anything else, by the way.)
And so, without further ado, I present the answers that she—the liberal whose answers are so wisdom-filled that she shuns the very notion of having to listen to anything that a person other than herself might even think, much less say—refused to let me express.
(Perhaps I should pull out my blood pressure medication. Oh, I don't have hypertension. Never mind, I'm sure I will by the time I've finished.)
I, an anti-minority? I, racist? It is to laugh at, my liberal friend. Thou art the racist.
Why? I'll tell you why. Pull up a chair and plan on not talking for at least five minutes. (I'm serious, lass, don't make me pull out the duct tape.)
Pretend you just saw an unfamiliar person wandering around your place of work or school. They seem to belong to certain ethnicity, "race," or culture, whether you merely suspect their membership therein or actually heard an accent or endorsement or language spoken.
On this basis, and on this basis alone, you feel as though you could be friends. "But they're obviously half-Lebanese Druze and half-Amish! How could I NOT befriend them, Sally?"
Well, dearest, if your judgment tells you THAT they would want to talk to you BECAUSE they are these things, then you are a racist.
And if you want to talk to them BECAUSE of their ethnicity or race, then guess what? Yes, YOU are a racist.
Even if you are the same race.
How? Hold your horses, love, I'm just getting started.
It would perhaps be beneficial to here examine the dictionary definitions of the word.
Wikipedia (who doesn't really deserve to be cited, since they took down their Sally Bishai page—after four years of having it up, I should mention) has the following to say:
"The term racism usually denotes race-based prejudice, violence, discrimination, or oppression."
Ok. Notice how they said USUALLY? Usually usually means "not always." So it MIGHT not always be bad. (Phew.)
But wait, there's more.
Citing the Oxford English Dictionary, Wiks goes on to tell us that "racism is a belief or ideology that all members of each racial group possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially to distinguish it as being either superior or inferior to another racial group or racial groups." (Emphasis mine.)
The first problem is their use of the word "Race," because there are lots of cultures and ethnicities that think of themselves in the same terms—posessing internal and external stuff specific to their group, I mean.
But leaving that aside, I want you to have a look at the last bit there, the part about "either superior or inferior." Did you get that? That means that saying "Wow, he rocks because he's Native American" is just as "racist" as "I would never vote for an Asian woman." Or whatever.
And citing the Merriam-Webster's Dictionary they write that racism is "a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular racial group, and that it is also the prejudice based on such a belief."
So here they only mention the superior bit, which is just as alarming as the reverse.
Meaning that the mindset of "Be careful of him, he's black and wears gold chains" is just as detrimental as "Black people rule!" or even "Blacks are great, but beware of crackers!". In just a short while (but not today) I promise to explore this growing trend of Minority Racism, or racism carried out BY minorities, not against them.
But back to the definitions, there are two ways of interpreting them:
Either 1—racism is NOT inherently and necessarily bad, since there is the potential that a person could be seen in a positive light BASED UPON their inclusion in a race or ethnicity. Some examples of this would be "All black people have great singing voices" or "All Indians have gorgeous hair."
Option number 2 has us believing that ANY basing of opinion or judgment (positive OR negative) is ultimately wrong/bad/evil, since it involves reducing a person (meaning their being or soul) to their phenotypical features (skin colour, eye shape, hair type, etc.).
It would probably be helpful here to note that humans adjust to new situations (meaning their every-day lives) using schemas to organize the world around them, based upon (sometimes) limited amounts of information about a "type," like Japanese men or "blondes."
Do all blondes have yellow hair? Yes, but the shades probably don't match, and neither do the styles. Are their personalities all the same? Some would argue "yes" but I am not touching that one with a hundred-foot pole. (Check out this nifty PowerPoint for loads more info on Schemas and such: www.psy.gla.ac.uk/~paul/summer/assets/kaz.ppt )
So it's not that people are necessarily trying to be hateful, hellish beasts when they pre-judge a person or medical procedure or whatever on the basis of what they've heard about these things, or what they haven't heard; humans just (generally) happen to fear the unknown (whether they realize it or not).
And judging something or someone based on previous experience with it or them—whether the experience is positive or negative—is just human nature. Examples of this include my escape from a doctor's office if he mentions the words "shot" or "blood test," or if a dog comes running when she hears the word "bacon."
Now don't get all depressed about this method of categorization, it's actually quite efficient. Sure, it might mean that there is something less open-minded than we might like to admit, just lurking under the surface, but no one said that humans were particularly good-natured.
Actually, according to Christian teachings, we're born with a sin nature, which doesn't mean that we're not responsible for or accountable to someone for our sins, merely that there's nothing we can do "work our way" to heaven.
That's why Jesus died on the cross, because our best is still not nearly good enough (I defy anyone to claim that they are, empirically and 100% through to their bones). But I shall save the sermon for another day. Maybe.
Anyway, moving along to the term "prejudice,” we learn that it is the act of pre-judging. Like if I were to judge a guy as "cool" just because he happens to be from Norway, even before I've spoken to him. Or if I made the decision that that all Egyptian guys, by virtue of their culture, are Mama's Boys. (Wait, that is kind of true. Oh, oops, sorry.)
And discrimination—before these hateful shenanigans between peoples began—is the act of discerning, of choosing or not choosing something.
Like a waiter sets down a tureen of caviar (hellish) and some $2,000 bottle of wine. "For the discriminating diner," he effuses.
Or you're in the store getting tomatoes and one that you've just picked up is more squashy than you'd like.
To keep or not to keep? That is the question. And if your answer is "back to the tomato stand with you, ducky," then you've just committed an act of discrimination. You've made a choice based on your preference.
So none of these terms is inherently bad, though modern society would have us believe that they were horrible and beastly. (Not to say that we can't have beastly reasons FOR doing these things, but again, that's another story.)
So how does this relate with my not voting for Obama? (Did you think I'd forgotten?) Well, I'm glad you asked. (Since we're all here and all.)
See, if I were to vote for him BECAUSE he is a fellow minority—even though I stand against abortion of any sort, the legalisation of marijuana, gay "marriage" and all the other "issues" that the alleged "liberals" today think are "right"—then I would be voting on his race, not on these vastly important issues. And that would make me less of a good American citizen.
The same for Hillary; even though I would LOVE to have a woman in office, I would not compromise my moral, ethical and financial viewpoints just to get her in. The same for Sarah Palin, by the way; If I disagreed with her, she'd not get my vote.
If I did vote for the sake of getting a woman—any ole' woman—into office, I'd be doing just as much damage to the goal of women's rights as any of the alleged liberals are (there's a whole article coming up on just why liberals are the least liberal of them all, by the way), and that would be a disaster.
And so again I say: voting for Obama because he is black is just as racist as not voting for him because he's black.
We should vote on the issues and, if we be persons of faith (any sort) our vote should reflect that, as much as is possible.
(And I should stop promising dozens of future articles when I have a doctoral defense coming up this month.)
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