He thought I was a racist!

[Stroopwafel]

Principles are nice, action is better.
Unfortunately racism is often just a symptom of other issues. Ignorance, poverty, anger, envy, low self -esteem, and sadly humour at the expense of others.

Racism is easy. Just do nothing. Accept stereotypes as truth. Group people in easy categories, and when they do something you are not familiar with, do not approve of, do not understand then just say ,"How typical of those people."
And of course if you are a minority, keep telling yourself that you are indeed the victim, and that victims can't possibly be racists.

Fighting it is far too difficult and involved for most people. It is not as simple as refusing it.
There has to be thought, action, and patience. In my experience all of us are simply too shallow, self involved, materialistic, and completely accept the popular media's interpretation of what is important.

Pick a race card, any race card...

How mixed is any circle of friends at any given moment? How diverse is your workplace, school, neighborhood? Does it match the percentage of the US population?

I'll take a wild guess and say no. And I'll go further out on a limb and say that I'll bet the people in that neighborhood, workplace, school, and circle of friends like it just fine.

[goldenchild]

check this out, it's a good read:

http://www.intrepidmedia.com/column.asp?id=2144

[angelus]

check this out, it's a good read:

http://www.intrepidmedia.com/column.asp?id=2144

Well written, creative and to the point.

[PWN3D]

-Every racial group (except white people) use their race as a tool at some point-

You don't think whites have used their race as a tool? What the #@!* planet are you from? Ever heard of a place called South Africa? Every heard of a guy called Nelson Mandella? Think he agrees with that? Every heard of Jim Crow? Oh, but I guess white people don't have anything to do witht that huh? you are a f-ing joke. 

You my friend are an imbecile.  Whites do not need to play any card.  We succeed in life because we work hard and strive to better ourselves rather than waiting for a handout.  If we do not succeed we try again rather than blaming every ethnic group within a 25 mile radius.  Get overself.  Slavery ended many years ago.  There is no excuse.

PWN3D

[_BP_]

-Every racial group (except white people) use their race as a tool at some point-

You don't think whites have used their race as a tool? What the #@!* planet are you from? Ever heard of a place called South Africa? Every heard of a guy called Nelson Mandella? Think he agrees with that? Every heard of Jim Crow? Oh, but I guess white people don't have anything to do witht that huh? you are a f-ing joke. 

You my friend are an imbecile.  Whites do not need to play any card.  We succeed in life because we work hard and strive to better ourselves rather than waiting for a handout.  If we do not succeed we try again rather than blaming every ethnic group within a 25 mile radius.  Get overself.  Slavery ended many years ago.  There is no excuse.

PWN3D

welcome "newbie"!

[_____]

Two things:
(1) I swear I'm singled out at the airport just because they can't decide if I'm hispanic or muslim--once I went to this event with half Egyptians and half Americans, and nobody knew how to talk to me.  The Egyptians would try to speak Arabic to me, and the Americans just kinda looked at me until I would start talking to them in English... On the whole, it was a fairly uncomfortable thing...

Meanwhile (perhaps as a result of looking either muslim or latina, perhaps not), I get screened at the airport a lot.  I don't really care because I'm not doing anything wrong (though I did think they might catch on when I was trying to not declare a rug I bought in Morocco--where they also spoke to me in Arabic, by the way.  I quickly learned how to say, "I don't speak Arabic" in Arabic, which mainly served to surprize them and spur them to talk more, to which I always repeated "I don't speak Arabic..." and shook my head until they got it)

(2) I used to work at a bank, and one day a black man named John Smith (or something equally common and "non-ethnic" or whatever) came in and was upset because the bank had not approved his loan.  He said, "I have excellent credit!  Is this because I'm black?"

And I said, "Sir, I can promise you that it is not.  I can understand how it can feel that way sometimes.  It happens to me too--When I go through the airports, I get stopped all the time...So you get to thinking, this really can't be random, because it's always me.  They're always stopping me, always swiping my bags for bomb material... In fact, once I was going through customs and an agent said to me, in Spanish, "Where are you coming from?' and I just kind of looked at him and said, "Huh?"  And he said, "Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you were latina--come right this way..." and preceeded to search my bags...

"So I understand, I understand how it can feel that way sometimes, but the loan processing department is in Southern California, 500 miles away, and no one over there knows what you look like because they've never met you... So I understand, but I can promise you, this is not that. If you want, I can get the manager for you and she can explain to you what happened..."  At which point he relaxed visibly...

The moral of the story: sometimes things are based on outward perception, and sometimes they're not... I think we just have to do our best to give people the benefit of the doubt and do our best to let it just roll off, otherwise we'll just spend way too much of our lives being angry...

[freddych]

Just because you dont think about being a racist before you are a racist doesnt mean you aren't one. We all know we have a unconcious tendency to use racial stereotypes to judge people, and that's what happened right there. If a white dude came up to you, the conversation wouldn't have went so sour so quickly. You may not realise it, but deep down, if you've been living in the US, you are a racist.

I'm not limiting this to white ppl, it pretty much applies to everyone: white, black, yellow, brown, clear, blue...

its just the sad fact of our society, yet its unavoidable.

[freddych]

You my friend are an imbecile.  Whites do not need to play any card.  We succeed in life because we work hard and strive to better ourselves rather than waiting for a handout.  If we do not succeed we try again rather than blaming every ethnic group within a 25 mile radius.  Get overself.  Slavery ended many years ago.  There is no excuse.

PWN3D

Damn, so much racism in one post.

[180]

I live in a relatively affluent suburb of NYC.  There is a black part of town, they call it "da hood".  White folks aren't welcome  there.  I've been jumped for walking through the wrong street, they've been jumped for coming down my block.  De facto segregation is sad. 

[_BP_]

I live in a relatively affluent suburb of NYC.  There is a black part of town, they call it "da hood".  White folks aren't welcome  there.  I've been jumped for walking through the wrong street, they've been jumped for coming down my block.  De facto segregation is sad. 

Haha, I know this isn't funny, but this just reminded me of the scene in "Bronx Tale".