@newtboy This goes back you your recent sift .

"Are We All Bigots?-Through The Wormhole-Morgan Freeman"
http://videosift.com/video/Are-We-All-Bigots-Through-The-Wormhole-Morgan-Freeman

Which indicated that white people and black people fear black males.

Its not a racist issue but a PR issue. The media has done a grave injustice to the young black man.

Well, I don't think I'm confusing them. I simply think racial humor IS racist humor. I have a quite low threshold for something to be 'racist' in my opinion, but I also say nearly everyone is somewhat racist and that doesn't make them 'bad', it makes them a flawed human, like all humans.

In my mind, racism does not have to be intentionally degrading or denigrating of a race, simply assuming there's such a thing as 'races' covers it...even if just barely. I understand you likely disagree with that assessment, which is fine. We don't have to think the same, just as others don't have to agree with either of us, and that's also fine.

It's OK, I know kung-fu, and I've survived attempted murder before. ;-)

PS, did you check out Through The Wormhole? I posted a small bit of that episode that demonstrated my earlier point quite well, I do suggest watching (under 5 min) it if you're interested in why I think as I do.

Agree that we disagree then.
I say statements about races are racist, since they are being divisionary by race. I say not all discrimination is discrimination against the target, but all discrimination is discrimination.
'Cry me a river' is not the same thing. If I heard him say 'little girls are all worthless bitches' but he really said 'some people think little girls are all worthless bitches, but they aren't' I would still think him a jerk for saying the offensive word to a little girl. I think that's closer to the topic. When a single word is the offensive remark, not the entire statement, context means less, and certainly not all.
When Mark Twain did it, yes it was racist, intentionally so, but also reflective of reality, so not wrong of him to portray racism as it existed.
As I said, most people tolerate a low level of racism, and intent also colors their response quite a bit. Because it's tolerable, even palatable, doesn't make a statement not racist.
Pryor was hilarious, and racist as shit! As I said, I think comedians get a 'pass' for being racist (EDIT: by which I mean SAYING racist jokes, not actually being racists) if they're funny enough. You are free to disagree, but you won't convince me his humor wasn't racist, not ever. That didn't make it not funny, or make him a bad person, it made him a comedian that used racism to expose and ridicule racism, as I see it. There's nothing wrong with that, unless you need him to be completely non-racist (a 1 on my earlier scale), then it's a big problem.
I don't need that from anyone, I just wish for a reasonable, non-hateful, non discriminatory (against people) level of racism from those around me (although even that can still be harmful, I know, but people are never perfect and I don't expect them to be).
Yes, I've heard people say that they would 'kill somebody', and didn't think they meant it. I tend to try and avoid those kinds of people, or at least correct them, as the unedited excessive anger is a sign of a lack of restraint. I wouldn't think them homicidal, anymore than I expect Pryor at a militant black panther rally, but I would think of them as lacking restraint and so possibly dangerous (at least somewhat unpredictable), just as I see Pryor as somewhat racist (ever hear him riff about honkeys? Hilarious...and SO racist!)

EDIT: BTW, Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman did a great episode about racism recently where they explained how even jokes between friends not meant or taken seriously can actually still tint how your subconscious sees race...making you (and those exposed) slightly subconsciously racist a little more each time you are exposed to negative portrayals, even when you know they aren't serious or realistic portrayals. It was a great and informative episode, I highly recommend it.

If you watched the entire Morgan Freeman-Through the wormhole episode, you would have seen that simply spending 1 on 1 time with those of other races/tribes can erase much of the subconscious racism and make them seem like one of 'your' tribe. He did not say we MUST be racist/bigoted (he did say that we ARE whether we know it or not) or that it's still a survival mechanism, it has not been since we lived in isolated tribal groups.
Removing that obstacle to civilized behavior does NOTHING to stop, or hinder evolution, it might even accelerate it (by fostering better gene mixing)...the medical system takes care of hindering evolution for humans quite well by removing 'survival of the fittest' from the equation.

*related=http://videosift.com/video/Are-We-All-Bigots-Through-The-Wormhole-Morgan-Freeman

Are We All Bigots?-Through The Wormhole-Morgan Freeman has been added as a related post - related requested by newtboy.

Discussion related....
http://videosift.com/video/Are-We-All-Bigots-Through-The-Wormhole-Morgan-Freeman

The sad thing for him is, in the eyes of others, you are as you appear in the eyes of others, not as you appear in your own.
He may believe he's not racist, just as Archie Bunker believed he was not racist, I mean he has a "black friend", Mr Jefferson over there (just don't ask Mr Jefferson about Archie).
If he only cares how he looks to himself, just saying his nonsense does the trick. If, on the other hand, he's trying to convince all those who read his comments that he's not racist, he's failing miserably.

I think they both need to watch this weeks episode of "through the wormhole", which dealt with racism and how and why, even though consciously you might not be racist, that doesn't matter so much when we are nearly ALL subconsciously racist (just to different levels). It was quite informative on the subject, and actually made sense of how many 'racist' people can honestly see themselves as non-racist.
In one experiment, racism was manifest in a 'shoot the man with the gun, don't shoot the man with the phone' experiment, where nearly everyone shot the black man with the phone more often than the white man with a phone, including the black people shooting, and everyone took less time to decide to shoot the black man, phone or gun. Amazingly, cops in the experiment seemed to do better than average at NOT shooting the black man, but still shot him faster and more often.

*backup=[...snipped...] from http://www.sciencechannel.com/tv-shows/through-the-wormhole/videos/this-fungus-turns-victims-into-the-crawling-dead.htm ...

I played a lot of baseball in college and would frequently hit balls like this through miniature wormholes. It's in the wrist really. Also I recognize the echo off the interdimensional vortex collapse. (Pause it right before he catches and listen.)

Where's the wormhole??!! I wanna go through the wormhole!


>> ^blutruth:

"Mt. Aetna erupts Spectacularly, Dec 12 2011."
I believe your title requires some work. ^

The concept of life outside of earth ought to be part of everyone's reality. I don't know about alien spacecraft actually visiting us and shooting beams of light into missile silos. If aliens were studying us it'd probably be accomplised by something like remote viewing through a wormhole or some such. In other words completely undetectable. What I am almost certain about is that alien life must exist. To me, looking out at the universe and believing we're the only life that exists is like one speck of sand believing it's special and magical among all the other specks of sand in existence. The numbers are against the presence of life here being unique. Most likely, life is commonplace. And I believe that intelligence is simply the logical result of self-organizing biology... intelligence leads to greater energy capture which is the immediate purpose of biological self-organization. In most cases you probably only get one intelligent species on a life-bearing planet at a time, but there are more planets out there than stars. Which is to say, a lot of cases.

Back to the wormhole thing. There's a theory that, at some point in the future, humans will develop remote viewing technology. That is, the use of wormholes to peer through time and space, giving an undetectable *live view* of events from the past. Not exactly visiting the past, more like snaking a SWAT team camera through time via wormholes. Now, according to the rules of big numbers, given the existence of remote viewing technology in the future, and future extending for millions and billions of years... every single moment of every single person's life is probably being directly observed by someone in the future. Of course, more important moments are being watched by billions or trillions of people from the future. But on average, every moment is watched at least once. Think about that shit.

Arthur C Clarke wrote a book around this concept called The Light of Other Days. Needless to say, the ultimate, ultimate extents of the technology in the book are pretty mindblowing.

Will you think his words as special when you're sucked, kicking and screaming, down into Hell through the wormhole punched open by the LHC?

The End is nigh! Repent sinners! Repent homosexuals! Repent ...um ...Democrats!