Attacking the religious text is a strawman in my opinion.

There's all sorts of outrageous (by modern standards) stuff in the Bible, Koran, Talmud, and other major religious texts. How could there not be? They were written hundreds to thousands of years ago at a time when reading and writing was limited to the wealthy or elite (i.e. priest classes). Much of that stuff is outright ignored or at the very least acknowledged by deemed less important by practitioners of those religions in modern societies.

All literature is open to interpretation and this includes religious texts. The fact that there are tens of thousands of denominations of Christianity with differing opinions about what it means to be Christian and how to behave as one gives testament to this. While there aren't as many named denominations in Islam, if you actually look at how it is practiced locally in say urban Malaysia (i.e. no Bhurka for women) compared with rural Afghanistan (i.e. full body covering required) you can see there's huge diversity there as well.

So if you want to judge the religion, then you actually have to take the time to make an informed opinion by looking at who does what and why they do it. And when you do that, you tend to find that there's this complex inter-relationship between religious teachings, economics, politics, ethnicity, history and so on which make it difficult to assign full blame to any one "thing" such as religion. The female genital mutilation example I used above makes this pretty clear.

Sticking solely with criticising the religious text puts a critic on very unsure footing, as at the end of the day all the critic is really doing is criticizing a specific interpretation of the text (i.e. their own understanding). That's why, as I said, it's something of a strawman argument since you're really arguing against an interpretation you yourself have created.

It is much better, in my opinion, to look at how specific groups are interpreting and enacting the text, and then criticizing their actions (or the effects of their actions) in the event that there is a negative effect. But in doing so I think it quickly becomes apparent that those actions are almost always enacted locally as opposed to globally. In other words, they are the actions of a specific group of people in a specific place at a specific time who have been influenced by all the factors (history, economics, etc.) I mentioned above.

And when you reach that conclusion you realize you're not criticizing Islam anymore, you're criticizing one groups' interpretation and enactment of Islam in specific context.

On the other hand, if you ask which type of criticism gets you more views on TV or more headlines in newspapers...

@xxovercastxx @Barbar

I'm going off the WHO's version
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CERD.aspx

"racial discrimination" shall mean any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin"

If you read around, it becomes pretty clear that racism's definition is not completely set. It means different things to different people, and has been used in different ways historically. So really, nobodies really 'right'.

There also isn't an agreed on definition of Islamaphobia, but there are many parallels between Islamaphobia and racism, with some definitions mentioning that Islamaphobia can take the form of racism. There's also an interesting read here by the Council of Europe (COE) where they say that "Islamism is the view that Islam is not only a religion but also a social, legal and political code of conduct"
http://www.assembly.coe.int/nw/xml/XRef/Xref-XML2HTML-en.asp?fileid=17880&lang=en

Ultimately, no matter the definition, if what is happening is effectively the same thing as racism, then it should be avoided just as carefully.

I'm not sure if this is supposed to be funny or something, but it's pretty terrible.

The "they all look alike" slur does not refer to identifying people's ethnicities/nationalities, it refers to being unable to distinguish individuals within the same ethnicity.

YES, PLEASE.

Also, why do the authorities always wait until the city is over-run by mindless zombies? The first time someone turns into the undead, you drop a nuke on the city, update the maps, and pretend the whole thing never happened. You don't wait around until a multi-ethnic foursome show up with shotguns, witty banter and a love of stock cars and carnival rides. No, you go Fat Man on the fuckers ASAP and score an easy 57 hits on YouTube with the video.

HEY! Don't roll your eyes at me -- this at least twice as sane as anything Donald Trump's shit out in the last 48 hours!

First off, the city is already a powder-keg over segregationist tactics that were employed by the predominantly white city government to prevent affordable housing for lower income residents in the affluent parts of town.

http://www.ibtimes.com/mckinney-north-texas-city-center-pool-party-video-controversy-was-sued-over-housing-1955995

Now, the pool was in a upper crust luxury community and to celebrate the end of the school year, quite a few non-whites obtained passes to the pool. It was not until a bunch of the adult white residents of the community started calling in reports of fights and trespassing (people without passes).

These same nice white folk made the visitors feel wanted by throwing out racist comments "Several adults told the black teens to go back to their “Section 8 [public] housing” developments."

Now, the white kid who took the video, and who was not thrown to the ground by the police (he said they basically ignored him), said that most of the kids had passes and that the problems began before the few people who did not have passes showed up.

“I think a bunch of white parents were angry that a bunch of black kids who don’t live in the neighborhood were in the pool,” said Brooks, who is white.

Grace Stone, a white 14-year-old, told BuzzFeed News that when she and her friends objected to the racist comments about public housing an adult woman then became violent.

So the story is pretty much that a bunch of upper class white folks didn't like the 'darkies' getting uppity and brought the cops in. Everyone except the guy in the blue hat was released after being 'put in their place' by the cops for a while. Blue hat guy went to jail on charges of interference and evading arrest.

On Sunday afternoon, a sign left at the pool thanked McKinney police “for keeping us safe.” Because, as we all know, ethnic teens are the root of all evil and could hurt us white folks!

I doubt the cop loses his job, but he fucking should. Pulling a gun on unarmed teens is ludicrous. Putting your full weight on the back of a teen girl half your size and resting there for minutes is uncalled for. The jackass was PISSED that he tripped while chasing kids and felt he needed to get his own back.

As far as the community, they don't mind taking money from rich black folks to build a sports center, but don't let those uppity blacks think they can hang out there.

*promote

I'll quote you again for emphasis:
'Fuck the Irish and Jews, they don't get murdered at rate of 1 every 28 hours.'

Dude, fuck you for that statement. I'm german, most of my life I've been told to feel sorry for the fucking holocaust. It ain't my fault.
I take issue with parts of the jewish community that keeps complaining about their history and ignoring all the other, smaller holocausts, the ethnic cleansings and whatever else you want to call the genocides happening after WW2 but I will not accept you taking a dump on it.
You have it bad, no doubt, and black people in the US always had to endure unimaginable suffering. I have absolutely no clue how horrible the shit you and your ancestors had to go through is.
But...
My great-grandfather and his peers build fucking corpse factories. My ancestors shipped people in train cars to a place to literally destroy them, to murder them. They called it 'Endloesung'.
My ancestors industrialised genocide. The Shoah claimed at least 6 million lives.
As justified your rage and your hurt is, as much unimaginable suffering your ancestors and those like them had to endure, you don't get to tell those that survived and their families it to fuck themselves.
I wouldn't dare to do that to you or your ancestors.

There's a lot of terrible shit going on around the world and it's part of why I'm not fond of my own species. We both wish the world would be different and I like to think I understand, or at least have a vague idea, why you're so angry. But how could I? I never suffered that awful shit. I'm sorry but that's just what I was born into. Nobody ever asked me what I thought about it.
However, maybe I'm wrong but telling a group like the jews, a group of people whose history of being treated horribly as long or even longer than your own people, to go fuck themselves...
you're just loosing me here. I have no other choice than calling you out on that. You're dead wrong on that. How can you do that? Don't you have any decency, haven't you seen the mountain of corpses?

They murdered them. All of them. Blacks and jews. It doesn't matter. They're all lost. We lost them.

@lantern53
*Here's a back-up for when you delete my comment cause it makes you uncomfortably aware of reality.


But to answer your questions..

1.) Why would I want to charm a openly belligerent jingoist racist asshat? I wouldn't.

One who "takes every opportunity" to mock, disparage and shame black people & culture..

..Completely denying that rule-class privilege, ethnicity & heritage have ANY bearing on those unequal, unfair, unjust outcomes..

With nearly EVERY COMMENT YOU POST!

2.) Do you call me names? Yes.

Every time you talk shit about how young black males are all "criminals, savages & thugs" and they "deserved what they got because only bad people get stopped by police".

You're a fuckin' bully. You bully black people with nearly EVERY comment you post here.

I'm just here to remind you of what that feels like Lantern.

Doesn't it suck when someone relentlessly insults and mocks you? Constantly,. on the same topic.. ..every chance they get..

Don't you hate it when someone judges you & all other cops "shitty" based on the actions & statements of a few ACTUALLY shitty cops?


Nope? You don't care or understand or "get it". It figures.

Back into your bubble, old fool.
Back into your bubble.

Call me old school but the material is always so weak in most of these socio-ethnic commentary videos, for lack of a better term. They get an HD camera and some troupe and it all looks slick but rarely does anyone have a talent for writing something better than a college freshman could have produced. It usually ends up being a premise in search of a writer.

Reminds me of "Dick Like Me" from the first season of 3rd rock from the sun which explored culture and ethnicity as an important part of identity.


"you may see color, but I see people."

"Aren't we fortunate to have someone so enlightened? - O pious one, show us the way."

"This verges on sarcasm."

"You know, my heritage happens to be very important to me."

"As it should be."

"I'm Irish, and I'm very proud of that. And you're what?"

" Me? Uh, I-I-I'm, uh one of those, uh you know, one of the really good ones. You're this big anthropologist. You tell me. What am I?"

" Certifiable."

" Yes, that's what I am-- certifiable.
Certifiable and damn proud of it, as my father was before me and his father before him and his father before him.
Certifiable.
Of course, we no longer practice."

Now we're arguing semantics. Yummy.

racism:"noun
1. a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human racial groups determine cultural or individual achievement"
See, the keyword here is achievement. There are no achievements without any form of judgement. Think of it in the most simple terms, X Box or Steam achievements. Let's say you play Call Of Duty 18 and get the "Used a gun!" achievement for firing the very first shot in the game. You got this because the game's code made a judgement. Did the player fire a shot? Yes or no. Sure, it's easy to judge that, the facts are very clear and easy to read. Are you worthy of this achievement? Are you as much worth as I am, the guy who finished the game and got the achievement?
And what about the guy who never got that achievement because he played the entire game only using a knife? Think about it, playing any Call Of Duty single player campaign using only melee weapons and throwing knives. Who's worthy know? Who achieved more?
Achievement depends entirely on the definition and who's making them. The knife guy played the way harder game and got no recognition but the guy who got the "Used A Gun!" and the "1000 Headshots!" achievement is the one bragging online about his achievements and medals next to his name.
Who has achieved more, the ethnic group that developed many different technologies (like, say, guns) or the ethnic group that still runs naked through the jungle and considers knives high-tech? "Those naked dudes are clearly stupid and less developed than I am because I got guns!" said the white man in Africa.
One of the biggest racist prejudices black americans hear is that they are lazy because they achieve so much less than white folk. They guys with the titles and medals and guns.
Achievements are the acknowledgements that you gained skills, positions, posessions, knowledge or reputation. That can only be acknowledged becaused somebody judged you. Like the test or dissertation I have to write to become a Professor of Physics. This achievement will cause other to have prejudices about me, like "He's a professor, he must be smart!"
The definition of racism you posted says this:
"racism is the belief that depending on your race you can develop in a certain way or to a certain level"
This is a modern definition based on racist expirience. It says that racists think you can not achieve more than they can based on the achievements your ancestors had compared to theirs. "Once a slave, always a slave. If black people weren't so lazy, they wouldn't need a good whipping!" That train of thought.
All that of course underplays the emotional component of hatred, the driving force of racism in its worst forms.
Now my fingers hurt.

Guys, this ain't so hard...
You're a racist when you assign more or less value as a human being to people of a certain race (ethnical group) than you assign to yourself because of their ethnicity. There's a difference between saying "Stalin is less worth than M.L. King" (personal opinion) and "white people are worth less than blacks". The latter would be racism.
Prejudice is when you have opinions about people before knowing the facts about them.
Walking up to Mike Tyson and saying "You must have a giant cock because all black men are giants" is a prejudice that may be racist but it assigns positive values. Sure, it's offensive, like telling asian people they must be great at math, but somewhat forgivable. You're an ignorant cunt, yeah, but at least you said something flattering. You racist.
Walking up to Mike and telling him "All black men are criminals" is not only prejudice but also racist. Why? Because calling somebody a criminal is a negative judgement. A generalized negative prejudice towards an ethnic group is a racist way of thinking. Mike was convicted for raping his girlfriend. He is a criminal. Not all black men are Tyson. And if they were, I'd prefer the science variant. You're plain wrong.
Now saying "I bet all black people like listening to R'nB music" is just prejudice. There's no judgement here. Right? Unless you consider "he listens to R'n'B" an insult. How about "all polish people love ice cream"? Did you just imply polish people are all fat?
The difference between prejudice and racist prejudice lies entirely in subtext and context. It's not what you say, it's what you mean.
Prejudice is a tightrope made of blurry lines spanning over a pit of outrage. That's why politicians should not walk that way.
Being aware of differences between race, ethnic groups and talking about is simply being hones and probably not giving a shit about political correctness. We ARE different. That's the interesting part.
What we sadly forget is this: to focus on what we have in common. But somebody already said that way more eloquent than I ever could:
"Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs,
dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with
the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject
to the same diseases, healed by the same means,
warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer
as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?
If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us,
do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?
If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that.

@ChaosEngine
It's racist when the person saying it has NEVER point out ANY OTHER ETHNIC GROUP as 'looking the same'. (Which is still fucking racist)
The FACT he is comparing an innocent entertainer to a TERRORIST is abhorrent.
Actually you'd have to be willfully ignorant to see this as a harmless joke.
The fact that Mayer is a PRO-ISRAEL ANTI-MUSLIM bigot MUST factor into your reasoning.

Have you not heard the phrase "They are all terrorists" ?

Do you not see what Mayer has been doing for years ?
He and Sam Harris are NOT LIBERALS and are OK with massacring innocent children for Israel. U.N. Schools bombed. Snipers killing children on the beach.

Yes, I am bit racist - as I said - toward Jamaican people.

Yes, I am prejudiced against cops - of any ethnicity.

A better word would be - wary, cautious, fearful

Again, you Lantern - as a old white cop - NEVER have to worry about being mistaken for a - thug or savage.

I do. Simply because I'm brown.

You can't complain about that Allen West isn't considered "black enough".

When you're making the argument that Obama isn't "American enough".

Barack Obama has lived his ENTIRE LIFE - expect 4 years between age 6 to 10 - in America.

So what if the Pastor at his church said racist stuff against white people?

That doesn't make Obama racist by association.

If that does, EVERY WHITE PERSON IS RACIST because.. the KKK.

Also -
George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.

The Bush's financed the Nazis. National Socialists.

You support the Bushes, therefore you're clearly a racist AND a Nazi.

You see. I could make the same weak arguments as you Lantern.

Stop being a weak politically-correct coward and just admit you're a racist jingoist Nazi-sympathizer.

The left cries 'bigot' every time some ethnic person on the left gets criticized, but they slam every ethnic person on the right, such as Jindal or West w/o fear of being called a 'bigot'.

Just another illogical double standard.

Obama is going to have a very hard time in the 'legacy' department.

I partially blame the dolls they are using.
I don't think there was any consideration taken to find ethnically accurate dolls. Maybe that black doll was ugly. It looked ugly to me, and not because it was black.
I think doll makers and the companies purchasing the dolls need demand new scupts for different ethnicity. Just changing the colour, doesn't make it a black doll..., or an oriental, a native, or any other ethnicity.