Nah, I just think you're a closed-minded douche.

The comment I was replying to was about "racism" towards whites. Not sure where non-white on non-white racism comes into this. I just don't believe making fun of, or critisizing, or generalization of whites can be considered racism. We're on top. If someone marginalized by whites marginalizes someone else further down the oppression scale, that would certainly be racism.

As for the Nazi reference, I'm sure you're one of the good ones Trump told us were at Charlottesville.

Racism-prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior.
-the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.

....I absolutely hate the bastardized definition you gave, because it's flatly wrong and just an excuse for horrid behavior.
Edit: the statement "I feel "racism against whites" is not only currently impossible, but the idea is inherently racist. " is inherently racist.
One, whites are hardly always dominant in every situation (I sure as hell wasn't when I lived in East Palo Alto for years) and two, actual dominance has little to do with racism, it's about what you think. For example, if blacks think they're automatically superior to others based on race, but not in status because they are oppressed, they are perfectly capable of vile, even murderous racism towards non blacks.

Clearly, racism paired with power is far more harmful, but the powerless can be just as racist.

Hmmm... I would have doubled down and asked her, "Do you think these are fake?"



...but I come from a lawless, anarchistic time, when men were men and women were properly oppressed.

I, for one, am glad it doesn’t exist. What has been perceived as “objectively moral” for most of human history has resulted in the oppression of vast swathes of humanity (basically anyone who wasn’t a straight white rich dude).

I would prefer to think that morality evolves with our knowledge of the world.

You can find whackjobs racists anywhere, and Bob's -always- up for fanning the race wars.

If you want to be "fair", remember how recent Apartheid was ended in South Africa. It was only officially ended a bit over twenty years ago. IOW, almost all voters in South Africa lived under it, and personally remember the oppression (which was as bad or worse than -anything- we experienced in the US). I think a certain degree of bitterness and retaliation is easy enough to understand.

Interesting narrative - and perspective on the aftermath of the removal of Saddam H. Would like to hear more - how does the society play out after the payback? Is the former ruling minority then suppressed by the newly empowered majority? or is there an ethical equilibrium achieved??? Or is Democracy just a euphemism for oppression by the majority?

I think his point is that it should be black people deciding how and when the word is used, if at all, and your and my feelings on the matter (as people who haven't had to live every day of their lives with racial oppression) shouldn't really matter much.

I agree with him. Let black people decide themselves whether to let the word die or to reinvent it. Who knows, maybe someday we'll get to a point were the pain of racial oppression recedes so far that everyone will be able to use the word as a term of endearment for their friends.

But we certainly are no where near that point yet.

When Maher used it and Ice Cube came on to tell him how wrong he was I did sort of feel like its divisive power was perpetuated by the double standard it seemed to represent - black people can use it, white people can't. Honestly I thought it was all a bit hysterical (not hilarious), not that I doubted the authenticity of people taking offence, just that there was an obsession over the word rather then Maher's intent that only furthered the divide between black and white.

Now I think I missed the point. Naively I believed the end goal was to sterilize the word through usage, that the fact a word can cause offence is a sort of aberration. Recently I was made to understand that the word is venomous for good reason. It should be offensive because it represents not just a terrible history of slavery, but also of the continued oppression, both overt and insidious, that blacks experience.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and often I think that is how us whites use it. Mostly our intentions are good, we want to be part of that group... but we never will be because we will never experience that word the way a black man or woman will. I don't think I was a racist (well, so far as any of us are free from bias) when I used it before but I think it was ignorant and wrong of me. To only care for your own intent and ignore a word's symbolism is lazy and self interested.

I'd like a future where the word truly does lose contemporary meaning, but I don't think we get there by ignoring what it still represents to others.

$0.02

Then you haven't been paying attention.
I believe in equal treatment. That means I don't support the oppressed becoming oppressive. Revenge isn't about justice.

"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. "-Friedrich Nietzsche

In all seriousness though, here's my thoughts on the matter: I believe the n-word is used by most black people ironically. It's an attempt to reclaim power over the word that was used for so long--including today--to oppress them.

The thing is, there is precedent for this ironic use. Many in the gay community use the word "bitch" in an affection and jesting way to other members, but it takes on a completely different tone when a heterosexual person--even one who has a large circle of gay friends--tries to use it in a similar manner towards a gay person.

The thing is that this kind of ironic language usage is self-deprecating. As a member of the black or gay community, you're using a derogatory term that could just as easily be applied to you by somebody else.

Self-deprecating humor of this kind doesn't work so well when you're not a member of the group. It just comes across as punching down, especially in the case of privileged group members like middle-class white kids who will likely never know what it is like to be an "other" in their country of citizenship no matter how much they may sympathize (although as "minority" groups continue to eclipse the Caucasian population maybe within my lifetime they might actually start to experience it).

I mean, how hard is it for non-black people to not call someone an n-word? Very few black people are okay with it. The whiny " b-b-but they use the word all the time" excuse just reeks of entitlement to me.

But what do I know. I'm just some dumb white kid living in a foreign country where I can be pulled over by cops because I look different from the rest of the population and jailed for not immediately providing ID (unlike Japanese people who are legally not required to carry ID at all).

In the name to help Americans we get another Democrat program to keep the black man down.

Even after Republicans ended Democratic controlled slavery. Democrats still find ways to oppress.

Democrat policies have done more to hurt the black man than any other cause.


Democrat President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had a reputation as a friend of black people, yet he signed laws that promoted racial segregation throughout the United States.

When will you sifters learn... Democrats are the enslaving party.

Heck, an armed populace is harder to oppress is really all I was ever suggesting on the count of common ground. One point of commonality.

On Rwanda, the genocidal former government of Rwanda kept their arms and just retreated into the Congo jungle. They've basically kept their "freedom" in the process and subsequently no small reason the DRC has been plagued with horrific violent crimes against humanity the last couple decades.

On Kagame I suppose it depends who you ask about being a tyrant or not. Perhaps pragmatic dictator would be the closest a majority of dissenting experts might agree on? That said, make no mistake that supporters of the former regime weren't allowed to remain armed where Kagame had the ability. Because of the genocide the world largely disregarded it, Kagames forces made large numbers of 'violations' of DRC borders raiding for former genocidairres.

I can rarely agree with a blanket statement, but it I think we do agree that an armed populace is more difficult to oppress, I just contend it doesn't make oppression impossible.

I think people living under the control of warlords would differ and call them oppressive dictators, even if their areas of control might be small.

Yes, but doesn't Rwanda prove my point in a way? The genocidal thugs were armed, yet control was eventually taken from them....although I hope Kagme isn't a tyrant...I honestly don't know about him.

Come on, it's ok if we agree on something . Your African examples aren't really oppressive dictatorships, they are collections of failed states or outright anarchy, which I'll readily agree is easily possible with or without a well armed population. If you want to note African examples, when Kagame seized control of Rwanda, he didn't exactly decide to leave the genocidal opponents he cast out open ended gun rights. As is always the case, removing their ability to wage war was kind of prerequisite to his control of the country.

@newtboy and @scheherazade,

I think I may have come up with a shorter line of evidence for a well armed population being protection against tyranny.

Granted, a poorly armed population with strong arms control laws doesn't necessarily devolve into tyranny. We can all demonstrate this with counter examples like up here in Canada. However, can anyone name an oppressive dictatorship that had 2nd amendment level freedoms for every man and woman in their state? I can't think of a single example myself.

As I said before, that doesn't lead me to immediately declare zero restrictions on guns are thus worth any cost to forestall future tyranny. However, I have to acknowledge that the NRA style argument for protection against tyranny isn't entirely without merit.

That leads to my objections with declaring that it is objectively obvious that gun freedoms must morally be pulled back, while at the same time objectively obvious that idealogical/religious practice freedoms must not. We have ample examples of extremists gathering together to plot violence, mayhem and death on a grand scale and putting some extra lines in the sand of when that becomes unacceptable is no more obviously immoral than restricting gun ownership.