What constitutes racism???

Originally posted by Flavian
reply to post by spacedog1973

 

I was pointing it out as you seemed to be questioning whether or not it was a racist attack in your first post. Clearly there was a racial aspect to it so i was pointing this out. This racial element is also clearly demonstrated in the intercepted phone call between the shooter and his brother, from prison.

That said, it would also appear that i have made a mistake when i stated they had nothing on them. Actually, the bodies were found still with wallets (with cash still in) and a phone.

So, clearly racial (to a degree) but i still maintain poverty is the proper issue.

In relation to this thread, I've see far to many false equivalence presented in relation to this Trayvon Martin case, just like this one where the only similarity is racism, yet the question was asked as to why there wasn't a similar level of news coverage. Because Racism sadly isn't news on a personal level. Its when it becomes institutional and there is a possibility of it being changed, that then it becomes news as is this case where incompetence at almost every level is being exposed.

However,

If you rid the world of poverty, there will still be people in power. Racism is fueled by power. Without it, it vanishes. Racism is expressed through power.

You can be a rich man, but always experience racism for example. Its because of power and those who weld it wanting to remain in power.

reply to post by spacedog1973




As both of these cases took place in America we here in the UK don't seem to get the

same coverage of events as perhaps in America. The Shaun Tyson case was reported here

probably because it has come to a conclusion with the court case. The only reports on the

TM - GZ case i have seen has been here on ATS. Like i said in the OP i have followed

the many many hreads and they have all taken a stance [50/50] on the side of TM and GZ.

and it appears that there is not a conclusion as yet to the case.

So again i ask the question why when these are two equally offensive cases does one get

'hyped' up and the other concluded with little or no fuss?

Originally posted by eletheia
reply to post by spacedog1973

 

As both of these cases took place in America we here in the UK don't seem to get the

same coverage of events as perhaps in America. The Shaun Tyson case was reported here

probably because it has come to a conclusion with the court case. The only reports on the

TM - GZ case i have seen has been here on ATS. Like i said in the OP i have followed

the many many hreads and they have all taken a stance [50/50] on the side of TM and GZ.

and it appears that there is not a conclusion as yet to the case.

So again i ask the question why when these are two equally offensive cases does one get

'hyped' up and the other concluded with little or no fuss?

For the same reason I gave, the killer in the Trayvon Case is not charged with anything. That's where the outrage comes from.

Also, most UK newspapers are covering this, if not in print then online and update every last tidbit on their online pages, just do a google search to see. I don't see why you would think they are not getting the relevant coverage respective to each case.

let me ask you a question in return. Where you just as concerned about the non reporting of a racist crimes before the Trayvon Martin national scramble? Did you make threads about your concern? Or just now

reply to post by spacedog1973





To me a crime is a crime regardless colour creed sex or anything else. And like have

already said ATS has been clogged up with threads on the TM v GZ for must be at least

a week in fact some of the threads have been closed and re routed by links by the mods.

So when i heard on the new's today about the Shaun Tyson shooting of NOT one but two

victims i thought because it had not been all over the media it didn't involve a racial element

so i was supprised to see that there probably was. The wallet and money still being there

rules out theft.

That set me thinking two very similar awful cases [mixed races] one getting maximum

coverage the other very little. What was the difference?? How can one be portrayed as

'racial' and the other not?

To answer your question: What constitutes racism???

In my opinion, any time you portrait yourself to be superior to anybody else whether be skin color, intellectually, opinions, etc.

Calling someone an "Idiot" is a form of racism because you think you are better than them!

Until the 60's Racism was an instutionalized part of American Society. Sadly Racism is still a problem in the U.S. I grew up during the race riots of the 60's. And yes, I grew up in a racist family. So I grew up with those tapes going through my head. That being said, I also grew up learning to think for myself, and hating any kind of inequality, I learned to fight those tapes.

We as a people must learn to fight the conditioning that society or TPTB put out there to keep us divided. The single greatest factor that I have found in my life to fight any kind of ISM, has been to deal with each person that I meet on a one to one basis. I have been rewarded with many wonderful friendships by being able to do this.

As a parent, I was determined to break the cycle that must be broken, for healing and unity to begin. I believe that to some extent I was successful. Two of my four grandchildren are bi-racial, and all are beautiful and loved.

Any time an event gets the amount of coverage from the MSM that we have seen in this case, it is time to start looking for hidden agendas.

I hate everypone equally.....racism to me doesnt apply......I think everyone is so culturally divided that everyone holds a cord of prejudice in them whether they want to admit it or not.

Personally I dont care if this world just nukes the crap out of each other...humans are an infestation and deserve no quarter. I promise I will be laughing at the mayhem all the way down thew road.

Remember this schucksters rule, people are stupid....and people believe what they are told because they are stupid.

If you believe racism is a real problem, then you deserve such a label. If you do not, then congradulations, you have evolved over the stupids.

OP asked what constitutes racism? To me it is if a person of different race suffers because another hates them so much they do hurtful things to them.
Is it racist if you are never impolite, never hateful [in public], never disrespectful to people of other races but deep down you just don't like them?

Well people would love to see a law that stops you from not liking anybody of a different race. They would love to measure your brain activity and send you down because you don't like some people of a certain race. Heck they want to wash your brain in soap if you don't hug and be nice and love all people of other races.
However they couldn't care less if you don't like your own race or ginger haired people.

Sorry there is a saying "Once bitten twice shy". If you live in an area with certain races and see nothing but s**t all day, when you have witnessed so much c*ap and have been done over by that race so that you lose a house and are left with debt, you are in my opinion 'excused'. I have been bitten more than once, I have been mauled and trampled upon, I have been mistreated, lied to, taken the pi** out of and had to witness first hand cheating and laziness at work to everyone else's detriment. Knives on my husband's throat, lies and behaviour that is frankly unacceptable. The list goes on. All by one race. At what point do you wake up and call a spade a spade?
Point here is that I had far more problems and larger more serious ones with people of a different race than I had with whites [even though I have a few stories, they come nowhere near the above. Which is strange as I happen to have met and mingled with 1000s more whites than the others].

Yes I have also known 'nice' people of said race, had even a best friend but that was a very rare exception and certainly not the norm. I know that because I went to many family meetings and other and was looked at and treated like a devil covered in excrement.

Am I racist? I really don't know. Having friends of every race, being civil and friendly to those I don't know and never doing any harm, nor starting anything I'd say no. What I think in my head though is nobody's business but it is nice to find people who think alike yet we are not allowed to communicate [only in secret, using code words, it is ridiculous]!!!
White people are officially not allowed to not like certain races. However people of other races are officially allowed to hate anyone, especially white people [yes I have been in a situation like that myself], they can rap and swear and do whatever they like online, nobody tells them to stop or calls them racist. At some point even the nicest people might crack.

Those that say 'love all', usually never had to live or work with anybody of said race. Those that they do meet are probably in their high paid jobs for a few minutes during a meeting. So I can say most people don't know sh*t and are quick to call people a racist. Which is easy when you live in your secure ivory tower in lala land, where everybody is the same.

I don't like religion either and I don't like x-tians and islamists or any other religious type, yet I can have very civilised and interesting discussions with them. I can even find them 'nice' as a person but don't like certain other aspects. I love discussions with those that I wouldn't have as friends, it teaches me and I can hopefully teach them. However as this is religion and not race I am allowed to say the above. What is the difference?
The difference is that I am allowed to say that and hence a discussion is possible that might clear up some misconceptions on both sides.
However this is not allowed when it comes to race.
Why can't we throw out our experiences and have people of different races tell us what is true and what isn't?
If you don't communicate, the only thing that is left is to go by your own experiences, which often contradict what you are force fed on TV. So not only are we silenced but also confused.
How can we ever get to know each other if we just pretend everything is fine, when it is not? We need to be able to have proper communications but whitey is not allowed. No wonder we are stuck.

Originally posted by spacedog1973
Because the shooter is black and the victim/s are white doesn't make it automatically a racist attack. Just as ANY offence where there are parties of different groups.

I mean, we live in the modern age, everyone here has internet access and you can't even look up the word racism?

A racist crime has to be caused by an element of racism. Very simple. The Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin Incident has been deem racist because of the suspicion of racial profiling by ZImmerman and also by institutional racism by the police department due to the disparity of how they treated each party i.e drug and alcohol testing the dead victim whilst not testing the killer, amongst many other failures.

Hi space

Why did you forget the POTUS and Ophra speaking in public about this incident without engaging thier brains??
cheers ljb

Racism is everywhere and knows no bounds. Some people are labeled racist for the slightest remarks. Ive been labeled racist for calling things like i see them, but truthfully I dont give a damn what color you are, it's all in how you live and what you do with yourself.

Originally posted by eletheia


Over the last week i have been following the very many many threads [without making any

comments] on 'Trayvon Martin - George Zimmerman'

This morning i was listining to the news [without watching] on the TV and heard about the

sentencing of a young man Shaun Tyson having shot two british young men in Florida. I looked

up at the TV and for the first time realised that the perpetrator was 'black'

This was the first time i had heard of this case and i wondered WHY there were no threads

on this case? when ATS has been inundated with 'Travon Martin - George Zimmerman' threads

as a 'racial issue'

Is it not the case that they are both racial issues ? So WHY is so much being made of the one

case and virtually nothing made of the other? To me the are both equally offensive...........

To answer the title question, racism is the contempt for any race except your own, and holding that all other races are inferior and worthless when compared to your own.

Zimmerman does not rise to that level.

Here's a better question. What doesn't constitute as racism? I'm not racist. I don't care enough about the rest of the world to be, but I do have a problem how everything is racism or segragation. I hate to say it but if I'm walking down the street and see a group of black guys, dressed like thugs, I'm going to assume that they are gangbangers. In nature you don't mess with butterflies because they look dangerous to other animals. Same should apply to humans. You don't want to be classified as something, don't look and act like that something. It can go with any sort of stereotyping. I don't assume every black guy is a gangbanger, just the ones that thinks it's cool to act like one.

I guess that depends on where you sit in the political spectrum, lol. As someone earlier said, hating a person based on their color/ethnicity, not for what they have done, is it. Unforunately, there are too many that cry racism over every single thing. If you don't like Obama, you're automatically a racist when of course that's not the case at all if you do not like him based on his policies.

Originally posted by longjohnbritches

Originally posted by spacedog1973
Because the shooter is black and the victim/s are white doesn't make it automatically a racist attack. Just as ANY offence where there are parties of different groups.

I mean, we live in the modern age, everyone here has internet access and you can't even look up the word racism?

A racist crime has to be caused by an element of racism. Very simple. The Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin Incident has been deem racist because of the suspicion of racial profiling by ZImmerman and also by institutional racism by the police department due to the disparity of how they treated each party i.e drug and alcohol testing the dead victim whilst not testing the killer, amongst many other failures.

Hi space

Why did you forget the POTUS and Ophra speaking in public about this incident without engaging thier brains??
cheers ljb

Actually this is a great example. How did the POTUS 'not engage his brain'? What was so offensive to you that he uttered? Thats if he had a son he would look like Trayvon?? Really? Is that so offensive to you? If so, why?

As for Oprah, she is a private citizen and has no baring on any of this unless you wish to make her important.

Obama is a victim of racism and not many even see it. Its like the presidency is a car and he has only been allowed to hold the wheel. Whenever he dares touch the gas there seems to be an uproar. Meanwhile a succession of incompetent mewling fools of previous POTUS have botched their way through years and years with almost daily foolish mumblings to the press and no-one blinks an eye.

The message to those who can see it is crystal clear in this case; the Presidency is for the white male privilege. Its in every nuance of GOP candidate's sneering statements to the POTUS, in every press release by their right wing think tanks and 'study groups', in many unfounded criticisms by the average Joe and by the blind and auto-no mentality of the GOP as a whole.

Originally posted by LauraBow
Unforunately, there are too many that cry racism over every single thing. If you don't like Obama, you're automatically a racist when of course that's not the case at all if you do not like him based on his policies.

The problem is that racists are inherently cowards. They don't stand up for their beliefs. They are like terrorists who use the camouflage of the general public to infiltrate their filth.

Because of this, the people who claim not to like Obama for policy reasons are mixed with those who lie and have clear racial motives but are too cowardly to express it in the open. Instead of blaming the accuser for guessing wrong, blame those to masquerade as YOU, by pretending to share your mindset with the consequence of sometimes people like you being wrongfully identified.

reply to post by eletheia


The Martin case highlighted the frustration by a minority of a huge gap in justice as zimmerman was perceived to be sent free on a perceived open and shut murder case of a young man. To bring to the table cases of black on white crime is missing the point. It's what happened after the incident, ie arrest made. I do wonder the differences in the terms racism and culture. Inner city culture is often spoken of as well as middle class or even specific schools or towns however every culture is often heavily overlapping with a racial majority.

News media reports on things that will sell newspapers.

When a dog bites a man it's no big deal when a man bites a dog that's news.

The same is true with crime reporting. It's big news when you have white on black crime. When you have black on black crime, or black on white crime, it's common place and therefor it's not news.

I'd encourage people to read The color of crime

That pretty much sums up crime by race. It also makes it understandable why white on black crime is news worthy.

Racism = slow day at work for the media

Seems there are plenty of normal crimes being tagged racial to try and up the sizzle factor. Real life tragedy isn't tragic enough, so they do everything they can to spice it up for ratings sake.

Unfortunately, mindless masses watch it, think there is a race war on, and I (white girl) find myself standing in line at the post office yesterday behind a group of black girls in hoodies (in 86degree heat) starring me down like they want to kill me.

Yay. Thank you media for keeping racism alive down in the south. you suck.

reply to post by spacedog1973

Yet if its white on black it is racist.did you not hear he called them crackers?typical pc double standards.everyone is racist in one way or an other,either that or a liar.

Thanks to everyone who took the time and trouble to post their own views.My own feelings

were reflected in many of your posts on here and i think the 'politically correct' brigade are

responsible for a lot of issues which relate to 'race relations'


Unlike many i can't justify anything i say by 'clarifying that i have a black relative' and so

making anything OK

Whilst posting earlier on this thread i hesitated over posting the word 'black', as to how it

would be perceived. I am not in the habit of using inflamatory language, but if i was

a b*****d is a b*****d whether they are black, white or green [ET's ]


Here in the UK things that go way way back in time [e.g.Ba Ba Black sheep] have been

excluded from the curriculum due to the p.c. brigade. What puzzles me is WHY 'black' is

considered to be any more offensve or derogatory than 'white'. If 'black' was renamed

'anything' it still wouldn't alter the fact, and it's only a discription anyway!


I dislike Yob's don't care what colour they are and the same goes for bullies, cheats,

thieves, and ANY other type of criminal. The p.c. brigade have interferred with so much and

eventually through time the new words will become just as offensive as the old ones. eg...

* crippled - became disabled

* blind - became visually impared

* dwarf - became little people

* dumb - became mute........and so on

They are only words after all ......'sticks and stones may hurt my bones but names will never

harm me' AND wouldn't it be better if we were ALL colour blind?


RANT OVER