1) There's more optimism on race relations in the US since the election of Barack Obama
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/us/politics/03race.html
And in Brooklyn, Shel Harris, a black man, said he dropped his “skeptical, more on guard” attitude toward whites after working alongside so many on the Obama campaign.
“Whenever they said something, I was always looking out for their ulterior motives,” said Mr. Harris, 62, a retired phone company worker. “Now I find that I take white people’s statements more on face value.”
I really want to comment on that statement
Think about this: In one day , 29 people were nice to you, 1 was mean to you.
Guess which one would you think about the most?
It's not the 29 people!
Our minds seem to programmed to dwell on the negative experiences more than positive experiences.
Now, let's pretend you're a racial minority. A few members of a racial majority called you a racial slur!
That might make you paranoid about the majority! Even when other members to the racial majority are very friendly to you, you might think "they got ulterior motives, they might be calling me racial slurs behind my back"
What Mr Harris has learned is this "When those Caucasians were nice to me, THEY REALLY MEANT IT! THEY HAD NOTHING TO HIDE!"
I'm a racial minority where I live. I am part-Latino/part-European, but look mostly Latino. I'm surrounded by Asians and Pacific Islanders.
I know Asians and Pacific Islanders well enough to know that when they're nice to me, THEY'RE SINCERE ABOUT IT! THERE'S NO HIDDEN MOTIVES! Most of them are nice to everyone!
I also noticed, when a few Asians and Pacific Islanders were mean to me, I noticed those same individuals were also mean to members of their own race!
I noticed that most nice people are nice to everyone regardless of race, whereas most mean people are mean to everyone regardless of race!
2) Walter Williams,Americans of African ancestry, claim that they rather have his people called "black", instead of "African-American"
http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/williams051309.php3
Here's what I wrote to Walter Williams
You say you prefer "your people" to be called "black" instead of African-American!
But if we are talking about black-skinned people, we could be talking about people from southern India , Sri Lanka , Papua New Guinea , Micronesia , etc. They're just as dark as Africans.
In fact, many Indians, Melanesians and Micronesians have skin that's DARKER and BLACKER than the "blacks" that you might find in Harlem or Chicago 's South Side!
But you're not Indian, Melanesian or Micronesian! You are an American of AFRICAN ancestry. Or in other words --- African American!
Let's look at Joe Biden. You might call him "white". But many people in Japan & Korea are as white-skinned as a person from Sweden ! In fact, many Japanese and Koreans have skin that is LIGHTER and WHITER than the so-called "whites" you might find in the Hamptons or the Appalachians . So we call people like Mr Biden "Americans of European ancestry". Or European-American!
Some Latinos talk about "Brown Pride". But many Polynesians, Filipinos and Middle Easterners are also brown!
So instead of talking about "brown people", we say "Latinos", "Mexican-Americans", "Polynesians", "Arabs", "Arab-Americans", etc, etc.
And I don't think that many Americans of Chinese ancestry would like to be called "yellows". They're called Chinese-Americans, even if many of their families have been in the US for more than a century. Even if many never been to China or many can't speak Chinese!
These labels of "black" and "white" are relics of an era when most Americans were either of Northern European and West African ancestry! Back then, 99% of Americans never met a super-dark guy from Sri Lanka or super-light guy from Japan !
But now that we got immigrants from super-dark Sri Lanka and super-light Japan, it's ridiculous that you want to cling on to the relics of "black" and "white" to describe those of West-African and Northern-European ancestry!
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Some might find my letter condescending to Mr Williams. That's not my intention. My intention is to inform him the reason many people are moving away from labels like "white people" and "black people" towards labels like European-American, Caucasians, African-Americans, etc.
3) Amy Benfer of Salon writes about women bosses being mean to women employees.
Of course, some are saying "we women were oppressed, how could we do this to each other?"
http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/feature/2009/05/11/mean_girls/index.html
Here's what I wrote in the comments section
http://letters.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/feature/2009/05/11/mean_girls/view/index2.html?show=all
even the oppressed oppress
Most people just look out for themselves! They may not like being harassed, attacked, bullied, etc..... BUT they will harass, attack or bully others!
That not only explains women-on-women meanness, but black-on-black crime, Latino-on-Latino crime, the people of differing minority groups attacking each other during the LA riots, etc, etc.
It reminds me of the stories on Vietnamese gangs! Many of them were picked on when they immigrated to the US! The worst, racist bullying you can think of!Picked on, not only by whites, but those of African,Latin or Pacific Island ancestry! Those Vietnamese kids team up with each other for protection. But once they get power... guess what?
Many of those same Vietnamese youth commit armed robbery on weaker Vietnamese people! IT's the mentality of "dont f--- with me, but I'll f--- with anyone I feel like"
This is not a criticism of women, whites, blacks, Latinos (i'm part Latino),Pacific Islanders or Vietnamese. IT is a criticism of human nature!
--
Most of the female bosses I had were cool to everyone.
But the idea that female bosses are supposed to be exempt from being mean is BIZARRE!
Nice & Mean happens in both genders and all races!
Like Rodney King once asked "Can we all just get Along?"
'
4) Islamic fanatics vs our "libertine society"
Conservative pundit Mona Charen had an interesting editorial
http://townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/05/22/is_it_all_about_britney
In his book "The Enemy at Home," Dinesh D'Souza shows little patience with the leftists who reacted to 9/11 by declaring that America had it coming. And yet, his book is a variant on that theme. It was our cultural decadence, our foul popular movies, music and pornography, D'Souza argues, that enraged traditional Muslims worldwide and moved some to violence.
D'Souza is a thoughtful and interesting writer, and many of his observations about the cultural left worldwide, and particularly about the dismaying state of popular culture in America, got vigorous head nods from conservative readers.
[skipped paragraphs]
For the sake of argument, let's stipulate that America's cultural exports in the form of movies and music are the principal cause of Muslim hatred of the United States. This cultural rot did not set in, D'Souza acknowledges, until after the 1960s. Yet the godfather of the radical movement that spawned Osama bin Laden was the Egyptian writer Sayyid Qutb, who formed his fanatical beliefs after living in the United States in the late 1940s.
Qutb was offended by everything about America, from its food to its delight in football and money, and particularly by what he saw as sexual libertinism. "Jazz is the American music," Qutb wrote, "created by Negroes to satisfy their primitive instincts -- their love of noise and their appetite for sexual arousal." Attending a church social in (dry) Greeley, Colo., in 1949, Qutb was revolted by what he saw: "Dancing naked legs filled the hall, arms draped around the waists, chests met chests, lips met lips, and the atmosphere was full of love."
So the America Qutb despised was one that most conservatives consider pretty tame. Yet it was to his eyes a sewer. This suggests the cultural divide between American conservatives and Muslim conservatives is more like a chasm.
Notice the racist stereotypes promoted by Mr. Qutb. Notice that regular ballroom dancing (seen as conservative and "old-fashioned" among young Americans) is a blasphemy to Mr Qutb.
This is the mentality we are currently dealing with in Afghanistan, and the tribal sections of Pakistan!
It's important we liberate those areas and not surrender against Al Quaida!
