I'd make that argument. You'd figure if you were 2nd or third generation and didn't identify as either being german, finnish, or scottish american you'd just consider yourself american. To make the distinction, "oh im white" and you're black, and he's mexican, it always seems to come from a place that is meant to denigrate. Because if you considered yourself just an american, then you'd be the same as someone who came here on a slave ship, or was living in a pueblo that is now part of Texas.

Then you can start doing slight of hand in terms of who contributed what to this country, because being white is assumed to being american, but the same isn't said of someone who's asian, or black, or the myriad of brown tones. They are always tied to someplace foreign. Christ, to tell someone go back to africa, when their family has been in country longer than yours, or told to get sent packing back home to mexico when your people were on this continent when there were still sloths the size of bendy buses betrays a fucked mindset.

What about when I say that I'm white, but my mother wasn't born white and my grandfather was never white? It's meant as commentary not denigration, about how the term "anti-semitism" was needed instead of racism because people stopped seeing us as another race but still kept the bigotry.

I could have sworn there was an article posted here that went over the divide between jewish left and right and how they tend to look for antisemitism in different places. It mentioned how and when jewish became accepted as white, although its still a fluid thing because its a term that really doesn't have a set in stone criteria.

Theres an advantage to being considered white if you are accepted by the white community. As a latino though who can't pass its problematic. Other hispanics will identify you as a quisling because of mannerisms and tastes. Meanwhile you're identified as being an other by white folk, and depending on how much stock they put in the idea of white your either just one of the good ones or some sort of beaner putting on airs. That interplay though has no real positive. At its most benign you identify as white because it confers protection from the antagonists who created the concept in the first place.

I don't understand the hispanic-is-not-white thinking among the white supremacists. Aren't they pro-European culture, and isn't Spain part of Europe?
Racism isn't as simple as it seems.

Historically that one is interesting. Hispanics have been classified as whites, coloreds, or mulattos across the South spanning back to slavery and through segregation. It's relatively recent that racists have considered them distinctly nonwhite.

The exception is prisons, where Hispanics and Latinos can join the Aryan Nation. Ironically, since white people don't get convicted at the same rate as everyone else per capita, they're starving for members in their prison gangs.

I may be completely wrong here, but isn't it that Spanish is European, but Hispanic is a mix of European and native American?

That recent article about the godson of David Duke was interesting. If anyone didn't read that, the guy said he was a history major looking for ideas that supported his racism, but found that race as we view it today is a fairly modern concept and medieval Europe didn't share it.

I guess ill have to look for it. I've heard its only recent that theres been a biological and genetic underpinning to the notion of race, and that you could just as easily use language and country as a descriptor. The french race, the catalonians, and so forth.

Yeah, probably. Although a might substitute human for white. But what's more important is what we want to be, rather than what we are.

"While discussing a variety of philosophical perspectives on culture, race and ethics, a teacher was attempting to convey to students in an elective philosophy course a perspective that had been shared at a university lecture he had attended. "

So if I may Godwin this from the get-go, a professor should not be able to say something like, "Jews, Roma, gays, blacks, all are inferior to the pure Aryan blood," while discussing WWII and Naziism.

Hell, this teacher got at least one student to actually listen to what was being said, to think about it and to discuss it with others. Success!

I think the difference is the teacher said "whites are racist period", not "Hitler said that Jews, Roma, gays, blacks, all are inferior to the pure Aryan blood". The first quote is telling you, the second one is teaching you.

According to the article, "While discussing a variety of philosophical perspectives on culture, race and ethics, a teacher was attempting to convey to students in an elective philosophy course a perspective that had been shared at a university lecture he had attended."

Does SE not support animated GIFs for thumbnails, or did you not find the usual one for this particular post?

Animated thumbs went away. :(

No wonder I keep spilling my drinks!

Seems to be a lot of information missing from this article.

I don't really know about these terms, but I'd make a distinction between racist and biased. I.e., we all have biases, but racism has a more intellectual, deliberate component to it. The fact that my stomach may tense up when a black man in a hoodie is walking towards me at night is bias (and involuntary), but crossing the street to avoid him is racist. Recognizing, being embarrassed by, and battling your bias is the difference.

I use the terms implicit and explicit racism, but same idea.

Harvard have an excellent online tool that can test for implicit associations of the type that robotroadkill mentions. Moeover, you can test for implicit associations on things like gender, body image, sexuality, or even attitudes to guns or mental illness. Try it here.

They point out that there is no research that can confidently say that implicit attitudes can be overcome, or even reduced. They are developed very early, and reinforced very heavily by popular culture. But being aware of an implicit attitude and realising it is not justified does allow a person to develop strategies to avoid implicit biases being triggered.

I was somewhat surprised to find I had no implicit associations in some areas where I know I have an explicit bias. It seems that in these areas my intellectual reasoning for the bias is genuine (if perhaps not correct), and not merely an after-the-fact attempt to justify unconscious, instinctive beliefs.

It turns out that, as an atheist, I'm (practically) equally biased against Christians and Muslims, but biased in favor of Jews.

Maybe you are just a good literary critic. The sequels are never as good as the original.

...and much, much later cash-in prequels are the pits. I suppose that makes the Book of Mormon culturally equivalent to Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace.

I'd say that if you're a student in Norman Oklahoma your sensibilities should be offended on a regular basis.

I am not racist at all. i have had the privilege of working with all manner of people in both a professional and personal level. What I can tell you is laziness and uselessness have no color, ethnic, religious, sex, or sexual orientation boundaries. I care not if you are black , white, Asian, European, Mexican, South American....what have you. 10% of all people are useless as hell.

So then 90% of people are upstanding, hard-working, regardless of race or ethnicity. That's pretty good.