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No, I’m not saying that affirmative action is a good thing, just that it’s a positive racist attitude. This means that someone is distinguishing someone else by race with the intent of helping them. Personally, I think socioeconomic factors are more important than racial factors, so I’m not saying that affirmative action is positive, just that it is racism with a positive intention.</p>
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Then why make this thread?</p>
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<p>So a person says that affirmative action is racist.</p>
<p>That person may recognize affirmative action is being done from positive intentions, but he will still view it as a negative policy in the overall. It is this negative connotation attached to the policy itself, not the positive connotation attached to the motivations driving the people who implement it, that is the operative connotation. Hence racism in this case is still connotatively negative, despite its motivations being good from everyone’s point of view, and despite it itself being good in some people’s point of view. Hence I see no reason why the denotation might not as well absorb the negativity, and henceforth refer to racism as a ‘negative act or thought based on race,’ since in no usages does the connotation convey a meaning otherwise.</p>
<p>Yet I want to reiterate my earlier suspicion that value concepts are out of place in a denotation. Seems that the subjectivity of concepts like positive or negative is by nature incompatible with denoting, which I always understood to involves attaching objective meaning to a word or phrase, and objective is something a value concept can never be.</p>
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<p>Not to determine a fixed, absolute definition.</p>
<p>As a cracker I do not like affirmative action.</p>
<p><a href=“%5Burl=http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/12145306-post17.html]#17[/url]”>quote</a> StitchInTime, racism is not ingrained within us by biology because the modern concept of race is not a natural one, but an artificial one imposed in the last few hundred years by European imperialists trying to justify their actions…
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<p>Whatever dynamic leads to a concept of race it could only have been arrived at by a natural process and thus viewable through the lenses of science (cognitive/evolutionary psychology, biology, sociology, anthropology, behavioral economics, game theory, etc.). </p>
<p>The human experience is part of the natural world, not parallel to it. Racism happens in the mind. The mind is a process of the brain…thus racism is a biological dyanamic. If you’re arguing that today’s concept of race was influenced by recent (considering the long history of civilization; tens of thousans of years) cultural thinking, that does not make the case against the biological/psychological foundation of the phenomena; it just complements it.</p>
<p>The article [cited</a> above](<a href=“http://www.pnas.org/content/98/26/15387.full.pdf+html]cited”>http://www.pnas.org/content/98/26/15387.full.pdf+html) hypothesizes that the ability to distinguish ‘race’ came about as a result of:
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<p>BillyMc- the group that MAINLY benefits from affirmative action is white women.</p>
<p>Stitchintime: I think you misunderstand him. He says racism is not ingrained in our biology. That’s different from saying that it’s independent of biology. Would you argue that racism is biologically ingrained in the same way that breathing oxygen is?</p>
<p>Also I like to avoid scientific explanations of social issues. Often the science is used to brush under the table the non-science. It’s hard to integrate the two.</p>
<p>CPUscientist: What do you mean? White women are overrepresented.</p>
<p>[Focus</a> on Affirmative Action](<a href=“http://www.aapf.org/focus/episodes/oct30.php]Focus”>http://www.aapf.org/focus/episodes/oct30.php)</p>
<p>Racism is when a certain ethnicity threatens others with violence if they say a certain word.</p>
<p>that’s wrong^^</p>
<p>i can say “all __________ people are stupid and can never accomplish anything.” that’s racist but i didnt threaten anyone</p>
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Like equality. Or rights. Or education. Or Constitution. Or freedom.</p>
<p>I’m saying often times African americans threaten all other ethnicities if they use the n-word. Which is clear cut racism yet nobody sees it that way.</p>
<p>CPUscientist: That’s interesting. However, I hope you don’t mean to suggest that an opponent of one kind of affirmative action is an enemy of all affirmative action.</p>
<p>@bellyflop55 Somebody’s a bitter belly. Your attitude, that’s what’s racist. Your comments give it away immediately.</p>
<p>bellyflop-- your last post made no sense…</p>
<p>cormy-- i didn’t mean it that way, but since AA was being referred to as racist and it was being eluded to that it only helped blacks/hispanics, i thought i’d clear up that myth.</p>
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Oh, I know exactly what you were suggesting; I just thought my examples were more apt, when looking at the history of this country.</p>
<p>History is one thing. Have you seen interracial crime statistics in the present? I promise you won’t find his attitude so ridiculous.</p>
<p>Crime is a result of poverty; poverty of particular “races” is a result of the persisting social impact of Euro-centric (really should say Anglo-centric) outlooks that have just started to change in the latter half of the 20th century. Damage done long ago is engrained so deeply into society that divisions between rich and poor are even more unfair for African-Americans. While others grab on to little things like the fact that many African-Americans are averse to being called a deeply hateful word, it cannot justify the divisions in our society; no matter how much you complain about African-Americans hating being called that name, it will not make you the victim of racism more so than they.</p>
<p>i would have to say that when you have to sit and think about whether or not a statement you made or thought you have is racist or not, then you should probably try looking at it a different way. when you’re not sure, then you’re probably uncomfortable with your thought or statement and that should indicate to you that it is wrong. reformulate the way you’re looking at it, take yourself out of the box.<br>
i worked for a lady who used to tell me not to interview people from india for jobs, because “we already have one”. discriminatory and down right stupid! she told the only black female in our office to “tote that barge, lift that bale” which is a phrase from an old slave song. she would say “eww” or “yuck” if someone happened to be talking about someone who was gay. those were just a few instances, many more in so many years! she was a boss, her bosses knew, the agency heads were aware - it just wasn’t that important for them to act on.<br>
so, yes racism certainly exists. none of us should be doing anything to further it. it’s horrible, destructive, stupid, and ignorant.</p>
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<p>I don’t want to get into a discussion like that because I don’t even have proper definition of the word racism. This is not trivial. Does it follow that poverty of certain races is due to racism? Part of the question is empirical, and part of it is how you define and conceptualize racism.</p>
<p>At some point, however, say if you wanted to attribute a crime like assault to racism suffered indirectly by the perpetrator of the crime, I’m going to have to question your line of thinking.</p>
<p>alfmom- i agree. when my mom applied to her current hospital as a nurse, the woman told her there were no spots left. coincidentally, four of my mothers caucasian friends whom graduated nursing school with her went in for interviews RIGHT after her and ALL were accepted…guess the spots opened up pretty quickly? later this woman was “asked to retire.”</p>
<p>and before that, a woman that headed the nursing school where my mom attended told all of the black students outright that they couldn’t, and wouldn’t make it.</p>
<p>other instances of racism/discrimination have occurred, such as not ahdering to certain cultural values and traditions (ie cultures where women are not allowed/supposed to wear pants. workplaces aren’t supposed to do this, although we can all see why wearing pants/the scrubs would be better. whether a woman wears skirts doesn’t measure her ability to be a nurse/doctor/ANYTHING, and nurses used to ONLY wear skirts in the past, and there was a time where it was unheard of for women to wear pants.)</p>
<p>but that woman you described… in my short little life i have encountered many.</p>
<p>** cormy ** i agree w. your last statement</p>