I'm not asking whether the view I formed of British people is negative or positive. I'm asking you is it accurate?Quote:
Originally Posted by Delta40
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I'm not asking whether the view I formed of British people is negative or positive. I'm asking you is it accurate?Quote:
Originally Posted by Delta40
Isn't that up to you decide?Quote:
Originally Posted by Propter W.
Erm, don't you guys realize the difference between common sense and making sweeping generalizations about an entire group of people?
For example, I'm walking home at night. I see a group of kids hanging out in an alley. Do I go down that alley? Hell No. Do I assume that all kids like to hang out in alleys and are up to no good? Hell No.
lol. I think all poodles are dogs but not all dogs are poodles!Quote:
Originally Posted by papayahed
:biggrin5:Quote:
Originally Posted by Delta40
{edit}Quote:
Originally Posted by Delta40
Personal "truths" are irrelevant, the willingness to use hearsay and other such anecdotal evidence as a justification for public policy should be offensive to anyone with a lick of sense. If your beliefs are accurate you should be able to find evidence to support them that is convincing, I could think of no worse way to make a decision than relying on the personal delusions of individuals. Willing something doesn't make ones view more accurate, simply because it is "more accurate for you" {edit}. Imagine if we allowed such thinking to be used in courtrooms. More people have been falsely convicted off the basis of eye-witness testimony than any other form of evidence, that should tell us something about how reliable personal truths are.
Is it?Quote:
Originally Posted by Delta40
OK, then yes, you do think that's accurate.
And there you go quoting me out of context!Quote:
Originally Posted by Brian Bean
I was referring to the fact that if there indeed was some kind of anti-white anti-male conspiracy going on, then it would seem quite strange that the great majority of the individuals perpetrating this were indeed older white males.Quote:
Btw, must I say it again? The statistics provided come straight from the FBI and other government organizations, not media news outlets. But if you indeed think that the FBI and the judicial system that keeps these records are in fact in on it too, then it is impossible to argue with you in terms of reality, especially in considering that a majority of people working in the government are. . . . old white males.
Stop quoting me out of context for you own rhetorical benefit and stop evading the matter at hand.
Indeed you are right, I've for the most part been referring to the U.S. in most of my posts.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheFifthElement
Yes, I do indeed agree. The only problem is that, here in America at least, black Americans and other minorities (esp Hispanics) cannot avoid being labeled as a part of their 'group'. I bold-faced your wonderful sentence up there because I think your idea of 'group-experience' goes head-on into what race really seems to mean in some countries (again I am really only speaking of America). People laugh at the idea of 'white culture' or are confused by it, which is completely right. The white race for the most part of modern history has in the West lived very comfortably without needing to really identify themselves as 'white'. This legacy continues on to this very day in which not only is the white race the majority in many Western countries, but they also have the comfort of not being labeled as 'White' because they are the majority. And in a majority of whites, the minorities inherit an unavoidable 'label' or 'identity' because of their perceived difference. The clearest track of this can be seen in African-American history in which as a result of being a segregated people, their own culture started to emerge and indeed the idea of 'African-American culture' still goes on today as a result of that inheritance. It is not racist, it is merely the result of a people who were at one point strangers in a strange land (not to mention they were enslaved).Quote:
But it goes much further than that. The statement that UK is 92% white is misleading because 'white' is a blanket statement for a much more varied demographic. Because in Europe there is a great freedom of movement between EU member states. So in UK, for example, there may be racism against the white man, because that particular white man is white Polish, or white Romanian. It may well be that white Poles are statistically more prone to racial attack in UK, but because we lump them in with all 'white' people that statistic is lost. And there is a difference between someone who is white English and white Scottish or white Northern Irish or Welsh. And it goes even further than that. So, for example, someone might be discriminated against because they are white Geordie or white Scouser because they don't have a BBC accent and people, quite wrongly, have a certain perception of people from those regions. They are still white, but to say as a blanket statement that as a result of being white they are less prone to racial discrimination is patently untrue. It is much more subtle than that. And that doesn't mean to say that it is not true that racial minorities are not more likely to suffer racial attack than the indiginous population (if there is such a thing these days). The statistics certainly seem to indicate that there is a problem, but what they don't give us are the subtleties or the reasons, for those you need to dig deeper. So, for example, it may be that hate crime is more common against minority groups or it may be that the minority groups are more likely to report hate crime and that such crimes are more likely to be taken seriously by the police if reported by a black person than a white person. Just to give a similar example of where statistics are simply the tip of the iceberg, take this report which makes for quite interesting reading: http://www.justice.gov.uk/stats-race...08-revised.pdf and I'll quote a passage here:
which tells us that there is a greater proportion of black prisoners, per head of population, than white prisoners. Does this mean that blacks have a greater tendency towards offending behaviour, which is one interpretation, or does this tell us that blacks are more likely to be living in poverty (which is a key driver of criminal behaviour), targeted by the police and more likely to receive a severe sentence than their white compatriots? Both could be true, and neither could be true. The number is disturbing, actually I found the whole report a little disturbing, but in itself it doesn't tell me what's really happening, or what's the right thing to do to change it.
Of course the only way to defeat racism, or any other 'ism', for that matter is to stop putting people into groups and stop considering people as a group entity. So you do not battle racism by arguing that blacks are more discriminated against whites, because this argument inherently relies on the idea of a group experience which in itself becomes a cultivator of isms. Because people who are white then feel the need to defend themselves as a group even though they do not really share a group experience. And so it goes on. And when it comes down to it isms are just an expression of power, the idea that 'I have power over you due to circumstances over which you have no control and can therefore do nothing about'. It is an excuse, rather than a reason. If we are to break it, we must all start to think in terms of the individual, rather than the group, and we must all think in terms of what we can and can't control individually. Until we break the group mentality, this will just go on and on and on and on. Ad infinitum. And it is right that we should have laws which make it illegal to deny someone opportunities on the basis of race, sex, religious or sexual persuasion. But those laws should be applied universally, so it should be equally illegal to deny someone an opportunity because they are a white male as it is to deny someone an opportunity because they are a black female. Only by taking race entirely out of consideration do you have a hope of achieving true equality.
All and all, my point here is that I agree with you Fifth, I just think that at this current point in history, labels are unavoidable because prejudice still exists.
Yeah I really have an axe to grind when I link you stats from the FBI and you just ignore them and dismiss them as 'liberal media' or as 'coming from the mouths of babes and sucklings'. Yeah I have an axe to grind.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brian Bean
But the problem is that people are taking their own subjectivity as absolute truth. To expand on papayahead's example; let's say a judge had in the past been attacked by a bunch of teenage kids in an alleyway. Now let's say that she was judging a case in which a group of teenage kids were being accused for assault on a women in an alleyway. Should she use her own personal experience and judge 'well if it happened to me, it most likely happened to this women,' or should she judge the case at hand and leave aside personal biases or experience. She can use her professional experience, but her personal experience should not be taken into hard consideration because every persons experience is different in different cases. (Maybe in this case the victim mistook the kids as the men who had in fact attacked her. Maybe the kids weren't even in that particular alleyway.)Quote:
Originally Posted by Delta40
I'm trying hard to figure out the meaning and all I can come up with is that you agree with me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Delta40
I think this thread is well overdue for some Chris Rock.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ui6-Wc0PDc4
Nobody has mentioned a conspiracy theory except yourself, presumably in order to fudge the issue. Here's what BienvenueJDC had to say;
There IS a liberal media that is NOT covering societal issues equally...that is not just a conspiracy theory.
It is a known fact that so-called 'affirmative action' has been initiated by the US and UK governments. Of course it's very sad, which was implicit in your post, that the people who control the media that broadcast this fact are all old white men, but that doesn't alter the fact that such legislation is discriminatory. Several people have already pointed out that such legislation may be right in principal but is wrong in practice because it only heightens tensions. No foot-stamping or waving of statistics, from the FBI or anyone else, will ever convince me that a mealy-mouthed phrase such as 'affirmative action' is acceptable when what it really means is anti-white discrimination. I am not too familiar with the US media but, if England is anything to go by, there is definitely a very heavy bias towards black issues in certain areas such as our main broadcasting outlet the BBC. This flies in the face of its charter which explicitly forbids it from taking sides in social matters but as the liberals have taken over the programming department of the BBC, the once most trusted broadcasting system in the world is now merely a mouthpiece for your point of view; despite the fact that it is paid for by a licence fee levied on all users of the service. I do not doubt that there are similar broadcasting systems in the US who similarly cannot be trusted to present the news objectively. Hence Bienvenue's statement about societal issues not being treated evenly.
Love Chris Rock! :smilielol5:Quote:
Originally Posted by OrphanPip
Though I think many will unfortunately misinterpret Chris's ironic and satirical humor.
I think one particular quote from that video can well describe my feeling about this thread:
"Tired of this ****, tired, tired, tired!"
At the same time you could argue that prejudice exists because there are labels. But perhaps that is just semantics. Essentially I think we agree. The sad thing is that I can't envisage a point where prejudice, in some form, does not exist because ultimately it is all about power and resources. In UK I've seen a greater degree of racism towards people of eastern European origin, because there has been an influx of what is perceived as 'economic migrants' following the expansion of the EU, and there's been a lot of talk about immigration since the economic downturn which is a trend you'll probably see occurring back through history as, I think, you've already mentioned (which is bizarre as curtailing immigration doesn't stop Polish people from coming to Britain, which is what most people are moaning about. Many people, it seems, don't understand the difference between immigrants and migrants). And you'll get racism in areas where there's a large Pakistani or Bangladeshi population, often because these are deprived areas (which may indicate that it is more difficult for people of those backgrounds to get a well paid job, although this is not universally true. Most of my GPs have been of Indian, Pakistani or Bangladeshi origin) and the perception is that these 'immigrants' (many of which are not immigrants but 3rd or 4th generation Britons of Pakistani/Bangladeshi origin) are taking jobs which should rightfully go to 'white' people. So there is pressure, and because there is pressure people look for scapegoats and angles which give them a better chance of accessing jobs/money. It is all about resource. And as long as resources are inequitably divided, and under pressure, it will continue.Quote:
Originally Posted by DanielBenoit
Que? I don't know what version of the BBC you're watching Brian (I thought it was none, as I was sure you'd said before you don't watch TV) but I have certainly not perceived any preferential treatment towards 'black issues' by the BBC (such as?) and I'll confess to watching the BBC generally quite a lot (especially BBC4 where they've had some great documentaries about writers recently). But let's sample tonight's schedule and see how 'black issue' biased it is:Quote:
Originally Posted by Brian Bean
BBC1: The One Show; Eastenders; Holby City; Motorway Cops; BBC News; My Story (documentary about a BBC writing contest); La Bamba.
BBC2: Climbing Great Buildings; Coast; The Great British Bake Off; The Big School Lottery; Mercury Music Prize 2010; Newsnight.
BBC3: Total Wipeout; Underage and Pregnant; Snog Marry Avoid; Don't Tell the Bride; Eastenders (isn't once enough, ugh!); Ideal (a sitcom about a drug dealer, or something).
BBC4: The Sky at Night; Liz Smith's Summer Cruise; Eddie Waring: My Rugby League; The Game that Got Away (about rugby); Challenge Cup Classic (also rugby).
So I'll accept 'utter rubbish' as fair criticism but I don't see any leaning towards 'black issues' there. Unless you're referring to some sort of bun disaster in the Great British Bake Off, or the general colour of the sky in the Sky at Night (let's face it, even white people can't understand a word Patrick Moore says ;) )then I'm not seeing it. And the news covered the economic downturn (for a change), government cuts (for a change), strikes in France affecting travel for Britons (for a change!), some crazy people with a giant leylandii that eclipses their entire house, the discovery of an abandoned dead baby and Wayne Rooney banging some prostitute. Not really any 'black issues' there either. And it's fairly typical viewing for a Tuesday night.
I'm sorry, I should have made it clear that I was speaking of BBC radio. You are right, I stopped watching all television many months ago.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheFifthElement
But conspiracy theory is just the proper way to describe it! As FifthElement has pointed out in the case of the UK's media, where exactly is this 'black bias'?Quote:
Originally Posted by Brian Bean
I have not been arguing about affirmative action, at least in these past few pages. The issue at hand is whether or not white males are indeed discriminated as much or more than other minorities. I do indeed have some problems with Affirmative Action as it is today (not as JFK founded it), and while I think its ends are in the right, its means are not helping solve the problem and may indeed be worsening it. But please, provide me with some legitimate evidence that affirmative action has indeed, in the long run, effected the white population to the point that one can say that they are "under attack" or facing as much discrimination as minorities do.Quote:
It is a known fact that so-called 'affirmative action' has been initiated by the US and UK governments. Of course it's very sad, which was implicit in your post, that the people who control the media that broadcast this fact are all old white men, but that doesn't alter the fact that such legislation is discriminatory. Several people have already pointed out that such legislation may be right in principal but is wrong in practice because it only heightens tensions.
Again, when did I ever go about defending affirmative action? I think I only mentioned it once in regards to SLG's post. Please do not assume things about me.Quote:
No foot-stamping or waving of statistics, from the FBI or anyone else, will ever convince me that a mealy-mouthed phrase such as 'affirmative action' is acceptable when what it really means is anti-white discrimination.
The statistics in question were provided so as to illustrate the invalidity of the thesis of this thread which is; that the white male is "under attack" and facing just as much discrimination as other minorities. You have yet acknowledge them in the context in which I was providing them. This has nothing to do with affirmative action, which may be, to your suprise, is not an anti-white policy on behest of the government, unless you prove to me otherwise.
Really? Explicity forbidden? Idk know about the BBC, but last I looked, here in the US, Fox News was still the highest rated "news" network.Quote:
I am not too familiar with the US media but, if England is anything to go by, there is definitely a very heavy bias towards black issues in certain areas such as our main broadcasting outlet the BBC. This flies in the face of its charter which explicitly forbids it from taking sides in social matters but as the liberals have taken over the programming department of the BBC, the once most trusted broadcasting system in the world is now merely a mouthpiece for your point of view; despite the fact that it is paid for by a licence fee levied on all users of the service. I do not doubt that there are similar broadcasting systems in the US who similarly cannot be trusted to present the news objectively. Hence Bienvenue's statement about societal issues not being treated evenly.
Also, I would like to ask you; please present me with some direct examples of this "anti-white" broadcasting in the media. I would love to see it.