0 comment Friday, November 21, 2014 | admin
The word ''racist'' is used a lot. A great deal. Considering that the word does not even appear in my 1936 Webster's Dictionary, that word seems to be indispensable to modern life.
What does it mean? Why did it apparently need to be invented or coined? Some credit (or blame) Leon Trotsky for the word's invention, some blame others on the left. I am not sure who first used the word, but the main thing is, what does it mean now?
If I asked several random people what it meant, I would probably get varying answers; most people would probably mention something about 'hate' since that is another seemingly indispensable word in the 21st century English vocabulary. However I think that not only would there be varying definitions among individuals, there would be different definitions according to race and ancestry. I would wager that most blacks would define the word much more broadly and inclusively than Whites, and the same would probably be true of minorities generally.
However if these following examples indicate anything, it appears the word 'racism' is becoming more and more broadly and subjectively defined. For instance, 'future time orientation' is racist, according to Seattle School Dist.
Watermelon is a symbol of racism
Mr. Potato Head is racist
"Lord of the Rings" is racist
The word ''niggardly'' is racist.
Golliwogs are racist.
Criticizing Islam is racist. Of course.
Criticizing illegal immigration is racist, as we all know, and criticizing legal immigration is even worse.
And it is true that anything which is associated exclusively, or predominantly, with White people is 'racist.'
I remember the time when the word was not in the vocabulary of most people. During the early days of the Civil Rights era, the word that was bandied about to describe those who opposed forcible integration was ''prejudiced'' or ''bigoted.''
We can split hairs on the word ''prejudice''; it means ''an opinion about someone or something that is not based on reason or experience.'' That is the standard, traditional definition, and as such, it does not include the 'realist' opinions held by older generations of Americans. Their realism was based on history, observation, real life experience, and statistics. It was not, as some would have it, based on fanciful pre-conceived notions or irrational ''hate''.
Maybe the fact that the word 'prejudice' is not truly fitting in this context led to the popularizing of the neologism, 'racism.'
It came to be established, via the constant use of this word, that a negative assessment of someone of another race was a particular and unique kind of sin or, more properly, thoughtcrime. Somehow it was deemed more immoral or 'hateful' to criticize those of another race, and even more so if one chose to associate with those of one's own group.
At first, when the word 'racism' was used, it was used to describe the most egregious behavior towards those of other races, such as harassing, threatening, or attacking them without provocation, ''just because of their skin color''. Over time, the word became more and more loosely and liberally used, so that today it is absurdly applied to all kinds of ideas or products or words or attitudes. And worst of all, it is arbitrarily and subjectively defined and applied. Since none of us can anticipate every instance of behavior or speech that will be labeled ''racist'', we cannot be sure when or if we will be ambushed with that word, and of course the accusation is always assumed to be true, once having been made. Why? Because it is a given that 'Whites are racist' and that minorities don't lie about such things -- to even hint that they are capable of it is to be ''racist.'' So if you protest or deny it, you are making your accuser a liar -- and that's racist. You cannot win. Heads he wins, tails you lose.
The news media, the entertainment media, textbooks, web pages, all of them represent the acceptable, politically correct, anti-White perspective. There are a few isolated exceptions, but the fact that most of the information and discussion in our society excludes all but the PC point of view makes it certain that people begin to buy into it. This is most true of young people, because they have not known any world other than the racially-charged, obsessively anti-White world of today. Their perceptions of the past have been manipulated by Hollywood movies, TV programming, popular books, music, schools -- everything, in other words.
Most Americans would probably agree with the statement that America had a ''racist past.'' But what exactly do they understand by that phrase? Do they mean the Hollywood version of American history, things like Harper Lee's 'To Kill A Mockingbird', or Mississippi Burning, or any number of other movies with a PC message? Or do they simply think it means that yes, the races were separated in the past, especiallly in the South? Quite likely they think of slavery, and are convinced that slavery was 'an abomination', as someone on AmRen (a 'race realist') said recently. Those kinds of opinions are not uncommon even there. I think it's the old White guilt thing, or perhaps the desire to 'be fair' and concede something to the other side in the name of conciliation.
In any case, whether slavery was 'an abomination' or not, it is in the past. No White American of today is guilty of keeping slaves, and no black or other American of today has been a slave.
I see no reason to yield any ground to the other side, whether to minority partisans who want to accuse and condemn, or to White 'progressives' (read: renegades) who side with everyone but their own people. It makes us look weak; it is not appreciated by the other side. They are not impressed by our attempt at magnanimity or conciliation or self-examination. They simply see it as weakness or as an admission of guilt on our part. And having found that inclination in us, they exploit it to the hilt.
So I would exhort everybody to stop the self-condemnation or accepting guilt. Some will say: ''I don't feel personal guilt, but I know our ancestors did some pretty bad things." Really? Why not give the benefit of the doubt to your forebears? None of us would probably exist today if our forebears had been as PC as many of us are. How can we judge or condemn them? They had a hard row to hoe; they faced many hard choices. Our colonist and pioneer forebears grew up in a very different time in which today's obsessions and taboos were unknown. Universalistic, sentimentalist notions about human nature did not work in their hard-scrabble world. Their world was blessedly free of the ideas of Marx, Rousseau, Freud, and other such 'founding fathers' of today's insanity.
Let's give them some credit. I believe in honoring my fathers and mothers. I refuse to cast blame on them as a way of appeasing anybody.
The next time somebody uses the word ''racist'', I think it might be a good exercise, or a useful tactic perhaps, to challenge that word, asking for a precise definition. The word ''racist'' in the beginning was applied to people who acted out against minorities, who committed illegal acts: harassment, assault, threats of harm, murder. Those things are crimes already and should be prosecuted as such. Whoever does those things is already reprehensible; we don't need a special label to describe their criminal acts. In fact, many on the right deplore the idea of ''hate crimes'', under which laws people are punished more severely for their intentions or thoughts or attitudes toward certain groups. Punish wrongdoers for their acts, as the law prescribes, but not for their thoughts, feelings, or attitudes, or opinions. The idea of 'racism' is the prototype of the so-called 'hate crime' idea.
The 'race card' is mean to single out and punish certain people who hold politically incorrect ideas about certain groups of people. It is also meant to intimidate the White public at large, to demonstrate to them the dangers implicit in speaking too honestly. It's a weapon that is being used to corral us and keep us in our place. We learn to censor or to guard what we say, or to keep our mouths shut lest we incur the consequences of being a heretic on the subject of race.
I think the word 'racist' should be used to describe only people whose behavior or acts physically harm, or threaten harm to another. However, we already have laws against such behavior.
As far as using certain taboo words or displaying certain symbols, those things should not be punishable by law. In this country we have movements to ban the Confederate Battle Flag as a ''symbol of hate''. In the UK, Moslems have complained about the Union Jack and the St. George's flag, as well as the cross in general. This kind of totalitarianism had its inception in the 'race card' mentality; if one is of a protected group, one can single-handedly censor someone else, or silence them, or prohibit them from displaying certain symbols.
As for the word ''hate'' which is another favorite word in the leftist lexicon, it too is overused and abused. Every time someone criticizes or expresses disapproval of certain protected groups, the word ''hate'' is immediately called into action. I think it should fall under ''Godwin's Law"; the first person to call ''hater'' is automatically the loser in the debate. It is, like ''racism'', just used to silence and intimidate and label someone whose ideas threaten the left or their minority clients.
The word 'prejudice' is one that applies to our enemies more than to our side; likewise the term 'bigot' which simply describes a closed-minded, rigid, narrow person. Minorities, feminists, gays, are all groups who often hold bigoted opinions about straight, White Americans, most especially Christians and Southrons. Yet the professional victims cannot see these qualities in themselves, so full of their own self-righteousness are they.
I keep hearing that the 'race card is maxed out', and indeed it is; it has been for a long time, but many people are just now noticing it. The left is morally bankrupt but somehow just by inertia they seem to keep going. At some point we have to stop running, we have to stop conceding to them. We have to defend our forefathers, our heritage, and ourselves against their constant nagging, badgering, and accusing. When will we finally do that?
What does it mean? Why did it apparently need to be invented or coined? Some credit (or blame) Leon Trotsky for the word's invention, some blame others on the left. I am not sure who first used the word, but the main thing is, what does it mean now?
If I asked several random people what it meant, I would probably get varying answers; most people would probably mention something about 'hate' since that is another seemingly indispensable word in the 21st century English vocabulary. However I think that not only would there be varying definitions among individuals, there would be different definitions according to race and ancestry. I would wager that most blacks would define the word much more broadly and inclusively than Whites, and the same would probably be true of minorities generally.
However if these following examples indicate anything, it appears the word 'racism' is becoming more and more broadly and subjectively defined. For instance, 'future time orientation' is racist, according to Seattle School Dist.
Watermelon is a symbol of racism
Mr. Potato Head is racist
"Lord of the Rings" is racist
The word ''niggardly'' is racist.
Golliwogs are racist.
Criticizing Islam is racist. Of course.
Criticizing illegal immigration is racist, as we all know, and criticizing legal immigration is even worse.
And it is true that anything which is associated exclusively, or predominantly, with White people is 'racist.'
I remember the time when the word was not in the vocabulary of most people. During the early days of the Civil Rights era, the word that was bandied about to describe those who opposed forcible integration was ''prejudiced'' or ''bigoted.''
We can split hairs on the word ''prejudice''; it means ''an opinion about someone or something that is not based on reason or experience.'' That is the standard, traditional definition, and as such, it does not include the 'realist' opinions held by older generations of Americans. Their realism was based on history, observation, real life experience, and statistics. It was not, as some would have it, based on fanciful pre-conceived notions or irrational ''hate''.
Maybe the fact that the word 'prejudice' is not truly fitting in this context led to the popularizing of the neologism, 'racism.'
It came to be established, via the constant use of this word, that a negative assessment of someone of another race was a particular and unique kind of sin or, more properly, thoughtcrime. Somehow it was deemed more immoral or 'hateful' to criticize those of another race, and even more so if one chose to associate with those of one's own group.
At first, when the word 'racism' was used, it was used to describe the most egregious behavior towards those of other races, such as harassing, threatening, or attacking them without provocation, ''just because of their skin color''. Over time, the word became more and more loosely and liberally used, so that today it is absurdly applied to all kinds of ideas or products or words or attitudes. And worst of all, it is arbitrarily and subjectively defined and applied. Since none of us can anticipate every instance of behavior or speech that will be labeled ''racist'', we cannot be sure when or if we will be ambushed with that word, and of course the accusation is always assumed to be true, once having been made. Why? Because it is a given that 'Whites are racist' and that minorities don't lie about such things -- to even hint that they are capable of it is to be ''racist.'' So if you protest or deny it, you are making your accuser a liar -- and that's racist. You cannot win. Heads he wins, tails you lose.
The news media, the entertainment media, textbooks, web pages, all of them represent the acceptable, politically correct, anti-White perspective. There are a few isolated exceptions, but the fact that most of the information and discussion in our society excludes all but the PC point of view makes it certain that people begin to buy into it. This is most true of young people, because they have not known any world other than the racially-charged, obsessively anti-White world of today. Their perceptions of the past have been manipulated by Hollywood movies, TV programming, popular books, music, schools -- everything, in other words.
Most Americans would probably agree with the statement that America had a ''racist past.'' But what exactly do they understand by that phrase? Do they mean the Hollywood version of American history, things like Harper Lee's 'To Kill A Mockingbird', or Mississippi Burning, or any number of other movies with a PC message? Or do they simply think it means that yes, the races were separated in the past, especiallly in the South? Quite likely they think of slavery, and are convinced that slavery was 'an abomination', as someone on AmRen (a 'race realist') said recently. Those kinds of opinions are not uncommon even there. I think it's the old White guilt thing, or perhaps the desire to 'be fair' and concede something to the other side in the name of conciliation.
In any case, whether slavery was 'an abomination' or not, it is in the past. No White American of today is guilty of keeping slaves, and no black or other American of today has been a slave.
I see no reason to yield any ground to the other side, whether to minority partisans who want to accuse and condemn, or to White 'progressives' (read: renegades) who side with everyone but their own people. It makes us look weak; it is not appreciated by the other side. They are not impressed by our attempt at magnanimity or conciliation or self-examination. They simply see it as weakness or as an admission of guilt on our part. And having found that inclination in us, they exploit it to the hilt.
So I would exhort everybody to stop the self-condemnation or accepting guilt. Some will say: ''I don't feel personal guilt, but I know our ancestors did some pretty bad things." Really? Why not give the benefit of the doubt to your forebears? None of us would probably exist today if our forebears had been as PC as many of us are. How can we judge or condemn them? They had a hard row to hoe; they faced many hard choices. Our colonist and pioneer forebears grew up in a very different time in which today's obsessions and taboos were unknown. Universalistic, sentimentalist notions about human nature did not work in their hard-scrabble world. Their world was blessedly free of the ideas of Marx, Rousseau, Freud, and other such 'founding fathers' of today's insanity.
Let's give them some credit. I believe in honoring my fathers and mothers. I refuse to cast blame on them as a way of appeasing anybody.
The next time somebody uses the word ''racist'', I think it might be a good exercise, or a useful tactic perhaps, to challenge that word, asking for a precise definition. The word ''racist'' in the beginning was applied to people who acted out against minorities, who committed illegal acts: harassment, assault, threats of harm, murder. Those things are crimes already and should be prosecuted as such. Whoever does those things is already reprehensible; we don't need a special label to describe their criminal acts. In fact, many on the right deplore the idea of ''hate crimes'', under which laws people are punished more severely for their intentions or thoughts or attitudes toward certain groups. Punish wrongdoers for their acts, as the law prescribes, but not for their thoughts, feelings, or attitudes, or opinions. The idea of 'racism' is the prototype of the so-called 'hate crime' idea.
The 'race card' is mean to single out and punish certain people who hold politically incorrect ideas about certain groups of people. It is also meant to intimidate the White public at large, to demonstrate to them the dangers implicit in speaking too honestly. It's a weapon that is being used to corral us and keep us in our place. We learn to censor or to guard what we say, or to keep our mouths shut lest we incur the consequences of being a heretic on the subject of race.
I think the word 'racist' should be used to describe only people whose behavior or acts physically harm, or threaten harm to another. However, we already have laws against such behavior.
As far as using certain taboo words or displaying certain symbols, those things should not be punishable by law. In this country we have movements to ban the Confederate Battle Flag as a ''symbol of hate''. In the UK, Moslems have complained about the Union Jack and the St. George's flag, as well as the cross in general. This kind of totalitarianism had its inception in the 'race card' mentality; if one is of a protected group, one can single-handedly censor someone else, or silence them, or prohibit them from displaying certain symbols.
As for the word ''hate'' which is another favorite word in the leftist lexicon, it too is overused and abused. Every time someone criticizes or expresses disapproval of certain protected groups, the word ''hate'' is immediately called into action. I think it should fall under ''Godwin's Law"; the first person to call ''hater'' is automatically the loser in the debate. It is, like ''racism'', just used to silence and intimidate and label someone whose ideas threaten the left or their minority clients.
The word 'prejudice' is one that applies to our enemies more than to our side; likewise the term 'bigot' which simply describes a closed-minded, rigid, narrow person. Minorities, feminists, gays, are all groups who often hold bigoted opinions about straight, White Americans, most especially Christians and Southrons. Yet the professional victims cannot see these qualities in themselves, so full of their own self-righteousness are they.
I keep hearing that the 'race card is maxed out', and indeed it is; it has been for a long time, but many people are just now noticing it. The left is morally bankrupt but somehow just by inertia they seem to keep going. At some point we have to stop running, we have to stop conceding to them. We have to defend our forefathers, our heritage, and ourselves against their constant nagging, badgering, and accusing. When will we finally do that?
Labels: Cultural Marxism, Language, Political Correctness, Race Card, Victimolatry