Saturday, March 14, 2009

Racism

Someone just replied to a months-old post , where I was poking fun at the now-defunct "Gold Fo Ya Mouth". They accused me of being racist. I live in an Ohio town of around 25,000, with a relatively small minority population. I saw little racism. What showed was from people who I considered ignorant, even before I witnessed their racism. I joined the Air force, and was further insulated from racism. I was in my late 20's before I finally realized that there are some otherwise normal but racist people who use the N word and mean it. It was as shocking as discovering that there were relatively intelligent people who don't read for fun, at about the same age. I don't think there are practical differences between races, and any average differences are massively overwhelmed by individual and environmental differences. I am very prejudiced against thugs and thug cultures. What I know of hiphop culture qualifies as thug--glorifying violence, misogyny and crime. It isn't a race thing--I've got the same prejudice against outlaw biker culture and white supremacist culture for the same reasons. My tastes run to practical and functional--I don't like excessive and useless decoration, whether it is grills, gigantic cowboy belt buckles, riced out cars, gigantic monster trucks, or overdone, tacky BBQ guns.

5 comments:

  1. Don't sweat it Sev,

    I consider anonymous posts drivel and trash for the most part because they don't have the fortitude or conviction to post in such a way that you can respond. It's obvious that you just posted an amusing (disturbing) photo of how deep the decline in society is.

    By the way I read all of your post and find the discussions on watches fascinating, keep it up!

    Regards,
    Albert A Rasch
    The Rasch Outdoor Chronicles
    The Range Reviews: Tactical
    Proud Member of Outdoor Bloggers Summit
    Southeast Regional OBS Coordinator

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  2. LOL - I'd never seen Law Dog's post on court guns.

    Got to say, though: it may be a sign of a character flaw to want mamoth ivory grips, but I want 'em. ;-)

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  3. Sev,

    If you would be so kind as to email me, I have a watch question that perhaps you may be able to assist me with.

    Regards,
    Albert A Rasch
    The Rasch Outdoor Chronicles
    The Range Reviews: Tactical

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thinking a thug with a mouth full of phony gold is stupid isn't racist..it's honest.

    They have no one to blame for their failings other then their own idiotic "kultcha"

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  5. As an Anthro major I had to study physical anthropology, and a good deal of primatology was bound up in that. I also had the chance to spend time studying it briefly in a unique European setting, Vienna Austria. Part of the problem is that over here what we call Anthropology is called Sociology over there. So they take Culture out of the equation making it less balanced. When I studied Anthropology there it was all physical anthro, all the time. Part/problem is that over there they're obsessed with minute physical differences the way a butterfly collector is with wing variations on a Monarch, or a Haute Couture Fashionista is with Cindy Crawford's mole.
    From that experience I learned that "race" was still particularly important, but mainly to some academics whose livelihood was bound up in cataloging various forehead tape-measurements and other diagrammatic curiosities. Really the least critical and important of Humanity's surface texture. BUT it's an academic tradition dating back to tyhe 19th Century when everything was all about taxonomy, and cross-indexed car-catalogs ruled the University.
    In reality "race" was still important in Acadaeme, only and simply based on years of weighty momentum, of earlier career-building academic study and achievement. The ivory tower rolling-stone doesn't easily slow down to moss-growing when the Bureaucracy is still pushing it uphill.
    But "race" itself is the really the least important and the most vestigial trace element of Humans. It's often the easiest change anyone can make - but they can't make it themselves. In one generation an Australian aborigine loses the skin color, curly hair, and broad nose - because those are all idiosyncratic and random expressions of recessive genes that occur in only a very quirky circumstance (Australia) that brings them forth - and not one over which an individual has any power.

    I think that's the Mystery Cachet it maintains with awe-struck buffoons - we're powerless to do anything about it ourselves, but they insist that it is a defining and shaping event - even when it's not.
    Race is more random, peripheral, and haphazard than what/however events propelled a bunch of kids to wind up in the same Kindergarten class. Comparing those two random events is like making gold out of lead.

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