Racism

[Astonished]

You can't really eliminate racism unless you give the population a collective lobotomy.

I don't think it needs to be quite that extreme (and coming from me, that's saying something). Our brains are designed to compartmentalize, that's just how they work, so we can't help separating things into categories, as I've learned in psychology and sociology classes I've taken. What we can and should do, collectively, is be conscientious of this and take responsibility for what we say and do when it comes to people from different ethnic backgrounds, like catch ourselves when we are about to make an assumption based only on their race or ethnicity and think twice so we're not offensive or treat them differently for no other reason than that. We're none of us perfect but we can be better and do better. We'll never understand why we do half the stupid shit we do but we can try to curb our stupidity as far as creating more divisiveness along racial lines.

[The Valkyrie]

Is it racism to want to kill almost everyone who isn't me?

[Interaktive]

But what about the principle - divide and conquer? To separate and fight it is necessary to consider one social group better than another.

[ErGingerbreadMandude]

Isn't divide and conquer about attacking from the inside? Create disputes within a stronger enemy to destabilize and weaken them from the inside. Cool strategy but a pussy move nevertheless.

[ignoramus]

[paulpablo]

We don't take to kindly to ya mountain folk around these here parts.

It certainly does seem to be a cause of slavery if nothing else...

I think if you retract race from any situation involving slavery, slavery still happens.

For instance if Africa was populated by relatively not very well armed tribes of white people that don't have the best technology on the planet, and they're sitting on a lot of land and a lot of resources....slavery and colonization still happens.

[Mister Agenda]

To kill from a sense of superiority, you have to be a racist?

Possibly. But a sense of superiority is far from the only reason to go to war.

[Astonished]

It certainly does seem to be a cause of slavery if nothing else...

I think if you retract race from any situation involving slavery, slavery still happens.

For instance if Africa was populated by relatively not very well armed tribes of white people that don't have the best technology on the planet, and they're sitting on a lot of land and a lot of resources....slavery and colonization still happens.

Well, the difference in skin color was what made it so easy for them to differentiate. Finding and positively identifying escaped slaves of the same pigment as the slave masters isn't exactly feasible. So perception of race gave them a readily available means of both justifying (they're DIFFERENT from us! We can SEE the difference!) and keeping track (Hey, that person's darker than us...maybe they're an escaped slave!), at least in American slavery.

[Mister Agenda]

Racism


Without racism, there is no war,

No...that's not true at all. What about greed? What about power? I think most wars have nothing to do with racism.

Racism is useful for drumming up public support for a war, but the real reasons for war are usually found within the pockets of special interest groups or the hidden agendas of officials.

We may be in the Iraq quagmire ultimately because of the junior Bush's daddy issues.

---

Religion breeds ethnicism
get rid of that you get rid of many problems. 
Racism would only apply if there was sub races of human's but there isn't. 
Ethnicism would be the correct term.

It doesn't matter. Humans tend to coalesce around in-groups and focus their energies on out-groups. Eliminate one difference -- say, ban religion altogether, worldwide, and have that stick for say a thousand years -- it won't eliminate "problems", because we humans have it built deep into us to identify in-groups and out-groups, and accord favorable or unfavorable treatment along those lines. Eliminate racism? Then we'll pick on the rich, or the poor, or the nonbelievers, or the vegetarians, or ...

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that that tendency far predates the rise of even A. Afarensis.

You don't effectively spread your genes by giving other bands of primates equality. Social groups are in genetic competition within species and the ones that smacked down rivals for the same resources left more descendants than the groups that didn't.

[Astonished]

No...that's not true at all. What about greed? What about power? I think most wars have nothing to do with racism.

Racism is useful for drumming up public support for a war, but the real reasons for war are usually found within the pockets of special interest groups or the hidden agendas of officials.

We may be in the Iraq quagmire ultimately because of the junior Bush's daddy issues.

---

It doesn't matter. Humans tend to coalesce around in-groups and focus their energies on out-groups. Eliminate one difference -- say, ban religion altogether, worldwide, and have that stick for say a thousand years -- it won't eliminate "problems", because we humans have it built deep into us to identify in-groups and out-groups, and accord favorable or unfavorable treatment along those lines. Eliminate racism? Then we'll pick on the rich, or the poor, or the nonbelievers, or the vegetarians, or ...

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that that tendency far predates the rise of even A. Afarensis.

You don't effectively spread your genes by giving other bands of primates equality. Social groups are in genetic competition within species and the ones that smacked down rivals for the same resources left more descendants than the groups that didn't.

And also useful for finding cannon fodder for those wars according to those in power. It's easy to build public support for it when the majority group is able to think, "Well, at least it's not OUR kids who'll be going over there and dying."