Leftists Purging History or Al Queda in America

[Thumpalumpacus]

[Cyberman]

Hmm, I guess I don't follow. Racism is defined as prejudice against someone of another race. I don't see how a person's assessment can be racist if it had nothing to do with any sort of prejudice against another race.

Point of clarification. Racism is prejudice against a person of another race based on the stereotypes or characteristics of that race. I could call someone of any race a fucking arsehole with relative impunity; but the moment I call them a fucking (insert racial epithet) arsehole, I'm being racist.

[Catholic_Lady]

[Thumpalumpacus]

Yes, I am not saying those people aren't supremacist. I'm referring to other people who weren't protesting with those guys, but who think the statues should stay up - such as Neo and other people I'm friends with.

Choose your friends wisely. When you lay down with dogs, you're bound to get fleas.

[LadyForCamus]

[Amarok]

Racism is also a apathy to exploitation of a racial group . The soldiers may not have fought for slavery but most clearly had no qualms about fight for a government that did or at the most generous tolerated and promoted it. And no there is not a different perspective it's pure horror plain and simple. And we demean that cruelty and inhumanity  by treating it like it's just another perspective . Were talking about people who thought of other human beings like this.

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Catholic_Lady Wrote: [url=https://atheistforums.org/post-1605126.html#pid1605126][/url]I just feel like in our society we have this problem where we tend to take the absolute least possible charitable approach to someone who disagrees with us about something. And not only do we do that, but we do it in masses. We negatively label, not even individual people, but entire groups of people who disagree with us about something. I see this coming from all sides.

This is not about disagreement .

[Thumpalumpacus]

Let's not forget their fear of losing congressional power granted by the three fifths compromise....which, amusingly, abolition strengthened - leading to years of congressional dominance by the south - which they used to perpetuate the inequality they'd lost a war fighting for.  It was during -this- time that those statues went up, a literal whitewashing of history.  So, if some "statue enthusiast" wants to talk history and heritage...there's their history and heritage - probably ought to nail it round their necks.

They also knew that per the Missouri compromise, the only land available as possibly future slave-states was the desert Southwest, where agriculture wouldn't flourish until modern irrigation and hence slavery would not be economical.

Given that, it was likely that they would in the Senate lose power relative to nonslave states and thus abolitionists, leading to a Senate that would vote for abolition. Given the disparity in population between the North and the South, the South could have no hope of controlling the House of Representatives. And that meant that slavery would be much easier to outlaw even without Constitutional redress.

[Catholic_Lady]

I just feel like in our society we have this problem where we tend to take the absolute least possible charitable approach to someone who disagrees with us about something. And not only do we do that, but we do it in masses. We negatively label, not even individual people, but entire groups of people who disagree with us about something. I see this coming from all sides.

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Yes, I am not saying those people aren't supremacist. I'm referring to other people who weren't protesting with those guys, but who think the statues should stay up - such as Neo and other people I'm friends with.

But, CL...If you are peacefully protesting somewhere and those guys show up, chanting, looking like that, and you decide to hang around anyway...what does that say about you?

I don't know anyone who was peacefully protesting when the nazis showed up, but if I did, I guess I'd have to hear from them about what their thought process was and why they stayed even after those mofos showed up. But I would definitely not automatically label them racist and dismiss them as friends for it. I'd hear them out and consider that their motives may not be stemming from racism or any type of hate.

[Thumpalumpacus]

But, does it matter whether the north really cared about the slaves?  That doesn't alter what the confederacy stood for, or what the statues of its leaders symbolize today.

I am not saying it matters. Im just saying that if someone sees it differently or has a different interpretation, they aren't necessarily racist. If they are incorrect in their assessment of history, that makes them wrong, but it doesn't, in and of itself, make them racist.

Not all interpretations are equal, and when the interpretation is racist, it ought to be called as such. This history is available in the public domain, and there is no excuse for someone holding an opinion on the matter and yet being ignorant of the antecedents or ramifications of his or her perspective. In civic life, opinions don't exist in vacuums. They affect fellow citizens.

As for trying to be even-handed about this, perhaps you should read up on the matter before pleading for some false equivalency. If you want to be neutral about this that's your business, but in the words of Neil Peart (in another context) "if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice."

[Shell B]

What do you mean after the Nazis showed up, CL? The racists started the protest. The people who are dressed like your run-of-the-mill folks might not have swastikas tattooed on them, but they were chanting racist shit. Just watch the videos.