Racial Pride: The Dumbest Idea of All

I think everyone should be proud of who and what they are. Now thinking they are better than others because of that heritage, then that is what is damaging.

What a cold and colorless world rev must live in. What's really sad about it is that people who abhor religion and their ethnic heritage actually believe that they have evolved and see things more clearly than others. All the while they never really understanding what they have lost or, even worse, what they are depriving their children of. They also tend to be self involved types who must live for now and seek out withholding from the next generation.

I should also add that the same simple mindedness that leads them believe that they are smarter than those who embrace their religion and cultural heritage also leads them to misunderstanding the vast differences between the embrace of cultural identity and hatred of others. One does not automatically beget the other. Oh and I'm bunching the cultural and religious concepts because people who are inclined to stay true to one also often embrace the other to one degree or another.

For example, here in the southern tip of the Bible Belt, you will not find a kinder and more generous group of people than those who pack the Baptist, Catholic and the ample other local churches on Sunday. They often identify themselves not only by religion, but by region (Southern and proud) and some also by cultural heritage. Yet they are the reason why all the local homeless, of many different ethnicities I might add, have two hot squares a day plus all the clothes and toiletries they need. They are also the reason why anyone who does not want to be homeless or jobless does not have to be. They also take goods out to the more rural communities on a regular basis, including to the Latino farm crews who work during harvest season. I could go on.

I feel for people like rev because they live in a world so bereft of color and community that every day must feel like a painful search for meaning and/or diversion.

^ Where's that damned edit button when you need it, lol. The last sentence of the first paragraph got garbled with two different concepts.

^^The Rev lacks color? His posts are quite colorful. Lacking community? Who cares, he’s often hilarious, always entertaining.

I think @warrior15 said it best. But rick also made some good points

I can see both sides of the spectrum of the viewpoint, and not completely sure where I stand.

On one hand, I do feel like sometimes race can be a meaningless classification.

I say this, as somebody who is labeled as “Asian”. But I don’t really talk to my biological family. The white side I barely ever did. And the Filipino side, I quit after years of trying and realizing I’m never going to not be a black sheep to be picked on—no matter how I behave.

And honestly speaking, culturally I think I am closer to “white” anyways. Despite the fact that my facial features keeps me perceived as an Asian. And others like to define me as one. And I have played it up too because then I can feel all unique and special when I’m in the room. But deep down I don’t really “feel” any of my roots—on either my white or Filipino side.

BUT on the other hand...I am an individual who loves multiculturalism and eating different styles of food. And appreciating different styles of art. And observing and paying attention to how different people behave differently. I’ve read sociology type of literature for fun before.

It takes a certain amount of people deciding on having certain things in common, and then working together (even if informally) to create their own distinctive and unique society. And perhaps even subscribing to the “noble lie” that their way is the best way to make that happen.

There is a basic difference between taking pride in one's heritage and using that heritage as a sure sign of moral or physical superiority. Some of those sweet generous Southern Baptists wore hoods at Klan rallies. Some Catholics like Mother Teresa have lived selfless, useful lives, while others have become pedophiles or inflicted the Inquisition on others. Many Jews have been fabulous doctors or msthemticians that have made everyone's lives better. Others have used their talents to oppress others iin the Holy Land. The Japanese have a reputation for being hardworking, serene, generous people. Seventy-five years ago that same people had those same virtues perverted and twisted with visions of world domination and the right to crush other people with some of the most hideous examples of butchery and oppression ever seen in history. Ditto for the Italians, Germans, Russians, Spanish, an French. Same goes for Black Africans, Chinese, and eastern Indians. The same goes for our people, whose accomplishments are many, but whose less noble endeavors included genocide of the Native Americans and Canadians, the Nisei internment camps of WW2 and electing a thieiving, mysoginistic, xenophobe to be our President.

I think that the rev's point is that every race, every ethnicity and, I daresay, every one of us carries the capacity to do good, or to do evil in the world. I agree with the rev on that.

I have been doing some work on Ancestry.com to trace my roots, mostly from curiosity. I have done the DNA test and although I am one of the whitest people I know, I take no particular pride in being white. I am proud of some of the things my forefathers have accomplished, a few did things I am not so proud of. What matters is not the DNA that I got from them, but the values I got from them. My parents and to a lessor extent my grandparents gave me my value system, the importance of service to others.

Now my desire to play with naked young ladies is a taste I developed on my own. I can’t blame my race or my ancestors for that.

History is important. We need to see where we have been repeat the good and stop the bad!

I agree with your basic premise completely. How can one be “proud” or ashamed for that matter of something they had no control over. You didn’t choose to be white or black or whatever. And how can you be proud of something you didn’t do and had no part in? That’s just stupid.

I can be proud of the things that I have accomplished in my life but I don’t see how I can be proud of what my ancestors did. I am sure GLAD that they did some of those things but not proud.

Ricktheprokaryote will not be replaced by eukaryotes!

fishhawk quote... "Now my desire to play with naked young ladies is a taste I developed on my own. I can’t blame my race or my ancestors for that." i agree!

LOL! I hope my desire to play with naked young ladies never wanes.

@ATAC: I was about to respond to that post, but when I noticed your reference to a tiny country of a whopping 8 million people, surrounded by much larger countries with hundreds of millions of people who would like nothing more than to see them driven into the sea, as oppressors, I actually realized that you are too stupid to debate about pretty much anything. Now there's no doubt that Israel is far from blameless, but I think they've earned the right to be a bit defensive given what they've gone through and continue to experience every single day. 26 Arab countries still don't recognize Israel's right to exist.

And spare us the ridiculous Palestinian refugee nonsense - almost none of those so-called "refugees" were even alive when Israel was forced to occupy the Gaza Strip after being attacked by several Arab nations and those people could have easily been absorbed into the Arab world long ago - many of them already have dual citizenship with other Arab countries. The so-called refugee camps are nothing more than a political tool now designed to keep pressure on Israel.

Sorry ATAC - I meant when Israel fought the 1947-1949 Palestine War. The took the Gaza Strip in 1967 when several Arab nations decided to join forces to drive them into the sea.

Interesting points made by all!

But I have to take issue with FishHawk’s statement:

“Now my desire to play with naked young ladies is a taste I developed on my own. I can’t blame my race or my ancestors for that.”

I think I’m on solid ground when I say that each and everyone of us is descended from a VERY long line of extremely horny people. I think that is precisely why we are all so horny. It’s in our genes to be horny all the time.

Replicating our DNA is our first priority.

If you stop and think about it, a human being is just one way for a DNA molecule to make more DNA molecules.

Heaving, the Palestinian refugee situation was a result of the Palestine War, which ended in May of 1948, over 70 years ago. There may be a small number of true refugees left, but not many. Most of the so-called "refugees" are at least one or two generations removed. At some point enough is enough.

===> "They've won the wars waged on them of course, but does it give rights to do whatever to the people living on those lands including kicking them out or forcing conditions that would result in mass emigration? If the answer is yes, then sure it's a passable argument."

When you're fighting for your right to exist, yes. When you're fighting for a place to simply live because no other nation will take you in, then yes. Israel was quite literally the only place they had left to go to. They couldn't go back to live among the very people who had just tried to exterminate them (WW2) and the other nations weren't letting any more in. I really think you should study the historical context around how Israel was formed. I'm not saying that they didn't do some dirty stuff to carve out their nation, but if you had gone through what they did you would too.

Just a quick point @ATAc if you really were aware of the history of the holy land you’d not be so quick to parrot the Palestinian line, truth is Israel asked them in 1947 to stay and be part of the state, but Nasser told them to leave and help the Arab armies clear the Jews from the holy land and the majority of so called refugees were part and parcel of the Arab armies leaving the Jews to stand up to the overwhelming forces, at first it looked pretty grim, but Harry Truman recognized the state of Israel and the Jews prevailed One further note there has been a continued Jewish presence in the Holy Land for thousands of years, and most of the Jews in the Arab countries were kicked out since 1948 large Jewish communities in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Iran and most other Arab states have shrunk to a mere handful of people, so let’s be real about this, don’t need to agree with the Israeli government about every thing but if the Arabs had their way they’d drive Israel into the sea.

Palestine refugees are defined as “persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict.”

There were about 300,000 people also displaced by the War of 1967, but half of them consisted of original Palestine refugees from the earlier conflict.

But also keep in mind that the they weren't innocent bystanders either. They participated in the efforts to exterminate Israel. They attacked and they lost, pure and simple. It's time for their children, grandchildren and even great grand children to move on.

I once sat in on a University lecture with a Palestinian student who spoke, in a nostalgic voice, about how her grandfather still remember the smell of his favorite lemon tree. The whole time I was thinking that she should just get her own piece of land in Jordan and plant her own fucking lemon tree already. This is the crap they keep perpetuating and it's getting silly now.

This post has caused several commentators to do some of the better more comprehensible writing I’ve seen here in awhile. It’s unfortunate that it degraded into the Middle East situation. Over the past 50 years some of history’s better diplomats have failed to settle the questions and problems which exist in that part of the world. I’m not optimistic that several pathetic losers will settle anything. Now on the Most Reverend’s point: I grew up in a family that was dirt poor.(I.e., our home which was the cellar on an unbuilt home) had one fire place for heat until I was 11 years old. But I knew that my family heritage went back to Plymouth in 1632. I was shown the family bible which traced my genealogy through the centuries and I knew every ancestor was a WASP (white Anglo-Saxon Protestant). I knew that the whole family expected me to succeed. I later saw where friends of my father sat on scholarship committees which helped me get an education. I also knew I had an African American friend ( from one of the two AA families in town) who’s family expected him to drop out of school and if lucky, to get a factory job. This I now recognize as white privilege. The good Rev. points out in his own cryptic way that we’re all alike and what happened generations ago should have no bearing on the present. But sadly. it does. I don’t necessarily think reparations are in order but I feel it builds an argument for affirmative action.

Heaving, the 300k included people who were considered "refugees" but then resettled in Gaza.

You're not a refugee if you were never displaced to begin with, which is the case for all but a tiny percentage of the modern day "refugees." Israel is never going to allow millions of Jordanian and Egyptian citizens, er, I mean "refugees", to integrate into their tiny country and foment endless trouble from within, nor would any country in the same position. So this is nothing but a goofy fiction that the Arab nations, with ample U.N. assistance, continue to perpetuate for ongoing political benefit.

There have been countless attempts to solve the purported refugee problem, from giving them statehood to massive amounts of aid. But the truth of the matter is that nobody on the Arab side wants Palestine to settle in as a peaceful nation as the whole refugee thing is just too useful as a propaganda tool. So the nonsense just keeps rolling on and on and on.

@ Gawker I have no illusions about PLs being able to solve the Middle East Conundrum, unfortunately the majority of people that are alive today are getting a totally false narrative with regard to the state of Israel and the Palestine debate that Israel is an oppressive nation, until the narrative is corrected these young people are uninformed as to what the truth is.

WTF did I just read?

S25 and rick. Please do not misunderstand my comments about Israel. They do indeed have a helluva situation on their hands, one that I would never want for myself.

In point of fact, why does Israel exist at all? It exists because of Partition, when the lad was split apart from the rest of Arabia in 1948 by the rest of the world with any heed given to those people who were already living there. Why was this done? Because the world still felt the horror for 6,000,000 slaughtered Jews and thought they needed a homeland. By what "right" was this homeland carved out of turf already occupied by Arabs? None that I can think of that is legitimate! The Promised Land? Maybe, but don't forget that promise was fulfilled at the expense of the Canaanites and Moabites and a host of other "ites" who were there first.

So, now, we have 8,000,000 people living there who undeniably have a right to exist, but those people have erected a tall wall, denied voting rights and done a lot of things that have created a "getto". Sound familiar? It should.

So, rick, if what I think of the overall situation in the Mideast makes me "too stupid" to be worthy of debate with your intellectual greatness, so be it. Rest assured, I won't lose any sleep over that.

@25. I was aware of that. However, Nasser and his dreams of all Arabs united under his leadership aside, how would you react as a Jew living in Israel if a United Nations edict suddenly said that your lands belonged to someone else? Would you elect to stay and become a part of that new nation? I doubt that.

So, what is the solution for Israel? I'm not sure there is one as long as people on both sides are willing to forgive and forget. Given the long racial, religious and familial memories in that area of the world, the present situation may be the best we can hope for....

But that still doesn't make it right.

Let me also say that my ATF was raised Catholic, my close to ATF is Jewish, as is another of my favorites in the club. I am a Presbyterian. One of our former heads of the church was Ben Weir, who was abducted and held by Palestinian terrorists for three years before he escaped. Despite this, he has never wavered from his commitment to peace and justice in the Mideast. If the world had more people like Ben and Nelson Mamdella in positions of leadership, the world would be a far better place.

Mandella

Well said, ATACdawg.

Getting back to the original subject I stand corrected by the good Rev. We are programmed to breed and who we want to breed with is women in their late teens to about 30. They are fertile and we like em like that.

@ATAC what would you suggest the Israelis do or better yet how would you react if all of a sudden the Canadians decided to start lobbing bombs across the border because they didn’t like the results of the election in 2016, I mean it’s a ridiculous defense that the palestinians have settled on most all of them were born long after the state of Israel was established and very few of them have a real link to any real part of the land, it’s not a valid argument any more

25, I said that Israel has a right to exist. The radical factions of the PLO and its decendants have done egregious things and yes, I can absolutely see how the Israelis feel a constant need to push back.

And this is exactly how things started in Germany after the onerous repayments required by the Allied powers after the First World War and the failure of the Weimar Republic - the way was opened for the Nazis led by a dangerous demagogue. Fears about our own economy and loss of jobs to illegal immigrants allowed the election of our own orange-haired, totally unqualified bufoon and his cronies.

The Canadians certainly aren't blameless either. The Indian Schools were essentially a cultural genocide in which First Nations children were pulled out of their families and transported to these schools, sometimes hundreds or even thousands of miles from home. At these schools, speaking anything but English was grounds for physical punishment. As far as I know, every dialect of the Iroquoi, Huron, Algonquin and Inuit peoples was wiped out in the space of two generations, all with the well-intentioned intent of "helping" the Indians to integrate and better function in white society.

How do I know this? I lived a lot of my early life in Brantford, Ontario. Our neighborhood abutted directly on Mohawk cornfields. As the crow flew, I lived about four miles from the Mohawk Institute, one of those terrible Indian schools. The goverment kept a pretty tight lid on what went on in these places, but those of us with Indian friends knew the score.

My real point in these discussions is that every last one of us possesses the capabiltyof both good and evil. The fact that one of our fellow human beings does evil to us does not remove our responsibilty to act with humanity ourselves.

I honestly can't say how I could improve the situation in Israel. The ill feelings that began in 1948 have gotten worse with time, and the level of distrust on both sides probably hit the tipping point years ago. While not technically refugees, all those Palestinian youths who grew up in refugee camps, surrounded by the vitriol of their elders, and afflicted by constant unemployment have grown up bitter. Israel, willingly or not, has got ownership of part of these problems. The easy path is to lob rockets back. The path to a just and lasting peace will be a lot harder.

And BTW, I dont "parrot the Palestinian line", any more that I parrot the Israeli line. Rather, I try to see both sides of every issue.

ATAC, this is not a situation of equal aggression from both sides. Does anyone in their right mind really believe that a country about the size and population of New Jersey wants conflict with hundreds of millions of Arabs populating the countries surrounding it on all sides? Does anyone not believe that they've offered massive amount of aid and whatever else they could think of over the years to put an end to this never-ending crap sandwich? They have.

Now you'll now doubt trot out their control over the West Bank and travel through Gaza as just cause. Does anyone really believe that they want to occupy either? In fact, they've tried pulling back in negotiated settlements before, but every fucking time they do so someones starts using those places as bases to lob rockets at Israeli cities and civilian settlements and it doesn't stop until Israel re-establishes control.

Does anyone think that Israel wants to have every adult man and woman spend two years in the military? Would you want your own daughter trained to kill people with automatic weapons? Do you think they want to live in perpetual fear of rockets, suicide bombers or even an all out offensive, as they do now?

The real problem is that the Arabs don't want any solution that doesn't involve the destruction of the Jewish state, either by direct conflict or through forcing Israel to accept enough Arabs to create a population majority. Of course Israel isn't going to allow that, so the stalemate continues.

What really needs to happen is the complete disbanding of these camps. They are a ridiculous joke anyway as there are few original refugees left in them. I'm sure that Israel would gladly contribute significant sums of money to the cause, including relocation and permanent construction funds. Maybe Trump can start pushing that agenda item once he is re-elected.

Rick, did you read a damn thing that I wrote? Smh.

ATAC, then what was your last paragraph meant to convey? You talked about distrust on both sides and then espoused that Israel needs to take some enhanced level of ownership, as if they haven't already been trying everything humanly possible. Perhaps you forgot that you wrote that last piece?

This thread is so far off topic. Rev was espousing that pride of ones race to the level that one thinks his race is superior is a worthless and even damaging attitude.

How it got to discussing Israel (a nationality) and Jewish (a religion) situations is curious. Maybe y’all need your own thread? BTW, pretty sure you’re not going to solve the middle eastern problem or even change the mind of one person. This is a Ford/Chevy conversation that has no end and just makes lots of noise.

@ATAC I’m not going to continue to argue about this but the politics of your position is how wars start this is not a see things objectively on both sides issue, it’s a simple right to exist if the Arabs want peace they will acknowledge that Israel has a right to exist as long as majorities deny this the region will not have peace and that’s the reality of the situation. There is simply nothing to discuss until that is acknowledged

iv'e had both chevies and fords butt currently i drive a prius.

(i want to see how far off topic this discussion goes.)

I think it's fine to be proud of and interested in your heritage.

But thinking that your heritage alone entitles you to anything at all is bullshit.

Nothing rong with racial pride lots rong with racial supremacy

"Black Pride" "Latino Pride" etc became popular as a direct result of those racial groups being treated socially and economically inferior; minority racial groups were treated as second class citizens, and they were made to feel like they were lesser than, which is NOT something to be proud of. That's why I don't think showing pride for that is silly.

On the other hand, I don't know why someone would say "white pride!" unless to reinforce hundreds of years of history of whites being considered the superior race in the western world.

Pride for actual heritage and culture makes sense, though. Foods, customs, language, and the like. Every ethnic group has contributed something.