permaculture

["Toshio Kuratomi" <a.badger@gmail.com>]

On 5/28/07, Lawrence F. London, Jr. <lfl@intrex.net> wrote:
> Robert Waldrop wrote:
>
> > Racism is alive and well in the United States.  We
> > just don't call it by that name anymore.
>
> It isn't racism, Robert, its greed. Racism is a waste of time and doesn't 
> produce profit;
> its applied as a tool, unemotionally, to justify theft.
Nah.  Racism is still very viable in the United States.  How many
times is a "white person" complimented on how good their English is?
How many times do you make small talk with a white person by asking
what country they're from?  How often do you find it sad that their
parents didn't teach them "their language"?  How often do you talk to
a white person with blonde hair and say, oh, my sister-in-law is
Swedish, do you know the Fredens?"

There's a million half-conscious ways in which the dominant culture
offends minority cultures without realizing it, without intending to,
and definitely not profitting from it.

And for people who would like to deny that any of the above examples
are racist, consider: The effect of each of those statements is to
separate the "American" from the foreigner.  The recipient of the
statement is being told that their kind will never be as American as
the speaker, not because of their abilities or where they were born
but merely because of what they look like or where their great-great
grandparents emigrated from.  They, and their children are forever
destined to be identified as a "foreigner".

-Toshio