Have you ever been accused of being racist?

[Trollhoffer]

Admit it; you're as tired about hearing about the plight of the Aboriginals as everyone else is.

Not saying it doesn't suck but there it is.

Twist ending -- I am Aboriginal!




Alright, I'm not, but that was quite a presumptuous thing to say on a few levels. For what it's worth, I'm second-generation Australian, so my upbringing was just as English and Austrian on behalf of my grandparents as it was Australian on account of my parents. I grew up under some different values with different influences and different role models, in tandem with the Australian usuals. To me, Australian culture trivialises problems, worships hypermasculinity and promotes anti-intellectualism. There are good elements, too, like the ball-breaking humour and good will (if you're white).

Largely, though, I think Australian culture does little to be constructive and I always found it alienating as someone who was brought up with some different ideas and a different approach to things. It doesn't at all hate people like me who differ significantly from what it likes best, but it doesn't go to any lengths to be inclusive, either. Australia isn't a socially forward-looking nation by any stretch of the imagination and I'm pretty fed up with it -- and that says a lot coming from a white male who was born here. One who lives in Melbourne no less, which is about as metropolitan and diverse as Australia gets (with the arguable exception of Sydney).

So I'd actually like to hear more about the Aboriginals -- perhaps if they had more of a say, I'd be living in a better country with more intellectual diversity and an approach to social problems that didn't end with dismissal.

 

[Lieju]

With such stellar arguments such as "Darwin was racist" and "Evolutionists claim that white people evolved from black and so are more evolved."

That's an odd one. Because it's actually more like, "White people wouldn't even fucking be here if it weren't for black people."

Or better yet, "Everyone in the world is a little bit African."

A lot of people who don't understand evolution think it's about becoming 'better'. 'We evolved from monkeys, to be better, white people evolved from black people, to become better'.

It's kind of a mixture of hilarious, despicable and annoying how I'm told by people like that what I believe in, because they obviously know, based on their ideas about 'evolutionists'...

I tried explaining one of them why people adapted to have white skin when they moved to Europe, and she went 'So you are claiming black people should move out of the US because they aren't adapted there!'

 

[The Ubermensch]

Spoiler: snip

Admit it; you're as tired about hearing about the plight of the Aboriginals as everyone else is.

Not saying it doesn't suck but there it is.

Twist ending -- I am Aboriginal!




Alright, I'm not, but that was quite a presumptuous thing to say on a few levels. For what it's worth, I'm second-generation Australian, so my upbringing was just as English and Austrian on behalf of my grandparents as it was Australian on account of my parents. I grew up under some different values with different influences and different role models, in tandem with the Australian usuals. To me, Australian culture trivialises problems, worships hypermasculinity and promotes anti-intellectualism. There are good elements, too, like the ball-breaking humour and good will (if you're white).

Largely, though, I think Australian culture does little to be constructive and I always found it alienating as someone who was brought up with some different ideas and a different approach to things. It doesn't at all hate people like me who differ significantly from what it likes best, but it doesn't go to any lengths to be inclusive, either. Australia isn't a socially forward-looking nation by any stretch of the imagination and I'm pretty fed up with it -- and that says a lot coming from a white male who was born here. One who lives in Melbourne no less, which is about as metropolitan and diverse as Australia gets (with the arguable exception of Sydney).

So I'd actually like to hear more about the Aboriginals -- perhaps if they had more of a say, I'd be living in a better country with more intellectual diversity and an approach to social problems that didn't end with dismissal.

You are preaching to the choir here, I was being facetious.

 

[Trollhoffer]

You are preaching to the choir here, I was being facetious.

My mistake and apologies, then.

Captcha: "Sea Change" -- wasn't that a show at some point, or am I remembering things wrong?

 

[The Ubermensch]

You are preaching to the choir here, I was being facetious.

My mistake and apologies, then.

Captcha: "Sea Change" -- wasn't that a show at some point, or am I remembering things wrong?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=sea+change+show

I know, I'm a comedic mastermind

 

[Thaluikhain]

Captcha: "Sea Change" -- wasn't that a show at some point, or am I remembering things wrong?

A show, and any number of crap imitations.

The way that half the Australian movie industry is rehashes of "The Castle".

 

[Happiness Assassin]

Only in a joking sense. When I was a kid I didn't even have a concept of race. In fact I am probably the most racially sensitive of my family.

 

[Spinozaad]

Quite often, especially when people aimed it at people of North-African ethnicity. "All Moroccans are lazy, criminal parasites", that kind of stuff.

People also have accused me of being racist, mainly for using the word "******." The people who accused me are the kind of hyper-sensitive people who find racism in every symbol that's explicitly not-racist. Those people are, in my eyes, simply PC.

 

[Sacman]

Nah... I'm a minority... and beyond being a minority I'm Native American... so there's enough white guilt going around I can get away with pretty much anything, as long as I say it in that stoic stereotypical indian voice... and refer to myself as Stampeding Eagle or something like that...<.<

 

[Giftfromme]

Yes but I actually am racist when it comes to the dating scene. I prefer white chicks and Europeans over Indians or Asians. But it's worse. I think I can do better than Indian or Asian chicks.

 

[Nieroshai]

I really do get it a lot... by angry white people offended for my friends, who aren't even slightly offended. They try to be "heroes" and tell me how much of a racist scumbag I am, which is when my friends usually tell them off. We rib each other all the time, me for my reflective whiteness etc. We just joke around, and somehow I'm Hitler. Of course, it works the other way; my friends make fun of me, in context, and others join in out of malice because I apparently deserve it.

Seriously, the only way racism will cease to be an issue is if we embrace our differences and enjoy them instead of thinking we need to completely blind ourselves in order not to experience another apartheid. I love my friends, we have fun and rib each other like all good friends do, we don't hate each other.

 

[Relish in Chaos]

Nope (not seriously, anyway), even though I?m ridiculously self-deprecating towards my own race whenever I talk about black or African affairs to my friends.

 

[Angie7F]

I have not been called racist, but I am sure I should be.
I am pretty aware that I am, because i am fearful of things that are different from what I am familiar with.
But at least I realize that...

 

[Jenvas1306]

I am german and have never been accused of being racist

 

[Something Amyss]

Ive not personally, but I see so many things about 'reverse racism', 'Politcal Correctness' and 'Double Standards' that I assume some of you have, as with any issue its better to talk about it then sweep it under the carpet, so please share your experiences and points of view.

'reverse racism' and 'political correctness' are often just buzzwords used by butthurt white boys who take the erosion of their social superiority as adversity in the face of a lack of any real adversity. People seem to apply the same with double standards, too.

I believe the internet calls this "first world problems."

 

[Leftnt Sharpe]

No, I have never been accused of any of the many 'isms'. I've learned by now that displaying intellectual independence is pretty suicidal in the modern Britain, the best thing to do is pretend to tow the party line and keep your head down. It makes life a lot easier, also the ability to lie to peoples faces helps.

 

[Glasgow]

Yeah, sure. They also used the wrong term because I wasn't racist, I was a bigot, and I couldn't stand the sight of fucking communists. It so happened that these guys weren't very white.

 

[Assassin Xaero]

Probably, but she never said it to my face. When I worked at McDonalds there was a woman there who was black and thought that she should get special treatment because of it, and I didn't put up with that.

 

[Calibanbutcher]

Apart from the jokes thrown around with friends that we're constantly being racist to everybody, I think I've only been called racist once.
It was on here, actually. I brought up that black people generally have a higher muscle density and therefore aren't as strong swimmers as people of other ethnicities. I didn't mean to insult anyone with it, I was just stating something I thought was true. Apparently posting such trivia is considered racism.
Can anyone confirm if that is actually true, the muscle density thing? I thought it was, but now I think about it, the only place I remember hearing it was from my dad.

It's not the muscle density, it's the center of gravity, which is typically a bit higher in black people than in caucasians, which is great for sprinting, since it allows to shift the body mass more efficiently, but worse for competitive swimming.
Also, black people do usually have a longer calcaneus, which gives their calf muscles better leverage and serves to make them more efficient and better runners.

 

[KelDG]

I have not been called racist, but I am sure I should be.
I am pretty aware that I am, because i am fearful of things that are different from what I am familiar with.
But at least I realize that...

Thats not racist, it is called being "fearful of things that are different from what you are familiar with".

Being racist takes an actual hatred of someone of a different race, the PC brigade have blurred that line rather nicely now though. Most things that are classed as racist now are really just ignorance, and that can be fixed by education, racism cannot.

That is my view on the matter anyway.