So, lets talk about racism for a minute

[Signa]

Spoiler: snip

Look at the situation in Australia.


White Australians have far greater life expectancies, higher paying jobs, (and higher employment in general), and higher incomes than the Aborigines of Australia.

Some people look at this and think it is sad. I am one of them.

But some of these people take it a step further to respond to the great disparities in Australia between Aborigines and other racial groups, (lets face it, it isn't only whites that have it better than the Aborigines), and try to give them advantages that others don't have so they can catch up, which they would theoretically do given some amount of time, (and one wouldn't expect it to be short given the hard time the Abos have had. I certain;y can't deny that.) But the thing is, the idea of affirmative action here is based on the assumption that aborigines have equal genetic drive to achieve materialistic things and intelligence to whites, Chinese, Indians, etc, and therefore won't need the support forever. I'm not sure this is the case.

I'm going to get a warning for this most likely but that's ok.

I think society should accept that some racial groups are generally better at certain things, so we shouldn't give them special advantages to achieve things in society that, even if it were made slightly easier for them, (compared to groups of people doing well), STILL would not catch up as a people. There are millions of animals on the earth and we have all evolved and are currently evolving. Is it so hard to believe that there are groups of homo erectus/humanoid beings in certain areas of this vast world who have generally significantly lower intellect than other groups of people?

http://jewamongyou.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/aboriginal-vs-slav.jpg?w=510

Guess which skull is the European's and which belongs to the Aborigine. Its not conclusive but it illustrates what I'm trying to say in the general sense.

By the way, I'm just generalizing. I'm sure there are Aborigines who are smarter than I am. Just not on average. If this still makes me a racist, which I imagine it probably does, then let it be so.

I already see a few posts calling you a racist. Remember, the dictionary definition of a racist is more or less anyone who tries to identify differences between people. What you don't want to be is a bigot. I don't think you're a bigot from this post. You should have done your research on those skulls though.

Without a proper study[footnote]heh, good luck on getting that one funded, you racist scientific studiers!![/footnote], it's hard to say whether your assertions are true or not. I've noticed several common stereotypes that are both positive and negative for different races. I don't know if it's a cultural thing or a genetic, but there's got to be a reason why Asians are so good at math and high-twitch video games. I also don't see a lot of Asians that are really physically strong either. It stands to reason that something causes these common differences between races, and genetics seems like a good place to start pointing the finger. As long as that finger isn't saying that a race is completely inferior and incapable of finding a place in human society, there's nothing wrong with noticing such things.

 

[Aposthebest]

I wonder if germany would give us (greece) back our stolen money from WW2 had we been of the opposite color...that would be an interesting twist! After all,they would be discriminating against us otherwise,right?

In anyway,if you ask me, positive discrimination is worse than the negative one. At least negative racism is out of fear of something different. Positive racism is like telling someone "here doggy,have some help on w.e you can't do yourself,it's ok don't worry,we want to have good PR by doing this".

 

[TheVioletBandit]

I don't think you need to concern yourself with me being a bit of a racist. Here's why:

If I could impose my will upon the nation of Australia, I wouldn't make abos slaves, or give them any less rights than other races, (this isn't about me thinking whites are superior intellectually, its about me thinking that many many races are superior intellectually to aborigines).

So you want to treat an entire group of people as less intelligent for ...let's just say dubious reasons, and it's not a problem just because you don't want them enslaved?

...I'm not quite sure what to say.

Incorrect.

I don't want to treat an entire group of people as less intelligent. -SNIP-[explanation why I don't like Affirmative Action]-SNIP-

Its just my opinion. Its not hurting you.

Spoiler: Of course it's hurting me!

Anyways, take a look at the bolded and underlined parts for a moment. Let me know when you see it.

As for why I care... while I can get behind and/or discuss whether Affirmative Action is a good/moral/useful/effective thing to do, I cannot abide by someone who thinks another race is less intelligent. Especially when the only evidence that the person thinks those things has is questionable at best.[footnote]I don't want to invoke Godwin's Law here, but I will point out that the website you linked to was apparently a pro-Nazi anti-semetic website.[/footnote]

You said, "I can not abide by someone who thinks another race is less intelligent." well what about another country?

Dude, you're not changing my mind. Its a waste of time. Short of a fair IQ test of a massive number of Aborigines which conclusively indicates that their IQs are as high if not higher than Europeans, Asians, etc, Its my viewpoint.

Homo sapiens have lived in regions of the world for tens of thousands of years. Don't you think that its more likely than not that certain groups of people evolved in certain aspects greater than others?

Besides, its all averages. I'm sure there are out-liars in every race.


Australia WAS a country consisting of the Aboriginals as the only humans. I think you should consider that as it might help with your question.

CaramelFrappe, my apologies about the ruckus.

I wasn't talking to you. My question was to Zen Toombs.

 

[Aprilgold]

I never denied being racist. You're just mad because you inferred that I was, like it was supposed to be an insult, and I didn't negatively react because it doesn't offend me as its kinda true.

If it doesn't matter if I was honest or not then you could have been wasting your time on a troll. Have fun arguing with that one, and thus wasting more of your time. Iron knee.

So you have racist view-points, but have a pony as your Avatar, which is all about unity and friendship without any type of discrimination. Just pointing out that its kinda silly.

And yes, your viewpoints are slightly racist, but aren't anything to be worked up about.

--------------------------------------------------

Racism can be good, but it overall hurts.

Having a pony avatar is usually about liking MLP. Quite frankly you're a bit immature if you think that everybody with a pony avatar is all love and tolerance.


Your statement at the end is meaningless without an explanation.

Your aware of what my statement is, you have some racist viewpoints, but its not big enough of a issue to elaborate further, but I will for this instance. In question I'm actually talking about your skull post, which, granted I should have actually quoted, but if your on and / or getting info from sources such as those I am just slightly worried that you are racist. But from your conversations with others its looking less likely, which is a good thing, but there may be a undertone of racism that you should delve into exactly.

Or its a giant mistake because you didn't bother to check what human skulls looked like through the centuries.

Also, I wasn't saying the fanbase is all lovey-dubey, but the show is all lovey-dubby and tolerance. If you enjoy something you more or less connect with it in one way or another, either it being funny or it touches your soul or whatever. My Little Pony has its goal in its title, which is to promote friendship. Being a bigot over someone who is gay, Hispanic and many other things is not what this show promotes, it promotes friendship, despite how diverse the characters are, the are all best buds.

 

[launchpadmcqwak]

Its no secret that in Australia's past, racism has been a BIG problem for Aborigines.
But, thats not the kind of racism I want to talk about. I want to talk about the opposite kind. The one that favors Aborigines.

I was reading the newspaper earlier when a job ad caught my attention. It read this:

Career Employment Group have two school based traineeships for indigenous year 11 and 12 students available
*Meaningles job info*
To be eligible for the course you:
- must be Aboriginal
- Must be over 18 years of age
- Must be willing to undertake a pre-employement medical inclusive of a drug and alcohol test

None of that has been modified.
Another example:
My school recently had a morning tea for only the aboriginal students and their parents.

This irritates me.
When did it become acceptable to be racist when it isn't against a minority?

i aggree that discriminating against any race is bad, but you fucked over the aborigines so hard dude, i think they deserve any help they can get.

 

[Agayek]

As an Asian I can tell you that not every Asian out there is good at math (even though yes I did sleep through AP Calculus and ace all my tests). As far as I can tell, at least in regards to Vietnamese people, the intelligence or studiousness is driven by our culture. Back in Vietnam, students could only advance in grade if they were within a top percentage of their class. So this motivates students to study harder if they want to be more successful than their peers. Take that mindset and bring it over to the US, you have some parents instilling the same drive into their children (not all).

As far as physically strong, I can do 30 pull ups. =D There's not an actual demand in Vietnam to have overly strong people. If you look at it, it's better to be small and agile in the jungles of Vietnam or those fsking tunnels that the NVA built.

I dunno about Vietnam, but with the Japanese and Chinese people I know (both FOBs and first-generation Americans), it's very much a cultural thing. Doing well in school is a huge part of their culture, and parents push their kids incredibly hard to perform well. Doing well means you get into a better high school/university, which conveys significantly more prestige than it does in the US, thus people put forward a lot more effort into scholastic efforts than they do in most Western cultures.

That's where most of the "Asians are smart" stereotypes came from.

That said, there is definitely some degree of truth in every stereotype. It doesn't matter what it is or who it applies to. If it's an established stereotype, it will generally (and I'll stress this here before anyone jumps down my throat) be true. Stereotypes form because of the mass' perception of a given group of people (almost always not their own), because the human mind is not well equipped to recognizing more than a few dozen individuals. It's much easier to take their own experience with people bearing a certain trait and apply it on a general scale. The brain is simply better at that than remembering every single individual and every one of their traits.

What this means is that stereotypes are formed by the experiences of the specified group by a large portion of the masses. For example, "asians are smart" came about because most asians do very well in school. For a more negative example, "negroids are thieves" came about because the percentage of poor blacks to whites is overwhelmingly larger than rich blacks to whites, and most crime is committed by poor people. Thus, people would more commonly be robbed by blacks, and it became a stereotype (though obviously not a good one).

Now, is every stereotype applicable in all situations? Of course not, but most stereotypes are applicable in most situations. One must simply be willing to re-evaluate their stance on the matter when new evidence comes to light.

The whole point I'm getting at is that stereotypes are a useful tool and can be very helpful in reacting to new situations, but one must remember that they're not ironclad rules or truths.

 

[launchpadmcqwak]

http://jewamongyou.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/aboriginal-vs-slav.jpg?w=510

Even forgetting the rest of your post for a moment, I'm very dubious of that image, which for anyone-else reading is this:

(Supposedly a comparison between an aboriginal skull and a slav skull).

For a start it comes from a blog labelled as "Jew among you" and is apparently dedicated to "race realism". I did a reserve Google image search to find out where it had originally came from and among nuggets like Stormfront and some Nazi forum I found the original source from early 2009, over a year before your link was made:

http://ricercares.wordpress.com/category/uncategorized/

It's in Spanish but a quick translate brings up the skulls true identity, human vs Neanderthal! You've been caught red-handed.

bro...you kicked his ass...

 

[launchpadmcqwak]

snip

you sir...are a RACIST. pure and simple

 

[Agayek]

Such a question has no real backing for what it implies. More likely than not according to what? Further, what attributes and to what degree? Even if someone agreed to your question that doesn't actually give a good idea of which attributes would be more developed or how much. It's a weak argument for racism.

To be entirely fair, different branches of humanity have evolved differently. That's where the Negroid (blacks), Mongoloid (asians) and Caucasoid (whitey) races come from. It's blatantly obvious that we've evolved in extremely different ways, and it shows in everything from melanin levels to the size of our nasal passages. It's wholly possible that the brain evolved differently as well. I don't have any proof handy, but if everything else has diverged, it only makes sense that the brain would as well.

To be perfectly honest I doubt there's more brain differences between races than there are between men and women, but it's definitely a possibility. I'd also be very much surprised if there was an unbiased study done on the matter, what with how charged the issue is/has been, so I'm gonna content myself with "possible but unlikely".