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While you guys are arguing affirmitave action and what counts as racism, you all ignore the pressing issue: Michael Richards can't work at the Laugh Factory. Does no one care whether or not this man will be able to find work and put food on the table?

I do. Which is why I used my connections in "the biz" to get him a running gig at a new location. Call for reservations.

I have connections!


Connections with the 1930's, apparently...

My pillow is made with duck feathers...

The word itself won't go away. The fad of using it to appear cool to your fellow suburbanites will, along with "sup DAWG" and other wannabe expressions.

Well, look at it this way. Have you ever heard anyone, with the possible exception of Jophiel, say "Twenty-three skiddoo!"?

Language has fashions. Slang is a human construct, and each generation despises the fashions of the preceding.

Some slang does endure, of course. I fervently hope this current trend will not be one of them.

I think Samira is like, totally, radical.

Nexa

Only if she wears Vaurnet shirts, with Oakley sunglasses and Jordache jeans! Otherwise, she's just choice.

Not to be obvious Caliah, but none of those report "institutionalized racism". It's a collection of anectdotal experiences with racial inequities in an industry by an organization who's purpose is to find and report such things.

I'm pretty sure if I form the "national fair b-ball playing alliance", and spent all my time showing how white folks are discrimated against when being selected to play pickup games of basketball, I could find lots of examples of it and show them to you. If you construct the tests in a way to maximize the percieved effect of racial discrimination, and then target your tests at only those locations already known to have that particular discrimination, you're going to produce results similar to those found by this group.

Are there examples of racism in the country? Of course there are. I never said otherwise. Are they "global" (ok. national in this case) and "institutionalized"? No. And those reports don't counter that. They target only areas in which they already knew they could find instances of racial discrimination. And even then, it was only slight when the whole data was accumulated. There are a whole bunch of individual reports of a "this one time..." nature, but when you look at the overall results, the statistics don't show a huge degree of discrimination.


Take those same tests. Apply them nationwide. Drop the specific examples that show only one side. Look only at the overall statistics. Then you might begin to start to have an argument for institutionalized racism in the housing industry.



Um. That also ignores the more important point. Those actions are illegal. If/when you find instances of racial discrimination, you can sue the individuals and in some cases, charge them criminally. Affirmative Action programs are legal. You can understand how legalizing one form of discrimination in order to counter another form that is illegal is going to create an imbalance, right? I'm not arguing that instances of racism do not occur. I'm arguing that countering illegal racist behavior by legalizing the same behavior but only when performed against one group is *not* the way a sane society should deal with the problem of racism.


The solution should be to focus on the individual instances of racism. When you find them, make sure they are punished in accordance with the law. Do this for *all* forms of racial discrimination. Keep doing this. Over time, you'll see racist practices in business fade away. At the end of the day, businesses are about making money. If you make it more expensive for them to be racist then to not, it wont take long for them to stop with the discrimination. If you instead let them slide, but instead create a racist institution to counter it, then you've legitimized that initial racism. You give it a reason to continue existing and you make the problem worse in the long run.


Again. It boils down to something being "institutionalized". By definition, that means it's the official part of some structure. Some people in some regions treating some minorities unfairly does not qualify. But having legal hiring and education skews on the books *does*.

Nexa. I used the term "institutionalized racism", to mean (directly) "Racism which exists as an institution". I'm using the classic definition of an institutionized "thing". If you look up the definition of institutionalized, you'll see that I'm using it correctly.


You countered with a definition for Institutional Racism. Note. Institutional, not institutionalized. The term I used refers to racism being an "official" and recognized part of the structure of our society. More to the point, I was contrasting instances of racism in our society to the legalized form of racism that is affirmative action.

If you read the definition for "institutional" racism, you'll find the following:




Excuse me if I object when you change the term I used into another one that has a completely different meaning, coined by someone with a very specific political agenda, and which only happens to have a similar sounding name.


In case you're still confused as to exactly what I meant when I said "Institutionalized racism", I'll refer to the wiki page for the term. Specifically, this part:



I was specifically talking about Afirmative Action in this context Nexa. I was saying that by passing Afirmative Action laws, we are "institutionalizing" racism, by creating official government programs that use racism methodologies to determine who recieves their benefits.


You are free to argue that some other form of racism exists which requires Affirmative Action to balance it out, but please do not try to argue that that form of racism is the same. It is not *legal*. It is not official policy of the US government. Can we please acknowledge that those are two different things and that it's wrong to try to use one to cancel the other? You fight racism by fighting racism, not creating more. That would seem to be an obvious statement.

That's deep, man.

Anyway, you're whole argument if fundamentally flawed. You're saying AA is institutionalised racism because it forces the government to "create official government programs that use racism methodologies to determine who recieves their benefits", in your own words.

But ANY action from the government that seeks to redress the issue of racism will obviously be based on "racism methodologies". How do you redress racism without indetifying the group that is being discriminiated against?

So you're whole argument that AA is "racism" is completely stupid and non-sensical. You can't fight racism without addressing race issues.
And if the government addresses those issues, then by your definition it becomes "institutionalised racism". Which is "bad".

See how stupid your argument is?

Anti-Semantite

yeah I mean, why not let some lazy asshead **** up your rental property after he did everything he could to ruin his own home, then was too lazy to evacuate himself when he sees a cat 5 storm on the way. Hell they shouldn't even have to pay rent!