[Liberator]

I'm not saying it doesn't exist.  I'm saying you are blowing it out of proportion and jumping at shadows.

[iamzack]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/magazine/24prom-t.html

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/10/17/interracial.marriage/index.html

http://mobile.latimes.com/inf/infomo;jsessionid=AACB80414A8FD8419979.249?view=page7&feed:a=latimes_1min&feed:c=localnews&feed:i=52915649&nopaging=1

http://www.wsoctv.com/news/22956370/detail.html

Agh. What am I doing, I don't have time for this. Racism in America is about as overblown as it has always been.

[Liberator]

I'm not saying it's gone either.  Just that it's hardly prevalent or institutionalized like you seem to think it is.  The only problem is that the folks that did fight for equality in the 60s and 70s don't seem to be able to let it go and they and sadly they're children to some extent, jump at the shadow of racism and see it everywhere.

[Nuclear1]

Not every Southerner is a backwards redneck.  You can find plenty of them in New York, Massachusetts, California, and Colorado.  By the same token, I've come across plenty of rude folks in North Carolina (I lived there for two years) and Texas (also two years). 

I would really appreciate it if people would stop ripping on parts of the country they're unfamiliar with (or sometimes haven't even been).  It just makes you look like a ****ing moron.  With the exception of New England, I've lived in damn near every part of the country, and I can find plenty of examples where your over-arching generalizations are damned wrong.

[Kosh]

FGM is a human rights violation everywhere, not just the US.

Not according to the people who practice it, for them it is part of their culture, and in those african countries where it is practiced there is no law against. By saying "it's a human rights violation", you are imposing OUR values onto them. You can't be opposed to something like this while at the same time saying "I respect their culture". Either you do or you don't, you can't have it both ways.

Can a person be racist or sexist without being primitive?

Yeah, although there is a far greater tendency towards it in the less developed and more "traditional" countries than there is in the US.

And we don't talk about born-agains or baptists having to abandon their culture even thought they're horridly racist/sexist/homophobic/etc.

Yeah we do, fact is that's one of the platforms of the Democratic party.

If Americans can be assholes, so can immigrants.

Neither of them should be, it doesn't make it any more right, and accepting people who hold onto such backwards nonsense from the US or wherever the hell they are from is taking a big step in the wrong direction.

[TrashMan]

Not always. There are groups that are "closed off" and their children and their childrens children keep the mannerisms and behavior. A lot of smaller things, but they do stand out - purely by their behavior.
In a lot of cases they are..unadjusted and act somewhat "primitive" (for the lack of a better word).

Primitive and isolated... You know Alabama, Kentucky, West Virginia, et al. aren't foreign countries, right?

I have no idea what you're talking about..

Let me try it this way...
Imagine gypsises moving into your town, taking permanent residence, but continuing to live with their lifestyle. They don' care much about adapting, they keep their mannerisms and their children keep them and they breed like rabbits.
They stick out as a sore thumb and their behavior is....lacking etiquette. Crude. Unrefined. Redneck-y, you might say.


Now, that you might already have some people like that in your country is irelevant. Why add more?

[IronForge]

I think everyone with more money than they require and are not doing all they can to help others suck. Of course, how much is subjective, and those that DO deserve help is once again subjective. Can't sit all day crying HELP ME while you multiply like rabbits (contraception anyone?) or be a bum collecting dow when you can get a job.

[iamzack]

Not every Southerner is a backwards redneck.  You can find plenty of them in New York, Massachusetts, California, and Colorado.  By the same token, I've come across plenty of rude folks in North Carolina (I lived there for two years) and Texas (also two years). 

I would really appreciate it if people would stop ripping on parts of the country they're unfamiliar with (or sometimes haven't even been).  It just makes you look like a ****ing moron.  With the exception of New England, I've lived in damn near every part of the country, and I can find plenty of examples where your over-arching generalizations are damned wrong.

1. I'm a southerner
2. one of my links is about an incident in California

FGM is a human rights violation everywhere, not just the US.

Not according to the people who practice it, for them it is part of their culture, and in those african countries where it is practiced there is no law against. By saying "it's a human rights violation", you are imposing OUR values onto them. You can't be opposed to something like this while at the same time saying "I respect their culture". Either you do or you don't, you can't have it both ways.

Are you retarded? It's not an issue of our values vs their values.

And we don't talk about born-agains or baptists having to abandon their culture even thought they're horridly racist/sexist/homophobic/etc.

Yeah we do, fact is that's one of the platforms of the Democratic party.

If that were the case, I'd be a Democrat.

Let me try it this way...
Imagine gypsises moving into your town, taking permanent residence, but continuing to live with their lifestyle.

Gypsies don't establish permanent residence, duh.

They'd be a nice step up from the young earth creationist quiverfull morons I've met so far.

[General Battuta]

Female genital mutilation is an atrocity wherever it occurs.

Racism remains fairly widespread in American society, but it's metamorphosed into what we call 'implicit' or 'modern' racism. In my lab we study and measure it using some computer programs and reaction-time tasks.

The funny thing about racism today is that it's hidden, even from the individual who exhibits the behavior. We're all a little bit racist inside, but we don't realize it.

[Kosh]

Are you retarded? It's not an issue of our values vs their values.

No, I'm not retarded. Those cultures do not value women at all. You want to accept their culture, you're going to have to accept all the BS that goes along with it. Otherwise it is not respecting anothers culture. Let's be honest with ourselves about that.

Female genital mutilation is an atrocity wherever it occurs.

Even though it is a part of someone elses culture? Yes it is an atrocity, according to us, and we rightfully consider it to be one. But many of the same people who say that are always talking about "tolerance" towards other cultures, and fret about american "cultural imperialism" eroding people's traditional societies, including such horrific practices as FMG. I find that kind of position to be hippocritical.

How is saying "we welcome your culture and you should preserve it be you can't do XXXX or YYYY because we dont like it" being honest both to them and to ourselves?

[General Battuta]

Cultures are worth preserving until they violate universal human rights. Then, universal human rights come first.

Female genital mutilation is an atrocity and should not be tolerated any more than human sacrifice would be.

[iamzack]

Kosh is just trolling at this point, trying to get me to say that American culture is superior.

[Kosh]

Cultures are worth preserving until they violate universal human rights. Then, universal human rights come first.

Female genital mutilation is an atrocity and should not be tolerated any more than human sacrifice would be.

"Universal Human Rights" is a western concept.

Kosh is just trolling at this point, trying to get me to say that American culture is superior.

I'm pointing out what I consider to be hippocracy and doublethink.

[General Battuta]

It's spelled 'hypocrisy.'

Universal Human Rights are universal and should be treated as such. They are inalienable. Where they are restricted, the situation should be corrected.

(post edited.)

[LordMelvin]

Not every Southerner is a backwards redneck.  You can find plenty of them in New York, Massachusetts, California, and Colorado.  By the same token, I've come across plenty of rude folks in North Carolina (I lived there for two years) and Texas (also two years). ...

1. I'm a southerner
2. one of my links is about an incident in California

As a New Englander, I can vouch for the presence of nice, polite racist rednecks here.

"... D*mn N****r President... they're taking over our whole d*mn country..."

Edit: By polite, I mean he tipped pretty well.

[Nuclear1]

[el_magnifico]

"Contraceptive", "bunnies". I would appreciate if people pointed out those errors and typos in my posts as long as it was done in a polite and constructive way.

I went back to this post and fixed it. Perhaps now it will be more readable.

[iamzack]

Native English speakers are very forgiving in spelling and grammar mistakes. If we can interpret it, you're fine.

[Kosh]

Native English speakers are very forgiving in spelling and grammar mistakes. If we can interpret it, you're fine.

Given that about 1/5 of our high school graduates are functionally illiterate maybe it is a bigger challenge than you think.

Universal Human Rights are universal and should be treated as such. They are inalienable.

Because we say it is.

Where they are restricted, the situation should be corrected.

Yeah they should be, but the only way to do that is to impose our values onto someone else.


EDIT: Here's a quote from wikipedia about this:

Islamic criticism

Some Islamic countries have criticized the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for its perceived failure to take into the account the cultural and religious context of Islamic countries. In 1982, the Iranian representative to the United Nations, Said Rajaie-Khorassani, articulated the position of his country regarding the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, by saying that the UDHR was "a secular understanding of the Judeo-Christian tradition", which could not be implemented by Muslims without trespassing the Islamic law.[18] On 30 June 2000, Muslim nations that are members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference[19] officially resolved to support the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam,[20] an alternative document that says people have "freedom and right to a dignified life in accordance with the Islamic Shari’ah".[21] However, this document does not guarantee freedom of religion or gender equality, the root of many criticisms against its usage.

[iamzack]

Yeah they should be, but the only way to do that is to impose our values onto someone else.


EDIT: Here's a quote from wikipedia about this:

However, this document does not guarantee freedom of religion or gender equality, the root of many criticisms against its usage.

The thing that's being complained about isn't true. So........

Besides, FGM isn't restricted to Muslims. It's an African tradition, not a Muslim one.