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Is The Government Helping To Fuel Racial/Ethnic Animosity?

Is the US government helping to fuel racial and ethnic animosity?


  • Total voters
    31
Having to know a man's "race" .. I consider to be racist .. And this I hate , usually I leave that section blank .. or I write in "human" . I'd love to see a stop put to this "racism" . but this involves a less conservative government. . a fear of change ...
 
Strange , illogical reasoning .
Please elaborate.

It was a rhetorical question. Ponder it carefully and try to consider the analogy.
 
So you're arguing that a social construct is being socially constructed.



Oh no I don't buy the social construct line at all. Race is definitely a reality (both biologically and socially). That said, what I'm arguing is race is far more deeply embedded within humanity, both physically and psychologically, that no government or social movement is ever going to truly impact on any real level. Simply take human history and attempts to control or manipulate race. It always fails (on both the negative historical attempts and the positive). Race is just too deep. It's our last vestige of tribalism and it isn't going away. Just think about it. Race spawned both global wars, arguably it also spawned human religion, the new world conquests and much, much more. It was why the Mongols conquered half the world. It's why East Asians are so racially congruent. They genocided other peoples away from their racial ideal throughout history.
 
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On almost every government form that one has to fill out, whether its for welfare, the census, job applications or whatever, one must fill out an entry for race/ethnicity. Is the government in fact overemphasizing race and helping to fuel animosity between different ethnic groups? Are government programs like affirmative action still viable or should they be dismantled because of a backlash or perhaps they may no longer be needed?

Should the government stop taking information about race/ethnicities? Could this be in fact part of the solution to the problem? What do you think?
I voted 'yes', because in a great way they are, albeit some of it is unintended consequences.

There should have been a "yes and no" option, though.
 
Oh no I don't buy the social construct line at all. Race is definitely a reality (both biologically and socially). That said, what I'm arguing is race is far more deeply embedded within humanity, both physically and psychologically, that no government or social movement is ever going to truly impact on any real level. Simply take human history and attempts to control or manipulate race. It always fails (on both the negative historical attempts and the positive). Race is just too deep. It's our last vestige of tribalism and it isn't going away. Just think about it. Race spawned both global wars, arguably it also spawned human religion, the new world conquests and much, much more. It was why the Mongols conquered half the world. It's why East Asians are so racially congruent. They genocided other peoples away from their racial ideal throughout history.
If you're of the belief that race is more than a social construct, our discussion probably won't be fruitful.
 
I agree that technically, the government receives its authority from the people. But that legislative activity doesn't happen without people representing political parties and people motivated and guided by ideologies who make up the government. The government IS those people. So you can't really say that the government is not promoting racism when it is obvious that it does.

Yes but this is my point. Race is unavoidable. All people harbor racial sentiment, be it negative or positive sentiment is largely irrelevant because it's still there either way, as you said, impacting policy and the leaders that enact policy. That truth is never going away.

It's why you get pro-black racism in black urban areas and you get pro-white racism in white suburban areas. It's a fact of life.
 
Yes but this is my point. Race is unavoidable. All people harbor racial sentiment, be it negative or positive sentiment is largely irrelevant because it's still there either way, as you said, impacting policy and the leaders that enact policy. That truth is never going away.

It's why you get pro-black racism in black urban areas and you get pro-white racism in white suburban areas. It's a fact of life.

All people do not harbor racial sentiment. Only racists harbor racial sentiment. But those racists have every right to harbor whatever they harbor. They just should be prevented from legally acting on that. And that means if all the non-racists would just demand that we as a society and culture will put no more importance on skin color than we do eye or hair color, we can minimalize racism to the point that it is pretty much unable to harm anybody.
 
All people do not harbor racial sentiment. Only racists harbor racial sentiment. But those racists have every right to harbor whatever they harbor. They just should be prevented from legally acting on that. And that means if all the non-racists would just demand that we as a society and culture will put no more importance on skin color than we do eye or hair color, we can minimalize racism to the point that it is pretty much unable to harm anybody.

See that's just a naive statement. Even the most fervent anti racist holds racial sentiment on a subconscious level. You seem to equate racial sentiment as negative. Racial sentiment qualifies as positive racial sentiment as well. You have racial sentiment all over your post, you just don't realize it.
 
See that's just a naive statement. Even the most fervent anti racist holds racial sentiment on a subconscious level. You seem to equate racial sentiment as negative. Racial sentiment qualifies as positive racial sentiment as well. You have racial sentiment all over your post, you just don't realize it.

Speak for yourself please as I am quite sure you have no idea how anybody else actually sees it. I'll define what I see and how I interpret things for myself. And I will stand by my conviction that so long as good people demand that race be made an issue, it will remain an issue to just about everybody's detriment. Until we as a people and culture treat skin color as of no more consequence than eye color or hair color, we will keep racism alive and well.
 
Speak for yourself please as I am quite sure you have no idea how anybody else actually sees it. I'll define what I see and how I interpret things for myself. And I will stand by my conviction that so long as good people demand that race be made an issue, it will remain an issue to just about everybody's detriment. Until we as a people and culture treat skin color as of no more consequence than eye color or hair color, we will keep racism alive and well.


You can say you don't breathe air or see race all you want. That's your preference to say whatever you want. That doesn't make it anymore legitimate though.

I get your side of the issue though :) Just don't think it will ever hold sway over likely, well, anybody from a statistical perspective.
 
For every person helped by Affirmative Action, there are those who are hurt by it. It is a racist policy, period.

Multiculturalism is also a farce. If we divide ourselves into groups, there will always be a "my group is better and more important than your group" mentality leading to strife.
 
And Barack Obama is leading the division. The news media fans the flames by hyping everything it possibly can. There should be a law against any mention of race or ethnicity on any government forms.
 
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