You know, I really thought about what I said to Thomas M after the rather crude interjections of the other posters on this board. I didn't spend much time on the reply to Thomas the first time, but I really thought about it last night- and if you'd read what I said, you would realize that I agree with you now (assuming there wasn't something else going on in the discussion I don't have before me). I didn't go look at the conversation that the post was part of, and I don't know the people who engaged in it(because Thomas followed the rules of this forum I had no idea who they were or where they were posting- Thank you Thomas for following the rules!), but as I ALREADY suggested to Thomas, one could dislike rap music without being racist- just as I suggested one could dislike jazz without being racist. I thought it would make an interesting topic for discussion. But discussions need to be started with respect- otherwise we're just slinging opinions at each other, without listening, and without taking anything in. You certainly haven't been as rude as the other two posters- and even though they WERE rude I tried to think about what they had to say anyway.
So there is no denial here- there is only change. If you find any real bigots, may I suggest you try to use reason with them, and set the kind of exmple for their behavior that you would want them to follow. Reason often succeeds better with people than name calling, and telling people to act and think better, without doing so yourself, is one of those
"Do what I say, not what I do" problems. Of course real bigots probably won't want to think about what they've said, or examine the issues with you, but you never know. I find lots of people very bigoted against liberals- and of course liberals bigoted against conservatives- I think it helps to remember that all positions are continuums- and if we met the people holding the opinions we dislike so much on the net in 3d, and we didn't know their positions, we'd probably be able to be police to them. Even if we DID know how they felt, we wouldn't act the way we do here- well I hope some of us wouldn't. It's probably better to try to act that way even when you do know their political positions- would you agree? If you set a good example for behavior some times people will get the idea. This forum wasn't set up to call people names, it was set up to explore ideas about racist language on the net- because I'd run across blatant examples- the "let's kill all the towel heads" variety of bigot, who, I'm sure, you've seen on the net in all his (or her) glory. These were obvious examples of really strong bigotry.
I know right now the fad is to look for liberal bigots. I happen to think there is plenty of bigotry left and right, in America. It's my opinion that race relations is one of the biggest problems we have in this country- and that we need to look at all aspects of the problem. My diatribe, as you call it, was not an attempt to use smoke and mirrors, but a real attempt to think out the issue for myself. You may not recognize it for that, but that's what it was.
If you can come over here and be polite, and talk respectfully about issues, I would be pleased to discuss this with you further. It's an interesting issue.
My guess is you missed this post:
Message 20787557 |
