2009-09-19 Toronto Sun: kolumni "It's not racism"

[X]

Pari kuukautta vanha kolumni, tosin sisältö on yhä ajankohtainen.

http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/michael_coren/2009/09/19/10989941-sun.html

It's not racism

Throwing the term around ridicules and downplays its seriousness

By MICHAEL COREN
Last Updated: 19th September 2009, 4:16am


There is much talk of racism this week and, frankly, the term used to mean something.

A racist was someone who judged another person not on their ability, character or achievements but purely and exclusively on the colour of their skin or ethnic background.

Members of racial minorities such as blacks, Jews or Asians lost jobs, were denied basic human rights, enslaved and even murdered. Racism, as I say, used to mean something.

Not now. Racism still exists of course, but being called a racist often means you are winning an argument against a liberal or merely stating a conservative or orthodox opinion.

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd (and former president Jimmy Carter later in the week) even implied recently that Congressman Joe Wilson was a racist.

Who? The silly man who shouted out "You lie" during Barack Obama's presidential address.

The outburst was certainly rude but there surely was no racist aspect to it. Not so explains Dowd. She heard the unspoken, "You lie, boy!"

Ah, now I see. Even though the word "boy" was never uttered it must have been meant because Obama is of mixed race and Wilson is a white man who opposes him.

What such nonsense achieves is to so ridicule and downplay the nature of genuine racism and to so exploit the epithet that we no longer take it seriously.

And Dowd is just one small example. When a young black man acting in a suspicious manner in a high crime area is stopped by the police he is a victim of racism. When an immigrant with poor English language skills fails an exam it is a case of racism. When people fitting descriptions of terrorists are politely questioned at an airport it is racism.

Sometimes it is, usually it isn't.

If a particular ethnic group is over-represented in prison or under-achieves at school we'd be better to ask questions about the family structure and cultural norms of those groups rather than blame everybody and anybody else.

If we want horrific examples of racism we ought to look elsewhere, such as in South Africa where members of certain tribes will not eat food if the mere shadow of a member of another tribe has fallen upon it.

Or Sudan, where Arab militia have slaughtered black people for years, even when they are co-religionists.

Or listen to what some Iranians say about Arabs, what some Arabs say about Africans and what some Sri Lankans say about other Sri Lankans of a darker skin.

Yet for all this it still seems to be that white people, no matter how poor or disadvantaged they may be, are assumed to be potential racists and people of colour potential victims.

It was always said that racism can only come from a group with power. That's a deeply fallacious argument and, even if it were true, power is no longer in the hands of a creamy few.

Obama is powerful, not a racist. Some of his friends who are black, such as his former minister Jeremiah Wright, are powerful but are racist.

To generalize is morally bankrupt, to refuse to see truth is just dumb.

[whatevertsunami]

Asiaa. Haluaisin nähdä hesarissa vastaavanlaisen kolumnin.

[Nationalist-92]

Tulipa vaan tähän ketjuun sattumalta törmätessäni mieleen, että tällä Michael Corenilla on nykyään oma show tähän Toronto Suniin kuuluvalla Sun News Networkilla: http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/shows/the-arena.html

Todella nuivaa puhetta sisältää ko. ohjelma. Täällä joitain pätkiä siitä ja muista suht' nuivista Sun Newsin ohjelmista: http://www.youtube.com/user/SDAMatt2a/videos