I have nothing against blacks and mexicans I just don't want them in my neighborhood

So how is saying you don't want to live next door to someone discriminating against them? How is not living with someone ill treatment? How is not wanting to live with someone any indication of the 'character' of any individual? There are cultural lifestyle differences between people.

In the example you gave a black person can move into a neighborhood and their neighbors are also free to move. I don't see why this is an issue of racism. If they dislike the way they are treated by their neighbors then why would they bother moving in?

People segregate themselves all the time, especially in the States.

 

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No, it isn't different - all part of the same package. There have been thousands of cases in the U.S. where minorities have moved into neighborhoods and caused a steep decline in property values. And that meant that others who lived there could NOT move elsewhere because they couldn't get a decent price for their existing homes.

 

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As has been said numerous times already it is not discrimination until you decide you don't want to live near someone based on their race.

What happens when a mass populace decides they don't want to live next to someone based on their race?

The point here being they should not have to worry about being treated differently because of the color of their skin...having places where certain races shouldn't go because they are not welcomed is called segregation and it breeds mistrust and hate.

Does that make it right?

 

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If their race is the reason you don't want to live next door to them then that is racist. You are assuming all the rest, culture, lifestyle, whatever based on their race, not because you met them and actually know.

It isn't discrimination though. It is only discrimination, from a legal standpoint, if the situation is reversed, i.e. you prohibit people of a certain race, or who are not of your race, from owning property in your neighbourhood. Ethically it would also be pretty bad if you were to treat them like crap to try and make them move away.

It depends on the reasons for not wanting to live with someone. If it is because of race or nationality then that reflects pretty badly on a persons character IMO. To me even cultural differences as a reason is pretty bigoted. If it is because they inconsiderate or are generally a pain in the ass then fine. It is true there can be connections, e.g. cultural and lifestyle differences may RESULT in people doing things that annoy the shit out of you, but you can't go generalising such things to EVERYONE of a certain ethnicity, nationality, culture, whatever.

The way this is phrased everything is fine IMO. People can self-segregate themselves all they like for all I care, so long as that doesn't make them intolerant or unwelcoming towards others who may wish to join their community, so long as the joiner isn't going to make themselves a hassle.


There is a slightly side issue that one might raise if one decides to take what I have said to the extreme, that being a totally homogeneous future in which all cultures and races have been bred into a kind of average human. This I think would be sad, since it represents a loss of culture and diversity, so I believe protection of such things is important. Therefore governments may have to regulate immigration etc to preserve their own cultures. This I think is a seperate issue though, I think we are more concerned with things at personal level here.

 

In losing some semblance of culture a larger global culture would emerge. Whats wrong with that?

Why try in vain to regulate and stop changes that are inevitable?

 

Clearly individual cultures have to change to embrace a global existence, but I for one would like to be able to visit cute Austrian ski villages and experience native New Zealand tribal culture and heck even laugh at the crazy southerners of the US

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. If everyone ends up the same it'd be kind of boring.

 

Well then we should just keep ourselves segregated so that no one is bored.

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But then the Austrians won't let me ski there because my crude Australian humour offends them

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. Also the fact that those words are annoyingly similar.

 

Here we go again, SAM. I know you think I'm a racist pig and I'm sure this will only further your beliefs.

My answer is yes and/or no. Yes because if someone does not want them in their neighborhoods STRICTLY because of the genetic makeup, yes, I do believe it's racist. However, I say no because again, as I've thrown out there a thousand times, blacks commit more crime than whites. That is not to say that ALL black people commit more crime. And it has nothing to do with the fact that they are black. It has everything to do with crime. One out of every three black males in the Unites States are in some form of incarceration. I watched as my own neighborhood (majorily Asian at first) which had been had not had a single crime in over 10 years became a haven for drugs and robbery. The crime began over time as more black families moved in. I ended up moving from that neighborhood due to the crime.

Is it to say that the crime occurred because they were black? NO. I believe it to be a societal and cultural issue among their population. It happens to be that they were black and that crime had risen upon their arrival but not because of they race, but rather because that those members of their race had followed a different cultural and societal standard than that which had already existed in the neighborhood.

It becomes racist when one combines the two factors and says "They committed crime because they were black," as if they somehow were predestined to committ crime, while completely ignoring the cultural and societal influence.

IF it happens to be that more black people follow a life of crime than other racial groups, I think it is fair to say that I would tend to avoid that racial population in order for the preservation of my own self. The same would apply had more WHITE people followed the same societal standards. I would certainly avoid other whites if that was the case as well. It doesn't matter what race you are. It's your actions that matter, regardless of any racial or ethnic background.

EDIT: Furthermore, it's all about risk minimization. If you knew that there was a 60% chance of you being harmed or dying while being in any one location, self-preservation would tell you to stay away from that location.

 

The OP statement kind of feels like a racist comment to me. At least that's how I would feel if someone said it to me as a reason why I couldn't live near them.

 

Am I racist if I can't stand white trash?

 

Only if you just hate them for being white, instead of the trash part. Which is probably where most prejudice against them comes from.

 

personally i think that people who refer to anyone as "white trash" are bigots anyway. Its only an acident of birth that YOU arent born with the "white trash", it has nothing to do with there value as members of sociaty and everything to do with lack of resorces. Its no better than Lady whatever her name was saying "let the pesants eat cake" (which BTW means the carbon which builds up in a chimny not a cake as we would think of it)

 

MZ, I don't think you're a racist pig. I've never met a pig that was racist

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I started a thread some time ago [actually this is the second time I started this thread too] on how to identify if you're a racist.


http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=73439


I think we're all a little bit racist even the ones who claim they are not. But I think its a function of ignorance and misguided notions. I used to be racist against Arabs before I lived with them too. Plus its an interesting topic to me because of my own society

On the comment you made, the first time I was in the US, the first day even [2003 in September], there was a news report about a swastika sprayed on the house of a black family who had moved into Long Island. It was an astonishing entree into what I then believed to be an equal society [we all have our illusions]

Later on while traipsing around NY I mistakenly got off at Harlem and called my brother when I was lost. He was upset and anxious and told me to get out asap as black gangs would probably rape/murder me within the hour. I roamed around Harlem for an hour and no one threatened/raped/murdered me. In fact, I had a nice convo with some guys whose store was playing the Qur'an verses. I've also slept in the Greyhound at Chicago when my flight was cancelled in a winter storm and never did I have so many people being so nice to me, a perfect stranger. Mostly all black. So I don't believe in the stereotypes that people tell me. When I travelled alone by train or bus, it was always some black guy who would help me with luggage, getting a cab, finding a place. Mosltly black guys who would come over and strike up conversations. Once during a long NY-Chicago train ride [I love train rides], I had a nice convo with a black guy sitting across from me. He was a university professor going to visit his sister, well travelled, articulate and soft spoken. When he got up to go to the restroom, the white older couple sitting across from me warned me about the dangers of talking to strange weird men while travelling. I found them more creepy than the black guy [although they were probably just old and not really creepy, but the woman grabbed my arm and her fingers were like claws and she whispered dramatically in my ear]

So we all have our prejudices.


The most scared I have been in the US was once when I was returning late and a bunch of drunk white kids kept driving very fast up and down the road shouting racial epithets at me.

 

pffft, so says the boy who constantly slams yanks.

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I just don't want the culture and jailhouse mentality that many bring along with them. If they leave that crappola at the gate, then come on in.

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well, I'm white, so I'm not a racist since I don't like white trash, right. I'd just be a bigot???

 

why do you think that is?
YES i dispise pritty much everything your culture stands for, from the way you treat eachother to the way you treat the world. You have betrayed the very ideals written on the statue of libity and turned yourselves into just another group of slave owners no matter what means you use to do it. Everytime i watch Bush talking to that poor women and excliming "you work 4 jobs, how american is that" in a PROUD voice when he should feel nothing but SHAME about it i feel the bile rising in my stomach. Your culture is a discrace to the very ideals that your own founding fathers exponded

 

You realise you're confusing American policies with American people?

I know its hard to tell sometimes, but I like American people even if I think they have the most detestable foreign policies on earth.

 

It surprises me that you would think so. You come from Australia, where the men are even more screwed up (in this respect) than American men are.

No insult intended to Australia, mind you. But it is indeed a fact.