steven@qubix.UUCP (Steven Maurer) (10/10/83)
> >Steve, what are you really saying? That there isn't any racial discrimination? >That's clearly wrong. That there isn't sex discrimination? That, too, is >wrong. I can't understand people who simply want to bury their heads in the >sand and ignore that U.S. society, for all its good points, is nevertheless >racist and sexist to the core. The assumptions we grow up with produce this. >Changes are coming, but they come over the objections of people like you. >There's always someone claiming that it just ain't so: that separate really is >equal; that housing isn't segregated; that opportunity is the same "if you try, >try and try, try and try -- you'll succeed at last." > > ......... > >MIke Kelly >Teletype =============== I am not sure which "steve" you are refering to, but I will assume that you mean me.... I have never stated that there is no racial or sexual discrimination in our society. I HAVE seen it, as it is usually presented, once or twice. Now the lack of discrimination that I have witnessed may be because I come from the land of liberalia: Berkeley & Santa Cruz -- however I doubt that this is the only reason. Very few classical bigots ever get out of the gutter, which is where such stuff is learned, since bigotry depends chiefly upon ignorance, and ignorance is not economically sucessful. In my life, the most preduice, bigotry, and racism, I have seen, comes from the very people who claim to be its victims. White males are por- trayed as a homogenious conspiricy of dominating neo-fascists, out to crush, maim, and kill anyone who would dare to dispute "their" rule; society, is held in the strangle-hold of such WM's, and (like the racist, sexist, bigots "they" are) will continue to be so as long as "we" let them; furthermore, "they" do nothing more than to sit on "their" asses while "we" do all the work. This is all well and good for me, I do not begrudge anybody his or her unfounded opinions. After all, we all have preduices, no matter how hard we try not to. (For example, the comic-strip jokes about hackers: immature, unable to face reality, can't deal with people, more machine than man, etc.) However, I would like to make the following observation: Bigotry should be opposed, not because it sometimes hurts those against which it is directed, but rather because (like ignorance) it invariably hurts the bigot. Certainly there is racism and sexism in the real world. I would be the last to deny it. But that discrimination is considerably less than what is perceived, and more often than not, offset by governmental reverse discrimination. However, by propigating the myth of "its a racist/sexist world out there", radicals do more to hurt their cause than anything the KKK could think of. Because, THE ONLY THING WORSE THAN TELLING A CHILD THAT THEY CAN'T DO SOMETHING, IS TO TELL THEM THAT NO MATTER HOW HOW HARD THEY TRY, THEY WILL NEVER SUCCEED (because the "racist" society won't let them). Thus, we show the base of the vicious circle: The more people believe they can't or won't be allowed to do something, the less they try. And the less they try, the less will they do. This gives very good documentation of the "discrimination", and furthers the impression. Statistics also come out showing the results of the lack of resolve to try, and this bolsters the case of the few true bigots that do remain. (I could go into a whole hell of a lot of examples of the above, but my message is too long as it is......) Steven Maurer