There are scattered events of slavery of white people purely based on race however nothing in comparison to what the enslavement of black people did. No race has been enslaved as methodically as black people and off hand I can't think of many being enslaved and substantially disenfranchised for longer. One of the reasons that black slavery is a more essential issue is that our entire international trade system was developed at the same time as black people and the way the world currently works means that prejudice is still highly prevalent in countries that ran those trade operations, who rather coincidentally have went on to be the only superpowers of the world, it is the same reason that slavery by the Gauls would be less of an issue than slavery by the Romans, the world was controlled by Rome and subsequently it had farther reaching effects and isolated uncoordinated slavery. One theory is that rich people utilised and impressed upon poor white people that they are superior to the black people to keep the white and black people who were poor and had much in common from uniting and attacking this power structure however that is a more complex argument somewhat hinged on accepting the first one. A more basic answer here too is that I would like to imagine we are a better society than we were centuries ago. You're treating this like an abstract problem like peopl, there are literally mountains of data and studies out there that show being the exact same person except for your skin colour will lead to discrimination in a multitude of every day activities, university applications being far superior to white people, breaking a minor law being far more likely to lead to a warning or slap on the wrist for a white person, a white couple being served first in a restaurant, gas stations being more helpful to white people, companies being more likely to sell loans that default to black people, liquor stores being far more likely to check for id with white people. There are researchers in the field, highly trained sociologists who spend far more time thinking about way of demonstrating this than you or me; a couple of google books if you're at all interested http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...age&dq=race+discrimination,+percentage&pgis=1 http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=AwjWn5cvB-4C&pg=PA91&dq=race+discrimination,+percentage http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...&dq=race+discrimination,+percentage#PPA103,M1 Positive discrimination schemes aim to fix those very socioeconomic divides to a level where they will hopefully be obsolete. The NBPA's ultimate goal is to destory itself at some point, you are right an association like that cannot exist if society is equal and reasonably unprejudice however we are very far from that therefore it and other schemes of positive discrimination justify themselves Additionally yes it is racist to assume all white people are racist, just because white people treat other white people differently than they treat black people isn't racism its discrimination, there is no forethought into doing things that way but they were born, educated, trained and lived in a society that is prejudice its extremely hard to not be prejudice yourself without being aware that these systems that exist are themselves prejudice.
This is what the "silly" political correctness like "Seasons Greetings" directly attempts to address, a culture people are born into from the previous generations that forces itself in the new society's throat long live the new flesh
Sorry I missed your post, I agree with large parts of your post, however I disagree with some very important points. Firstly I strongly do not believe any people should be forced to embrace a culture and things like political correctness are important in establishing the right to leave people who do not want to have anything to do with another culture alone, for instance I am at cultural odds with people who strongly believe in PETA a lot of their causes however I get on fine with those people because we can communicate on common ground. I would however not get on with them at all if they forced their culture on to me for instance requiring me to protest a KFC every year. I believe keeping cultures out of each other's influence mean that the experience of getting to know another culture like Chinese new year is far more fascinating and if there was a part of the Chinese new year that I disagreed with such as the astrological element, I simply reject it as I do not need be servile to another culture. And at the end of the day, I am speaking on a purely governmental/state side here, any shops that want to cater to religious holidays specifically I am fine with, its just that large shops tend to try be PC to get more customers. Another point I strongly disagree with is that people are free to leave the country if they disagree with parts of it. Firstly immigrating to another country is a costly, stressful serious activity, partially because no nation wants to let people in or let people out so it isn't as simple as being "free to leave" in the real world. Where would someone go if they had serious disagreement with their country? Even someone in total disagreement with their country would prefer that disagreement in familiar settings than somewhere entirely alien that they do not know. Like I said there are parts of a nation that can be fully embraced by everyone, for instance Americans are patriotic of their constitution and it is a very impressive feat, however if you say disagreed with separating church and state very strongly should you have to leave? Another large thing is that I believe an essential part of being a good citizen for a country is advancing change in areas you believe are for the common good, just leaving a country when you disagree with it seems to be a very bad approach to being a citizen, actively trying to change things you disagree with makes you a good citizen. This doesn't mean that the thing you are trying to change are "good" however it does make you a good citizen.
Whilst its true in recent history white people haven't been used as slaves, Roman and Greeks both took slaves from what ever areas they came across. As such there would have been people from what is now England working as slaves in Roman villas through out the Empire/Republic. Though both Greek and Roman slaves had more rights than any that would follow. More recently the lower classes were used in much the same way as slaves, Serfdom for example is just white washed slavery (If you'll excuse the pun). During the Industrial revolution whilst one was not necessarily the property of the factory owner the pay you received meant that you could only live and eat at the factory owners whim. At least until the trade unions started to pop up, then you lived and ate at the union leaders whim.... White people may not as a race have received the same treatment as blacks but large packets of them lived in conditions which to our modern eyes would be equally reprehensible. I'm in no way belittling the treatment of African slaves during the era but just reminding folk it wasn't all pims and scones in the UK at the time and that slavery is very far from a modern issue.
I think we might have had a slight mis-understanding with the wording, “now i do agree with aspects of this such as embracing the diverse culture that this country has to offer” and “But shouldn't the other cultures also embrace the Christian culture” now this probably should have read accept instead of embrace however when I used it after the first sentence I meant it on a similar meaning, such that the only way to embrace a different culture is to also accept that their celebrations are part of that culture. I do not mean anyone should be forced them to celebrate them, but should it not be expected that Christmas should be able to be called Christmas and not a seasonal celebration, just like it is expected that Christians accept that Chinese New year is called Chinese new year? To me the politically correct way of sorting this (same as you on a purely government point of view) is to either accept that the religious festivals are called what they are called OR to ban the names of ALL religious festivals and have them advertised/celebrated under the one banner of ‘religious/seasonal celebration’ For me I strongly believe in the IDEA behind political correctness however the IN PRACTICE it has become a big sledge hammer usually used by people with the best of intentions, to FORCE people to act and think the way they think they should, this in itself is causing more anger and resentment in the people who have been brought up to accept the differences between cultures and people, this is my personal experience as I am 26 I was brought up by a devout Christian mother, now my mum and dad both have some base in-politically correct views however they have tried to bring me up to be fully accepting, now I believe this has worked as I have friends from all walks of life cultures and races, and have never had a problem with any of them, now my step daughter and her friends, whom are 12, are turning out to be more resentful and in some case blatantly racist and it all seems to be down to the politically correct views which are being crammed down their throats saying they can not celebrate Christmas as Christmas whilst at school, and the fact that in some case’s they are seeing so called ‘positive discrimination’ which in their eyes means they as White English people are actually second class citizens in this country for the second point my statement was meant in the broad sense that people do have the option to emigrate, I do accept that it is a extreme measure however it is a option if you get THAT offended by things
i for one would like to abolish the quoter's that need to be filled by large corporations and the government about employing a certain % of ethnic minorities, disabled people etc etc setting targets to employ a certain type of people is discrimination FULLSTOP. i know they were put in place to stop people been racist/sexist etc and only hiring a certain type of person. But i feel now that it possible to get rejected from a job because i dont meet 1 of these requirements. why should 4% of the top posts in government departments be held by ethnic minorities. this means that if i apply for a job and they are only at 3% and there been told its not good enough. Im automatically at a disadvantage by been white. i really wish that a person was employed by there qualifications and personality/traits and no other factor need be considered. I also HATE filling out government/business forms when applying for jobs (which is what im doing now) about my race/religion and sex. they say they dont discriminate against any group but by having to fill it in means they want to know WHY ? so how is it not effecting your ability to get the job.
No it's not, Christmas is no longer a Christian holiday, I'm not Christian, and very few people I know are, yet we all celebrate Christmas. None of us celebrate Christmas because it's Jesus' birthday, few people do anymore. I don't know anybody who is insulted by Christmas being called Christmas. The only insulting thing I can see from this is people thinking that that their religion isn't good enough to have a public holiday set aside for. Changing the name of Christmas to "the holiday season" isn't going to change this at all. So this little bit of political correctness is trying to fix something that could be seen as being racist but fixes it in a way that doesn't fix it in any way at all. We are a Christian country and have been for hundreds upon hundreds of years, it's had a massive shaping on the culture of natives to this country. If I go to India, AFAIK, Christmas isn't a national holiday there, so if they don't have to change things around, then neither should we. As for changing things, changing these things makes zero difference at all, so why bother changing these things in the first place. I can understand changing tradition because it doesn't work, but changing a tradition for something that's going to make no difference is pointless and insulting to the history of our nation.
1. It's "quotas" and "affecting" 2. They don't exist 3. The government 'targets' are exactly that - it's an ideal but they're not going to force them to happen. If you applied for a job and were better than all the women who applied, you would still get it. The targets are supposed to be achieved by encouraging more women to apply for the job in the first place, so that it's more likely that the best applicants are representative of the population as a whole. If you read the cabinet office website rather than some random blog, this is what it says about meeting the targets No quotas. 4. You don't have to fill in the race bit on forms. They're optional, you're allowed to put "don't know" or "don't want to say" and they state quite clearly on them that they go to a statistics office so that they can measure the proportion of female and minority applicants, not the potential employer. Also, it's generally pretty obvious from someone's name if they're female or not white.
ok thank you gammer police chief sure they will be a big bonus in the post for you. companies do employ a certain number of "X" type of person to comply with equality policies otherwise they are seen to be discriminating. This may not be enforced as you said but the company looks better if it does. This does happen. My friend was turned down for a teaching degree at a university and was told that they were looking for males from a ethnic minority because schools are are lacking in this. also certain names are both male and female so how would you tell ? Sam, Charlie for example ? also from the forms i filled in recently there is no where that didnt say i dont have to fill it in or gave me the option to abstain. if i dont fill it in do they think "oh maybe he just doesnt want to say or do they think im slightly stupid for missing a bit of the form out ?"
You never have to fill in those forms, every job application I have sent in, this was completely optional. Did they really say they turned him down because they were looking for ethnic minorities? Because this could get them into some serious ****, turning down a white person and favouring ethnic minorities is just as racist as doing it the other way round.
yeah im not kidding although was a she. happened around year or so ago university would deny it though. Think it was some lady from admissions that told her this.
Surely all slavery is bad? Your contradicting yourself. You say we should forget the past and live for the now but as black people were enslaved by white people a hundred years ago we should treat them differently? I think your idea that we should completely abandon our culture and history because it might offend people is just plainly wrong. It is precisely our history and culture that give us our sense of identity. You should have a read of 'Germs, Guns and Steel'. It's a very good theory on why some cultures have come to dominate the world society. The general conclusion is its all down to geography.
I read this article earlier, and I think it is outrageous the way this school responded, this is an example of political correctness gone mad: http://www.christian.org.uk/news/20090212/teacher-scolds-girl-5-for-talking-about-jesus/ I'm not sure what's worse the fact the school feels it has the right to control what it's pupils talk about, or the fact the child’s mother is now getting the sack. Telling a child that they can't talk about their believes and ideas surly goes against the idea of provoking thought within education.
A completely unverifiable claim supporting your arguement that you "heard from your mate" which the university publicly rejects? I see no reason to treat this story with anything but full trust! I agree with this statement as I read it logically however you seem to be disagreeing with the private sector's choice of embracing political correctness to accommodate it's diverse customer base. There are private companies that are very accommodating to say Chinese New Year celebrations such as the Chinese first national bank, if you are insulted by a private entity's practices the good part of being private is you can remove yourself from it or write letters of complaint, if that company receives a lot they would likely change their stance because all they care about is getting customers! Public sector should not embrace any culture whilst the Private sector should not be forced to embrace any culture. You stated in your above post that people should not be forced to celebrate Christmas however if the school celebrates the Christian holiday surely it is forcing it's children to celebrate only culture's holiday as if it is elevated above others? Additionally, as a public institution schools are owned by every culture in Britain, they should not embrace any concept that is not universally supported by those tax payers. also on the immigration concept; a lot of people cannot leave if they want! Economically it is impossible for some people to leave the country. Not only that but I disagree with that concept for people who can leave, I mean it sounds a lot like "love it or leave it!" which I believe is a fallacy, in my view a good citizen "loves it and changes it!" These instances of slavery were not based on skin colour, in those cases infact black people were also slaves, on top of this the conditions of the past were not as institutional as they were for black slavery; they enslaved the person Now on the concept of wage slavery and slavery of the poor, there is the argument I mentioned earlier that black people were slaves simply because rich white people told the poor white people they were better than them to keep from having all poor people uniting, however as I've said its a complex argument I somewhat agree with however requires the conceit of positive discrimination to be somewhat accepted at least Of course it is! Just because something is not an issue that effects us in modern life does not mean it is not bad, for instance we joke about pirates of the Caribbean now but they were stone cold murderers and rapists. Their effect on society is gone now though therefore it is fine to treat it as a non-issue. Black slavery is still effecting black people qne their ability to progress in society though I agree with the central conceit that we should not be servile to our previous society where avoidable however our present society is strongly effected by the racism of the past centuries, to accept your argument we would have to say that being born black or white carries the same chances at being born into poverty or privilege, the same chances to get jobs and education and society doesn't back that statement up.we need to fix that inequality to go beyond it and then we should abolish positive discimination, but only once society is reasonably equal I'd have to read that book, I'll look it out the basic principal is correct I guess but really more correct to say geography is what got people to the point of power they are in, what that is missing is the method in which those cultures hold dominance over far away countries and that tends to be a mix of social engineering and creating a rigged system of governance.
This is the closest thing to Political Correctness "Gone Mad" I've seen, Sacking the mother in this instance is entirely wrong for what she does in her spare time, however http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/7885952.stm There was absolutely nothing wrong with reprimanding the child for doing this, I don't mind expression of religion but that is not what this is, its kids being stupid kids and likely insulting any kids who didnt believe in god or hell.
