An undercurrent of racism? [ramble]

[Just a few thoughts I noted on Facebook, I wanted to preserve them here.]

An undercurrent of racism?

Race or ethnicity is the least interesting thing to me. some people get annoyed or offended if I say it of my background, but to me it wouldn't matter where I or you are from. And if you base your life and sense of belonging on race, then I think you're missing something important.
I get this from nationalists who say they "aren't racist, but..." But they worry about the death of the white race, they don't see Islam as a race but they assume Indian(south Asian, in general) and middle eastern people are Muslims. And yes, they're the same people who worry about extremist Islam but mock Muslims who don't stick to a hardline view of the faith, thus condemning moderation within the faith to a degree. Islam isn't a race, but a lot of critics of Islam, mostly older men, see a brown person from north Africa, middle east or Indian or maybe Indonesia, and they assume they're Muslim and they might be the enemy to some degree. Basically, suggest; "If they aren't here to attack us they're here to outbreed us." So I'm not a fan of the not-racist-racists, or closeted racists, or those who otherwise don't see that they're the kind of commenting fools who gives, anyone who wants it, an example of ignorance and casual racism.

The cure to ignorance is good information, even for conspiracy theorists?

I often speak to a friend who is a very devout JFK conspiracy theorist, he believes in it, he happens to be a big Bill Hicks fan, also a guy with facebook pals who are conspiracy fear monger, not that he believes all he hears.  he said he did not want a debate about JFK, my response was fine, But.
The But is 'which way did kennedy's brain matter splatter?'

He wasn't sure, but it was a gotta ya moment, and if you look at the footage the burst of Kennedy's brain material being forward, NOT BACK, is evident of a shot from the rear, not the foreground, not the famed grassy knoll.  I know I am far the first skeptic to say this, but most conspiracy theories are hinged on ideas and arguments, not serious facts.
I even joked with another friend, a friend I helped out of New Age last year, that maybe JFK was killed by a cop, who may have been an invisible gun man, since no one noticed.



P.S. I love some of the work of Bill Hicks, but if there is a heaven he is chatting to Kennedy saying are you sure it wasn't a magic bullet.

Bill Hicks on JFK, funny, but some more anarchic mates of mine take this view like it's totally true.

Keep it real, look up the facts, and if it's your cup of tea, go look at Penn & Teller's Bullshit, o the Conspiracy Theories episode they tested out this...

don't run on auto.

Ban anything that scares you? Bossy Femo-nazi, N-word, UKIP, Gay, Retarded

battle ignorance by teaching people the facts, don't take the easy route and trying banning things when it probably isn't enough, and may help, but not as much as education. 

we have a great culture in some ways, diverse, open to new ideas, even if a few moans are the constant theme of this not quite utopian present, and some want to push an agenda.  Throughout our history, this nation has had various groups out to be heard or make a mark, to paint a portrait on a corner of society, and this has allowed great leaps, such a feminist leaps in fighting for equal rights, yet we hear from time to time far more than a sane expression of ideas.  I am referring to those who think it solve an issue, an imbalance in rights and social issues, the best method, or easiest, is to ban words, if offended by the term 'miss', so then rally the activist army, and try to shut down the use of the term.
Sadly, such ideas are not always useful, the banning of a word I need not even type to refer to black people, and I need not refer to as the "N-word", it has been of use, sure, right on, we all now think the word 'nigger' when ever someone says 'N-word', and even me typing it once on a blog scares the shit out of google.  Words don't always cause offence, even the word I referred to, after all in black culture it is often used, and so its about context, plus if you have friends who use the word they may use it when talking to you, or even more oddly to say your a nigger, maybe the mould of politically corrected language is broken at the edges, or maybe some assholes are seriously over the top?!

A recently issue that come up, recent as in earlier this year, was some well known celebrities talking about the word 'bossy', with their hashtag '#banbossy', and like banning a word would change minds a lot of impulse cattle jumped on that bandwagon.  Imagine your a young women called bossy, and it put you off doing more in your life, lowers motivation, we can agree that's a shame, yet is it wise to ban words, or maybe educate people, even children, that women can lead too?!  If we are able to deal with the issue then change it done, if we start banning words in cases such as this then guess what, some one will use another word, a new word maybe, or just leave a "bossy" girls out of the social group.  Banning bossy is like changing torture to intensive interrogation methods, the meaning is still there when you water-board someone but at least it sounds nicer when someone speak of
interrogations than torturing someone, words change and the issue can remain, nice words don't cover well hard facts.  I'm off point, oh well, happens to me a lot.   The issue is a changing of language used does not cut the root of the problem, you trim the branches and think the tree will change, but these are deeply rooted and high grown forests, not a single bonsai.

I am often a little to the left of politics, I'm not married to a party, unlike many people, like a life long Labour voter, or the ever belonged Liberal Democrat, yet I am annoyed by those who jump to conclusions, they give a hand to a right-wing nut by being far from sceptical.  I one recent case, the election for the EU parliament, the issues around UKIP, not totally the same as banning, using a number of selected issues to call all the worse case, namely racist, when it actual fact most probably aren't, just most can seem pro-bigotry, it's an important distinction.  I don't need to support UKIP to say this, in fact I wont vote for that party, probably ever, but it has to be said the easy dismissal of calling them racist turned into an own goal for the politicians and the media alike.  It is worth pointing out that the previous "new fourth party", the BNP, was hit by the same media stories and was openly racist and thus easily defeated by cheap news media responses that just were not as effective on UKIP.  It turns out that just calling a party that is anti-immigration racist is the cheapest trick, that now many people wouldn't believe, even if UK Independence Party renamed itself the UK Fascist League.  Some people try to ban groups of this kind, BNP, UKIP, and activist groups that are no better, like the EDL, however we should remember once you ban them they just start a new group with a new name and leader, as well a few Muslim Extremist groups in the UK in recent years.

this picture does not relate, but looks rude and a bit funny.



When someone says a word is so bad as to be banned, they had best have good reasons to say ban it even in context, another recent example is the way the term 'gay' is used to say dumb or silly, or something to that effect, much like 'retard', or retarded, was used in this way.  So some people get offended that a word that has many dimensions is used in a context void of other contextual meaning and thus want to cut it away to be used in their chosen realm.  This is the real point, how it breaks down, context, and other context situations that may swing to offence on one front and just same ol' on the other side, really simple to see how teaching differences, and that can include a wider vocabulary, will solve this word wars.

Bottom line, informing people about issues works better than banning words or ideas.