Posted by TMS:

Michael Kay was harping over the fact that he can't understand why there doesn't seem to be any outrage from women's groups or other special interest groups over this whole scandal... i can't say i disagree w/him either... i guess certain people get judged on a different scale.

[Edited by - TMS on 10-04-2007 2:32 PM]

why would there be outrage by women's goups over one man allegedly sexually harassing one woman. What about that ought to incite outrage? Was there outrage from women's groups when Bill 'Family Values' O'Reilly was accused of sexual harassment? Its one man and one woman, thats not cause for outrage, especially not in the context of what ABS is alleging. If it was a string of women, or if he had grabbed her ass or breasts or something liek that, that would be more of an issue.

So exactly what scale are you talking about? Give me an example of someone of similar stature who was hung out to dry based on a similar case?

it's a high profile case, so you figure there'd be the usual special interest groups chiming in on it... so far i've seen none... that's just curious to me.

"In spite of cultural integration at the workplace..."

stop right there loweyecue. Just stop.

Say What?

"So maybe its just human nature to think of ourselves as being superior to all other types of ourselves?"

loweyeq - can you please explain, "superior to all other types of ourselves"?

Posted by misterearl:

"In spite of cultural integration at the workplace..."

stop right there loweyecue. Just stop.

Why stop? because you disagree? Bring it then.

Although I am not naive enough to beleive that the intgration is complete it is happening. I have an objective outsider's point of view to the black and white issues at the american workplace and I have seen various settings where people can and do live and work in harmony with mutual respect. (OMG -- I am actually being positive here... )

These are not issues that can be resolved easily or directly but slowly and incrementally over the liftime of generations. It will take the same amount of time or more than what it took to propagate them in the first place for the healing to complete. So when I look at the obvious discomfort certain older people feel in a mixed workplace and I also see the somewhat exuberant comingling amongst younger people I definitely feel some hope. But as of right now as I have already said in my initial post racism is alive and well.

Having said that it brings me to the second thing you asked about. It is harder to explain but I will try. Race is just one type of social segregation there are many others including, religion, culture, ethnicity, income, wealth etc. and it is inherent to people in each segment (regardless of the method of segmentation) to try to isolate themselves using "us against them" type rationale. So given the fact that we are all members of the same species we cannot but at some level help feel superior than others whether its based on race, religion, ethnicity, culture etc...hence feeling superior to"other types" of ourselves. "Superior" was probably a bad word to use maybe "different/distinct" would be better?

But instead of people accepting their differences and moving on the thing that happens all the time is everybody gets defensive, rude, obnoxious and at some point violent towards everybody else. From a very early age onwards most people in our generation were subjected to rigorous training in social stereotypes, but only in certain pockets of society can you now see people are making a concious effort against this. In our lifetimes this will not be perfected but if we keep making a concious effort then maybe three or four generations from now it will be relegated to our subconcious instead.

To me every incident like this IT trial, the Jena mishap sets civilization back by many years at a time. And that is kind of what I was trying to get to, each incident spawns some type of feeding frenzy all over the place. arguments, counter arguments, rationalization, validation, doubts, insults and even deeper segregation.

Like a lot of people I was apalled when I first read about the Jena case. But ever snce then I have seen the media perpetuate this crisis in the minds of otherwise decent people who have now taken sdes and are pointing fingers at each other. Question is if we cannot make the concious decision to stop doing this who can?

Everybody is so busy pointing out the problem that no one seems to give a damn about trying to come up with a solution. Me I just ask questions. Do I have a solution of course not I am geek not a philosopher. But when these issues come up and these heated discussion ensue I see two thinhgs that I will note here. These are my personal observations over the last 12-15 years, not directed at any one person or group.

1. People need to stop being "white men' or "black men" and start being man enough to be just "men"
2. People need to stop wallowing in self pity for what happened in the past because there ain't **** they can do about i

Posted by Killa4luv:

If white people internalized the notion that blacks and latinos in this country are systematically discriminated against, and that that discrimination has already done very real harm to those people’s lives, communities, and subsequent generations, there is no way they would be so bothered by the trivial and hypothetical racism of Isiah Thomas, or the isolated injustice of the OJ case.

Killa, just curious why you didn't include Asians/Pacific Islanders/Native Americans there... is it because you don't think they are discriminated against in this country or is it because you don't percieve that their lives, communities, & subsequent generations have had any real harm done to them because of it? or was it some other reason? please clarify.

this is a sincere question because i want to clearly understand your position on this issue before i cast any aspersions on your opinions... the word "bitch" is often used among people of Asian/Pacific Islander descent that i grew up with too, i'm not 1 to claim innocence myself... it has nothing to do with color of your skin, but the generation & environment we all grew up in, as Bip mentioned earlier in this thread... if a person of whatever race lives in the Bible belt & grew up believing that cursing was a sin, perhaps that word would not be used all that liberally in their lives... that doesn't mean they don't disrespect women in their own way... the word itself is just a word... i understand that it is an offensive word aimed at disrespecting women, when used in that context... however, in certain contexts you really are not using it with that intent (when i, you or someone else who grew up in an urban environment might say to their boy "what's up bitch", much in the same way a black person may say to another black person "that's my nigga")... clearly to many on this forum, the way Isiah Thomas used the B word in this context, it was used with disrespectful intentions, & obviously that is unacceptable, as you yourself acknowledged earlier.

[Edited by - TMS on 01-02-2008 12:14 AM]