Racism and the system

[GNOSIS]

Racism
1. the belief that a particular race, especially one's own, is superior to other races.
Ex. ... the biological racism which furnished a fraudulent scientific sanction for the atrocities committed in Hitler's Germany and elsewhere (Science).
2. discrimination or prejudice against a race or races based on this belief.
Ex. Racism, which by definition involves a form of subjection of one race by another, is evil. "Apartheid" cannot succeed (New York Times).
3. a political or social policy or system against a race or races based on this belief. </font>
Ex. Racial determinism ... easily slips into the political field, where this approach is called racism (Melville J. Herskovits).

for the purposes of this document, i will be working mainly with the third definition. Hopefully the following paragraphs will clear up why

Racism is most often used to justify the creation of political or economic systems that encourage or maintain the domination of one racial group over another. Claims of racial superiority have supported discrimination, segregation, colonialism, slavery, and even mass murder.

Types of racism.
Sociologists distinguish between individual and institutional racism. Individual racism refers chiefly to the prejudicial beliefs and discriminatory behavior of individuals in relation to other ethnic groups. It is based on racial assumptions of superiority and inferiority. Individual racism is often conscious and intentional. When a person is influenced by racist assumptions but is unaware of this influence, it is considered unconscious racism.

Institutional racism refers to the policies that restrict the opportunities of minorities in communities, schools, businesses, and other groups. Institutional racism may or may not be intentional, but it can produce harmful results.For example, a company may hire only college graduates for work that does not require a college degree. But if a smaller number of blacks than whites possess degrees, this company policy would limit the opportunities available to blacks.


I wanted to emphasize that racism is NOT intentional many times. Specially when we live in a society where racist ideas are so prevalent. People sometimes express these ideas not even knowing they are racist. Take this example for instance. When asked why there are so few black coaches in basketball, Jimmy “the Greek” Snyder remarked that black atheletes already hold an advantage as basketball players becuase they have longer thighs than white athletes,their ancestors having been deliberately bred that way during slavery. “This goes all the way back to the civil war, ‘ Jimmy explained “when during the slave trading.....the owner, the slave owner would breed his big black to his big woman so he could have a big black kid, you see.” keep in mind that the question was about the absensce of black coaches. He goes on to say If black men became coaches, there would be nothing left for the white man in basketball.


I’m sure Jimmy didn’t want to offend blacks with his comments. Jimmy i believe, is simply ignorant. Those were “borderline” racist comments made out of ignorance. Those comments got Jimmy fired, something i don’t totally agree with. America seems to like wiping stuff like that under the carpet instead of dealing with it, which is what we need. We need a serious discussion on this topic, and the air needs to be cleared. There’s still plenty of excuses and justifications for racism floating around, mainly fueled by junk science. These excuses need to be squashed and made unacceptable. We also need to answer questions such as ; why there is there a disproportinate amount of black men in jail? Why is there so much gun violence in african american communities? Why is it that blacks as a race group are still on the bottom of the socio-economic ladder, being surpassed by other opressed race groups?and why do we have a programs like affirmative action? is it condecending towards minorities? (and let’s not forget women who also benefit from it) or is affirmative action being helpful in shortening the wealth gap and giving these groups a needed boost?

I won’t attempt to answer all of these questions, but hopefully as i go along i will touch upon a few.




Racism is not natural or instinctive


The Origin of American racism (which is a particularly nasty,inhumane and pervasive strain of racism) against blacks lies in the slave trade. White Europeans needed an ideological justification. How else could you justify forcibly seizing and shipping millions of black africans to plantations. At first the reasons were purely economic. It was cheap, and it was profitable, but as humans we have trouble mistreating/killing our own kind our psyche opposes it. This is why it was necessary to dehumanize Africans. The same thing happens in war. Hitler used a brilliant propaganda campaign to dehumanize Jews, the US has used this tactic to dehumanize Viets, Communist, Japanese people, and currently Arabs and Muslims.


What further fueled the racism which grew out of the slave trade was Imperialism. Capitalism was growing in Europe and by nature it requires the voracious search for new markets. Countries were competing for their share of cheap labor, and natural resources. Europe was technologically more advanced than almost anyone in the world at this point. A certain arrogance comes with this kind of power , and out of that we get another excuse for racism. It’s called WHITE MAN’S BURDEN. these people are childlike, primitive, incapable of running themselves, they worship all kinds of silly gods, they have no clue that this white guy called jesus died for them and their sins, they don’t wear clothes, some of them have no idea about land ownership, their women aren’t subservient drones, and some even bathe....a little civilization will be good for them. Let’s rob them blind, take their land, they don’t even own it any ways, and grab a couple of em and put em on some ships. All this is for their best

i think i laid out the basic gist of WHITE MAN’s BURDEN pretty well.
Moving on.

Racism in america

During the early stages of slavery in america there were WHITE and BLACK slaves, many times working side to side. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t racism. There’s was plenty of it. Especially for those pesky indian savages. The colonist lived in CONSTANT FEAR (this is another cause for racism). Fear from indians raids, fear from starvation, fear of disease, but the ruling class was especially scared of SLAVE rebellions. Slave uprisings happened often and many times it was blacks and whites joining forces. So the ruling class decided to play a game they were very familiar playing. DIVIDE & CONQUER. White indentured servants were given more rights. Rights to land , rights vote...etc and they started moving up the social ladder. Whereas blacks just kept tumbling down. Slavery was becoming crueler and more black slaves were in demand from Africa. This was also a wise BUSINESS solution. White slaves could blend in, intermarry, and escape slavery. Blacks ...well..they ain’t that hard to spot. This was GREAT for slave owners and the ruling class. They didn’t have to brand slaves as their property, their skin was already a brand.



internalize, transitive verb, -ized, -izing.
(Psychology.)
1. to adopt and assimilate (an idea, habit, custom, or mannerism) into the framework of one's personality.

Slavery had devastating affects on the psyche of blacks. Blacks started internalizing the racism shown to them by the white man. Some people ask “why are blacks always fighting against each other, (black on black crime) why can’t they join together and help each other suceed and make it through. “ Much of that comes just from being poor and oppressed. Capitalism is competetion for scarce resources . When you’re poor you’ll fight anyone just to get the scraps. But much of it also has to do with the internalized racism. Black people learn to hate themselves and their kind. I still remember in the early 90’s when u got made fun of for being too dark and if you were a brotha you couldn’t get a date with black woman unless you were as light as Colin Powell. In the 50’s black men used “conks” (permed and damaged their hair just so it looked more like white hair)

Racism isn’t just church bombings , and crosses being burned in your front lawn by men and women wearing whitehoods. Racism can be repeatedly showing the image of white women as the standard of prestige and beauty. If you don’t think this happens still. Watch Telemundo or go anywhere in Latin America.

[GNOSIS]

Who benefits from the system?


A great example of Divide and Conquer and using racism and the existing tension between workers to their advantage used is what Coal Mining companies did to destroy strikes. Hundreds of workers went on strikes demanding better pay, and better working conditions. The anger of the workers was directed at the bosses who exploited them. So what did the bosses do? Fired all the workers who went on strike and hired all black scabs. Who do you think the anger of the workers was directed at now? Not the bosses who had exploited them and then fired them when they made demands,but at those “filthy, lazy, niggers who came to steal their jobs”

The ruling class is composed of mainly old white men so you might be asking how can a bunch of old farts control and exploit the masses against their will? When manipulation and coercion fails won’t the workers who realize their condition ,come knocking at “the mans” door with to show him justice? Nope. They have the muscle and the arms of the LAW, MILITARY, and POLICE at their disposal.

The laws of our land were written by them to benefit them. It’s even written in their language ,a smug, pompous, vernacular derivative from French.

A poor black man is suspected of dealing drugs; he has 5-10 DEA agents bust his door open in the middle of the night, they throw him down on the floor, put a knee on his neck, read him his rights and drag him out like a dog.

The CEO of company X steals millions, from his hardworking employees, ruins hundreds of people’s lives and he gets a call from the feds, you can bet your local police dept. won’t dare put their hands on him. They’ll ask him to turn himself in within a week. Worst case scenario, 2 feds will show up at the office and kindly take you in for questioning, they’ll make sure not to wrinkle your nice suit.

The poor black man probably couldn’t even afford to pay his bills, let alone a lawyer, and bail. He was an attorney appointed for him. The CEO gets one of his golfing buddies who happens to own a very powerful law firm.

The black man gets 15 years because of his previous criminal record which includes petty theft, and failure to show up for court dates.
The CEO gets 6 months at a facility of his choosing, he also has to pay 5 million (pocket change).

After serving 15 years in a maximum security prison, the black man comes out a better criminal, as he had the experience of learning from hundreds of other criminals. He gets a bit of job training, and learns a little bit about trades he might be able to put into use. He manages to get his GED which was quite an accomplishment for him considering he dropped out in middle school. He goes out into the real world to search for a job. He seems to be having alot of problems doing this though. You see, no one wants to hire him becuase of his criminal record. He’s also having a hard time getting an apartment becuase they also check for criminal backgrounds. He had aspirations of going to school, but he then finds out that he won’t qualify for federal grants. Could it have something to do with his criminal record? You betcha. So with no job, no apartment, no school....WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU EXPECT THIS MAN TO DO. He’ll probably do what he knows best. Dealing drugs


I wonder how the corrupt CEO faired. His buddy is president of a bio-medical research company and he hires him as one of his top FINANCIAL advisiors.

JUSTICE IS DONE




Capitalism rest not only of the competition between capitalist but also on the competition between workers. The structure of the capitalist economy encourages workers to see other workers as rivals for jobs, houses and so on. The ruling class loves nothing more than seeing working class blacks, fighting working class whites and competing for jobs and land and over petty ideological differences. They love nothing more than seeing religions, sexual orientation, and nationalism, divide us against each other. If you don’t want to believe that they do this intentionally, fine. But just know that while we fight each other they come out with all the spoils.

<rant>

While we’re busy fighting over gay marriage and sexual morality, they busy being immoral themselves,getting divorced, Bush is getting a boner in the ass during his skulls and bones initiation.
[img]http://gnosis.blacklightning-dimension.com/rumsfield.jpg[/img>




While we’re busy hating France they are over in the Riviera getting a sun tan

While we’re busy blaming affirmative action on us not getting a job or getting into college, they are busy sending their kids to the best school, sending C students to Harvard, they’re busy out sourcing jobs to Vishnu Guapatima and getting all kinds of job offers because of their “network connections”

While we’re busy blaming gays for the breakdown of the family, they are raising the cost of living, forcing families to work longer hours, filling up our minds with materialistic bullshit, coercing us into debt, and cutting funding to programs that could help families like WIC, after -school programs, family counseling, and drug rehabs.

While we’re busy trying to be law abiding citizens, they are killing interns and getting away with it (see gary condit), speeding on the highway and not getting tickets, and illegally overthrowing democratically elected government

While we’re busy worrying about terrorism and terrorist states, they’re busy making deals with the “enemy” (see Haliburton)

While we worry about illegal immigrants and terrorist getting into our country, they are busy flying Saudi Royals out of our country, and protecting known war criminals like Henry Kissinger.

While we’re busy worrying about getting mugged or shot by dangerous black felons, they are mugging us out of our hard earned retirement funds (see Enron)

and the worst offense, while working class men and women are fighting for their imperialistic gains, they’re over here eating crumpets, playing golf talking about how they’re going to divide the spoils, cutting veterans benefits, making life harder for vets and their families, while their kids are safe at home.


</rant>

Racism provides the system and the ruling class with a scapegoat for things like unemployment, crime, and other social ills. Capitalism always keeps racism alive in case it needs to play the racist card.

racist, noun, adjective.
noun a person who believes in, supports, or practices racism.
Ex. the bigotry of a racist.
adj. believing in, supporting, or practicing racism.
Ex. a racist attitude or speech.

if you support the system which has made racism an integral part of the of the gears that allow it to function. You will inevitably find yourself supporting racism.

In short my solution to racism is my solution to most of societies ills Get rid of Capitalism and fundementalist religions



For the moderate/religious/capitalist sympathizer who agrees with me that capitalism is the cause or at least fuels racism, i offer a less radical solution.

Let’s put stricter controls on the ruling class. This includes politicians business owners, corporations, bankers, and media moguls. Increasingly take away power from these people and organizations, and make them fully accountable to our will.

If we have the means let’s make sure people are provided with the basics. Let’s give all poor people not just poor blacks, a boost. Free healthcare..why? because we can. Free education. why? because we can. Affordable housing, ditto Watch this

Let’s make sure neighborhoods don’t become segregated, let’s make sure our schools don’t become segregated. The more interaction we have with each other the more racist ideas will die out.

Create a culture that’s thirsty for knowledge. Knowledge of self (gnosis) and knowledge of the cosmos.

Use religion to unify and not to divide. Beware of any religion which claims to be the ONLY ONE.


Fight for along side your brothers and sister through other battles. Fight for Gays to be allowed to marry, fight for higher wages for K-mart workers. You help them today and they might come through for you when u need help. Nothing builds solidarity and breaks down racism, like a common fight.

Avoid all wars, at all cost. Violence only breeds hate

Think globally act locally. We don’t live in a vacuum what happens in another part of the world will eventually affect us. So it is in our interest to promote peace and prosperity everywhere, not just here.



I hope this helped

[Morgan_Freeman]

I think your conclusion about the source of racism is a bizarre nonsequitur.
WTF does capitalism have to do with it??

[GNOSIS]

Quote by: Morgan_Freeman I think your conclusion about the source of racism is a bizarre nonsequitur. WTF does capitalism have to do with it??

figure it out bro

the "system" i was talking about is capitalism.

I'm not a socialist or communist, i believe in the people taking over governement and more democracy, not centralized power from above.

[The Dunedan]

Not a Soc/Com?
Then where did all this "free healthcare, free housing, free education, Capitalism is racist" nonsense come from then, eh? Smells awfully Marxist to me; in any case I want no part of it. I'm no racist, but this collectivist nonsense can stay as far away from me as it cares to.

[PatrickHenry]

We need to distinguish between actual free market entrepreneurialism and "mercantilism," sometimes known as state monpoly capitalism. In the current climate of disinformation it is easy to get them confused. Most "Capitalists" are not true free marketers at all, but monopolists, who would use the power of government to crush competition instead of competing fairly on value. In any case, GNOSIS, I am in agreement that racism is a part of the "system" that seeks to divide workers and direct a larger share of the money flow to the elite, and less to the bottom of the pyramid.

[argonak]

This seems to be using monopolistic (and illegal) tactics to put capitalism in the same light as using Stalin's Autocratic rule being considered "communism."

Any system can be manipulated to keep the people in power, in power. A socialistic society can be used the same way, it promotes complacency, much of modern Europe is a prime example of this.

The problem isn't capitalism, its unetheical people.

[Disturbing_Clown]

Why do calls for the end of racism end up sounding like a Marxist rant 95% of the time? Marx was wrong, you will do more to help your cause if you have a sound theorhetical foundation.

[GNOSIS]

i'm not a communist or socialist
i use Marxist terminology alot becuase it is accurate. Marx's analysis of capitalism was accurate, the main problem with Marx and Communist are their solutions.

Capitalism has always been fucked up..but a necessary evolution in human development ..it's funny talking to Libertarians/Free market/ lassiez faire advocates, becuase they basically want to go back to how the US was when it was founded.

if i remember correctly mass slaughter of indians and slavery was the rage in those days

[Disturbing_Clown]

Ya, you totally pegged me, I sit around wishing for some slaves to gin my cot'in. Get real. Marx was wrong right from the start. You claim not be a socialist or commie, but I am willing to bet the "sollution" to racist Capitalism would envolve a little ass kicking if need be, eh? I find progressives intersting, they talk about how loving and caring they are, but all their polocies would involve the use of the same institutionalized violence that they rail against. Here's the new boss, same as the old boss.

[Suburbanite]

To say marx was right or wrong is an exaggeration of what he was, that is all I can say about that. Capitalism is not what produces a master/slave mentality; it is, in fact, very much another cause of it. Economics and ALL of our socialization is a product of that. Thats the number one function of a society. Communism is a failure because communist countries are not communist and know they never can be. They are devoid of romance and the Great March, so to speak, is supposed to end there... and it doesn't and can't.. so it failed.
Racism and Sexism have nothing to do with economics. Economies are far more influenced by them than they are by it.

[GNOSIS]

Quote by: Suburbanite To say marx was right or wrong is an exaggeration of what he was, that is all I can say about that. Capitalism is not what produces a master/slave mentality; it is, in fact, very much another cause of it. Economics and ALL of our socialization is a product of that. Thats the number one function of a society. Communism is a failure because communist countries are not communist and know they never can be. They are devoid of romance and the Great March, so to speak, is supposed to end there... and it doesn't and can't.. so it failed. Racism and Sexism have nothing to do with economics. Economies are far more influenced by them than they are by it.

Capitalism creates racism against those who it exploits. It's getting harder to do that in the mainstream, which is good. But i see alot of racism and ethnocentrism towards arabs and muslims since this war started. It has everything to do with the fact that the US/western industries are trying to get a foothold in the middle east and exploit the resources there. Beofe this war started i never used to hear this hatred for middle easterners.

Like i said ..Racism is an expedient tool for capitalist.

[GNOSIS]

Quote by: Morgan_Freeman I think your conclusion about the source of racism is a bizarre nonsequitur. WTF does capitalism have to do with it??

racist, noun, adjective.
noun a person who believes in, supports, or practices racism.
Ex. the bigotry of a racist.
adj. believing in, supporting, or practicing racism.
Ex. a racist attitude or speech.

if you support the system which has made racism an integral part of the of the gears that allow it to function. You will inevitably find yourself supporting racism.

In short my solution to racism is my solution to most of societies ills Get rid of Capitalism and fundementalist religions



For the moderate/religious/capitalist sympathizer who agrees with me that capitalism is the cause or at least fuels racism, i offer a less radical solution.



My conclusion was that Racism and Capitalism are tied.
A sure way to end racism is to get rid of capitalism. The divide between rich and poor created by capitalism will ensure that racism lives on. That's what i earnestly beleive.

I offered another less radical solution, which could work as well. Which is simply massive reform of the system we have now. A system which wiill take in the good aspects of communism and socialism and even some things from libertarians.

If you want more detailed explanation of the type of governement i'd like to see, i can give that

[Zarathustra]

Ancient romans, greeks, cretans, british, injuns, hindus, chinese, japanese, arabs, and aztecs were all "racist." None of them were capitalists.

[GNOSIS]

Quote by: Zarathustra Ancient romans, greeks, cretans, british, injuns, hindus, chinese, japanese, arabs, and aztecs were all "racist." None of them were capitalists.

American Racism is on a completely different level, than racism in other cultures.
I hate repeating myself...lemme see if i can find something i've written on this subject before

[Livemike]

Quote by: GNOSIS Who benefits from the system? A great example of Divide and Conquer and using racism and the existing tension between workers to their advantage used is what Coal Mining companies did to destroy strikes. Hundreds of workers went on strikes demanding better pay, and better working conditions. The anger of the workers was directed at the bosses who exploited them.

By exploited read "gave them jobs that they could support their family on".

Quote by: GNOSIS So what did the bosses do? Fired all the workers who went on strike and hired all black scabs. Who do you think the anger of the workers was directed at now? Not the bosses who had exploited them and then fired them when they made demands,but at those “filthy, lazy, niggers who came to steal their jobs”

And why was it that so many blacks were out of work and ready to take strikebreaking
jobs? Because the white working class did their best to exclude them from jobs and
from unions that could get them jobs. The capitalists merely corrected the distortion
imposed (often violently) by the white working class. As for calling them scabs what
right have you to criticise their choice of contract? Just because you choose to join
an organisation and they did not is not reason to abuse them.

Quote by: GNOSIS The ruling class is composed of mainly old white men so you might be asking how can a bunch of old farts control and exploit the masses against their will?

You might also be asking what it means to be the "ruling class" if the rules are
deliberately designed to benefit others. For instance the rules are biased in favour
of women in divorce, in favour of blacks in employment, in favour of the poor in income
distribution yet the claim is that rich white men run the show. Why would they if
this is the result?

Quote by: GNOSIS When manipulation and coercion fails won’t the workers who realize their condition ,come knocking at “the mans” door with to show him justice? Nope. They have the muscle and the arms of the LAW, MILITARY, and POLICE at their disposal. The laws of our land were written by them to benefit them.

Then why is it that the laws of your land hand some much of their wealth over
to others? Why is it that the laws of your land mandate some contracts be given
to others regardless of how well whites might do them?

Quote by: GNOSIS It’s even written in their language ,a smug, pompous, vernacular derivative from French.

Utter rubbish.

Quote by: GNOSIS A poor black man is suspected of dealing drugs; he has 5-10 DEA agents bust his door open in the middle of the night, they throw him down on the floor, put a knee on his neck, read him his rights and drag him out like a dog. The CEO of company X steals millions, from his hardworking employees, ruins hundreds of people’s lives and he gets a call from the feds, you can bet your local police dept. won’t dare put their hands on him.

You can bet that, I somewhat doubt it. In any case it's hard to see how being dealt
with by the Feds is an advantage.

Quote by: GNOSIS They’ll ask him to turn himself in within a week. Worst case scenario, 2 feds will show up at the office and kindly take you in for questioning, they’ll make sure not to wrinkle your nice suit.

Liar.

Quote by: GNOSIS The poor black man probably couldn’t even afford to pay his bills, let alone a lawyer, and bail. He was an attorney appointed for him. The CEO gets one of his golfing buddies who happens to own a very powerful law firm.

And finds it's bugger all use if the Feds really want you convicted.

Quote by: GNOSIS The black man gets 15 years because of his previous criminal record which includes petty theft, and failure to show up for court dates.

So you're comparing apples with oranges, and in a racist way too. Why would
blacks be more likely to skip court dates? Do those piccaninies not have your
mental acuity?

Quote by: GNOSIS The CEO gets 6 months at a facility of his choosing, he also has to pay 5 million (pocket change). I wonder how the corrupt CEO faired. His buddy is president of a bio-medical research company and he hires him as one of his top FINANCIAL advisiors.

Yeah right, plenty of CEOs hire you as a financial adviser when they know the Feds want to put you in prison. That's a real bright move and won't kill the share price at all,
let allone result in the Feds going through every aspect of your private life.

Quote by: GNOSIS JUSTICE IS DONE Capitalism rest not only of the competition between capitalist but also on the competition between workers. The structure of the capitalist economy encourages workers to see other workers as rivals for jobs, houses and so on.

No the structure of reality encourages that. Only one plumber can mend the pipe
only one family can live in the house etc. There are limited resources and one
competes for them. You do this by selling your services or products in competition
with those that have similar services or products.

<snip>

[Livemike]

Quote by: GNOSIS i'm not a communist or socialist i use Marxist terminology alot becuase it is accurate.

But you're not a Marxist, right...

Quote by: GNOSIS Marx's analysis of capitalism was accurate, the main problem with Marx and Communist are their solutions.

No it was not accurate, his assertions about "surplus value" absolute rubbish. Capitalists don't steal value that was already in the worker's labour. If they did why would anyone turn up to work? Capitalists don't try to maximise the rate of expropriation, they try to maximise their rate of profit. Who cares what the ratio of value of the workers product to the value you pay them is? The profit is in the _difference_ between what you pay for and what you sell. Even assuming that all you pay for is labour (and that is not the case since you pay for the use of capital) the paying twice as much to get three times as much in sales reduces the "exploitation rate" and increase the profit. Capitalists don't buy labour saving machinery to try to increase the rate of unemployment and therefore get
cheaper wages. If some did then the rate of wages would lower and the labour saving machinery would be unprofitable for the others. So the ones that bought machinery would pay the costs and the other capitalists would reap the benefits. What capitalist worth the name would tolerate that?

Quote by: GNOSIS Capitalism has always been fucked up..but a necessary evolution in human development ..it's funny talking to Libertarians/Free market/ lassiez faire advocates, because they basically want to go back to how the US was when it was founded. if i remember correctly mass slaughter of indians and slavery was the rage in those days

No "Libertarians/Free market/ lassiez faire advocate" wants to go back to the days when violating people's rights was acceptable. In fact most of the slaughter of the Indians was due to the government having power rather than the market. Where the market ruled the Native Americans and the colonists got on quite well and land transfer was both profitable and peaceful.

[Livemike]

[Quote:
Quote by: Zarathustra
Ancient romans, greeks, cretans, british, injuns, hindus, chinese, japanese, arabs, and aztecs were all "racist." None of them were capitalists.

Quote by: GNOSIS American Racism is on a completely different level, than racism in other cultures. I hate repeating myself...lemme see if i can find something i've written on this subject before

So american racism is on a completely different level than the genocidal level the Romans often fell to? It's on a completely different level to the British who conquered over a hundred million people and justified their oppression with racial theories? It's on a completely different level to the Japanese who used don't allow Koreans who've lived there for 5 generations to become citizens? It's a completely different level to the Aztecs who simply slaughtered those foreigners they found inconvenient? Yes it is. The americans are currently far less racist than any of these societies. Your contention that capitalism causes racism is incredibly ignorant of the history of both phenomina. Just accept the fact that your are wrong with dignity.

[The Dunedan]

Ok, this is funny.
Yes, American has a racial problem. So does every other country in the world. However, the US has not in my lifetime:

1: Torched a city, impaled it's babies on lances, and sworn to banish all Blacks to "Hell or Connaught!" ( Oliver Cromwell and his New Model Army after the siege of Drodegha )

2: Levelled a foreign capital, poisoned its' wells, sown the earth with salt, imprisoned its' entire population ( except for the men over 17, who were all executed ) and filled in its' harbours with rubble. ( Rome, after the conquest of Carthage )

3: Sacked a city, killed over 250,000 people, raped women with bayonets, cut people's heads off for practice, coated children with gasoline and set them on fire for use as street-lamps, disembowled pregnant women for aforementioned street-lamp-fuel, and buried people up to their neck in a half-and-half mixture of water/lye. ( Japan, the rape of Nanking )

4: Rounded up 300,000 people in 4 days, herded them onto cattle-cars, and shipped them 3500 miles away. The 300,000 were the lucky ones: 185,000 more were dead from starvation by this point. ( Stalin, against the Terek Cossacks, during the Wheat Wars. )

5: Systematically exterminated 6,000,000 Jews, 2.5M Catholics, 890,000 homosexuals, 700,000 Gypsies, 1.5M Slavs, and roughly 450,000 political dissidents. ( Holocaust. )

6: Burned and tortured 105,000 people to death in a single year upon suspicion of Witchcraft. ( Hamburg, AD 1595 )

Come to think of it, the US has never done anything even remotely like these things. Pretty nasy shit? OOOOh yeah. Bio-warfare against Indians in the 1880s comes to mind. However, we have never begun to approach the level of racism and genocide which has marked much of the rest of the world at one time or another.

[Suburbanite]

Quote by: GNOSIS Capitalism creates racism against those who it exploits. It's getting harder to do that in the mainstream, which is good. But i see alot of racism and ethnocentrism towards arabs and muslims since this war started. It has everything to do with the fact that the US/western industries are trying to get a foothold in the middle east and exploit the resources there. Beofe this war started i never used to hear this hatred for middle easterners. Like i said ..Racism is an expedient tool for capitalist.

You're being naive. I heard it! It was always there. People who hate Muslims hate Muslims! More people hate Muslims now because Muslims attacked the United States. Its not hatred because we want their oil or something, people just don't like being attacked and killed and such. You're just being ridiculous here. In the back of no one’s mind is I hate Arabs because they have a lot of oil. The war generated no racism and capitalism generated no racism here. Sept. 11th did though, justified or unjustified. Your understanding of racism makes me feel like you should have my screen name.