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August 12, 2004

Racism, or something else?

Filed under: Bunker's Favorites,Society-Culture — Bunker @ 8:56 am

I believe racism is virtually non-existent in this country in the normal day-to-day activities of our lives.

Pretty bold statement, huh?

I’m just as sure people experience racism in this country. But I also believe that many experiences people have which they attribute to racism are actually something completely different. Conditioning makes them prone to the assumption that they’re being treated differently because of skin color. And it’s a condition pounded into them daily by folks who have an agenda. What people view as racism is, more times than not, based in social and cultural differences rather than racial.

What people perceive as racism is often the difference we see between liberals and conservatives. It is a question of whom you feel comfortable with, and there are many discriminators in play. For example, when I interview someone with ten body piercings and ragged clothing hanging from their body, I have no interest in associating myself with them. I won’t hire them. They are free to dress how they want. I am free to not associate myself with them. The same goes for language skills. If you can’t speak clearly in a way I can easily understand, why would I want to spend any time with you? You may be extremely intelligent and have ideas and opinions worth hearing, but I’ll never get to that point because you feel I need to adapt myself to you. Listen, if you want me to hear you, try adapting yourself to me. Any class you take on public speaking will tell you the first rule is to size up your audience and tailor your presentation to that audience.

I’m no more comfortable with Bubba Redneck than I am with someone like Snoop Dogg. I would enjoy time spent with Dubya, but not with Kerry. Brit Hume would be a welcome guest in my house, but not Pat Robertson. Jesse Jackson would do well to stay away from my door. But Al Sharpton might be an interesting visit. So would J. C. Watts.

I think that’s true for all of us, even if your particular guest list is exactly opposite mine. The charge of racism falls into place often because of these very differences. If most blacks are Democrats, they would view any discrimination they felt at the hands of Republicans as racism rather than a conflict of social perceptions and beliefs. The Democratic Party is more than happy to play on this belief.

Just because you’re black doesn’t mean you have to be a liberal. That’s racist thinking. Not all caucasians are conservative, now, are they?

Comments (3)

Blogrolls

Filed under: General Rants — Bunker @ 6:32 am

One of the things I like about the blogosphere is that everyone has a different collection of regular visits and visitors. I don’t have to scour the internet looking for something interesting to read. Any one of my regular visits might have some completely different perspective highlighted at a site I never visit on my own, and I get a chance to read it.

Each of us is unique. We have our own likes and dislikes. Yes, there is something of a herd mentality in the blogosphere, where people read only those sites they agree with. But, even then each blogger is eclectic if only in a small way.

I read La Shawn Barber each day. There’s a young lady who has some perspective. Yet she is taken to task for being a black conservative. Obviously, not all her readers are conservative. Sarah tells us she voted for Gore in 2000, but will vote for Bush this year. She also gets readers from an opposition point of view, some quite vicious. Roger Simon will be at the RNC Convention by invitation, which surprised him a bit. Rob takes me many places, some I have no real interest in being! Each of these writers takes me to different sites, and different opinions, some of which vary from their own.

I felt the need to say all that because I’m about to adjust my links once again. the list is getting unwieldy. But we have set up our Homespun Bloggers blogroll so that it now updates as new posts are added. You’ll find the most prolific posters at the top of the list. Several are in my regular list already. It is a good group. There are a couple with graphics-intensive sites which take a while to load, but the group, as a whole, is pretty diverse, and pretty good. I’m using the word “diverse” as defined in the dictionary. I don’t know the skin color of all the bloggers, as diversity has come to mean. More on that to come. This group isn’t the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy and don’t get their daily talking points from White House memos. I do, but the rest of them are just pikers!

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UN…Agin

Filed under: International — Bunker @ 5:50 am

Do you think this has anything to do with the UN’s relationship with the Sunni minority in Iraq?

At the request of the UN, the Iraqi government delayed the National Conference, which was scheduled for July 31, by two weeks. The UN is applying considerable pressure on the conference organisers to ignore the results of recent elections, conducted around Iraq to select 550 of the 1000 representatives for the conference. The UN is not happy with the fact that the majority of winning candidates are Shia Arab, although in a country which is two-thirds Shia this doesn’t seem to be that surprising. Instead, the UN is trying to force Iraq to ignore election results and accept candidates of the UN’s choosing – notably excluding many election winners and considerably reducing Shia participation. If the UN is allowed to get away with this then Iraqis will lose faith in future elections and the entire democratic process.

A couple of weeks ago the Wall Street Journal (print) had an article on the bureaucratic nightmare that the UN has created in Kosovo. They will do the same to Iraq if we continue to encourage their involvement. A successful Iraq does not fit well into the UN scheme of things.

You can get this kind of information from Iraqi Prospect Organization. I get an email from them about once a month.

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August 11, 2004

Style

Filed under: Education — Bunker @ 5:00 pm

I think it’s time for me to pull out my worn copy of Strunk & White.

As Ben Yagoda writes,

We are not all destined to be Hemingways, nor would most of us want to be.

However, every writer who has mastered “style” in the Strunk-and-White sense has, or at the very least is capable of having, a style in the broader sense.

Isn’t that what each of us in the blogosphere is hoping to accomplish?

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