The Secret Haters

My only comment here is why in the hell does the media insist on dragginf "race" into this election. I for one am a white middle class male and I am tickled pink to have the opportunity to vote for a man like Mr. Obama. He is an extremely charismatic, intelligent man who truly believes he can make a difference for his country. He just happens to also have a skin color darker than my own. Who the hell cares!!! Leave it alone already!!!!

You equate looking for another job with "betraying their values"? I think that's overreaching.

Well, Americans should then confront this reality,. As I mentioned earlier, we are not born bigotsor racists, we learn to be so. The problem is that our government has institutionalized racsm in our istitutions, so we remain racists unconscious. But we must remind ourselves that racial attitudes are learned, not inate, and we must remember hat there is nothing wrong with all human beings and our attitudes were simply roted in our insttutions through the efforts of idologues and hatemongers.

I would like to expand on part of the comment left by perfectimpressions re: prejudicial practices performed centuries ago still deserve to be righted now. That very idea is (in my mind) the main reason that there are prejudices against anyone now. The aggrieved are trying so hard to set themselves apart for retribution that they themselves are causing other parties to be prejudiced against them.

As long as any organization or group in any society desires to retrict the membership of its community to those fitting a certain type (whether defined by race, gender, sexual orientation, physical characteristic, social posiion, etc.), it will foster within its membership an "us versus them" mentality. This is a basic tribal instinct, subconscious though it may be, bred into our species over many millenium.

To think that advancements of technology over the last 175 years, and the resultant sopcietal upheavals we have seen throughout the world, would have caused such deep, long-standing, ingrained subconscious tendencies to be willed away is foolishness at the least, and more likely hubris.

Prejudices exist. Evryone (and I sincerely mean EVERYONE - including myself) has them. All we can do is seek and reward the better angels of our own nature to try to overcome these impulses. But when a group starts looking for signs of these impulses in the actions of others, even in the thoughts of others, does this not foster the same "us versus them" mentality yet again?

Those who look for reasons to feel oppressed or insulted by others will easily find them. Likewise, those who seek proof that others are hypocritical in their claims of such prejudice, either by claiming that while others groups behave as in this manner that their own is above such behavior, or worse by stating such prejudicial behavior is justified by others having been prejudicial towards them at sometime in the past (name your own time perod - days, months, years, decades, centuries, millenium), will find this ground fertile and full of examples. And, having been blessed with strong imaginations as well as agile minds, we will find ways to invent such proof even if it does not in reality exist yet.

What I find wryly amusing is one argument presented here - prejudicial practices performed centuries ago still deserve to be righted now. This same argument is used in the middle east by tribes to justify fighting to the death for slights and insults and injuries that occurred hundreds of years before.

Out of curiosity, to those who state that we should never forgive or forget pqst bad behavior - when does the statute of limitations run out?

All we can do is make a choice as an individual to examine our own lives and see if we are comfortable with our own actions, our choices, our beliefs within our own society. As Ghandi said, one must become the change they wish to see in the world.

to jyankey18:
I THINK WE ARE NEITHER.....Hillary is getting plenty of votes and the african americans would not vote for someone just because he looked black or red or white...they like Obama for the same reason everyone likes him and believes he can get the job done.

I always seem to get the impression that when 'racism' is mentioned that the finger is always pointing at the white population to 'correct their ways' or be more tolerant, etc., etc.. It puzzles me that the African American pundits always speak of folks like Tiger Woods as being African American - duh, his mother is Japanese - isn't that a form of racism. Isn't it amazing that Obama is getting close to 100% of the African American vote - is he really that much better than his opponent - or is that racism showing its ugly face..

I don't think so at all. In fact we are going overboard trying to show that we are not racists, just look at the free ride that Obama is getting with the media, they have fallen in love with this guy who is long on charm and short on issues. "Change" he shouts as though it were a magic word but I sure like to see him try if he ever gets to the White House. The media seems to have decided, however, that it's time we elect a black president and they picked him, a young senator with no experience whatsoever. Powell would have fitted the bill extremely well but of course, Powell was not interested. We need someone of experience in the White House. We shouldn't elect people just because it's time to have a woman in the White House or a black man, that's absurd and totally racist.

One big problem we have in society is what I call "Clumpism", which is grouping all of one race/gender/religion into one mass and then arguing towards the mass.

Some men are jerks, some women are jerks, but not all men and women are jerks.

There is a lot of racism around us every day. A lot of the racism is from whites, a lot of the racism is from blacks, and a lot of the racism is from asians. But, people are people. I'm not a racist, but my grandpa sure is. He can't even mention a person without pointing out their race first. It's not "see that guy over there?", it is, "see that asian guy over there?"

We all just need to check ourselves on these issues and make sure we're not part of the problem.

This a comment by Ed randell about Barack Obama that for some reason has not been picked up by the media http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_stump/archive/2008/02/12/ed-rendell-straight-talker.aspx

This is comment made by Ed Randell the Governor of Pennsylvania http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_stump/archive/2008/02/12/ed-rendell-straight-talker.aspx

has anyone made note of how the first women president will be seemingly DEPENDENT on her husband? the strongest women in the world will be made to look like nothing without her husband

100% racism absolutely still exists. My bestfriend I have been friends with for 13-14 years is Puerto Rican and Dominican. I myself am white. Everytime my bestfriend and myself are out in public we still get looks from white families and white couples as if we should not be hanging out together. We have even been asked to not go through our "friends" line in a store, what I found to be funny was the old ladies who asked us didn't even look at me. They just continued to stare at my bestfriend while they continued to mutter back and forth to each other even after we moved lines. Also graduating from a small town in 2005 that is predominantly white, I had all of maybe 4 black students in my graduatiing class. The ignorant and completely unspeakable racist comments I heard everyday of school from people is totally uncalled for and the next time you hear something....."SPEAK UP" these losers and ignorant fools will not stop until they realize they are the true minorities.