----- Original Message ----- From: "John Thornton" <jthorn65 at mchsi.com> To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Sent: Sunday, July 04, 2004 12:46 AM Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] words for the black community
:
: >When R and John speak of white people as a coherent group they echo the
: >fundamental premise of racist ideology, that races exist.
: >
john speaks for himself quite ably here. i should contract insomnia if that's the result.
if -- and that's a big "if" -- i give the impression of speaking of whites as a "coherent group," that's a limitation of language. and a mistake on my part due to possibly trying to make a larger point.
i don't see them, or any other "racial" group that way. in my opinion, erroneously stereotyping a group is one of the fundamental biases of racism and all forms of prejudice. over and over and over again, we hear prejudiced people talking about their targets as though every member of the target group was exactly the same. whatever the category may be, all whites are the same, all musicians are alike, all communists are the same, all abortionists, all lawyers, etc, ad nauseum.
oh sure, the bigots weasel out of that now and then when they're confronted with a movie star, a communist who "doesn't look like one," etc. but then they revert to other details of their well defended stereotype for confirmation in their own minds. as i assume everyone on this board knows, racists don't reason about that subject. usually, it's a game for them to get you into an argument against their position because they know they can't loose.
the fact that people are usually as different as snow flakes is what makes us interesting. even intellectual failures, carrol, often have something to give, on an entirely different level.
R
: >Intellectual failure can be as bad as or worse than malign will in the
: >struggle against racism.
: >
: >Carrol
:
: If it makes you feel better to believe that in any of my posts I wrote of
: whites as a "race that exists" any differently than Luke, Miles, Jenny, or
: Doug did in my e-mails with them then you are a bigger fool than I thought
: you were. Perhaps you missed my reference to "all our imagined races"?
: Don't presume you have any special insight that allows you to lecture me
on
: racism. The intellectual failure in this instance is all yours. God you're
: a pompous ass. If you have the time to back up your baseless accusation
why
: don't you go through all my posts on this topic and find where exactly my
: language differs so radically from the e-mails with the people listed
: above. I have done exactly that and there is no major difference in the
: language of racism I used vs. any of the people I corresponded with. This
: was such a sad and lazy accusation I debated even wasting my time
: responding. Fortunately(?) insomnia has provided quite a bit of extra time
: for me lately.
:
: John Thornton
:
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