Sure, I do believe that you believe this has nothing to do with me, but unfortunately it does, since I posed the initial question and the this fork of the thread followed directly (AFAICT) from that post.
Just as [most of] what are called "conspiracy theories" are more elaborate than necessary (Ockham's Razor) while explaining less and entailing more contradiction with fact, these hidden-motives theories attempt to fashion theory for theory's sake. Someone pointed out that many 9/11 "conspiracy theories" are quite strong/popular in the black community. Similarly, this thread was started by a naive question from me, which was morphed into implying a conspiracy theory, and then analysed away as racism against browns, oblivious to my own brownness! Similarly for your examples of theories about pyramids and UFOs. Implying racist motives is not only ill-substantiated, but I am willing to wager that counter-examples abound (I can promise you that I can turn up at least ten relatives who believe for the same stated reasons that, say the Great Temple in Thanjavur, could not have been completed purely by the work of the locals -- despite their being the descendants of those same locals). This I would call the 'soft bigotry of high expectations' -- liberal and well-meaning Americans often tend to say 'You must be good at mathematics' or some such (because I am an Indian) -- creating in me the constant anxiety of the consequences of their inevitable disillusionment ;-). Sometimes there are just ignorant Indians, too. And questions should be treated in such a forum (left) with the same acceptance as Doug asking me why I continue to live in this country (sorry, can't find the post in the archives).
This is not to say that there are quite valid examples where racism indeed motivates a disbelief in the capabilities or achievements of the pigmentally-endowed. But I believe that is not only another discussion but has to be treated differently (what assessment can we make of the frequent use of "western" XYZ, where XYZ is a positive attribute of human activity, followed by further conclusions or explanations, driven purely by momentum, about how such a framework is -- or is not!! -- extensible to the other. See for example the recent discussion on the democracy. One could even offer the counter-argument that white people -- as reflected in the complacency of the general population -- are less willing or interested in questioning their masters, their structures, their traditions, and so on, since they live in a world which is more predictable, consistent and orderly; and that coloured people, drawing from a different set of experiences, entertain a "healthy" level of suspicion and an attitude of questioning everything. If so, it would be racist to suggest that suspicion is driven by racism, since the implication is that suspicion is wrong).
There is, I believe, at least for our purposes, an easy way out of this -- circular shooting squad (had to throw that in to up Doug's counter ;-)). Assume the best of your friends (on LBO) and eschew the theorizing about their psyche and personality unless significant contradictions arise.
--ravi
-- Support something better than yourself: ;-) PeTA: http://www.peta.org/ GreenPeace: http://www.greenpeace.org/ If you have nothing better to do: http://platosbeard.org/