Here, here! Or is it hear, hear? I was going to post that same video if someone hadn’t already.
And so much this. And, IMO, when we (I’m white) fail to acknowledge that we were born into a racist system in a position of relative privilege, that is racist, too. I have been met by much anger trying to make this point to otherwise intelligent and seemingly open minded acquaintances. As if somehow recognizing any privilege completely diminishes everything they’ve ever accomplished. It’s sad.
No, I think it’s cool.
It should happen more often. Like with Singlish or Creole.
Not really, Abington is right around the corner from Bryn Athyn. Bryn Mawr is close too.
Well - I know the % of people born racist: that’s precisely 0%.
I strongly suspect there is no ‘real number’ because racism (like taste in classic rock) moves about on a spectrum. I think people get exposed to different parts of the spectrum as they grow up, adjust, and continue to slide based on personal experience.
I’d love to find a study that talks about my theory that a significant percentage of the population get conventionally racist as they age. Why? No idea but health problems, media, social circle, perceived stereotype fulfillment, fear of ‘different’ might somehow accumulate. Am I nuts to suggest this? Maybe.
I hope to die an old white guy happy to give anybody the moldy sweatervest off my back, coins to those in need, and a hug to anybody down in the dumps. We will see!
More dumbassery…
It’s being encouraged to deteriorate, like gangrene.
I wonder how she would react to a look at her own genome. Every single one of us has African DNA.
Yes, it’s “hear, hear”. Like “hear what milliefink just said”.
How do we combat a legion of people who believe that anyone speaking a foreign language isn’t America, should go back to their country, and is a drug dealer/illegal (to use their racist term)?
I just don’t think there’s any way to change these minds. They don’t work right.
You know it’s funny when I lived in Japan no one screamed at me speak Japanese (even though I have a degree in it).
Even when I was in some serious rural areas away from anything any normal tourist would ever go visit, I never got some random old farmer picking radishes mumbling under his breath idiot needs to learn Japanese.
Japan is an even more insular culture than America, and while there are of course xenophobes there too, in three years I never ran into one.
So why is my own country, the only country on Earth that is completely made up of people from every country on Earth at this point and every background because of its history so full of backwards xenophobic morons like this?
Well, from what I’ve gleaned from people who lived there and visited, they are much more polite and expressing xenophobia to you would be out of character. They also have very tight immigration controls and don’t really have an illegal immigrant problem. If they did, I suspect their adherence to social politeness would be strained. I know someone who taught there who overheard comments if he ventured into areas unaccustomed to foreigners, such as a bar in a small town.
Plus you have the fact that foreigners there are there usually on a temporary basis and they are ok with that. They are even opening up a little bit so that they can import labor to take care of their elderly, but not everyone is happy about that. And remember, no matter how well you speak Japanese nor how long you live there, you will never be Japanese.
I mean, you’re right, the US is full of hypocritical xenophobic morons, but I am not sure Japan is a good country to contrast it against 
Actually at one point I was quasi legal. I had a valid working Visa but my employer was no longer my employer as I decided to freelance and the Bureau of immigration basically just said find an official employer soon. They did not give me a specific time line but there was a possibility I could be deported.
Japan actually does have a problem with illegal immigrants it’s just not as big an issue as it is in the US but most people who have not studied Japan don’t know about it. The majority of them are there on the same situation as many people in the US simply overstayed visas. The Japanese immigration system is quite inflexible compared to even the American system and this is often a problem for them.
I made a point of never really going anywhere that was major tourist or normal place. I hung out with Japanese gangster rappers and other interesting folks on the fringe at lots of small mom and pop places far away from anything interesting to normal tourists. I even once ran into a bunch of Jietai (basically Japanese national guard) near Wakkannai up north, who would be the git-er-done type in Japan. They treated me to random grilled oysters and conch instead of making fun of me under their breath.
The thing is with a degree in Japanese and being bilingual, I don’t look like I speak their language, so if anyone would have heard something like that under the breath of somebody it would have been me, with their guard down. I heard plenty they didn’t think I did but I never heard anything like you suggest.
Am I doubting it happens? Hell no. I know about the ultra nationalist factions that do exist in Japan, and that the people you describe exist and I have heard stories from other foreigners but it was all minor stuff and not outright tirades. I have also worked with some incredibly loud obnoxious foreigners over there and it’s a miracle that stereotypical politeness or not that I didn’t hear worse about them when they weren’t around.
And as the millionth person enforcing the Japanese people are perpetually polite stereotype, I refer you to Gintama. Watch enough of it break the fourth wall with fart jokes and a lot else and realize how popular that show and manga is among adults and you will quickly realize there is plenty of stuff in Japan that isn’t polite at all
Statewide California elections have ballots and official election publications available in ten languages: English, Spanish, Chinese, Hindi, Japanese, Khmer, Korean, Tagalog, Thai and Vietnamese.
I was an election clerk for some years - we used to amuse ourselves during slow periods by doing parallel-text comparisons of the ballots and voter pamphlets in all the different languages.
(Okay, okay… I kept myself amused that way. My fellow clerks thought I was a bit weird, but they got used to me over time.
)
IMO that would only be a somewhat credible position to take if she speaks, or is trying to speak, more then one language herself.
Honestly I think the racism itself just tends to manifest differently. The xenophobia is there in some folks, but not the deep systemic hostility because there simply aren’t enough Asians visible in the US for them to have registered as a real threat to “white culture.” There’s still that “model immigrant” idea somewhere floating around in the collective consciousness. I notice, for instance, that when my BF goes out with the family, almost everyone stops talking when we get out of the car. No one wants to be having a loud conversation in Chinese at a truck stop.
Because racial whiteness has long been used as a divide and conquer tactic, to keep the majority of Americans focused on racial divisions (and scapegoats). That way, they’re all that much less likely to unite and focus their enmity instead on the wealthy, profit-skimming elites. And so, today, the issues of guest workers and refugees from Latin American countries are cast as an “illegal immigration problem,” and elitist skimming of profit from an economy that could instead be basically worker owned is perceived as “just the way things are.”
I like that Pa. has become the bolas state in your rendering.
Has character. Great on license plates.
