01-21-2007, 07:37 AM
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#87 (permalink)
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| | Re: Two cyclists attacked and beaten in Portland
Tom Keats wrote:
> In article <1169315374.642402.255070@38g2000cwa.googlegroups. com>,
> frkrygow@gmail.com writes:
> >
> >
> > I feel sorriest for those poor Mbuti people who have been denied
> > careers in pro basketball.
>
> It's bad when /anybody/ doesn't get even half a fightin'
> chance to at least try out and show what they've got...
> because they're being off-handedly dismissed from the get-go.
.... Even if they're four feet, six inches tall? ;-)
> How sorry would you feel about an intelligent, compassionate
> and articulate Mbuti woman who's denied an education & career
> in medical research, or anthropology, or astrophysics, or
> literature, or business, simply because of where she hails
> from, and is considered to be "too primitive" or too "not
> white" for such lofty goals?
I'd feel bad. On the one hand, I think every individual should be
treated fairly.
On the other hand, I think it's silly to pretend there are _no_
differences between any groups of people.
Yes, the popular concept of "race" is faulty. For one thing, it's
dominated by skin color, and ignores much else. I recall the fury of a
chemistry professor I knew in the 1960s. He was a dark-skinned East
Indian, and he was treated very badly when traveling through the
American southeast.
However, knowing him, I wouldn't be surprised if part of his fury was
because he knew _he_ was "better than those black people." IOW, the
redneck racism probably offended him more because of his own racism.
Likewise, after living in rural Georgia for a while, I saw plenty of
truly stupid and offensive behavior by the "Good Ol' Boys." I feel it
would be silly to assume that the next tobacco chewing, Stars & Bars
flying, gunrack-equipped pickup driving Georgia boy of Scots-Irish
descent would be perfectly charitable to my black friends.
There are cultural differences, and there are genetic differences,
between people around the globe. They're not typically binary
differences; they're more like overlapping normal curves.
But yes, we should be fair in our dealings with any individual.
- Frank Krygowski
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