Why do I find myself sometimes being inherently racist?

Sorry, that's not what I meant. It's not the accent that pisses me off, it's only the one's with accents that piss me off. If the person was brown or asian and talked as if their first language was English then they were probably born here and more likely to be a part of our culture. Where if they have an accent they were most likely born in their mother country and are bringing over cultural values that I don't approve of.

 

If most of us shake our family tree we are no more than a couple of generations removed from being immigrants.

If someone lives by the laws of the land that they immigrate to but still retain traditions that are important to them, more power to them. Most traditions are family oriented and that they wish to keep those is understandable.

My country was built by immigrants. So were most others.

 

This is what I like best about many other cultures.

thats beside the point though. I know what you mean. I think it is based on conditioned and learned behavior. I don't consider myself to be racist in the slightest but I catch myself making snap judgements about people from other races and I think its because I've heard other people do the same thing my entire life so my mind is conditioned to make the jump from an individual's action to a stereotype of their whole race.

Whenever I have to buy tampons or anything like that from a store owned by a middle easterner, I always find myself thinking that the guy ringing me up must think I'm some unclean woman and is grossed out by the sight of me because "those people" are from a strictly patriarchal society and have no respect for women.

Or I see a black guy rolling up in a boat of a car from the 1970s, jacked up about two feet with rims and hydraulics, and I catch myself thinking some vague thought about how they have to fix up these cars to impress their boys because they're black.

its really illogical. I have friends that are black, I have friends from the middle east, I know that stereotypes are flimsy at best, and even then only hold true on the most surface level. Yet my mind jumps to racial stereotypes almost subconsciously sometimes.

 

Doesn't matter what happened in the past. No one holds it against the current population of Germans because of the atrocities of World War II, it was their ancestors' fault. My ancestors were immigrants, I just hope they had the decency to ASSIMILATE and not ACCOMMODATE, and if they didn't, fuck those dirty immigrant ancestors. What matters is the here and now, so if you move here and try and accommodate my culture, fuck you.

 

You came across so reasonable in your OP as well.
Now you just sound like a rabid racist...the worst kind though.
The one that says: I'm not racist but...
Ok, to be fair, you just seem like the type of person who eats burgers and fries and carries a gun everywhere...
Heaven forbid anybody bring the concept of community your way.
They must be all socialist commies...or some such crap...and obviously life in the US/Canada would end if people looked after each other rather than just themselves.
Yes, people bring their own ideas/culture/values into your country...where do you think your ideas/culture/values came from? thin air?
Why don't you have a meal with those pesky brown people with their funny accents and see how they actually live their lives.
You might be surprised.

 

Well, I think we found the answer; because you are extremely xenophobic, and quite possibly racist

 

This has to be a troll thread.
Are people really still this ignorant and hateful?

 

You can't marry your lover if you have the same genitals.

Spiritual humanists can't put up a billboard.

Terrorists want to blow us up.

Genocide is happening in Africa.

Chinese children put together your keyboard for rice.

C'mon now..

 

I'm thinking he supports the Tea party, quite frankly.

 

i feel quite confident in stating that I believe your ancestors more than likely brought their culture with them.

Culture is not something that can just be shrugged off like an old coat when someone moves to another country. Culture is an inherent part of a person.

America and Canada are melting pots. Without the blend of culture these two countries wouldn't have any culture at all.

 

Nah, some shit just happened in the past couple hours (non-race related) and I had some anger to let go. Took my last comment a little too far but I've calmed down.

Racist isn't how I would define it. Xenophobe for sure. I'm comfortable with my current culture in our country and I fear change and I don't want it to change. Like I said I have brown and asian friends, but they are more "Canadianized" for lack of a better word. They follow our traditions and I don't want those traditions to change, and just seeing this influx of the amount of new cultures and their potential to take over is frustrating.

As for the whole disregarding my ancestors thing, it has to do with my cynical personality. Where the word ends up, fuck it, I'll be dead before the world goes to shit. And if the world does go to shit while I'm here, I'll die and that'll be the end of it. Once I'm dead there's nothing but a never-ending void.

 

No-one is taking over.
I live in Britain, which is now full of mosques, synagogues, Polish markets, entire streets of Chinese shops and German cuisine vendors to name but a few of the delights immigration has brought in the last few centuries, many in the last few decades.

This, in my eyes, is not making Britain less British, because Britain is about freedom of expression (or at least should be) and diversity. Britain is a huge mix of people from all over the place, with many languages, skin colours and cultures. Britain has always been home to immigrants just like any other country.

There is a lot of hype about having Sharia law imposed and such. I have only ever heard this from racists and the ignorant, and never from an MP. That tells you something.

 

Jeez, thank fuck for that.

Things will change.
Where I live half the people who live here are 1st or 2nd generation immigrant.
I see changes year by year.
I also get a little frustrated.
But I don't take it to the extreme...because I realise it isn't a vast amount of change.
And also my city seems to accommodate while people assimilate.
My cities motto is "Semper Eadem" and fundamentally it is true.

The truth might be you are looking too hard for change.
You might be stuck in your ways and don't realise even your fellow Canadians are changing SLOWLY too. In their OWN way.
What it means to be Canadian or British or even an immigrant might be changing too.

Read back what you have written here and see if it is reasonable.

 

Just because you are born on a certain section of land does not give you an inherent right to be there, aside from legally speaking. You've not earned it, nor is it yours just because you currently occupy a chunk of it.

Being pissed off by certain accents is redundant. Do you know how many regional dialects exist within the USA alone (as spoken by white and black people)? Do you get pissed off when you hear a Texan accent, or a Boston accent? Probably not because those are local accents right? Is the reason you don't like "other" accents because they come from different countries?

The reason you feel inherently racist is because you're a racist.

 

The religion defamation laws disagree =P

 

Exactly what "culture" are you referring to. Every aspect of culture is traditions of the people and adapted from everyones ancestry. Culture is a melting pot of honouring or observing. Every holiday that is even observed or celebrated is from other cultures.

From my experience of life in general, when people lose control over their emotions and simply state what they feel it tends to be a very accurate representation of who they are. They can dress it up when calm but when emotional the real person emerges.

With your statement, my reflections on it are that you are now going back to trying to make what you believe appear to be more palatable. Therefore in your mind more reasonable.

The term Xenophobe may be more palatable but it is at best splitting hairs. An intolerance for any group of people is racist. To expect that any group conform to what you feel is acceptable is intolerance and racist.

The culture aspect is a red herring to justify racism. Culture is defined by people, countries are not culture. Traditions shape culture.

Most people who I have met who are racists are not comfortable with that self label. That does not mean that they are not racist. To borrow a line from a song, "and you wear it well".

 

I think you're just being a negative nancy. The world isn't going to shit, its been shit since its conception, and most of the shitty events I can think of also involve people spreading their culture around where perhaps it did not belong. Roman imperialism. the dark ages, the middle ages, the crusades. the spread of the ottoman empire. Napolean and the French empire. British emperialism. American imperialism...I think you get my point.

Humans like to travel and move around, bra. Its nothing new.

I bet the Cherokee Indians that still live in sections of the mountains around where I live want to slit my throat everytime they hear my accent. What can you do? We're all just stepping on land that someone else claimed first.

 

Yeah man, but WHY am I racist? All my life I never thought I was racist (I did grow up in a small town, but we still had a few asians and black people when I was growing up).

Whenever it came to issues of race I was always very accepting. But now that I am in a population with many other asians and brown people I find myself having racist thoughts (once again, none towards black people however, I think they're awesome). It wasn't how I was raised, my parents are definitely not racist and would be appalled to hear this shit.
Before the exposure, no racism, afterwards, racism. How the fuck did that happen?

 

Are you sure you're feeling hateful towards these people, or are you just thinking the thought? The thoughts can become compulsive. If you're sincerely hating people based on their skin color, that sucks. I hope you can learn to reconcile your differences.

Sometimes I'm afraid I'm racist, and I just hope I can not be a dick to people of different races. It's hard to see one's self from another's perspective, when you have all these doubts in your mind. Who knows how you're being construed. As long as you aren't trying to abuse someone, though, I don't think you could really call that hate.

 

i haven't read the entire thread, but here goes...
what you are is called a fair weather liberal. you know it is wrong to scapegoat an entire ethnic group for the faults of the few, yet you continue to do so.

perhaps your grew up in an authoritarian home, which is the leading cause of defacto racism.

perhaps you are feeling the tightening grip of the economy, and the sense that you need to compete with your fellow man and create reasons in your head to view yourself as better than them.

perhaps you are a victim of social learning. this attitude was taught to you within your environment.

or perhaps, you're just an ignorant asshole.

And the idea that if "they" are going to "take your country", they'd better do it by force...perhaps they are going about it the right way, instead of the old way.

collectivism was the idea that this country was originally built on...remember the puritans? so "your" individualistic idea is just a corruption of what the true founding fathers of this country wanted.