Why Does discrimination have so much power in America

[Donnie]

In america we love to hate, and everyone seems to hate something. Id go out on a limb and say that we are more defined by what we dont like, as opposed to the things we enjoy.

[beats me]

starving: our brains haven't evolved past their basic pattern based survival systems. It sees something that isnt familiar its going to put up red flags. It is attracted to things that are similar to itself. The most obvious category it can discern is race, as that can be spotted in milliseconds and immediately labeled as "different".

I still say irresponsible media has a heavy hand in this. For example if somebody is killed in a poor neighborhood you'll be lucky if you get "somebody was shot in Oakland today" and the story will pretty much end there. But if the victim and perpetrator are of different races or sexual orientation they'll cover the story for months even if that aspect has absolutely nothing to do with the crime.

All this does is perpetuate the negative stereotypes into what seems to be on an epic level and also instills fear and hatred in those who really don't know any better or have close to zero experience with other races, religions, or sexual orientation.

I know several people in the military who know gay people in the military and they largely don't give shit. Once again it's being blown out of proportion by the few exceptions and decisions made by out of touch old men.

[LoopStationZebra]

People praise Canada as being the best multicultural society and I will say that it is a lot better than in Britain...

That's because there's like 10 black people, 25 Indians, 18 Pakistanis, 2 Mexicans, and 32 million white people. It's not hard to be multicultural and tolerant with those numbers.



Not that different, really, from Vermont and Oregon. Liberal bastions where they are so proud of their racial tolerance and love. Problem is that everytime I've ever been there all I see are white people. "We love people of all colours. And if any of them want to visit they are more than welcome."

[beats me]

People praise Canada as being the best multicultural society and I will say that it is a lot better than in Britain...

That's because there's like 10 black people, 25 Indians, 18 Pakistanis, 2 Mexicans, and 32 million white people. It's not hard to be multicultural and tolerant with those numbers.



Not that different, really, from Vermont and Oregon. Liberal bastions where they are so proud of their racial tolerance and love. Problem is that everytime I've ever been there all I see are white people. "We love people of all colours. And if any of them want to visit they are more than welcome."

http://www.blackpeopleloveus.com

[LoopStationZebra]

^exactly. Nice.

[MacGuffin]

People praise Canada as being the best multicultural society and I will say that it is a lot better than in Britain...

That's because there's like 10 black people, 25 Indians, 18 Pakistanis, 2 Mexicans, and 32 million white people. It's not hard to be multicultural and tolerant with those numbers.



Not that different, really, from Vermont and Oregon. Liberal bastions where they are so proud of their racial tolerance and love. Problem is that everytime I've ever been there all I see are white people. "We love people of all colours. And if any of them want to visit they are more than welcome."

right... check these out

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story ... class.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ_kgFcFGy8

same problems as everywhere, just on a smaller scale

[starving student]

I know several people in the military who know gay people in the military and they largely don't give shit. Once again it's being blown out of proportion by the few exceptions and decisions made by out of touch old men.

exACTly what I'm sayin, I come from a military family and know tons of people in the military, my mom has 6 brothers all of them military from the army to the marines, navy airforce blah blah and nobody cares about one man sleeping with another, so how do these bags of poo-nut-butter get to cause all of this trouble for gay people and more than that for mother fuckers willing to risk their lives to fight for these same knuckle heads.


@bishop, i don't buy it, I think thats the biggest escape clause for racism, it's like me saying that because (those race)people fucked over your mom that your mind would be so weak as to think that (all those race people) are like that and maybe you would give no credence to the fact that there are cases where (those race) people actually experience racism on the job...............but I'm sure you're not that weak minded and I also don't think everything can be blamed on the media to the extent beats was talking about, maybe the media trys to sway things but damn if we can't even take responsibility for the judgment of the signals that go into and out of our own heads then whats the fookin point.

I know about all of the crippleminded folks out there but I'm just saying criminals get cuffed and locked up so that if they like to hit people in the head with garden tools that they cannot do that, why isn't society tying the hands of these discriminuts so that they cannot wield power, they should be deemed powerless, there should be laws that 'don't act' on the inclinations of discriminators.

[H20nly]

its what happens when you turn a crutch into a kickstand.

[Android Bishop]

whatever external cultural factors that may play a role in it, nothing surmounts the basic scientific fact that our brains evolved to perceive reality as contrasting data points. Your vision, taste, smell, hearing, feeling, and entire thought process is based upon categorizing data relative to other data. You can reform the media and host all the hands across america shit you want, but nothing is going to stop people from recognizing differences in other groups of people and using that to place them into structured mental categories. The only difference between those that discriminate and those that dont is that the ones who discriminate feel more threatened by particular differences in whatever group they've observed. If they feel threatened, then they put defenses up and solidify their perspective of the "threatening" group as a means of giving them a more coherant object to defend themselves against.

so long as people are different, people will continue to threat each other differently. its that simple

btw Ive traveled all over the world, and everybody discriminates EVERYWHERE. you think its a big deal in america because the media and citizens blow it up and it makes everyone think its a bigger problem here than anywhere else. it isnt. the major difference between us and other countries is that we simply have a much more diverse population than other countries do. a country that is 98% a certain race isnt going to make a big deal out of racism cause damn near everybody is the same, but that doesnt mean the other 2% dont face discrimination issues. its all relative

[starving student]

what is not the same is how all of our data points contrast, but I do agree with you everything is relative.