Racism, Neo-Nazism, and Catholic Teaching

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Racism does exist.

In the West, racism or rather discussions of racism is focused on racism as practiced by white people. However racism is an equal opportunity employer. Anyone can be a bigot if they chose to.

I have spent some time in Asia and in the West, Asia seems to be one homogeneous continent and the people there all look Chinese which cannot be further from the truth. There is great diversity in a continent that spans from Turkey to Japan.

Let’s narrow it down and just consider East Asia. People from the outside looking in will think that the people there are homogeneous which again is far from the truth. In fact there is a lot of animosity for past wrongs and a lot of racism to boot. They make the racism in the US and Europe look like child’s play. Japan looks down on China and Korea, Korea looks down on China and Japan, China in turn looks down on Korea and Japan. All three of them look down on the countries of Southeast Asia. In fact a white person in China, Korea or Japan will be treated much better than a Filipino.

So racism does exist and is part of human fallen nature.
 
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blackforest said:
I’d like to see if anyone can provide a specific example, (many people have), or if racism only exists to them in the abstract.

I’ve been simultaneously encouraged and downright terrified reading this thread.
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The problem of people of a certain ethnic group being asked to speak on behalf of all other members of their group or being used as a definitive expert–“well, I have a friend in your ethnic group, and he says…” is a problem Catholics are only too aware of. (If Nancy Pelosi says it, then obviously Catholics are OK with…)

The other problem is going anywhere with your friends of a non-majority ethnic group and seeing how differently they are treated. A guy in an elevator sees that when his friend joins him from another floor in their hotel, people stiffen up in a way they don’t when he got in, even though the two are alike in how big they are, how they are dressed an so on. Two 3rd-generation Mexican American teens who can barely speak Spanish at all can get their jollies by going into a hardware store and having a private conversation in Spanish because they know someone will yell at them for not using English, telling them to go back to where they came from–because of course there aren’t any fully bilingual people who were born and raised in the US! At least no one would ever choose to speak Spanish if they didn’t HAVE to, LOL!!
 
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I took Spanish to fulfill a foreign language requirement at University. To prepare for an oral test, where we speak one on one with the professor in Spanish, I practiced speaking Spanish with a friend who was of Cuban descent.

We were at a line at a fast food restaurant and I was speaking Spanish to my friend. We both got yelled at for speaking Spanish.
 
Sarcelle said:
We were at a line at a fast food restaurant and I was speaking Spanish to my friend. We both got yelled at for speaking Spanish.
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What kind of busybodies think they have a right to eavesdrop on the conversations of total strangers?

This is one reason we have racial biases: we think we need to have an opinion about others, so we form opinions based on stereotypes when judging people we don’t know. This is human nature, I suppose. We get very upset to think that people might be saying things that maybe we’d respond to, if we could understand.

After all, the alternative to carrying around un-examined biases is to constantly remind ourselves of how much we simply don’t know about the people around us. The golden rule helps on that one. We would all rather that other people either assume good things about us or else not concern themselves with having opinions about us at all, that they’d get to know us before they form opinions.
 
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Sarcelle said:
I have spent some time in Asia and in the West, Asia seems to be one homogeneous continent and the people there all look Chinese which cannot be further from the truth. There is great diversity in a continent that spans from Turkey to Japan.
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I had Chinese and Japanese co-workers (professors on sabbatical) who both said that prejudices between the Chinese, Japanese and Koreans (just as an example!) tend to be very deep. Not everyone is prejudiced, but the prejudices that do exist are very real, definitely not positive and definitely not rare.

If you think about it, it makes sense. The French, the English, the Irish, the Scots and most of the rest of Europe probably all look the same to someone from Asia, but people from those countries would hold themselves to be VERY different culturally. Historically, they have not had a mutual appreciation society going!

On that note, though, I had a friend working at a hospital who spoke Chinese who was called in for a Korean patient who spoke no English and asked if she spoke “Asian”
 
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blackforest said:
You reminded me of this (I’d rate this PG-13 - keep small children out of the room):

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=rent+a+white
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I think this is why so many NFL players are sympathetic to complaints about discrimination. Regardless of their color, they at least have friends whom they work with, depend on, admire and know to be both wealthy and of good character, but they see how differently they are treated when they go out places together. (Plus, I think that big male athletes generally understand how it feels to be presumed to be a threat just because they didn’t stop growing in high school and regularly visit a gym.)
 
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SMH, I hate to say it but Americans can be very ignorant of basic geography and the fact that Asia is a continent and not a country.

This reminds me of an English couple down in Tennessee. They were about to do a tour of a museum I think. The tour guide hearing their accent suggested there were headphones available for speakers of foreign languages. The couple said they spoke English. The tour guide was quite friendly but she could not grasp the fact the people in England spoke English. She kept asking what language they spoke in England and not quite believing that English people spoke English.
 
KMC said:
many people who throw around “white privilege” are just judging a person by the color of their skin, and taking no time to learn about what issues that person actually has in their life.
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All kinds of privilege are being thrown around. White, male, straight, rich. Even light skin privilege is a thing where people with a lighter skin tone in a particular race (eg Indians, blacks) are favored more. Even ‘pretty’ privilege too.

Ultimately these are just offhand phrases to describe an advantage someone has over another in a particular area. Personally I’ve never seen anything use a particular privilege to ignore other issues one is facing, it’s usually in context (eg a light skinned black actress has more privilege than a dark skinned one when it comes to getting acting jobs), apart from one incident. Someone said he doesn’t donate to white beggars because their privilege should have gotten them somewhere. That was absolutely diabolical. I don’t agree with using one of these terms to basically explain one’s overall success, but I get it when we are being context dependent. Because such ‘privileges’ or rather, biases do exist.
 
In the US, I guess you can look at the news to see specific hate crimes being reported. Or those viral videos of angry white women shouting at someone for speaking in Chinese or Spanish bc ‘this is America’. You can also frequent to alt right sites and see racist comments. If you want to, you can honestly find concrete examples.

I think many patriotic people refuse to acknowledge racism in the US. They’ll bend over backwards to prove that someone wasn’t racist all the time. That’s the impression I get when I read some posts here.

From my experiences, a job offer was taken back from me the moment I told them my race (they asked). I have had Chinese people gossip about people of my race right in front of my face in their language. Thankfully, my Chinese friends who were with me called them out. I was called a ‘s*** skin’ once, although if your poop really looks like the color of my skin, you may have a health issue, lol.
 
You joined half an hour ago and are already jumping into a political thread?
 
Things you should never discuss: Religion and politics. We’re in a religious group with a political discussion. I’m amazed this hasn’t ended in more violence!
 
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