The Tables have Turned.

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I am an 18 year old, white, straight, male. Traditionally, according to social myth i am part of an advantaged group. I am apparently a member of a social grouping which suffers the least discrimination...hmmmmmm, one word.

RUBBISH!

Now let me get this straight, i am nto a member of the KKK, i am not a racist, sexist, and i am certainly not by any means homophobic. But i do feel at a disadvantage, and i am made to feel inferior to women, homosexuals, and people of different race.
The media is the greatest influence. There has been a huge nationwide campaign (England here) for racial and sexual tolerence in recent years, and the movement has built up such momentum in it's search for equal rights that now the problems faced are acting in the opposite direction. Examples.

MoBO's (Award's for music of black origin), I don't see any MoWO awards.
All woman organisations are encouraged, all male organisations are frowned upon.
A black person is attacked in London, and blame lies in my group, regardless of contrasting evidence.
We have radio stations dedicated ONLY to Indian music, where ONLY people of Indian origin are allowed to DJ.
I watched an episode of Prince of Belair, one of my favourite comedies, but i was appalled, in this particular episode by the amount of racial abuse towards a white man in the storyline, it made me feel sick.

There used to be a great inbalence in society and now it is growing again, in the other direction.

I would like to know everyone else's opinion on the matter, after all, i may be personally reading more into situation's than is nessasary, but i am worried, and so are my friends.

(And if you think i am racist, sexist, homophobic, then be that way, but i am not, so you are wrong.)

 

That's the burden of PCness. Eager not to hurt and to leave out any minority or hurt puppy we focus on them, forgetting the "normal/ average" majority. Of course that's nonsense.

Discrimination is useful; it is not a bad thing. Think about the word: It's about telling unlike things apart. Discrimination, an expression of the use of common sense, has become a bad word. Well, it can be bad, but that doesn't mean that people should restrain from using it generally.

It's making the difference between a man who thinks or someone who tries but stops at the point: "Oooohh, bad, bad, that'l become a *discrimination* - I better stop here before I become an immoral baddie ...!" That's of course exaggerated but that's still about how it works. And the most servile group is, of course, the media - serving peoples perceived wishes or oders by their superiors like Rupert Murdock. PCness is intellectual self restraint, a demand not to think and not to question some dogmas. It's about the way media control you. They tell you it's unpatriotic to question your president and that it's immoral to make a difference between some groups or statements (dogmas like "Iraq has WMDs"). And that is just as stupid as dangerous. It's about crippling yourself short of driving a screwdriver into your brain.

Discrimination like this makes sense: An arab looking man is more likely to be a terrorist than a bare-headed blonde fatso or a 70 year old granny from Ohio. So it makes sense and is not a sign of racism when they are checked at the airport while the blonde fatsos and the granny do pass. In a time of danger it is stupid not to discriminate as it wastes time better spent on focussing of "target groups" - anything esle makes you an exploitable fool. (Bill Maher has a couple of good points here)

Like a man is not a woman. Like men, physically stronger, are better suited for combat in the army (and they are available all the time as they are not subject to pregnancy). No pun intended towards the feminists, but indiscrimination can hardly be what weman want and deserve. There is a difference that has to be taken into account.
Like: We have to build this submarine 15% larger and more expensive (resulting in less to be built) because we need seperate ladies toilets, showers and sleeping rooms - and of course, because it's larger we need more engine power, more fuel and have less space for weapons - only because some nutcases had sued themselves into one because sailing the seas underwater, under permanent stress and lack of sleep was what they always dreamed of! Subs are made for *war* - there pays off what works and causes havoc and to take care to discriminate between anything else but targets is just idiotic.

I already got used to the every-two-month dude who makes a thread here because he feels discriminated because he feels or is homosexual. That's ok with me, SP is an open forum. I just don't reply there because these tap-on-the-shoulder "you're not alone and not a pervert" threads bore me to death. Do as you please but leave me alone.

Or about ethnic groups: When I take offence in a turk who's plainly an a**hole for not-behaving in the bus I face imminent danger to be accused by him, or worse, by some overzealous "I-wanna-hug-you-all" german, to be xenophobic - which is about as demonic here as antisemitic. SO FUC*ING WHAT? YOU'RE SMEARING THE SEATS WITH YOUR BOOTS! The same would happen to me when insulting a person, who unfortunately turns out to be a jew - or a muslim. People always mix up cathegory and subspecie - like a**hole, turkish; a**hole, german; a**hole, muslim or a**hole, jewish. Tolerance, tolerance, tolerance - at any price.

Tolercane is important. The prussian king Friederich the great, a brilliant ruler, once said: In my country everyone shall get happy (religiosly) like he pleases. There the part has to be added which was left out because it was so undisputed at that time: He was referring to either catholicism or protestantism - two christian religions which share about the same principles and values, and respected the rules of the country. That has to be seen on the historical background of the 30-year war in the 17th century here in germany where a large percentage of the poulation, somewhere beyond 30% were wiped out.
To tolerate the other confession instead of fighting them was pretty smart and novel an idea at that time.
To simply copy these quote on todays situation doesn't work because these values and principles aren't - as a result of overwhelming tolerance - or shall I say indifference? - that general and undisputed anymore. So today we have to say: Religion is free, as long as it is conform with the principles of our constitution. And an organisation or religion that emphacises the sharia (not quite what the german and probably the other european or american constitutions tells us) just doesn't fit in. So we cannot tolerate every extremist for the sake of beeing nice. That was not what Friederich the great meant.

Just some random points that came to my mind.

[ June 29, 2003, 17:25: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

The problem is, that suicide bomber seem sometimes to dress like orthodox jews. Or they pick someone with pale skin, the color the hair a bit.

No, no, no. If men can be concsricpted, women can be too. Straight out, I think it's plain unfair that women ARE NOT conscripted here, that's a dam discrimination. In Israel, the do not have time for cheap fuss, women can handle a machine-gun and a fighter-plane too, so let's give them a chance to rub their faces in the dirt too. And I can't wait until it get's a vote about it. I dam sure conscript them.

 

As for discrimination based on looks: Somewhere you have to start. That's it. Controlling everyone, indiscriminately is a waste of effort and limited resources. Of course you have to train the people who control properly in psychology especially. The israelis do so. It works. Ben Gurion ins the world's safest airport.

As for weman and the army: Yes in israel it works, but even they make differences. Look at the pictures from the army patrols in occupied palestinian territory - ever seen a woman there? Not that they couldn't do it, but for some reasons they don't. I do not negate or scoff the stuff weman can do, I just state that there still is a difference that has to be taken into account.
Weman are iirc statistically even more menthally stable than men, making them very well suited for certain tasks. But that's not the point needed for all tasks. IIRC the israelis employ weman preferredly in the 2nd echelon, like training (they reportedly make great instructors), military police, intelligence, communication, medical services, logistics and stuff.

And iirc in submarines there are still no weman doing service worldwide. Primarily because of budged restraints and space considerarions. That, of course, attracts attention and feminists have in the US gathered already to storm this last bastion

 

Well, we do not have a navy, therefore we do not have submarines. Well, women can go to the infantry, artillery and to the air-force. Women who go voluntary are in all those branches.

And men are sorted by physical ability too. Not everyone is suited for mountain-grenadier. But I can think of to two or three women, who would make great mountain-troops soldiers.

And my point still is, it is discrimination versus MEN that women are not conscripted. There is no reason, that they should not be conscripted.

 

Point taken. That weman don't have to do military service while men have to, in germany at last, is still justified by our constitutional court as a compensation of weman doing the work raising the children, beeing enough service on the community in peacetime

As the number of childless weman and families rises you'll yertainly, in the near future, have to reconsider that statement.

On the other hand the risk of pregnancy makes them much less atractive for frontline service. That is no pun. It's a fact: A weman giving birth to a child in wartime in a warzone has to be treated like a wounded soldier; she binds other soldiers to take care of her wellbeeing and that of the child. That has the same effect as if she had been shot. And that is not even far off, it has happened just a few months ago.

[ June 29, 2003, 15:39: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

Well, conscripting women doubles the military force. Then there are too many people aviablye for military service. Then they can say, people who have children, can be exempt from military duties (and a lot of the tax-duty, if they are clever).

 

That it doubles military force may be right; and indeed: In war it is criminal to waste the potential of the work weman can add to the war effort.
Without weman in the factories doing heavy physical work during both world wars the war wouldn't have taken so long (no blaming , just pointing out the significance of contribution). And weman in a tank could sure do an excellent job.

But these days it's more a question of the available budged for the financiable force size. When you have a force of 300.000 you'll perhaps prefer to take the soldiers you'll certainly be able to count on, all the time. It's a question of economy of force. Hard words, but consider:

It must simply suck to invest years of training and a considerable amount of money into a specialised soldier, like a fighter pilot, only to have her beeing pregnant in time of war.

 

Taking into account that this special woman writing this probably is much more physically fit than I'll ever be her opinion might be interesting to read:

http://www.sftt.org/article06112003c.html

On the other hand, she was just an embedded journalist and not a soldier but still. Lack of privacy is one thing that in the army always comes as a shock, and it is unavoidable.

 

This kind of discussion is dangerous, even if it is in point correct. As for women you cant try to convince me that they have achieved equality, not by a long shot. So all this, often in our eyes unnescessary prancing around and select treatment is there to forcefully even things up a bit.
Just because you, me and everyone else on this board doesnt think that women, gays, turks, africans, russians or gypsies are of less value than us white heterosexual men it doesnt mean that they dont get unfair treatment.

Until we have achieved a society were people dont get unfair treatment due to sex, sexual orientation, religion or skin colour I think we have to live with this overzelous PCness. It takes time to change.

However, I agree on the sub issue, and the jerk issue. Plenty of jerks everywhere and from all different camps. A jerk is a jerk and should get a good woopass. Actually, if you look at courts, they are still more prone to give a black man or an arab a harsher punishment for committing the same crime as a white man did, that is true in all of the western world. I am also pretty sure that you wont get convicted for a hate crime if you get in a fight with someone from a minority group unless the reason you got in the fight was that you didnt like the colour of your skin.

But, on the airport it should be more likely that they pad down Omar Mustafa than blonde Sven Svensson, but they still cant ignore someone just because they dont look like the typical terrorist.
Oh and Israel is a bad example, many of the jews in Israel are arabs ie. they look just like the palestinians so it is very hard to distuingish who is who there.

 

Although this slightly deviates from my origional topic of counter discrimination i must say i agree with Ragusa. To put it in a very harsh manner, lets give other examples.

You would not accept someone with an IQ of 70 into Harvard or Cambridge or Yale (George Bush is an exception there).
You would not accept a man with one arm into a machining or factory job.
You would not accept a mentally ill person into any sort of close-knit social relations job.

There is such a demand by left wing extremists for a more 'PC' attitude that it is now having a detremental effect on society.
I think women are perfectly acceptable in the army, btu they should be judged on indiviual ability.
What i mean is that, for example, if a woman wnated to join the royal marines, she would only be accepted if she proved herself as good as the male candidates, not just because she is a woman, she should not be given special treatment because she is female.

 

I feel that we are shifting away from the original topic as planned by Sir Dargorn originally iirc focusing aon tolerance, PCness and discrimination. That's how I understood it.

IMO this emerging dispute about weman in the army, if not finished already, is better moved to a seperate subject

 

The bad thing about PCness is that is presses you, for not following the unspoken code, into the defence. When someone accuses you, without apparent reason short of you having pressed a button by making him see you saying nasty things to an outlandish looking person (where the fact that you might have had a reason to do so based on previous behavior of that very outlandish looking person is totally irrelevant), to be xenophobic - then you have to defend yourself.

What if a straight male sais he's not gay? Why does he say so? He must be justifying himself. Surely he really *is* gay but he only doesn't want to admit it! Time will come ... And if he's not gay then he must be a homophobe - because for what other reason should he adress that point?

It indeed turns tables. It's irrelevant what has happened before, everything you say will be perceived as a lame excuse. He has something to hide, surely. As germans we are overzealous not to forget to be nice to outlandish looking persons and jews especially after all the silly things germans did in WW-II.
A german author, and of course he was extensively attacked for doing so, wrote about the "moral mace named Ausschwitz". There is indeed a good point in that. Germans would do anything to get rid of the stink of that episode. That is exploitable and it is exploited.

That's our national problem in germany. That's the crucial problem of our conservatives when they claim that aspects immigration have to be adressed ... "Uhm, if that isn't a little bit xenophobic? They must be, when adressing immigration! For what other reason - as the other parties don't it can't be that much of a problem! I can't elect a xenophibic party!" ... in the effect that is about empowering yourself by doing somthing that is by PCness defined as good "beeing nice to immigrants". You're not xenophobic by doing so; you're defining yourself as not beeing so. "See? How can I be xenophobic when I didn't elect them? I'm not like those germans ..."

That these un-xenophobic persons still have their stereotypes and prejudices in mind when dealing with foreigners is kinda irrelevant for themselves.

That's how PCness is driving peoples into lying to themselves. PCness ranks feeling good higher than solving or adressing a problem. That's the sick part of it.

 

IMO it's a can be summed up that PCness is "self-imposed paranoia" to make people not say things with negative accociations - these accosiations serving the purpose of keeping the society at peace by not hurting anyone and not discussing painful or unfriendly things. But that peace is fake, as the problems remain unadressed.
You can still be a bloody racist even when saying "native american" or "african american". That doesn't *change* everything.

How good it works can be seen in todays US. It is unpatriotic to criticise the president! That was said on Fox first and echoed throughout the country. For what fu**ing reason is that so? Why is it unpatriotic? It's just asking that dude: "Do you have a clue?"
Actually I see this situation as that what every manipulative gvt dreams of: We don't need censorship because the people censor themselves. And best: It doesn't cost us a penny and is more effective as the herd does it independently and with zeal. You dissent and step out of line and you become a target of the wrath of the people.

"Look what a patriot I am! I have not only insulted and intimidated three dissenters! I have burned an extra 40 gallons of fuel (when I change my american way of life *they* win!), I have 6 US flags in my garden and 3 on my car! I am a patriot. They aren't." By attacking the others you empower yourself. As they are no patriots, the more *you* are for attacking them. Group dynamics IRL.
Who *they* are is a little unprecise but who cares. Fox tells you what you need to know "All protesters are communists and as we all know, they work for the internationale!" That will probably mean for some people in the audience "... internationale ... they must mean the UN ... communists, I always knew it!!!" *

That cannot be good. Whatever the people think, it doesn't has to be right only because the majority thinks in a certain way - like slavery, antisemtitism, apartheit or the US race separation weren't and aren't right only because lot of people thought so - much less so in an age where the influence of media and their power to selectively report and to infuence the content of reporting has grown to a scale as we can see it today. Sapere aude! Preferrably independently.

That, at least, is something we in germany have learned by working up our nazi past in the 1960 and 1970s. Something like Hitler's rule couldn't hapen again in our society, we're too distrustful.
As my fellow german hinted to: But like everything we go too far: In the attempt not to become un-PC and not to expose us to the maces of beeing blamed with "antisemitism" or "xenophobia" we're paralysing ourselves and lying to ourselves. Chanting with the choir of PCness means keeping a low profile and covering your a**.

*PS: No pun intended with some of my american stereotypes, but in the past I have experienced a good deal of them so please just allow me to post them for the sake of argument. I know *you* are different - as you can write and have found access to the realm that is beyond the borders of good old god-blessed america and is called The World (tm).

[ June 29, 2003, 18:57: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

Well the same can be said about money invested in a medicin, law, biology, chemics, history education. Actually that one of the main reasons, why so less babies are born. When you're having a career as medicin, why give that up for babies ? Which bring me to the point of my anger. Me poor fellow had to go to the military, whereas the female part of my class could start their education or work direct, wheras I hade a forced minimum wage waste of time.

By the way, doubling the theoretical fighting-force. As military per se is a waste of money in tons, there is no need to practically double the force. Just the half of the people is needed to join the military.

But women with education having no babies makes the connection to immigration. Now, every European country needs immigration. And the problem has to be adressed. And to germany. As far as I know, they have still that weird Wilhelmenic blood law, when it comes to citizens. Which makes someone in Siberia to German, whereas a 3rd generation turk in Germany has problem with becoming German.

He, he, Emmen. A lot of communities in Switzerland do not give citizenship to peole with Yougoslavian or Turkish surnames. To make a point versus immigration. Just bolloks. I haven't heard anyone say, stop those immigrants from cleaning public toilets !!!! Let the natives do it !!

 

That's what I always say to those idiots who tell me the foreigners take german jobs away, their jobs especially: "Great, so *you* would like to have that great job at the central railway station's public toilet? Or as a luggage carier? Or cleaning the streets in our town from spent chewing gum?"

Of course we need immigration, we only need to take care the people integrate. There is little won with people not willing to integrate. To add another stereotype: Arabs who insist in treating their weman their traditional way get in trouble here real fast.

I live in cologne, iirc the german city with about the largest turklish polulation after Berlin. I get along quite well with all the turkish shop owners, the turks in school and most of them do their best to adapt a german lifestyle. These turks, just like the portugese, greeks, italians and spaniards, who sometimes are more german than the germans - having cleaner gardens, cleaner houses, cleaner cars - are, in an almost amusing way, a good and welcome addition to our society. But these aren't the people who are making trouble.

Trouble comes from people like the russian-germans who are german because some 150 years ago they had german ancestors. They live here, speak no german but russian instead, they are left alone - no one really cares to teach them german, unable to speak it they loose out in school big deal, are bossed around by 1st generation immigrants (I made the experience that the turks for example feel superior to the russian-germans), have no contact to germans, want no contact to germans and live in a russian-german-only community. They rarely get a job, living standard is crappy.
In fact they are the ethinc group causing most concern actually. Some react on their misearble situation with crime. Oh surprise. So does everyone in a miserable social environment.

But mind: Be tolerant! Just don't discriminate, but hey that would result in me saying: "Immigrants do crimes!" Is that what people want????

 

A cartoon on this:

http://www.thismodernworld.com/media/arc/1995%20archive/95-03-08-hyperbole.gif

 

Laches did a brilliant point in summing up my somewhat confused post.
Sure, PCness when it comes to discrimination gets over the top at tmies but you need a large cannon to shatter the prejudices of millenia. Some eggs are bound to shatter when you make an omelet.

 

IMO the core problem with PCness is that it causes "obedience in advance". To show how very "mustergültig", or how very good you are you try to do more than expected. So, to be non-xenophobic you're not only eager to be demonstratively nice yourself (take care it is seen) but also to hunt down everything *others* do that looks xenophobic to feel good and to re-establish your view of yourself as beeing good, aka non-xenophobic.

PCness is a very effective cover for hypochrisy.

I don't think that PCness is the price we have to pay for getting rid of old prejudice. PCness ensures that nothing gets disputed unbiased and openly as there are some *dogmas* you're not supposed to question.
PCness actually is a garant for the status quo, and it actually does just the contrary of what you expect it to do: It imposes an intellectual self-restraint, a guarantee that problems are not solved thoroughly. So PCness is dangerous and counterproductive.

 

Laches, that cartoon is just the sort of racism i am talking about. Stubbing toes? do you really think that is what i am talkign about.
I am talking about being accused of Racism at school when i admitted that i was being bullied by a balck kid, of course he got off scott free.

This has nothing to do with peopel starving in Africa, it is just that sort of ignorance that confuses this issue. Of course this does not compare in severity to famine in Africa, or the holocaust of the jews, but then, they are not the groups who are discriminating against me.

I dream of a world of equality, where people are not seperated by race or sex. But i refuse to suffer at the hands of counter-racism, a process which stems from the racism of my predessesors NOT ME!