07-20-2003, 12:28 AM
One, making a generalism about French people isn't racism, because French people aren't a race. But I'll let that slide, I know what you mean.
I actually lost a lot of what you were saying and what you were getting at, so I'm just gonna talk about the slurs that people have created. Many slurs are made during wars, like "kraut" and "gook" and "jap" and so forth. Not to defend their usage, because I hate slurs, but their creation is not one of general racism and hatred. The main function is actually a useful one in terms of war. If you send a soldier to go out and kill a man with a name, it is much harder to function efficiently. However, if you tell him to kill that kraut, he is just seeing it as a mission. It is the dehumanizing nature of words. Once again, I am not condoning it, because those words do leak into the general populace and stereotypes, racism, and so forth will result. I'm just explaining that it's how many of them come about, and do actually have an original purpose, and Americans aren't the only ones to do it (a point which I think gets lost a lot of the time). It's just psychology. I like Bush, I plan on voting for him, and even if I didn't, I'd probably do a clothespin vote for him just because I don't see very many good Democrat candidates.
By the way, we do not live in a democracy.
I actually lost a lot of what you were saying and what you were getting at, so I'm just gonna talk about the slurs that people have created. Many slurs are made during wars, like "kraut" and "gook" and "jap" and so forth. Not to defend their usage, because I hate slurs, but their creation is not one of general racism and hatred. The main function is actually a useful one in terms of war. If you send a soldier to go out and kill a man with a name, it is much harder to function efficiently. However, if you tell him to kill that kraut, he is just seeing it as a mission. It is the dehumanizing nature of words. Once again, I am not condoning it, because those words do leak into the general populace and stereotypes, racism, and so forth will result. I'm just explaining that it's how many of them come about, and do actually have an original purpose, and Americans aren't the only ones to do it (a point which I think gets lost a lot of the time). It's just psychology. I like Bush, I plan on voting for him, and even if I didn't, I'd probably do a clothespin vote for him just because I don't see very many good Democrat candidates.
By the way, we do not live in a democracy.