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BNP leaflet through my door

I haven't had a polling card yet. I hope nobody is trying to disenfranchise me!

Rolfe.
 
I've had my polling card and, after doing the Euro profile voting thingy online somewhere, discovered that I'm closest to the Greens, so for the first time I will be sticking my cross next to them next month.
 
wollery said:
...I ask again, what is there to be proud of? There's certainly nothing to be ashamed about, but why should you have pride in something that you have no control over, that was an inherent quality of you since conception?...
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I don't think you had any control over what your grandfather did in WWII.
 
sphenisc said:
I don't think you had any control over what your grandfather did in WWII.
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True, but you can have pride in things that other people do. My wording in the previous post was rather crap.
 
Redtail said:
So athlete shouldn't be proud if he/she has natural speed or strength? What about someone with a naturally high IQ?
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No. They should be proud of achieving something with those gifts. There are lots of people who don't achieve anything despite being gifted, why should they be proud ?




Would that make you feel better?
Proud of being looked upon as a second class citizen because of skin color/sexual preference/etc... and not only surviving in a society with such attitudes but in many cases thriving.
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That's pride in one's achievement against difficult odds, not in one's color or sexual orientation. And it is good.
 
People seem to be forgetting that one of the meanings of the word proud is having self-respect.

So when you live in a society that says that you should not have self-respect because (for example) you are homosexual, saying "I am proud to be gay" is simply refuting the judgment of others who are telling you that you should not respect yourself.
 
wollery said:
True, but you can have pride in things that other people do. My wording in the previous post was rather crap.
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Okay, but yours isn't just a random list of people to take pride in. These are people you empathise with, you relate to and you regard yourself as one of. They're your family. I could come up with a similar list of of things for my parents and grandparents - but that wouldn't make you proud of them. You might recognise that they have contributed to society in some small way and even have some sense of gratitude if they'd contributed to the overall safety and wellbeing of you and yours. But that wouldn't make you proud of them. You would need some feeling of allegiance to or membership of my family to be proud of it.
I can be proud of my family or my football team or my country or my race. I can't do the same for yours. And I can do all that without regarding my group as better or worse than yours. (Indeed with football teams I may be proud of my team while recognising objective evidence that it's worse than yours.)

And when it comes to my own group, my family, I will be prone to confirmation bias. I will look for reasons to be proud of it and skate over the disreputable bits of its history. Just as you've done. It's a very human thing to do and I don't see much harm in it unless and until it turns from a positive attitude towards my group into a negative attitude towards yours.

I can be proud of my son hitting a six, and impressed and congratulatory if yours does.
I can be proud of the inventions and discoveries of my compatriots while also being grateful for all the things yours have done.
And if my race has overcome adversity and worked long and hard to be recognised as equals, and finally seems to be getting somewhere then I can be proud of them, of us, without denying the achievements and progress of yours.

So I don't think being proud of being black is about skin colour, it's about being proud of the accomplishments of a group of people you feel part of; a group which happens to be loosely identified by a reference to skin colour.
Being proud of your family doesn't make you "familyist". Being proud of your race, doesn't make you racist. Regarding other people's as worse/inferior to yours does.

No, it's not usually a "logical" decision to decide to be part of and loyal to a particular group, but pretty well everyone does it; we're social animals and that's the way we like things to be. We can, at best, hope to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative aspects of that inclination.

Anyway, that's what I think :)
 
sphenisc said:
I can be proud of my family or my football team or my country or my race. I can't do the same for yours. And I can do all that without regarding my group as better or worse than yours. (Indeed with football teams I may be proud of my team while recognising objective evidence that it's worse than yours.)

And when it comes to my own group, my family, I will be prone to confirmation bias. I will look for reasons to be proud of it and skate over the disreputable bits of its history. Just as you've done. It's a very human thing to do and I don't see much harm in it unless and until it turns from a positive attitude towards my group into a negative attitude towards yours.
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In theory, I agree with what you're saying. In practice, I think it's the two sentences that I've bolded, which cause problems.

In America at least, where there's a history of groups or places that were "whites only," I think that when whites start talking too much about white pride, people get uncomfortable because it is a whites-only thing, and as a society, we're trying to get away from whites-only things.

Ironically, black pride or gay pride or whatever, raises less of an issue, because there's an underlying assumption that blacks, gays, etc. want to do whatever straight white males can, but straight white males don't care if they're not a part of gay or black activities. Which is a strangely racist acknowledgement by society that the life of a straight white male is still the ideal to strive for, I guess. :boggled:

And confirmation bias... Again in America at least, there's been a struggle to get whites to even acknowledge that what they're doing is wrong, which is the first step to changing it. First they argued that slavery was moral, then that discrimination was moral, then that "separate but equal" was good enough, and so forth.

So anything that sounds like white people are trying to skate over the disreputable bits brings up cultural memories of when they didn't even think those bits were disreputable.
 
Pup said:
In theory, I agree with what you're saying. In practice, I think it's the two sentences that I've bolded, which cause problems.

In America at least, where there's a history of groups or places that were "whites only," I think that when whites start talking too much about white pride, people get uncomfortable because it is a whites-only thing, and as a society, we're trying to get away from whites-only things.

Ironically, black pride or gay pride or whatever, raises less of an issue, because there's an underlying assumption that blacks, gays, etc. want to do whatever straight white males can, but straight white males don't care if they're not a part of gay or black activities. Which is a strangely racist acknowledgement by society that the life of a straight white male is still the ideal to strive for, I guess. :boggled:

And confirmation bias... Again in America at least, there's been a struggle to get whites to even acknowledge that what they're doing is wrong, which is the first step to changing it. First they argued that slavery was moral, then that discrimination was moral, then that "separate but equal" was good enough, and so forth.

So anything that sounds like white people are trying to skate over the disreputable bits brings up cultural memories of when they didn't even think those bits were disreputable.
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Fair enough, and I appreciate that quite often "I'm proud of my race" is code for "I hate yours." I suppose my feeling is that rather than look suspiciously at anyone that says it, I'd prefer to at least start of with the attitude, "Great, I'm proud of mine too - let's have drink to celebrate them." I may be irredeemably naive. :)
 
Got to go and vote now:

Know who I'm not voting for:

Now need to find someone to vote for :(
 
wollery said:
Nope, sorry, I disagree.

I ask again, what is there to be proud of? There's certainly nothing to be ashamed about, but why should you have pride in something that you have no control over, that was an inherent quality of you since conception?

You could just as easily say, "I'm not ashamed to be black". Not being ashamed is a very different thing from being proud.

Want to make a political statement? Try this one for size, "I'm black, it's the way I was born. I'm not in any way inferior. I'm not in any way superior. I'm not ashamed of the colour of my skin, and make no apology for it. It's the way I was born. If you don't like the colour of my skin then the problem is yours, not mine, and you know where you can shove your opinion."

No need for pride.

And I ask again, because nobody has provided me with an answer yet - proud of what?
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I kind of agree with you, but would it be odd of a Jew to say he is proud of the Jews during WW2?
 
Ryokan said:
I love Asian girls.

Am I a racist? :confused:
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That wasn't really what I meant, but fair point.

Of course, it depends on why you love Asian girls, and how you feel about girls of other ethnicities.
 
wollery said:
Of course, it depends on why you love Asian girls
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I don't think it would be appropriate to say that here on an open forum :p


wollery said:
...and how you feel about girls of other ethnicities.
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Well, there are certainly ethnicities I find more, and less, attractive than others when it comes to girls, based purely on appearance.

I don't think there is anything inherently superior or inferior in it though, just that tastes vary and that, yes, I have personal preferences and dislikes.

Never thought it would make me a racist in any way.
 
Ryokan said:
I don't think it would be appropriate to say that here on an open forum :p
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:D

Well, there are certainly ethnicities I find more, and less, attractive than others when it comes to girls, based purely on appearance.

I don't think there is anything inherently superior or inferior in it though, just that tastes vary and that, yes, I have personal preferences and dislikes.

Never thought it would make me a racist in any way.
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If it's purely an aesthetic thing then it isn't racist.

I was addressing the poster who stated that he preferred his kids to marry within their own ethnic group. In that sense having a preference is racist.
 
There have been interesting studies (of wedding photographs!) suggesting that even within an ethnic group there is a tendency for people to choose partners that resemble them. I don't necessarily see that there's anything wrong with that, provided that people are not expected to make such a choice, and not criticised when they make a different choice.

Rolfe.
 
wollery said:
If it's purely an aesthetic thing then it isn't racist.

I was addressing the poster who stated that he preferred his kids to marry within their own ethnic group. In that sense having a preference is racist.
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Purely aestethics, and my non-existant kids can marry whomever they want.
 
The scumbags won two seats. Hopefully that might be enough rope to hang themselves with.

Rolfe.
 
Listening to the radio this morning it's clear that the only part of the BNP agenda anyone has heard is "if we send immigrants home, you'll have a job".

I think the rest of their platform will come as quite a surprise
 
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