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Posted by Kris Krieger on March 16, 2008, 10:58 pm
>
>
>
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Kris Krieger wrote:
>>>
>>>>>Crayola color" or, if pressed, "pinkish peach"
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Having been brought up hearing that WASPS were superior and I was,
>>>>according to many of the so-called "teachers" and even "guidance
>>>>counsellors" despite my IQ (a number which I only learned when I was
>>>>43), nothing more than a "dumb Polak" destined to work on the
>>>>assembly line at the GM plant, or as a "chemical shoveller" at the
>>>>refinery, well, when I had to fill out forms, I always put "SLAVIC".
>>>> I had a different cultural background and a different upbringing
>>>>than did the WASP kids, so I never felt that merely being pale in
>>>>color (paler than most of the WASPs actually) made for any
>>>>particular "affinity" between me and them. I learned very early on,
>>>>becasue of that, that the entire concept of "race" is fake, nothing
>>>>more than merly a stupid way for some a-holes to claim they had a
>>>>right to have more (both materially and socioculturally) than
>>>>others. And when the mere stupidity of color doesn't suffice for
>>>>them to claim priviledge, they resort to other vapid excuses, such
>>>>as "religion" or "ethnicity".
>>>>
>>>>And most of it is based upon nothing more than fear. A group which
>>>>has most of the material wealth and social/political power fears
>>>>that the other groups will take it away, wiht that dfear being
>>>>especially strong if that wealth and power has been obtained through
>>>>illegal and/or unethical/immorl means - so they use so-called
>>>>"reasons" (which are nothing more than insults an ddenigrations) to
>>>>keep the feared "interolpers" in their so-called "place", starting
>>>>the indoctrination at infancy.
>>>>
>>>>So, I am not "white". I am Slavic.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> And I am multi ethnic. A few of us, by the way, have interesting
>>> discussion from time to time, partly based on some of the
>>> publications within the Human Genome studies, that there is,
>>> actually, nosuch thing as a Slav.
>>
>> True, we ulimately are all African. But if some silly form demands
>> that people be lumped into arbitrary groups, and if those groups
>> include, not only "racial" groups, but also ethnic groups, it is,
>> iMO, jsut as valid (and simultaneously, just as invalid) for me to
>> write "Slavic" in the "Other" box, as it is for someone else to check
>> "Hispanic", since Spanish peoples and their descendents are
>> technically Causasoid.
>>
>> The whole "political correctness" thing just irritates me, is all.
>>
>>> Even the name for Slav is a misnomer. Slavite as a Verb
>>> means to praise and one praises an individual, a family, even a
>>> village or a saint with a Slava, i.e. a glory day. The Slvjanski
>>> jezik, i.e. the Slavic langauge, means a language to "praise [Jesus}
>>> with, and was indeed a somewhat related by somewhat artificial
>>> constructed language.
>>> From when the language was invented to this time, the people who
>>> spoke
>>> it stopped being referred to by other names such as Barbarian aqnd
>>> became those praising people. After a while people forgot why they
>>> were even named as they were names and they came to be called simply
>>> Slavs and their various civilization Slavic and their related
>>> languages and people, all multi ethnic, as well. For some of those
>>> people are Turkic, or Turko-Mongol, and some are garden variety
>>> indo-European, some Scandinavian (like those Russian Boyar ones),
>>> some Celtic (like those Bosnian and some of those Serbian ones), and
>>> some related to quite real people of the Caucasus, like some of
>>> those Serbian, Croatian and Montenegrin ones, and some one way or
>>> another to Sarmatian, Scythian and Iranian and Ugric thises and
>>> thats.
>>>
>>> ;To say you are SLAV - ic means you are related to someone who is
>>> one.
>>
>> INteresting historical info, I have to say I didn't know that.
>>
>>> So, are you a Slav? And if so, what does that mean.
>>
>> I'm half Eastern Polish (IIRC from the Bielystock area) and half
>> Slovak (from a village that used to be called Svyat Ian, as best as I
>> can recall). Neither of my parents had English as a first language -
>> and both refused to teach us anything other than English because of
>> the prejudices (at that time and in that palce, at least) against
>> those who "just got off the boat" as opposed to having several
>> generations of American-born ancestors. IOW, they were made to be
>> ashamed of who they were, and as kids, we inherited that, were
>> similarly defined by default. Then the 60's came, and quite suddenly,
>> since we weren't melanistic, we were redifined as "oppressors".
>>
>> Which is *not* to say that non-Causasian people didn't, and don't,
>> have to put up with a lot of stupid BS - they do. At the same time,
>> however, I don't see why people of a given range of skin-pigments are
>> "supposed' to be "all the same".
>>
>> THat's all. The whole "political correctness" thing has a lot of
>> stupidity mashed-up into it. Much of what now gets regulated by the
>> PC police (who are never defined or identified, even tho' their chill
>> effect is widespread), used to be covered by "simple common courtesy,
>> simple common decency, and simple human respect".
>>
>> True that a lot of people didn't have simple common decency, but "PC
>> Police" also cannot, and certainly have not been able to *force*,
>> anyone at all to magically become all
>> loveydovey-touchyfeelie-warmfuzzy towards their fellow humans,
>> especially not by pretending that all "white" (whatever *that8 even
>> means...) people are equivalent, identical.
>>
>> THat's all, The whole "reductionism" attitude irritates me. True
>> tht I'm an American, but IMO, either do away with all of th
>> ehyphenation, of expand the dumbass little forms to include
>> "Anglo-American", "Slavic- American" and so on.
>>
>>>
>>> I still rather prefer "other". "Other" is already a little choice
>>> on lots of forms with limited choices. "Other" makes people ask
>>> questions that can sometimes become intelligent conversations.
>>>
>>
>> The point is, why is it that we're "supposed" to accept being lumped
>> in with a differnt cultural and/or ethnic group, esp. one which
>> historically was not all that kind to Slavs (and Italians, and Irish,
>> and so on)? THe cultural vlaues an dbackgrounds and attitudes of
>> various groups are simply different, and IMO, it's not valid to claim
>> that an equivalence exists merely because one has a similar
>> melanin-concentration in one's skin.
>>
>> ALso, personally, I've yet to have any form-collector have *any*
>> conversation with me, much less an intelligent one.
>>
>
> Well written. I passed it on to my wife, who is having a similar
> discussion in the Knitting forums.
Knitting forums? Huh, I didn't know they had those. Makes sense, tho' -
different interests, different forums (?fora?). Cool, in a way ;)
> A genetic question, if children cannot have blue eyes unless their
> parents do, how come Malcolm X had blue eyes (and reddish hair)?
No, I said that the genes have to be there - I probably wasn't clear,
tho', so, recall I mentioned that the genes for blue eyes are recesssive;
what that means is that you can have two brown-eyed parents (i.e.,
phenotypically brown-eyed, meaning, that which is manifested) who can
carry recessive blue-eyed genes. Statistically, they have a 25% chance
of having a child with brown-eye genes only, 2 X a 25% chance of having a
child with brown eyes but who also carries the recessive (unexpressed)
blue-eye gene, and a 25% chance of having a child who received the
recessive gene from each parent and therfore the phenotype (physically
expressed) of blue eyes.
But, since the gene is recessive, and brown eyes are dominent, twp blue-
eyed people can't have a brown-eyed child, because, if the dominent
brown-eye gene were present in either parent, that parent would have
brown eyes (or maybe hazel, but still not blue).
> I
> lived 2 blocks from his sister, and saw him several times. BTW she had
> brown eyes. Aren't we all "Other"?
According to genetic research (both Y-chromosome DNA and mitochondrial
DNA, which is passed down maternally), we're all descended from a small
group of Africans.
> My African friend can tell me what
> tribes he is descended from, but he was a city boy and taught that
> such things did not matter, however after living back in the Congo for
> 10 years, he found they did to some as the government changed. He was
> on a hit list for his ethnicity and was smuggled out as a sack of
> potatoes.
THere has always been inter-tribal strife in Africa, butit got much worse
when the colonial powers drew colony boundaries (which later became
national boundaries) willy-nilly through tribal areas, and ended up
including fractions of tribes into "nations". THere's been such a
history of strife and violence that, in a sense, it made a lot fo people
kind of crazy, and tribal affiliations are being exaggerated way out of
proportion, mroe than they were in pre-colonial days, and used as an
excuse for power-mongering and violence. It's truely tragic. And made
the more so because, since most of those areas have no oil, much of the
tragedy is "below the radar" so to speak :(
> He is now a citizen here, and a grandfather, but still wants
> to return. The mixing of races often produces the most beautiful and
> interesting people, we should treasure them and not try to place each
> in one "approved" group or another.
As a person with a somewhat artistic eye, I find human differences
fascinating and striking, often beautiful. But that's part of my "mental
problem", I seek out differences, arrange them in my mind, create
contrast and form, patterns in three dimensions. What's normal, I
suppose, is to concentrate upon that which is the same as oneself, and
withdraw from that which is different...?
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