OLBERMANN AND GARAFOLO: Playing the Racist Game

[CA renter]

This is the kind of dialogue that could actually “fix” some of the problems with “racism.”

We can’t fix the problem if we can’t define it. We can’t define it unless we can openly discuss everyone’s perspectives and better understand the history and context of our beliefs.

Davelj made an excellent point about “racism” really being about culture. He hit the nail on the head, IMHO. Most people I know couldn’t care less about a person’s color, as long as that person shared a similar culture/belief system. Race really doesn’t matter.

One story: back when I was in college, we had a “Black House” and a “Hispanic House” for black and hispanic students. No “White House” though.

They also had a “black” graduation ceremony that (black) students could choose to attend instead of the regular ceremony with everyone else. I can assure you we did NOT have a separate “white” graduation ceremony.

Yes, “racism” goes both ways.

[raty4R]

I guess I’m older than most of you guys, I grew up in Normal Heights. At the time a White/Caucasian neigborhood. (Think Leave it to Beaver, My Three Sons, Gilligan’s Island) I think there were two Philipino families. I’m Chinese and Dutch (first generation immigrant). No Asians/Orientals or Blacks/African Americans when I was growing up. Our jokes were Polish or Italian jokes. In high school I met my first BLacks/African Americans and Mexican/Hispanic/Latinos. The jokes were now Polish, Italian, Mexican, White and Black.
None where considered racist, just funny. I think that the human mind likes to simplify and categorize. Comes from way back – tribal times. “I can trust members of my tribe but not their tribe, I don’t know who they are” It is a lot easier to deal with different cultures if you have a general/generic definition of them. Like a previous poster said “how am I supposed to learn everything that every culture finds offensive (and do i really care?). I remeber when Vietnamese first started to immagrate. they were picked on by everyone. Now they are just part of the San Diego population. And yes Orientals and Latino’s are very very racist. Every culture thinks they are beter than any other. It a national/cultural pride thing. I say get over it. Take it in context. If the racial slurs was meant as a personal attack defend yourself. If it was an ‘off color’ joke(is that a racist comment??) than laugh if it was funny.
We all knew this race card would be played once Obama got elected. I think it is being used to distract us from the real issues we are facing. Divide and conquer. During the Bush administration they used the 9/11 distraction create DHS to enact laws that took away our freedoms. ??shampoo bottles are deadly weapons unless you put them in a ziplock bag?? WTF?? Obama’s administration is using the economic distraction to take our money and more freedoms.

[raty4R]

I guess I’m older than most of you guys, I grew up in Normal Heights. At the time a White/Caucasian neigborhood. (Think Leave it to Beaver, My Three Sons, Gilligan’s Island) I think there were two Philipino families. I’m Chinese and Dutch (first generation immigrant). No Asians/Orientals or Blacks/African Americans when I was growing up. Our jokes were Polish or Italian jokes. In high school I met my first BLacks/African Americans and Mexican/Hispanic/Latinos. The jokes were now Polish, Italian, Mexican, White and Black.
None where considered racist, just funny. I think that the human mind likes to simplify and categorize. Comes from way back – tribal times. “I can trust members of my tribe but not their tribe, I don’t know who they are” It is a lot easier to deal with different cultures if you have a general/generic definition of them. Like a previous poster said “how am I supposed to learn everything that every culture finds offensive (and do i really care?). I remeber when Vietnamese first started to immagrate. they were picked on by everyone. Now they are just part of the San Diego population. And yes Orientals and Latino’s are very very racist. Every culture thinks they are beter than any other. It a national/cultural pride thing. I say get over it. Take it in context. If the racial slurs was meant as a personal attack defend yourself. If it was an ‘off color’ joke(is that a racist comment??) than laugh if it was funny.
We all knew this race card would be played once Obama got elected. I think it is being used to distract us from the real issues we are facing. Divide and conquer. During the Bush administration they used the 9/11 distraction create DHS to enact laws that took away our freedoms. ??shampoo bottles are deadly weapons unless you put them in a ziplock bag?? WTF?? Obama’s administration is using the economic distraction to take our money and more freedoms.

[raty4R]

I guess I’m older than most of you guys, I grew up in Normal Heights. At the time a White/Caucasian neigborhood. (Think Leave it to Beaver, My Three Sons, Gilligan’s Island) I think there were two Philipino families. I’m Chinese and Dutch (first generation immigrant). No Asians/Orientals or Blacks/African Americans when I was growing up. Our jokes were Polish or Italian jokes. In high school I met my first BLacks/African Americans and Mexican/Hispanic/Latinos. The jokes were now Polish, Italian, Mexican, White and Black.
None where considered racist, just funny. I think that the human mind likes to simplify and categorize. Comes from way back – tribal times. “I can trust members of my tribe but not their tribe, I don’t know who they are” It is a lot easier to deal with different cultures if you have a general/generic definition of them. Like a previous poster said “how am I supposed to learn everything that every culture finds offensive (and do i really care?). I remeber when Vietnamese first started to immagrate. they were picked on by everyone. Now they are just part of the San Diego population. And yes Orientals and Latino’s are very very racist. Every culture thinks they are beter than any other. It a national/cultural pride thing. I say get over it. Take it in context. If the racial slurs was meant as a personal attack defend yourself. If it was an ‘off color’ joke(is that a racist comment??) than laugh if it was funny.
We all knew this race card would be played once Obama got elected. I think it is being used to distract us from the real issues we are facing. Divide and conquer. During the Bush administration they used the 9/11 distraction create DHS to enact laws that took away our freedoms. ??shampoo bottles are deadly weapons unless you put them in a ziplock bag?? WTF?? Obama’s administration is using the economic distraction to take our money and more freedoms.

[raty4R]

I guess I’m older than most of you guys, I grew up in Normal Heights. At the time a White/Caucasian neigborhood. (Think Leave it to Beaver, My Three Sons, Gilligan’s Island) I think there were two Philipino families. I’m Chinese and Dutch (first generation immigrant). No Asians/Orientals or Blacks/African Americans when I was growing up. Our jokes were Polish or Italian jokes. In high school I met my first BLacks/African Americans and Mexican/Hispanic/Latinos. The jokes were now Polish, Italian, Mexican, White and Black.
None where considered racist, just funny. I think that the human mind likes to simplify and categorize. Comes from way back – tribal times. “I can trust members of my tribe but not their tribe, I don’t know who they are” It is a lot easier to deal with different cultures if you have a general/generic definition of them. Like a previous poster said “how am I supposed to learn everything that every culture finds offensive (and do i really care?). I remeber when Vietnamese first started to immagrate. they were picked on by everyone. Now they are just part of the San Diego population. And yes Orientals and Latino’s are very very racist. Every culture thinks they are beter than any other. It a national/cultural pride thing. I say get over it. Take it in context. If the racial slurs was meant as a personal attack defend yourself. If it was an ‘off color’ joke(is that a racist comment??) than laugh if it was funny.
We all knew this race card would be played once Obama got elected. I think it is being used to distract us from the real issues we are facing. Divide and conquer. During the Bush administration they used the 9/11 distraction create DHS to enact laws that took away our freedoms. ??shampoo bottles are deadly weapons unless you put them in a ziplock bag?? WTF?? Obama’s administration is using the economic distraction to take our money and more freedoms.

[raty4R]

I guess I’m older than most of you guys, I grew up in Normal Heights. At the time a White/Caucasian neigborhood. (Think Leave it to Beaver, My Three Sons, Gilligan’s Island) I think there were two Philipino families. I’m Chinese and Dutch (first generation immigrant). No Asians/Orientals or Blacks/African Americans when I was growing up. Our jokes were Polish or Italian jokes. In high school I met my first BLacks/African Americans and Mexican/Hispanic/Latinos. The jokes were now Polish, Italian, Mexican, White and Black.
None where considered racist, just funny. I think that the human mind likes to simplify and categorize. Comes from way back – tribal times. “I can trust members of my tribe but not their tribe, I don’t know who they are” It is a lot easier to deal with different cultures if you have a general/generic definition of them. Like a previous poster said “how am I supposed to learn everything that every culture finds offensive (and do i really care?). I remeber when Vietnamese first started to immagrate. they were picked on by everyone. Now they are just part of the San Diego population. And yes Orientals and Latino’s are very very racist. Every culture thinks they are beter than any other. It a national/cultural pride thing. I say get over it. Take it in context. If the racial slurs was meant as a personal attack defend yourself. If it was an ‘off color’ joke(is that a racist comment??) than laugh if it was funny.
We all knew this race card would be played once Obama got elected. I think it is being used to distract us from the real issues we are facing. Divide and conquer. During the Bush administration they used the 9/11 distraction create DHS to enact laws that took away our freedoms. ??shampoo bottles are deadly weapons unless you put them in a ziplock bag?? WTF?? Obama’s administration is using the economic distraction to take our money and more freedoms.

[CardiffBaseball]

You know as Allen mentioned if you played football or basketball or some sport there were always stuff said amongst guys that would just shock a PC person.

I recall one day in the Air Force (was in Denver) a group of us decided to BBQ out at Cherry Creek or whatever it was. Just a lot of drinking, and red meat I don’t recall the weather being nice enough to swim or anything. Toss the football etc. In this little group was a black guy, an italian, a jew, a large jawed (like Jay Leno) Irish guy with a Mc-Name, and myself. As the beer started flowing the guys really start to fvck with one another. It’s like every joke was a play on every stereotype you can imagine. Christ I laughed so hard that day my ribs hurt. I recall us even peer pressuring to the jewish guy to try some pork once he was good and lit up. Go-GO-GO and he finally wolfed it down (which caused the rest of us to have to shotgun some more beers).

At least on that day if you wanted to make Guinea cracks it was fair game. Same for Mick’s, Jews, etc. However we were all a bit more careful about the black guy. Interestingly his name was Freeman and about the only real ribbing he took was “I’m a Free man” type stuff. Maybe some watermelon/chicken stuff, but there was definitely a lot less use of racial expletives. It wasn’t a fighting thing he was not a fighter at all, just a good example of where even when each guy got to hear the most vile thing about his background, nobody dared utter the “N” word. Guinea, Dago, Kike, Hook-Nose, Mick etc. were all fair play. I was German/Welsh/Italian/mutt so it was kind of hard to rip me for anything except being from the land of the mullet.

[CardiffBaseball]

You know as Allen mentioned if you played football or basketball or some sport there were always stuff said amongst guys that would just shock a PC person.

I recall one day in the Air Force (was in Denver) a group of us decided to BBQ out at Cherry Creek or whatever it was. Just a lot of drinking, and red meat I don’t recall the weather being nice enough to swim or anything. Toss the football etc. In this little group was a black guy, an italian, a jew, a large jawed (like Jay Leno) Irish guy with a Mc-Name, and myself. As the beer started flowing the guys really start to fvck with one another. It’s like every joke was a play on every stereotype you can imagine. Christ I laughed so hard that day my ribs hurt. I recall us even peer pressuring to the jewish guy to try some pork once he was good and lit up. Go-GO-GO and he finally wolfed it down (which caused the rest of us to have to shotgun some more beers).

At least on that day if you wanted to make Guinea cracks it was fair game. Same for Mick’s, Jews, etc. However we were all a bit more careful about the black guy. Interestingly his name was Freeman and about the only real ribbing he took was “I’m a Free man” type stuff. Maybe some watermelon/chicken stuff, but there was definitely a lot less use of racial expletives. It wasn’t a fighting thing he was not a fighter at all, just a good example of where even when each guy got to hear the most vile thing about his background, nobody dared utter the “N” word. Guinea, Dago, Kike, Hook-Nose, Mick etc. were all fair play. I was German/Welsh/Italian/mutt so it was kind of hard to rip me for anything except being from the land of the mullet.

[CardiffBaseball]

You know as Allen mentioned if you played football or basketball or some sport there were always stuff said amongst guys that would just shock a PC person.

I recall one day in the Air Force (was in Denver) a group of us decided to BBQ out at Cherry Creek or whatever it was. Just a lot of drinking, and red meat I don’t recall the weather being nice enough to swim or anything. Toss the football etc. In this little group was a black guy, an italian, a jew, a large jawed (like Jay Leno) Irish guy with a Mc-Name, and myself. As the beer started flowing the guys really start to fvck with one another. It’s like every joke was a play on every stereotype you can imagine. Christ I laughed so hard that day my ribs hurt. I recall us even peer pressuring to the jewish guy to try some pork once he was good and lit up. Go-GO-GO and he finally wolfed it down (which caused the rest of us to have to shotgun some more beers).

At least on that day if you wanted to make Guinea cracks it was fair game. Same for Mick’s, Jews, etc. However we were all a bit more careful about the black guy. Interestingly his name was Freeman and about the only real ribbing he took was “I’m a Free man” type stuff. Maybe some watermelon/chicken stuff, but there was definitely a lot less use of racial expletives. It wasn’t a fighting thing he was not a fighter at all, just a good example of where even when each guy got to hear the most vile thing about his background, nobody dared utter the “N” word. Guinea, Dago, Kike, Hook-Nose, Mick etc. were all fair play. I was German/Welsh/Italian/mutt so it was kind of hard to rip me for anything except being from the land of the mullet.

[CardiffBaseball]

You know as Allen mentioned if you played football or basketball or some sport there were always stuff said amongst guys that would just shock a PC person.

I recall one day in the Air Force (was in Denver) a group of us decided to BBQ out at Cherry Creek or whatever it was. Just a lot of drinking, and red meat I don’t recall the weather being nice enough to swim or anything. Toss the football etc. In this little group was a black guy, an italian, a jew, a large jawed (like Jay Leno) Irish guy with a Mc-Name, and myself. As the beer started flowing the guys really start to fvck with one another. It’s like every joke was a play on every stereotype you can imagine. Christ I laughed so hard that day my ribs hurt. I recall us even peer pressuring to the jewish guy to try some pork once he was good and lit up. Go-GO-GO and he finally wolfed it down (which caused the rest of us to have to shotgun some more beers).

At least on that day if you wanted to make Guinea cracks it was fair game. Same for Mick’s, Jews, etc. However we were all a bit more careful about the black guy. Interestingly his name was Freeman and about the only real ribbing he took was “I’m a Free man” type stuff. Maybe some watermelon/chicken stuff, but there was definitely a lot less use of racial expletives. It wasn’t a fighting thing he was not a fighter at all, just a good example of where even when each guy got to hear the most vile thing about his background, nobody dared utter the “N” word. Guinea, Dago, Kike, Hook-Nose, Mick etc. were all fair play. I was German/Welsh/Italian/mutt so it was kind of hard to rip me for anything except being from the land of the mullet.

[CardiffBaseball]

You know as Allen mentioned if you played football or basketball or some sport there were always stuff said amongst guys that would just shock a PC person.

I recall one day in the Air Force (was in Denver) a group of us decided to BBQ out at Cherry Creek or whatever it was. Just a lot of drinking, and red meat I don’t recall the weather being nice enough to swim or anything. Toss the football etc. In this little group was a black guy, an italian, a jew, a large jawed (like Jay Leno) Irish guy with a Mc-Name, and myself. As the beer started flowing the guys really start to fvck with one another. It’s like every joke was a play on every stereotype you can imagine. Christ I laughed so hard that day my ribs hurt. I recall us even peer pressuring to the jewish guy to try some pork once he was good and lit up. Go-GO-GO and he finally wolfed it down (which caused the rest of us to have to shotgun some more beers).

At least on that day if you wanted to make Guinea cracks it was fair game. Same for Mick’s, Jews, etc. However we were all a bit more careful about the black guy. Interestingly his name was Freeman and about the only real ribbing he took was “I’m a Free man” type stuff. Maybe some watermelon/chicken stuff, but there was definitely a lot less use of racial expletives. It wasn’t a fighting thing he was not a fighter at all, just a good example of where even when each guy got to hear the most vile thing about his background, nobody dared utter the “N” word. Guinea, Dago, Kike, Hook-Nose, Mick etc. were all fair play. I was German/Welsh/Italian/mutt so it was kind of hard to rip me for anything except being from the land of the mullet.

[Allan from Fallbrook]

Cardiff: I think the great thing about the military is that it’s a true equalizer in the sense that it’s color blind (for the most part) and a real meritocracy.

I saw Southern guys that came in pretty racist and left being willing to lay down their life for a black guy (or Asian guy or Mexican guy or whatever).

I remember sitting around a campfire telling jokes and we got to the gay jokes and our team sniper piped up and asked us to quit. When we asked why, he said because he was gay and he wasn’t joking. Well, we all took a long moment and thought about that and that was it. We shrugged and moved on. He was one of us and his being gay didn’t change that one bit. We gave him shit in the showers pretty regularly after that, and he responded accordingly, but there wasn’t a single one of us that wouldn’t charge out under fire to bring him back if he were wounded or dead and we knew the same went for him.

I think when you get the sort of easy familiarity that comes from sports or the military, you can discuss pretty much anything and feel comfortable doing so. There isn’t a single guy I served with that I don’t consider family.

[Allan from Fallbrook]

Cardiff: I think the great thing about the military is that it’s a true equalizer in the sense that it’s color blind (for the most part) and a real meritocracy.

I saw Southern guys that came in pretty racist and left being willing to lay down their life for a black guy (or Asian guy or Mexican guy or whatever).

I remember sitting around a campfire telling jokes and we got to the gay jokes and our team sniper piped up and asked us to quit. When we asked why, he said because he was gay and he wasn’t joking. Well, we all took a long moment and thought about that and that was it. We shrugged and moved on. He was one of us and his being gay didn’t change that one bit. We gave him shit in the showers pretty regularly after that, and he responded accordingly, but there wasn’t a single one of us that wouldn’t charge out under fire to bring him back if he were wounded or dead and we knew the same went for him.

I think when you get the sort of easy familiarity that comes from sports or the military, you can discuss pretty much anything and feel comfortable doing so. There isn’t a single guy I served with that I don’t consider family.

[Allan from Fallbrook]

Cardiff: I think the great thing about the military is that it’s a true equalizer in the sense that it’s color blind (for the most part) and a real meritocracy.

I saw Southern guys that came in pretty racist and left being willing to lay down their life for a black guy (or Asian guy or Mexican guy or whatever).

I remember sitting around a campfire telling jokes and we got to the gay jokes and our team sniper piped up and asked us to quit. When we asked why, he said because he was gay and he wasn’t joking. Well, we all took a long moment and thought about that and that was it. We shrugged and moved on. He was one of us and his being gay didn’t change that one bit. We gave him shit in the showers pretty regularly after that, and he responded accordingly, but there wasn’t a single one of us that wouldn’t charge out under fire to bring him back if he were wounded or dead and we knew the same went for him.

I think when you get the sort of easy familiarity that comes from sports or the military, you can discuss pretty much anything and feel comfortable doing so. There isn’t a single guy I served with that I don’t consider family.

[Allan from Fallbrook]

Cardiff: I think the great thing about the military is that it’s a true equalizer in the sense that it’s color blind (for the most part) and a real meritocracy.

I saw Southern guys that came in pretty racist and left being willing to lay down their life for a black guy (or Asian guy or Mexican guy or whatever).

I remember sitting around a campfire telling jokes and we got to the gay jokes and our team sniper piped up and asked us to quit. When we asked why, he said because he was gay and he wasn’t joking. Well, we all took a long moment and thought about that and that was it. We shrugged and moved on. He was one of us and his being gay didn’t change that one bit. We gave him shit in the showers pretty regularly after that, and he responded accordingly, but there wasn’t a single one of us that wouldn’t charge out under fire to bring him back if he were wounded or dead and we knew the same went for him.

I think when you get the sort of easy familiarity that comes from sports or the military, you can discuss pretty much anything and feel comfortable doing so. There isn’t a single guy I served with that I don’t consider family.

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