Liza said:
> In the United States the racism against Blacks in particular goes SO
> deep that even if you appear entirely Caucasian in every discernible
> way - if it becomes known that somewhere - even far, far in your
> distant past - there was some relative that was Black - then YOU are
> Black. There's thought to be Black "blood." It's a lot of very
> vicious nonsense - which has Whites for the most part in a totally
> confused fog.

The good news is that all those "one drop" laws about this sort of
thing
have finally been removed from the books.

> Karen said:
> > don't be ridiculous!  This has absolutely NOTHING to do with racism.
>
> Actually it does, Karen. "Ethnocentrism" means seeing every other
> culture in the world in terms of how it relates to you - yourself at
> the center of everything. It also means seeing yourself - or your
> kind - as superior.

But those two attitudes (group-centeredness and a belief in your
group's
superiority) are not inextricably linked just because there is a word
that
is sometimes used for both.  A person can easily be group-centered
without
believing their group to be superior.

> Whether or not you intended to sound that way doesn't really matter
> (lots of nasty things are said and done out of ignorance - that
> doesn't excuse them). The fact is that your words are indeed
> offensive.

But intent *does* matter.  Racism, after all, is an attitude; it is
not in
the ear of the beholder.  To say that someone who does not hold racist
beliefs is a racist just because their words have offended someone is
just
as wrong as to say that someone who has been offended unintentionally
has
not been offended because the offence was not intended.

If anyone believes that what I have just said constitutes support of
Karen's
views, they are incorrect.  The truth of the matter is that I don't
really
understand what Karen's views are.

Carol