Hi MichaelP, All !

Yes, you certainly do seem to have been offended.... perhaps beyond the reasonable ability to see that no "appeals" were made....... assertions and declarations perhaps....

So, for the Godless or otherwise God offendable here are the only two references to God in that communication rewritten to exclude the offensive concept:

Life is not necessarily fair. Did ANYONE promise you that life would be fair?
I expect only an opportunity to grow in experience and into a spiritual viewpoint.
(I hope spiritual is not offensive....)

But as long as we're being offended, in case I've never mentioned it before, I find it offensive in the extreme, as well as more than slightly ridiculous to have persons declaiming me as a racist, their sole proof of this being my skin color.

What I am most interested in, in terms of this thread, is to divorce the spurious conception of "white supremacist racism" tainting all white people because of the supposed "guilt" or "benefit" of being white from the important and essential vision of the wealth of institutionalized capital placing a yoke on the necks of all men with regard for race ONLY in the ways in which it may be used to undermine the perception that oppression is being applied to all men.

Aloha,   Dave.          Think for Yourself.             Question Authority
~               Globalize Consciousness         Localize Economies
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Computer Dave" Hartley   (808) 879-7997 email:  [log in to unmask] 
Interests: Computer/Telephony Integration, Windows NT, Web Publishing, 
~~  Alternative Medicine  ~~   www.Eckankar.org   ~~  www.healing-tao.com


-----Original Message-----
From:   MichaelP [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent:   Monday, August 11, 1997 4:05 AM
To:     [log in to unmask]
Subject:        Re: Racism -- corporate tool? (long)

Please leave out appeals to God from your stated desire to not have
racist guilt placed on your shoulders. Such references offend me - you
may commune with YOUR personal deity all you wish but I don't wish to
hear such communications, promises, contracts as justification for your
attempt to improve things.

  So while guilt may not be a useful concept to apply to cure the results
of past actions by the powerful whites against the weaker minority
groups, there no way for you to categorize as racist the process of
persuading whites to accept their responsibility and complicity in both
past and present actions of discrimination based on race. As long as you
are genuine in wishing to cure or at least mitigate the situation
please leave
out the complaints when folks try to tell you what they think.


MichaelP

=============
On Sun, 10 Aug 1997, Dave Hartley wrote: > Guilt? I wash my hands of it.
It is counterproductive. I accept no racist concept of my guilt as a white
man. I categorically deny any such guilt and further clearly state that it
is RACIST to attempt to apply this guilt to me based upon the color of my
 skin.<