Wise Words

Religion and Racism

Apparently, religious intolerance and racial intolerance go hand-in-hand within American culture. One easily shades into the other. The "us vs them" attitude with regard to other religons easily applies to other "races" as well. Ths study by researchers from the University of Southern California notes that religion in America is largely practiced along SEGREGATED LINES--that only "12% of US congregations report even a MODERATE level of [racial] diversity...." The religious sense of superiority which leads to the diminishing of the of religous "others" can extend to racial or ethnic "others" as well.

-Savant

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"Moral Makeup"?

Researchers seemed to notice similarities in the "moral makeup" of people drawn to religion and people who exhibit racist attitudes and behavior. Studies have shown, accoding the researchers, that religious believers are more likely than agnostics and atheists to rate CONSERVATIVE "life values" as the most important principles underlying their belief systems. Those values--social CONFORMITY and respect for TRADITION--also closely correlate with racism. People are attraced to organized religion for the same reason some people are inclined toward racist thinking: a belief in the sanctity of ESTABLISHED DIVISIONS in society. Religious FUNDAMENTALISM correlated most strongly with racist atitudes. Keep in mind that Religious (mainly Christian Right) fundamentalism is a central part of political conservatism and the Republican Party. Is common AA perceptions of racism in those circles really delusional? Reaearchers findings suggest probably they are not.


-Savant
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http://www.topix.com/forum/afam/TM9J3L67P053BJA2C

http://www.topix.com/forum/afam/TJC8PH3B0UQJANL99/p2


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As a THINKER I don't need a messiah. I certainly don't need Obama as a messiah as you need Hannity and Rush Limbaugh. Some may recall an old thread I made BEFORE the election: "Black People: Don't Get TOO EXCITED about BArack Obama." There I pointed out that while Obama was clearly superior to the opposition, he was still a politician. And while I could understand the swelling pride Black America would feel (after 400 years of hell) in seeing this articulate African-American as President, the cumulative damages of racism and economic exploitation weren't simply going away if he won--and it wasn't certain yet whether he would win. But one GOOD thing that reactionaries and other conservatives nitwits are going to have to face is the DECLINE OF CONSERVATISM. The pendulum is swinging in the other direction. Indeed, there is an interesting article by George Packer, originally published in THE NEW YORKER, but which can be retrieved from TRUTHOUT.ORG (I believe June 19, 2008) which studies the shift in American political attitudes and opinions. Packer argued--and he wasn't alone--that even if McCain/Palin had won, they could not have stopped the decline of conservatism. A recent Rasmussen poll indicated that 20% of the USA now believes that SOCIALISM would be better than capitalism.

Probably not more (if indeed as many) than 5% of Americans have felt his way since the 1950s mightmare of McCarthyism. The unfortunate thing is that BArack Obama may well symbolize the beginning of a new era, and that he's not fully of this himself. But some of us are aware and are prepared to do what we can to bring into being a new, more radically democratic and progressive America and world. Reactionaries will either have to get with it or be left behind as tragicomic relic of history.

-Savant

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Progressives as in Tom Paine, Wendell Phillips, Frederick Douglass, Eugene V. Debs, Martin Luther King, Jr.? They were certainly progressive enemies of barbarism. But I suspect many conservatives mistake barbarism for civilization. After all, it was the RIGHT that gave us Hitler. Slaveholders and segregationists were NOT liberals or progressives, though they murdered a good number of liberals and progressives. Civil rights, women's rights, workers rights human rights--all are basically liberal and progressive issues. It was radical left democrats like Tom Paine who first raised the flag of rebellion against monarchy. Liberals and leftists like Fred Douglass and Wendell Phillips who fought the good fight against slavery. Liberals and progressives who carried on the fight for civil rights and human rights for black people in the 1960s. Progressives who fought for peace and against Vietnam war. Progressives who opposd the Iraq war BEFORE that war became unpopular. If anything it is the Right which represents barbarism--including our Christian Right in America, and the Islamic Right in the Middle East.

-Savant

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Roman liberalism? Now that's a laugh. But most conservatives these days know next to nothing about history. Also, whatever its ancient cultural roots, liberalism in its various forms is essentially a MODERN worldview. The Voltaires, Rousseaus, Tom Paines and the like came way after the Roman empire. And I seem to recall that Rome was a partriarchal, militaristic slave society. How many liberrals or progressives support patriarchy and the subjection of women? Slavery? Militaristic imperialism? Notice that right wingers, who are commonly mental incompetents, always rant and rave against education. Or the "liberal arts colleges". Of course, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution could only have been written by men with a liberal arts education. The great freedom movements in America--Suffragettes, Abolitionism, Labor, Civil Rights---all were led by liberals and progressives who usually had either a formal or informal liberal education. The right wing animus against the life of the mind shows who the REAL ENEMIES of civilization are. They'd be burning books (and people) like the Nazis did if they could. And, of course, the Nazis also hated liberals, progressives and people with too much "liberal" education.


 -Savant
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Without a cooperative principle society itself could not exist. Not even capitalist society could exist, though it negates itself by its animus against the cooperative. Also, arguments based on human nature are dubious. It assumes human nature exist as a fixed and unalterable entity. A dubious assertion. Dr. King and Martin Buber were right about the principle of the coooperative, and the limitations of both collectivism and individualism. Now if you've READ what they have to say on this and wish to offer a critique, it would be interesting to see what INFORMED criticisms you might have to offer.

Conservative legislators have made it easier for corporations to ship jobs abroad. But capitalism always seeks to maximize profit regardless of the social costs. Liberals have done little to combat it. The problem is that liberals, like conservatives, do believe in capitalism and are subject to the ethos of free market fundamentalism. Without an alternative, or a progressive and popular democratic movement, there's no answer to the crisis.

-Savant


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In post # 1183 you did refer to Africans as savages, and that is the language typical of European and Euro-American racists when referring to Africans--and sometimes in referring to African Americans. And even white racists will often make the disclaimer (often after the fact) that they didn't mean all Blacks. In short, the language of colonialism and imperialism. There's an similarity I've noticed between the language of Black Americans and Africans who vilify each other, and the language used when Black men and women vilifying each other: sooner or later one calls upon all the negative terms and attitudes that WHITES use for all of us. I can only imagine that the racists when they hear this must be laughing all the way to the bank. 

-Savant

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I know more about this than you do, and I am better equipped to make cogent CLASS ANALYSES than you are. The majority of African Americans are, as I said before, WORKING CLASS folk. I never said that the middles classes constitute the majority of the Black population, only approximately 25%. In fact, most WHITES are not middle class folk either. Mainly they are working class folk, some of whom have been duped into believing they're members of a middle class. One's class is determined by one's relationship to the system of property, of wealth, and the relations of production and distribution. And since even the "independent " middle class has nearly gone extinct under the pressure of corporate expansion and monopoly, most "middle class" people are actually "professional s" who also work for a wage, but differ from the average worker due to such things as education, professional status, etc. What distinguishes my "class position" from my mother (a retired factory workers) are academic degrees, "status" , and a somewhat higher income. And some other perks which comes with the professional life of an academician.

MOST Black people in America are more like my mother: non-professional workers. Even most off the Black unemployed--those who don't fall into vagrancy or crime as a lifestyle---are basically displaces members of the Black proletariat. The wealthy Black elite are at most 1% of the Black population. The Black proletariat from whence I came formed the BACKBONE of the Black Movement from 1955--1975. If by "lower class" you mean the pimps, hoods, gangsters, prostitutes, dope peddlers and other members of the lumpen, they are NOT a majority of the Black population anywhere. They are not the majority even in the poorest ghettoes---and I grew up in such ghettoes. Sorry Charlie. I know more about this than you do.

-Savant