Re: racism pollutes the extropian list

From: Michael S. Lorrey (mike@lorrey.com)
Date: Wed Jun 02 1999 - 06:43:51 MDT


Damien Broderick wrote:

> Here's what Mr den Otter posted in response:
>
> >Underneath that aryan exterior there still
> >will be a negro soul...people will still hate eachother, just not at first
> >glance. The change of skin won't solve the problems of unevenly distributed
> >intelligence (in the broadest sense of the word), the real cause for
> >racism.
>
> No, I don't wish to start a flamewar - just to register my revulsion at
> this sort of nonsense emerging again on a list that should surely find talk
> of a `negro soul' (in this demeaning sense) abominable.
>
> But if Mr den Otter has changed his views completely in the meantime, and
> really was just being playful, I withdraw my remark.

Damien, you seem to repeatedly posess rather knee-jerk responses to mere words.
I recall that you took offense once to my use of the term 'abo'. As someone who
is not only Scottish and Swedish, but Italian along with some Jewish ethnicity
in the family, I for one cannot afford to be a bigot, and take personal offense
to anyone who would insinuate that I am in any way bigoted. But I also find it
rather ludicrous that anyone could consider terms like 'negro' or 'colored' to
be racist terms when the primary US organizations supporting African Americans
that are run by the same are called the Negro College Fund and the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People. On a similar note, that it is
racist for a white person to use the nigg** word while it is quite alright for
an African-American to use the same word is an attitude that, in my own opinion,
is itself racist.

Mike Lorrey



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