Cosmo Kramer makes an ass out of himself. (American, career)

DontRunMeOver · 11-24-2006, 04:14 AM

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Originally Posted by RHYMEFESTkillah

I'll say it again that White Europeans are the only group of people in this country who have not faced oppression of any sort.

Did the Irish not? Or the Italians? I don't know about this, but just from watching movies I'd gathered they've had pretty downtrodden times in the past. Or do you mean they 'do not', in that they are not oppressed at the moment?

Quote:

I'm not making sh*t up when I say that the definition of racism implies power, and I have read on these topics more than I could possibly describe. I'm guessing that people like you, RAR, haven't read about this, and are confusing prejudice with racism.

That's when the guy uses the 'simplest definition' of racism as prejudice plus power and concludes that if you use this simple definition only whites in the US can be racist because only whites have power. That in itself is flawed because he doesn't define what he means by power. Would he say that the Black owners of hip-hop labels have no power? Would he say that basketball players commanding huge salaries have no power?

Even if you just work from that 'simplest definition' I could accept a conclusion that whites have more power and therefore are in a position to exert more racism (again, in its simplest defition) but even then it just wouldn't work the way he said because power is not in reality a case of those who have all and those who have none. Power is a sliding scale, with those who have more and those who have less and all to different extents and even then the power manifests itself in different ways.