It's asinine that someone would think you can determine the difference between Bosnian and Serbs by their nose.
After a while of being in some of the Asian areas, you learn to tell the "big three" apart - Japanese, Korean, and Chinese just at a glance - and then you can confirm it when you hear them speak (Chinese, Japanese, and Korean are linguistically distinct). They can usually pick each other out of a crowd.
Like that's stereotyping. I remember some white people at my high school said that I didn't have a "ghetto floppy butt" that most black women have. I have to ask them when did they met "most black women" and a butt doesn't determine race.
What most people don't understand is that there are different ethnic groups within black people, and there seems to be a different anatomical trend between them. Africa is a large continent and not all blacks descend from Africa (though I suppose we all technically descend from Africa. as one guy I was talking to put it: "our ancestors just took the scenic route to get here" ). Indian blacks have, if nothing else, cultural differences from Persian blacks.
There is a trend that black women have distinct posteriors, and even an belief that black men are attracted to white women with similarly wide hips and 'floppy' butts. I can't say my observations contradict the stereotype, but I haven't exactly sat down and done an empirical study, either. Not that it is really all that important - people are attracted to who and what they are attracted to.
Though, I can say that you're not alone in not having a 'ghetto floppy butt' - many black women in the military didn't have floppy butts. Granted, I feel a bit awkward talking about my observations regarding the butts of women as if I'm some kind of storied expert, or something.
I honestly wish we can get rid of the concept of race.You are right when you said race is hard to distinguish. Like I don't see a lighter skin person with looser curls and say that person is Spanish or something because they might be black or something else. My mom is black and my dad was white.A lot of people say I don't look mixed because of my hair and skin color and some people say I look mix because of my skin. Like that still doesn't determine anything.
Human beings tend to be somewhat tribal in their thinking.
There is "us" and there is "them." To a person who is more used to being around a more homogenous white population, you probably appear black. To a person who comes from an area that is more homogeneously black, you likely appear mixed to them. In and of itself, that isn't a huge problem. We are wired in our brains to try and identify patterns and useful clues about our environment.
As I explained in one of the jenner threads, this is part of nonverbal communication. Getting an idea about who you are and where you come from based upon what I can discern about your appearance helps me to figure out how to approach you. It may not be an entirely accurate evaluation - but we are all wired to do it and to use it as a platform for how we introduce ourselves, what topics we try to lead a conversation with, etc.
Of course, this can also be used a different way. If the idea exists that you and I are enemies simply based upon where we come from, then the context of all of the above changes. Rather than being how to lead a conversation, it is a threat-assessment. We are looking to find indications of hostility, indications that the individual is 'one of them,' etc.
This is how such seemingly identical groups can become very attuned to picking each other out of a crowd. The Bosnians and Serbians have been in conflict for centuries for various regions. Even if they initially didn't have the nose as the distinguishing feature (assuming it really is), it's conceivable that it became very deadly to live in one area or the other with a nose that looked a certain way - so you went and lived with like-nosed people. Once an idea like that becomes popular, it can become self-sustaining.
I'm sure someone from the area will come along and argue that I'm wrong - but I'm just using it to illustrate the concept.
Exactly why groups decide to become enemies can be varied. Generally, it is over control - who gets to call the shots.
For example, I've heard from some people who argue that the police in America are 'just another gang.' Within this view, laws and government do not exist as a system or as a means of protecting society as a whole - they view the laws and the system as little more than what amounts to a decree by gang leaders.
Many of the people I've heard say this are black.
Thus, from their perspective and how they look at the law and police - what they see is essentially a turf war where the 'whites' have one hell of a head start. For them, things like Ferguson, Baltimore, and other places where this type of behavior is brewing - it's not about justice in what most of the rest of society thinks. The injustice is that black territories are living with laws passed and often enforced by whites.
Part of this is a poisoning of their education. There were efforts early on to staff schools with teachers who essentially taught this type of thing in school. They did not teach about the concept of a constrained government and the idea that systemic law can serve all people equally. In other words - a black person could serve the system of law and serve both blacks and whites equally rather than trying to have one set of laws for blacks and another set of laws for whites (which is what ends up happening to some degree or another in many European nations - not necessarily whites and blacks, but various ethnic populations). Under systemic law, no one has to choose between their race and the law.
Of course, that doesn't mean there aren't bad laws that should be done away with. There are plenty of those (of course, I'm Libertarian almost to the point of anarchist - so I pretty much think the only laws we need are ones against murder/assault and fraud - almost every other criminal offense is a variation on those themes and everything else is just there to fuel someone's sense of self-righteousness). But our system of law provides a means of discourse for removing those laws. I think every law not explicitly stated within the constitution should have a statute of limitations to its effect (IE - if a state passes a law against swimming nude, unless it is reinstated by the legislative body 10 years later, it simply disappears and anyone caught swimming nude 10 years later can't be prosecuted). ... I'm digressing.
Anyway, this all compounded with various other 'good idea at the time' efforts to try and assist racial minorities and those who were having difficulty making ends meet. The end result was that black women could live a better lifestyle by having children without a father in the domicile (one would actually have federal benefits taken away if a man was shown to be living with the woman; and since this was federally-funded housing in many cases...) - this had a devastating effect on the black family, which, in the 1950s, had one of the highest percentages of in-wedlock births and some of the lowest divorce rates among all reporting races within the U.S. That trend completely inverted by the 70s.
When all of this compounds on itself, it becomes easy to see how areas with high concentrations of blacks can feel as though they are in a generations-long turf war.
Unfortunately, very few of them are willing to reconsider this view of things, and are likely to commit to actions like burning down parts of a town before trying to understand.
When other races see a bunch of easily identifiable blacks who are allowed to disobey basic principles of society, they understandably bristle at the idea that any one of those buildings could be their home, their child's school, the grocery store down the street... and the media makes it about 'police brutality.' Which sends the message that these people are alone.
It also places other blacks on edge. Not all blacks see things the way that these groups in the cities do (and not all of the people within the cities do, either). Yet there is an undeniable common factor between them and the groups that -do- think like that. When the other racial groups around them get spun up over issues like this - they are understandably uncomfortable, as well. They don't agree with the crazies burning down buildings, but that's hard to communicate through appearance, alone. Awkward silences develop around friends, subjects are obviously dodged....
But there is a lot of power to be had. There are those who want to lead this new black nation idea. They want to sit at the front of it. There are a lot of people who want to be able to take credit for making it happen - for trying to strike a deal with its leaders to secure their own futures. If a 'virtual' nation can be established within the U.S. - there is a considerable labor force that is there that could operate outside of the constraints of standard employment. From bypassing requirements for healthcare coverage to payment below minimum wage - all of it can be done if inner cities can become politically independent.
Which is all really sad.
We should be able to take pride in our ancestry and in the knowledge of who and what went into enabling us to be born. Even in just my father, who married a woman before being shipped off to Vietnam - kids didn't matter to him at that point... but during the war, he realized he really wanted to have kids. When he got back, she didn't. My father then went through a botched marriage and a time in his life where most of my surviving family knows little about what he was up to before he met my mother. The idea of what he went through just to bring myself and my brothers into existence...
When I looked around my grandfather's tool shop as a kid, I could see the German influence. There's a road in St. Louis with my family's name on it outside of an old hardware store that is considered a historic landmark for the local area - my great grandfather's hardware store.
These are sources of pride - inspiration and motivation to push ahead through life and to improve ourselves. Finding out the stories of the people who made your life possible gives you a connection to the rhythm and cycle of life. Even some of the most broken and dysfunctional people have some incredible stories.
There is nothing wrong with having pride in the people who contributed to making your life in the here and now possible - call it race or ethnicity or whatever. There's also nothing wrong with having pride in the culture that helped to define them.
It's just that any source of power can be harnessed for a weapon. Just as it can be used to empower people and to strengthen societies - it can be harnessed as a weapon to be used to foist agendas upon each other.
I think this sums it up:
[video=youtube;EBX3adLuT68]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBX3adLuT68[/video]
Floor Jansen is a Goddess. If you're into singing - she's an interesting person to study. She's an incredible stage presence and also has an absolutely amazing voice with an inhuman range and the power to punch through a rock band.
That... and her end to "Ghost Love Score" was mind-blowing. I don't know where she stores all the air in that frame of hers, but holy crap. The first time she put that ending on that song in her first performance with Nightwish, the crowd went absolutely nuts.
But, that's enough of me being a fan-boy. Suffice to say I was very impressed with her when I first came across her in "After Forever" and it was like a dream come true when I learned that she was touring with Nightwish.
Anyway...
I've made this far longer than anyone asked for.
My cat is climbing on me in a signal that she wants me to go to bed so she can curl up on my shoulder. She likes to think she owns me, and I have apparently not done enough to convince her otherwise. Found out the other day that she prefers beef to chicken to the tune of getting pissy with me when I fed her chicken. She's an adorable little shit... who needs to stop biting me.
