Why Isn't It Considered Racist

[lankeela]

when news stories point out that people are black or people of colour - twice this week stories have centred on someone's ethnicity. The woman who trekked to the South Pole was the 'first woman of colour' to do so and now Sidney Poitier is being hailed as the first black actor to win an Oscar for Best Actor. Surely that is being racist by pointing it out?

[naomi24]

I agree with you, SP. It did matter hugely in the past, and we are not living in a complete colour blind Utopia - but we can't erase the past and regurgitating it over and over is not conducive to progress. Unless we assign history to history, in the certain knowledge that it has taught us a valuable lesson - which, if current trendy bandwagons are anything to go by, isn't happening - we never will achieve a society where the colour of a man's skin becomes an irrelevance. Sadly, it seems to me that the trend-setters are ensuring that such a society remains a very long way off.

[sp1814]

naomi24

So do you think that the fact that Mr Poitier was the first black man to win Best Actor at the Academy Awards should not be mentioned in his obits?

[sp1814]

//it seems to me that the trend-setters are ensuring that such a society remains a very long way off.//

And the intolerant bigots too right?

[ichkeria]

Yes it's a bizarre argument that says that any mention at all of race is a stumbling block towards racial equality.
Context, surely, is everything.

[bednobs]

i didnt read the whole post but saw the best answer - one should replace the word colour with religion or sexula orientation too

[naomi24]

SP, //So do you think that the fact that Mr Poitier was the first black man to win Best Actor at the Academy Awards should not be mentioned in his obits?//

Not at all because at the time it was an achievement. However, why when opportunity is open to all, the ethnicity of the lady who recently trekked to the South Pole has made the news remains a mystery.

//And the intolerant bigots too right?//

How disappointing that in the middle of a sensible and civilised discussion you should again resort to that language. I trust you're not about to go down the disgraceful path you took the last time we spoke. Perhaps you should ask yourself who the intolerant bigots really are?

[sp1814]

naomi24

We may be talking at cross purposes.

I was referring specifically to the question of Sidney Poitier. Are we in agreement that it's appropriate to say that he was the first black man to win Best Actor at the Oscars?

With regard to intolerant bigots - I was using that as an opposite to your comment about trend-setters and those who apparently on a bandwagon. Surely they can't be the only group responsible for ongoing racism and some blame must be laid at the foot of intolerant bigots.

And incidentally - referring to intolerant bigots is absolutely not questionable language. It would be if I called *you* an intolerable bigot, but I didn't.

[Ellipsis]

> However, why when opportunity is open to all, the ethnicity of the lady who recently trekked to the South Pole has made the news remains a mystery.

You see it that opportunities are equal, and therefore that an achievement is not remarkable (well, maybe remarkable, but not newsworthy).

Whereas others see it that opportunities are not equal, or at least they haven't been, and therefore the fact that it has been achieved is newsworthy and worth celebrating, if for no other reason than it shows that things have improved and/or are still improving.

For the lady in question, she probably found it easier to raise funds for her trip than a white bloke would these days, because it's been done before by somebody like him, but not by somebody like her. To stand a better chance of raising funds, you probably have to be doing something new or different.

Going back maybe thirty years, it probably would have been easier back then for the white bloke to raise funds than a lady like this, even though it wouldn't have been particularly new or different for him even back then.

So something has changed over those 30 years, and this achievement is a sign that it's changed. And that's what's being celebrated.

[sammmo]

If it’s ok to call him a black actor. Is it ok to call him a *** actor. *** is Spanish and Portuguese for black. The thing is most people know what is “racist” and what isn’t. But it can be confusing. And when people of colour call each other by the N word that makes things even more confusing. Either it racist or it isn’t. If it is racist, stop using it, even if your a person of colour.

[sp1814]

sammo

Seriously off-topic, but don't believe that black people go round using the N word.

That's simply not true...no more so than white people people calling each other the C word.

As as to your Portuguese question

Not sure what your point was as this site has censored you.

I've looked up the Portuguese for black and black person, and they both seem innocuous.

But like I say - waaaaay off-topic.

[roadman]

it is respectful to identify the fact that someone may be the first *insert colour or race here* to do something after the oppression their community or race may have faced

[roadman]

the best answer is stupid and it is very ignorant to the suppression and horror some communities and races have faced in the past to acknowledge the heartache is called respect not prejudice

[bobbinwales]

//but don't believe that black people go round using the N word//.
Well they do on loads of rap songs. I was suprised to hear a large group of about 20 Asian teenager on the bus singing a chant where they called themselfs P*K*S

[pixie374]

I thought the BA was hilariously hypocritical. Ironic,I suspect.

[sp1814]

bobbiwales

Black people are more than rappers.

Please take my word for it that at a family gathering if anyone of my relatives used that word it would be the same as you saying, "Pass the ******* pea you *** at the dinner table.

A million percent, it's nowhere *near* as common as rap would have you think.

[sp1814]

*peas, plural. I'm not suggesting anyone here is so poor they have to share a pea.

[Ellipsis]

But what other cultural references do we have, SP? Samuel L Jackson and Quentin Tarantino movies?

[roadman]

do white people rap? and if they do (they do) then do they represent every white person and their family? sorry just not sure how culture works apparently

[sp1814]

Ellipsis

I think you're joking, but I can't tell.

You are right?

Spot on roadman.

[Ellipsis]

Aren't they the best sort of jokes, SP?

Anyway ... yes, I am.