“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” — Voltaire
(Definitely explains Abu Ghraib and other war crimes committed by U.S. service personnel and “independent contractors”. And, the scarier thing is the vast majority of Americans – still – believe the official narrative of the events of 9/11/01 and the need for “the war on terror”. They crafted a nearly perfect “us vs. them” scenario, and most Americans swallowed the lies . . . hook, line and sinker. Not that this still isn’t an ongoing concern, but to add a slightly more recent example would be Trump’s insistence on referring to COVID-19 as “The China Flu”, or even worse “Kung Flu”, and how there has been a resulting 150% increase in Anti-Asian hate crimes in the U.S.. And, the years and years of being told that Blacks are “the bogeyman” has played a big part in our systemic racism. I think that Voltaire might be my favorite source of quotes. Be well and do good, friends.) — YUR
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Unclerave's Wordy Weblog 
Unc wrote:
“…Trump’s insistence on referring to COVID-19 as “The China Flu…”
Donald Trump didn’t invent his his trashy name-calling speech, but he certainly made good use of it when it served him.
I bet if you asked him he’d own it, lwc. — YUR
Unc wrote: “I bet if you asked him he’d own it, lwc.”
Yep, you’re probably right. He seems to enjoy his own trash.
Westerners of East Asian heritage have been increasingly verbally and/or physically assaulted during the last year, the perpetrators perhaps under some delusion their targets are willful creators/spreaders of Covid-19. Many have no Chinese lineage, ironically, though their assailants seem to not care, maybe due to a hateful perception that they’re ‘all the same’. Overlooked is that there’s a good chance the assault victims came to the West to leave precisely that which so many Westerners currently dislike about some authoritarian East Asian nation governments.
The unprovoked hatred can be even more intense if the target happens to be deemed professionally successful and/or has managed greater savings (etcetera), regardless of it all having been through hard work and/or thrift budgeting. Sometimes the victim is a convenient political football or scapegoat.
The current anti-Asian abuse brings to my mind the 2007-08 financial crisis, which resulted in the biggest, and perhaps the most culpably corrupt, mainstream U.S. bankers not being criminally indicted but rather given their multi-million-dollar performance bonuses via taxpayer-funded bailout. Yet, the feds, in a classical cowardly move, only charged some high-level staff with a relatively small-potatoes Chinese-American community bank as a figurative sacrificial lamb that couldn’t really fight back and who looked different from most other Americans.
Clearly, some people will always find an excuse to despise and abuse those who are superficially different.
Good stuff, Junior! Do you think that Europeans and Americans living in these East Asian countries face a similar type of bias? — YUR
Perhaps. The only thing I’ve ever heard about (and it was via a mainstream metro-daily newspaper) was reported around 25 years ago. Some apparently jealous Chinese male university students (in Beijing, I believe) physically chased out a number of Black male students from Africa, for getting close/romantic with their Chinese female peers. The angry young Chinese men called the African men “Black devils”.
But I must emphasize that, during my 35 years of news consumption, this was the only racist occurrence I’ve heard about happening in China; and, of course, it doesn’t lessen what’s happening now with East Asian residents/citizens in America and Canada.
Nothing excuses racial hatred, friend. I only bring it up because I know that a lot of East Asians – particularly ones of older generations – have a kind of “superiority complex” when it comes to people with darker complexions. And, many of them are not subtle about it. I’m not saying that ALL of the attacks on Asians have come from African-Americans, but the vast majority of the attacks happening in the NYC area have been perpetrated by African-Americans. I find this very troubling, but I also can understand that there might be a kind of – longstanding – resentment/revenge thing going on. The Coronavirus has become their *excuse* for exacting this revenge.
I don’t think because you’ve only heard of only one occurrence in 35 years means there hasn’t been others . . . possibly many others. There, unfortunately, is racism and hatred in far too many corners of the world. As a species, we tend to give ourselves a little too much credit. We still have a long way to go. Peace. — YUR
Remove the greatest difference among humans — race/color — and left are less obvious differences over which to clash, such as sub-racial identity (i.e. ethnicity), language, nationality, religion, and so forth down that (politics of) scale we tumble. And throw a contemporary deadly virus into the ugly equation for a really hateful fire.
I occasionally muse that what humankind may need to suffer in order to survive the long term from ourselves is an even greater nemesis (perhaps a multi-tentacled ET) than our own politics and perceptions of differences, against which we could all unite, attack and defeat — all during which we’d be forced to work closely side-by-side together and witness just how humanly similar we are to each other. (Albeit, I’ve been told that one or more human parties might actually attempt to forge an allegiance with the ETs to better their own chances for survival, thus indicating that our wanting human condition may be even worse than I had thought.)
Still, maybe some five or more decades later when all traces of the nightmarish ET invasion are gone, we’ll inevitably revert to the same typical politics of scale to which we humans seem so collectively hopelessly prone; including that of the intercontinental, international, national, provincial or state, regional and municipal.
Then again, hypothetically reduce our species to just a few city blocks of residents who are superficially similar in every way, and there will likely be some form of bitter inter-neighborhood quarreling, eventually.
The alien angle is fun, Junior! But, I think a “Rise of the Machines” scenario has a slightly higher possibility/probability of happening. That kind of US vs. THEM could unite humanity, as I can’t see machines making deals with any organic party at all, so cooperation would be essential to survival. With either scenario though – assuming humanity wins out – who knows if we would learn our lesson, or revert to the tribalistic BS that we’ve always demonstrated.
Yeah, it’s been said that even if we were all of the same complexion and eye color, we’d find a picayune reason to differentiate – and likely persecute – each other, like talls vs. shorts, or attached vs. detached earlobes! No one wants Humans to be like Vulcans, but we could definitely do with some more evolution! — YUR
fgsjr2015 wrote: “Westerners of East Asian heritage have been increasingly verbally and/or physically assaulted during the last year, the perpetrators perhaps under some delusion their targets are willful creators/spreaders of Covid-19.”
The thugs attacking East Asian people don’t care if they’re spreaders of any disease. This behavior is simply in reaction to the ugly rhetoric of their Der Fuehrer Trump. If he says they’re bad people, then they’re fair targets.
Der Fuehrer revels in the attention !
fgsjr2015 wrote:
“…25 years ago. Some apparently jealous Chinese male university students (in Beijing, I believe) physically chased out a number of Black male students from Africa…”
I recall many Africans going to Communist China for education and reading something something similar. However, I haven’t heard about it since.
fgsjr2015 writes:
“…residents who are superficially similar in every way, and there will likely be some form of bitter inter-neighborhood quarreling, eventually.”
If we go by fgsjr’s comment, we are doomed to racial, ethnic, and social strife, indefinitely; there’s no hope.
Unc wrote: “even if we were all of the same complexion and eye color, we’d find a picayune reason to differentiate – and likely persecute – each other…”
In that case, we’re doomed; it’s only a matter of time.
“They” have been watching this planet for eons; “They” know our weaknesses and can take us in their own good time.
We can resist such reactive, human predispositions. The first step towards changing irrationally biased thinking can be the awareness of it and its origin. Plus, infancy is typically the best time to instill and even solidify positive social-interaction skills/traits into a very young brain. Learning selflessness is one good aspect, while another could be interracial harmonization.
Although some research reveals infants demonstrate a preference for caregivers of their own race, any future racial biases and bigotries generally are environmentally acquired. (Adult racist sentiments are often cemented by a misguided yet strong sense of entitlement, perhaps also acquired from one’s environment.) One means of proactively preventing this social/societal problem may be by allowing very young children to become accustomed to other races in a harmoniously positive manner.
At a very young and therefore impressionable age, I was emphatically told by my mother (who’s of Eastern European heritage) about the exceptionally kind and caring nature of our Black family doctor. She never had anything disdainful to say about people of color; in fact she loves to watch/listen to the Middle Eastern and Indian subcontinental dancers and musicians on the multicultural channels. I believe that her doing so had a very positive and lasting effect on me.