I know everyone will be relieved when I drop the “The Jews Killed Christ” and “We Must Apologize for Slavery” memes, but before I do I have a couple of things to say.First of all, I don’t like it when my intentions are not clear to readers. I was clarifying (not apologizing) because a person who is already on our side was concerned. I don’t care if I offend the moonbats, but I do care if I offend people who are normally my staunch allies.
If they’re still offended after my clarification, then there’s not much else I can do. But at least I tried.
Secondly, all the brouhaha caused even among our regular readers proves my point — you can’t make light of these things, or treat them off-handedly, or discuss them without the utmost gravitas, and expect not to get in trouble. Stray from the pious platitudes, and you risk opprobrium from all sides.
People are on a hair-trigger, ready to be offended, especially when it comes to race. It’s a wonder we haven’t had a race war already.
[Nothing follows]
15 comments:
"People are on a hair-trigger, ready to be offended, especially when it comes to race. It’s a wonder we haven’t had a race war already."
I would say that part of the wonders of PC showing what it was designed to do, particularly with regard to race. Disguised with fine sentiments de jure, but really de facto Divide and Inflame. The PC meme has wormed its way into popular consciousness more than is appreciated sometimes (Dymphna mentioned the corruption of science a few posts ago).
While pointless rudeness is not desirable, many of the hair trigger sensitive people are prisoners of the PC prism whether they realize it or not. Latent marxists in other words. They don't deserve clarification, not of the pacifying kind at any rate.
"Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me", unless one is a liberal-ized idiot.
A little OT, but a live topical example of PC apology madness, how on earth does this sort of crap rate as a headline on Yahoo news???
LOS ANGELES - A gay and lesbian advocacy group demanded an apology Wednesday from "Grey's Anatomy" co-star Isaiah Washington for comments made following the Golden Globe Awards.
...
"No, I did not call (co-star) T.R. (Knight) a faggot," Washington told reporters. "Never happened, never happened."
Pretty funny really.
That you felt compelled to participate in the semantic gymnastics necessary to appease the few PC among us speaks volumes of its pervasiveness in modern discourse. I understood your meaning the first time; as did most other regular readers of this blog.
As a wise man once told me: "There's no right NOT to be offended in the constitution." Indeed
'Constantinople Again' blogger
There are simply other things to think about..let's go there.
1) We have had race wars. World War II was the most famous one that comes to mind.
2) If you're not offending people, you're not trying hard enough. Sorry is the earthly society where no one gets offended.
and, if your offense is a mistake,
3) Only he who does nothing makes no mistakes. (God excepted, of course.)
Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!
I know from experience that irony is often lost on the ‘net. One tends to get misinterpreted. It becomes distressing when that results in inadvertently offending. But it is even more embarrassing when you get accolades from the wrong quarters. Then you watch as the whole thing spirals out of control. Can we get back to “nuke the ragheads?” :^) ... (Note I have to insert the “irony” emoticon!!!)
True, Jason.
Personally, I just enjoy beating a dead horse. :)
In my mind, there is nothing wrong in selfreflection. The minute you find youselve to be above all arguments, then you know you are wrong. So in this sense I think it is ok for Baron to listen.
As a {lapsed} Catholic, I've never understood 'blaming the Jews' for the Crucifixion - at that time, in that part of the world, the political/civil/judicial authority for "big problems" devolved upon the Roman Empire's representatives .................... Christ was crucified for potential issues arising with Roman authority .................. the Pharisees and Sadducees were sacrificing the One for the many ..................
Well, docneaves, "aside from the Germans trying to wipe out the Jews" is a pretty big aside. The Nazi ideology was pretty much against anyone who wasn't an "Aryan superman", and that included the Slavs and many others. The Nazis routinely slaughtered Soviet POW's, and Nazi war art painted (literally "painted" -- it's interesting to look at their paintings) the different peoples of the east as monstrous apparitions, from whom the glorified Germanic warriors had to defend their civilization. Interestingly, though, after Pearl Harbor, Hitler decided the Japanese were "honorary Aryans" or something like that. By the way, Japanese militarist philosophy of that era definitely had a racist tinge to it; that's how they justified many of the atrocities they committed in China and elsewhere.
It depends on how you define words like "racist" and "race", which seem to be politicized concepts anyway. For example, a Nazi of European descent may wonder what the racial issue is between two Asian peoples, i.e., between the Japanese and Koreans or between the Japanese and Chinese in World War II, but at the same time that same Nazi sees a big difference between himself and the Russians or Poles. I guess "race" to some extent is in the eyes of the racist.
Isn't "ethnic cleansing" pretty similar, given a suitable definition of racism? How would the Pakistani military's conduct in Bangladesh in 1971 rate? What about events in the Balkans in recent years? What about the more recent Rwandan genocide of 1994? From an ethnocentric perspective, a white racist may not see racism in the killing of black Africans by black Africans, and indeed racism may not be an appropriate word to describe it, but to the Tutsis and Hutus it was a big deal; hundreds of thousands of people died.
Some of the hostilities between people of European descent and people of Mesoamerican descent during Spain's conquest of Mexico had a distinct racist flavor to them, as did some of the hostilities between people of European descent and people of American descent in the "Wild West". The "left" likes to paint a picture of victimization of the "Native Americans" at the hands of racist whites, which is overdone, but not without elements of truth.
Nazi conduct in World War II could also be described as a "eugenics war", where the Nazis were trying to "cleanse" humanity of "bad genes". Just wait until genetic engineering of humans gets going -- then we'll see some "supermen" and some eugenics wars.
Racism is basically stupid; it is not surprising that many stupid things that have been done have some kind of racism as an ingredient.
Baron,
I never doubted your heart was in the right place.
Your commentary was inartful, in my opinion. If you want to avoid being mis-understood you need to start out with the proper denunciation before getting to the meat. Sorry. That is just how it is.
You do have a point though. I made a bit of fun of Christianity and no one took the bait.
However, keep in mind these wounds are still raw. Sixty years since the end of WW2, forty since Jim Crow started to fall.
Jews are not nearly so touchy about their slaughter at the hands of the Romans. It was a long time ago.
Crazy stuff, people are nuts...
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
hate your own race...
.
ps. i think counting the jews as allies against islam is a mistake. these are the guys who elected OLMERT for christ's sake (lol). not to mention their support of the dems and MSM. most jews are more like euro hippies
Thank you for the un-apology apology. Count me as one who is normally in agreement with Gates of Vienna. Still, I was surprised at both the original post and the comments that followed. Slavery was followed by a century of Jim Crow laws. The holocaust is still followed by hatred of jews. I'm against all affirmative action, except on the basis of economic need, but I empathize with those who have suffered due to racism and anti-semitism.
I must admit surprise at the persistence of the "Who Killed Christ" meme. Christ died for the sins of those He saves. If we had not sinned, there would have been no need for atonement. Those who do not accept Christ actually did NOT kill him, except for a handful alive at the time, and He asked the Father to forgive them. Whoever rejects the atonement will have to spend an eternity cut off from God because they must pay for their own sins.
This is the Gospel, and is so pervasive in the New Testament that I have no idea how anyone could miss it (Seems I, too, lack empathy at times...). In sum, I killed Christ -- He died for me.
jews are the biggest jew-haters of all, based on their election of the traitorous olmert
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