London Elects Muslim Mayor

[Emiliano]

with all due respect, Emiliano, that was a racist and not thought through statement.

as if it had anything to do with being white. how is this supposed to be terrifying? that people of other races exist? that they exist on European soil, and that they are interested in participating in the public affairs of the state they live in? this has been going on on the European soil for 2500 years at least (well, more, but i can't quote an exact approximate).

what exactly do you imagine here? that a mayor of different race should automatically instill fear of overthrow of existing order and European way of life? please. it’s insulting to have such lack of common sense applied to a whole race. and you know you are producing a caricature-like insinuation with that statement that is out of bounds with reality.


i have no problem with intelligent, educated people of any race. i don’t know the mayor of London, but i know he was born in the UK, has been involved in politics there since 2005. i know this man voted in favor for same-sex marriage. so, it is a rather quick effortless deduction from that that the man is not some nutjob. i assume he is a man interested in politics and public office, not some representative of an extremist religious fundamentalism about to bring about a coup d'état, (not to mention, he's a mayor).

get real, man. that statement was completely nonsensical. you are smarter than that.


and even if this did hold implication towards islamification (which it doesn’t) i am not afraid or terrified of anything. least of all because of my race. my race has taken on and fought everything in this world for thousands of years and prospered to success. and it will fight again if the occasion calls for it. we, white men, are not so easy to beat, and we're not gonna roll over for anyone, and we are not terrified. (you made this about race, so there).


but this thing is a nonevent.

Out of mutual respect and acknowledgment of your own intelligence, I have to assume that you opened this thread, saw my reply and then immediately wrote that without reading anything else in the thread or watching the video that was posted.

I even just refreshed my screen before posting this, thinking that maybe you'd come back and correct yourself... but you didnt (yet). So here it is.

The first time I wrote that, it was in reference to the guy in the video expressing the exact ridiculous sentiments you described above about other races existing in European countries, the damning affect they'll have once they enter politics, the erasure of the European way of life. I didn't bring race into this - the video that this thread was created for in order to get us to watch, made it about race. I just made it about white people instead of brown people. Because anyone who agrees with what that guy was saying needs some serious self reflection.

Yeah it was a tongue in cheek remark, but it was by no means an entirely sarcastic remark. There is truth in it. Its not just in my head that some white people on your continent and mine, are acting like the rising populations, growing political voices, and emerging social empowerment of brown and black people in the USA and across Europe is a sign of shifting power structures and ultimately will lead to the end of the white culture. For the white people who have that perspective, like the guy in the video, like the OP, it must be a terrifying time.



But, if you really did read through this whole thread and watch the video that was posted, then you calling me out for making a blanket statement about a race of people is the ultimate irony in a thread already overflowing with it.



As for your last part - I understand you got pride in your history and your identity. I'm not one of those people who think that white people taking pride in their history and culture is racism. And my critique of the guy in the video and his view of the special culture of the Europeans was that it was an idealized and conveniently short sighted view of European history and influence.

I have pride in where I come from too. My ancestors came from central America, the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia. But, looking at my family history, I have to confront the fact that the people in those countries today speak a language that is not their own - they worship a god that is not their own - the natural resources of their lands were stripped and taken to finance and build things in countries that are not their own - they hold themselves to standards of what is beautiful and of what is educated and of what is civilized that are not their own.

So from my personal perspective I may not see all of Europe's influence around the world as the work of some great white benevolent culture of universal ethics, free from in group preferences and racial biases as the guy in the video was trying to say. As the OP was getting at before he decided to delete it so he wouldn't have to deal with people calling him a racist (but gratefully he let us know that he still stands by his statement).

So after hundreds of years of murdering, infecting, conquering, colonizing, raping, exploiting, enslaving, segregating, excluding, erasing, and otherwise silencing the non white peoples of this world and their lands, some people, like the guy in the video, still want to act like white European culture is inherently better and more humanistic, and that there is something to fear and something to get angry about now that brown and black people are gaining a voice and feeling empowered enough to use it.

I'm not saying that Europeans are the only peoples to have ever done all that stuff.. Im just saying I'm not going to sit back and listen to someone pretend like they're the only people who haven't done that stuff.

But if a non white person brings up that negative aspect of European or American history, then they're the racist for not just accepting it like they did back in a time when it wasn't so terrifying to be a white (supremacist) person.

Do you have more of an understanding about where I was coming from when I said that now?

[meridannight]

[MENTION=21558]Emiliano[/MENTION], no i did not watch the video. i don't have flash activated on my mac and i don't watch online videos anyway. i didn't need to read the rest of the thread, because your response was the first one in line, ergo not in response to anything that came later in the thread.

i concede that i responded to a sentence out of context, but you could have at least provided some contextual cues then yourself, or made it more obvious what you meant. it is impossible to glean understanding from a written sentence alone, if it is written with emotional inflection and does not mean only what it says.

i still don't know what you meant, by the way. and i'm not gonna read through this whole thread. not really interested in this subject that much.

my response still stands as such. if it was done out of context, it was done out of context, and i apologize if it was unfair to you, but what it says stands.

[Emiliano]

my response still stands as such. if it was done out of context, it was done out of context, and i apologize if it was unfair to you, but what it says stands.

You know man, the least you could do is buy me dinner if you insist on riding my ass that hard.

[meridannight]

Yeah, "white men aren't easy to beat", because you bleddy well impoverished everyone else. You can go ahead and say it, since you're being so honest and "intelligent".

i didn't say white men are saints. we have our own baggage. i am well aware of the horrors and destruction my race has perpetrated.


PS. impoverishing some is not a one-way street, though. we may have been on the end doing the exploiting, but it only happened because, partly, it was let happen. and i'm not gonna argue this further. this is not the place, and i am not that invested in this topic. i merely wanted to point out things are rarely as black and white as that.

[meridannight]

You know man, the least you could do is buy me dinner if you insist on riding my ass that hard.

let me know when you're in Italy or France.

[Sylph]

i didn't say white men are saints. we have our own baggage. i am well aware of the horrors and destruction my race has perpetrated.


PS. impoverishing some is not a one-way street, though. we may have been on the end doing the exploiting, but it only happened because, partly, it was let happen. and i'm not gonna argue this further. this is not the place, and i am not that invested in this topic. i merely wanted to point out things are rarely as black and white as that.

People are people, regardless of colour, is the point I'm making.


Colour does exist, but it does not define a people.

If that's your mentality, that's on you, and if you felt this was an argument, then clearly you need to meet me to know me to know when I am arguing.


No need to now be derisive hun. Either stand firm or fold under de pressure, but don't use lack of interest to validate your inability to do either under the guise of it being so.


People need to remember, there are more than just European/American and so forth people here, and to throw now race on top of it? You my dear merely made me shake my head.

Let's be grownups now, kay?

[Feathers]

Oh my Merlin, the Muslims have taken over London! Soon the Queen will be in a veil listening to a Cleric read the Qu'ran.

Blue for sarcasm, btw.

Now for serious stuff: I couldn't give two shits about the personal religion of the Mayor. What I care about is how he wants to help those who are disadvantaged for no fault of their own, to promote equality, fairness and support for those who are unable to look after themselves.

I'd have voted for him if I lived in London. I live in Coventry so the most I could do was vote for my local Labour party candidate.

I think I'll add the OP to my ignore list, since I have never seen such a load of old bollocks. Typical Tory Party, EDL/BNP shit. Grow up and do your own research.

[Cobalt]

You know man, the least you could do is buy me dinner if you insist on riding my ass that hard.

Sorry to interject but that, was REALLY good. I'm not taking sides on this whole debate/talk-through, just thought I'd give props where they were due, you know?

[Sylph]

Out of mutual respect and acknowledgment of your own intelligence, I have to assume that you opened this thread, saw my reply and then immediately wrote that without reading anything else in the thread or watching the video that was posted.

I even just refreshed my screen before posting this, thinking that maybe you'd come back and correct yourself... but you didnt (yet). So here it is.

The first time I wrote that, it was in reference to the guy in the video expressing the exact ridiculous sentiments you described above about other races existing in European countries, the damning affect they'll have once they enter politics, the erasure of the European way of life. I didn't bring race into this - the video that this thread was created for in order to get us to watch, made it about race. I just made it about white people instead of brown people. Because anyone who agrees with what that guy was saying needs some serious self reflection.

Yeah it was a tongue in cheek remark, but it was by no means an entirely sarcastic remark. There is truth in it. Its not just in my head that some white people on your continent and mine, are acting like the rising populations, growing political voices, and emerging social empowerment of brown and black people in the USA and across Europe is a sign of shifting power structures and ultimately will lead to the end of the white culture. For the white people who have that perspective, like the guy in the video, like the OP, it must be a terrifying time.



But, if you really did read through this whole thread and watch the video that was posted, then you calling me out for making a blanket statement about a race of people is the ultimate irony in a thread already overflowing with it.



As for your last part - I understand you got pride in your history and your identity. I'm not one of those people who think that white people taking pride in their history and culture is racism. And my critique of the guy in the video and his view of the special culture of the Europeans was that it was an idealized and conveniently short sighted view of European history and influence.

I have pride in where I come from too. My ancestors came from central America, the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia. But, looking at my family history, I have to confront the fact that the people in those countries today speak a language that is not their own - they worship a god that is not their own - the natural resources of their lands were stripped and taken to finance and build things in countries that are not their own - they hold themselves to standards of what is beautiful and of what is educated and of what is civilized that are not their own.

So from my personal perspective I may not see all of Europe's influence around the world as the work of some great white benevolent culture of universal ethics, free from in group preferences and racial biases as the guy in the video was trying to say. As the OP was getting at before he decided to delete it so he wouldn't have to deal with people calling him a racist (but gratefully he let us know that he still stands by his statement).

So after hundreds of years of murdering, infecting, conquering, colonizing, raping, exploiting, enslaving, segregating, excluding, erasing, and otherwise silencing the non white peoples of this world and their lands, some people, like the guy in the video, still want to act like white European culture is inherently better and more humanistic, and that there is something to fear and something to get angry about now that brown and black people are gaining a voice and feeling empowered enough to use it.

I'm not saying that Europeans are the only peoples to have ever done all that stuff.. Im just saying I'm not going to sit back and listen to someone pretend like they're the only people who haven't done that stuff.

But if a non white person brings up that negative aspect of European or American history, then they're the racist for not just accepting it like they did back in a time when it wasn't so terrifying to be a white (supremacist) person.

Do you have more of an understanding about where I was coming from when I said that now?

Oh my!

My dear, I fear I did spill my tea, I did
Quite the lashing as the lads would say.


I'm only just getting to reading this, but clearly somebody has been a good boy in school!

The Caribbean your ancestors are from you say? Which isle hun?

If not for the sense you aptly made, I would nary agree with you for no other reason than for the sake that you share some of our lineage gurl.

May as well it seems

[Emiliano]

Oh my!

My dear, I fear I did spill my tea, I did
Quite the lashing as the lads would say.


I'm only just getting to reading this, but clearly somebody has been a good boy in school!

The Caribbean your ancestors are from you say? Which isle hun?

If not for the sense you aptly made, I would nary agree with you for no other reason than for the sake that you share some of our lineage gurl.

May as well it seems

Yeah, rereading that it's kind of harsh, I didn't intend it as an attack on anyone personally. And my paternal grandmother was Haitian, but I wasn't raised having any sort of cultural connection to there.