tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8762075.post3912729246770764096..comments2024-03-27T13:28:50.405-07:00Comments on Alienated in Vancouver: Gerry Hannah writes againAllan MacInnishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05394301776870727673noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8762075.post-27157229288349339172018-10-06T20:35:43.483-07:002018-10-06T20:35:43.483-07:00Thanks for the plug Allan. Yes, your experiences ...Thanks for the plug Allan. Yes, your experiences seem very similar to mine. And I'm sorry; it's really frustrating to try to have a rational discussion with people that subscribe to this type of dogma. <br /><br />The one thing that really stands out to me as being completely erroneous thinking by the people you mention in your example, is this idea that, put in the historical context of white oppression, only white people can be racist. In my opinion, exactly the opposite is true; put in historical context, we clearly see that any race can be racist. Yes, the vast majority of people who currently hold the reins of power, and have created and continue to maintain structural racism at present, happen to be white. But it certainly wasn't always so and its very unlikely that it will always be so in the future. Two thousand years ago, white people (Europeans) were running around in animal skins without cities or written language, let alone imperialist capabilities or aspirations. Up to that point it had been mostly Egyptians, Persians, Mongols, Babylonians, etc. (people of colour), that had carved out empires, brutalizing, enslaving and slaughtering those they deemed to be of a inferior races along the way.<br /><br />And what of today? If only white people can be racist, how do we explain the Japanese colonization and brutalization of Manchurians? How do we explain the persecution of Muslims in India by fanatical Hindus? Or the genocidal slaughter of Armenians by the Turks? Or the persecution of South Asians by Ugandans during Idi Amin’s rule? Or the genocidal slaughter of Rohingyans in Myanmar by Buddhist fanatics?<br /><br />Yes, I know that some of these examples, technically, are examples of “religious” persecution as opposed to examples of racial persecution. My position on this? Bullshit. In the context of this discussion, racism can be seen in its essence as fear and hatred of the "Other" and by seeing the Other as less than human. As author Umair Haque states, “The real adversary is racism. Or at least it is for me. Because the interesting and damnable thing about racism is that it goes on and on and on. We somehow keep making the same old mistake of making each other the enemy, not racism itself.”Gerry Hannahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17167374678266453070noreply@blogger.com