I recently read a story on CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/07/09/philly.pool/index.html

The story is about how a group of black kids were 'expelled' from a pool 
because of race.


An interesting quote is:
"He said two other day-care centers, neither of which included minority 
children, had previously been similarly disinvited."

So, two groups of kids had been 'disinvited' with no loud complaining. 
As soon as the exact thing happens to a racial minority, it becomes a 
problem.

I don't know if the action was racially motivated or not - I'm not 
judging that.  But it is amazing how people jump to say this is racially 
motivated.

Just look at the quote:
"But Duesler told two Philadelphia television stations that the children 
had changed "the complexion" and "atmosphere" of the club."

While I can see how this could be a racially charged statement, it could 
easily apply to ANY group of people and not be racially charged.


Even with the bias of the article I can see plenty of evidence that the 
incident may not have been racially motivated.


I guess people should be sensitive to things like this because it was 
such a big problem in the past, and continues to be problem today.  But 
at times it seems that it goes a little too far.

I wish people would take the time to understand the facts before passing 
judgment.  IMHO much in this article points towards people making snap 
judgments without taking time to try to understand what really happened. 
  Black group - kicked out by white people - something must be wrong.

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Tom Austin wrote:
> While I can see how this could be a racially charged statement, it could 
> easily apply to ANY group of people and not be racially charged.

That's OK. We had politicians getting kicked out because they said they'd 
have to be niggardly with the budget, and the ignorant black coworkers 
didn't know what the word meant.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."

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"Tom Austin" <taustin> wrote in message news:4a565c62$1@news.povray.org...

> I recently read a story on CNN
> http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/07/09/philly.pool/index.html
>
> The story is about how a group of black kids were 'expelled' from a pool
> because of race.
>
> An interesting quote is:
> "He said two other day-care centers, neither of which included minority
> children, had previously been similarly disinvited."

Funny (or sad) how that's mentioned only in passing at the end of the
article (before which point many "readers" stop reading). That's media for
you. Racism, terrorism, global warming doom and gloom, missing rich white
photogenic kids, pedophiles and Michael Jackson (but I repeat) do sell.

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Darren New wrote:
> Tom Austin wrote:
>> While I can see how this could be a racially charged statement, it 
>> could easily apply to ANY group of people and not be racially charged.
> 
> That's OK. We had politicians getting kicked out because they said 
> they'd have to be niggardly with the budget, and the ignorant black 
> coworkers didn't know what the word meant.
> 

I do remember way back in high school physics that we discussed the term 
jerry-rig.  Our teacher reasoned that 'jerry' was a racial slur and 
shouldn't be used.  So he suggested that 'billy-rig' was a better term - 
referring to West Virginia hill billys.  Since we were in Virginia, it 
was a better term than 'jerry-rig'

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somebody wrote:
> "Tom Austin" <taustin> wrote in message news:4a565c62$1@news.povray.org...
> 
>> I recently read a story on CNN
>> http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/07/09/philly.pool/index.html
>>
>> The story is about how a group of black kids were 'expelled' from a pool
>> because of race.
>>
>> An interesting quote is:
>> "He said two other day-care centers, neither of which included minority
>> children, had previously been similarly disinvited."
> 
> Funny (or sad) how that's mentioned only in passing at the end of the
> article (before which point many "readers" stop reading). That's media for
> you. Racism, terrorism, global warming doom and gloom, missing rich white
> photogenic kids, pedophiles and Michael Jackson (but I repeat) do sell.
> 
> 

I did read that some of the minority kids did hear some comments from 
other people at the pool that could be racist.

Yes, the sensational news does sell - and with the amount of news that 
is generated, it makes sense that even small things are seen as big. 
Then you also have reporters that push agendas in their stories - 
purposefully focusing on some aspects while burying others.  But I guess 
that's always gone on - One just has to read between the lines.

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Tom Austin wrote:

> Yes, the sensational news does sell - and with the amount of news that 
> is generated, it makes sense that even small things are seen as big. 
> Then you also have reporters that push agendas in their stories - 
> purposefully focusing on some aspects while burying others.  But I guess 
> that's always gone on - One just has to read between the lines.

The trouble is, you weren't there and you don't know what realy 
happened. You can try to take a guess, but without all the facts 
available to you, it's difficult to reach a meaningful conclusion.

This is why I generally don't pay any attention to the news...

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Invisible wrote:
> Tom Austin wrote:
> 
>> Yes, the sensational news does sell - and with the amount of news that 
>> is generated, it makes sense that even small things are seen as big. 
>> Then you also have reporters that push agendas in their stories - 
>> purposefully focusing on some aspects while burying others.  But I 
>> guess that's always gone on - One just has to read between the lines.
> 
> The trouble is, you weren't there and you don't know what realy 
> happened. You can try to take a guess, but without all the facts 
> available to you, it's difficult to reach a meaningful conclusion.
> 

Exactly - people are making hard fast very charged conclusions based on 
a few sound bytes.  Now a organization has to deal with the charge of 
racism - whether they deserved it or not.

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Tom Austin <taustin> wrote:

> I do remember way back in high school physics that we discussed the term
> jerry-rig.  Our teacher reasoned that 'jerry' was a racial slur and
> shouldn't be used.  So he suggested that 'billy-rig' was a better term -
> referring to West Virginia hill billys.  Since we were in Virginia, it
> was a better term than 'jerry-rig'

I think that your teacher may have been confusing jerry-rigged with jerry-built
which is a slur against a certain English Jerry. Jerry-rigged is from WW2 and
applied to Allied equipment repaired using German parts.
To be honest, I have heard one phrase used by American oilmen that was a racial


Stephen

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Tom Austin <taustin> wrote:
> So, two groups of kids had been 'disinvited' with no loud complaining. 
> As soon as the exact thing happens to a racial minority, it becomes a 
> problem.

  I'm surprised that you are surprised by something like that, at this point.

  The current politically correct multicultural religion has certain dogmas.
One of these dogmas is that whenever something bad happens to non-white
people, it's because of racism (and, naturally, when the exact same thing
happens to white people, it's not racism and usually not even that bad).

  (Another dogma is that only white people can commit racist acts, and
only non-white people can be victims of racism. It's impossible for a
black person to commit a racist act, for instance.)

  In many places (especially in the US but very much also in Europe) some
people (such as employers) cannot treat everybody in the same way for the
fear of being accused of racism. The must be more lenient to non-white
people than they are to white people because of this. Equal treatment is
not really an option (which is kind of ironic).

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:

>   In many places (especially in the US but very much also in Europe) some
> people (such as employers) cannot treat everybody in the same way for the
> fear of being accused of racism. The must be more lenient to non-white
> people than they are to white people because of this. Equal treatment is
> not really an option (which is kind of ironic).

It's sad but it's true: Equal Opportunities actually means giving more 
opportunities to people deemed to be undervalued by present or possibly 
past society. Which is rather self-contradictory...

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