Am I a bigot?

Discussion in 'Human Science' started by Dinosaur, Mar 5, 2017.

  1. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    Pretty much all the Latinos I've known speak English. I tried to learn Spanish out of a desire to speak their language, but I picked up only a small portion of the language. Those with whom I knew seemed confused that I would want to learn their language, which struck me as being odd, though they often offered encouragement.
     
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  3. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Most Latinos in the USA want nothing more than their children to be accepted as Americans. This means hable ingles, por favor. Sure, older people who never had the help, desire, or opportunity to learn to speak English fluently will appreciate your attempts to speak their language, but they're just as likely to be embarrassed. Latinos are a proud people.
     
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  5. C C Consular Corps - "the backbone of diplomacy" Valued Senior Member

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    Or more likely, if setting aside a potential, unintended stuffed effigy: Why do guilt-ridden, redemption-seeking Anglophones facilitate such or entertain that _X_ deserves special treatment?

    Aside from the obvious history, more practical contributing factors can recently include the Instituto Cervantes putting out a report a couple of years ago proclaiming that only Mexico had more Spanish speakers than the US. There's also a tad wild or propagand-oriented speculation that in a few decades the US will even move up to #1.

    As for the actual topic inquiry about whether or not you have an unkempt-grotto dwelling status...

    Superficial intolerance of elements which might threaten one's own traditions, habits, and self-interests has been a common, mental / stress relief valve throughout history (arguably bordering on innate). But just as sex and flatus have been intermittently deemed an affront to propriety in some sub-cultures or generations, so similarly a display of trivial bigotry can be judged politically impious when there are shifts toward social-utopian management.

    What has changed of late years in the evaluation process is the elimination of gradations. Aside from small sober degrees of it, facetious comments slash comedic acts and simply illustrating examples of it in a classroom, can potentially receive the maximum penalty or stigma. There are no legitimate low levels of it or excuses lingering around, from say, the '70s. If you touch the line, then rest happily assured that you will be alerted of having qualified as a top-notch bigot, even if you merely supplied meager efforts. ("Happily" in the sense of not having had to suffer through any period of doubts and uncertainties as to status).
     
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  7. Dinosaur Rational Skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    From Bells Post #13
    I happened to spend circa 3 years over a 4 year period in Brussels due to a firm I worked for having a contract for work at NATO & was impressed with the linguistic abilities of Europeans, especially the Swiss (I spent some time skiing in Switzerland).

    While impressed, I did not pitch a fit.

    I had taken French in High School & spoke it poorly. While in Brussels, I discovered that my English speech was too fast for many of them & the their French was too fast for me. A compromise worked: I spoke bad French & they spoke some what better English. I ended up improving my French considerably, although I never considered myself to be fluent.

    Spidergoat calls me a bigot (Post 19) because I prefer living in a country with at least 60% of the population having the same ethnic background as mine.

    I suppose a person should be classified as a bigot unless he/she prefers living in a country with the majority having an ethnic background different from his/her own.

    BTW: I guess many here would consider me anti-Semitic because I would not consider living in Israel. The fact that both my current wife is & my late wife was Jewish would not counter indicate antisemitism.

    A joke related to linguistic abilities.

    A person who speaks 2 languages is called bilingual; 3 languages , trilingual; more than 3, multilingual. A person speaking only one language is called a American, ​
     
  8. Oystein Registered Senior Member

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    No. Per Bruce Willis (from The Fifth Element) . . . we speak two languages: "English and bad English."
     
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  9. Bells Staff Member

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    And yet, here you are pitching a fit about people who speak Spanish in the US.

    Why is that?

    Here you are in this thread, complaining about people in America speaking Spanish in the US, but you don't seem to mind it when Belgians have to speak either French or English to you? English is not their native language. It is yours. You do see the irony of your complaint in the OP, yes?

    What is curious is where does the 60% come from?

    It seems like such a random figure. Just a slight majority, with enough of a difference to make it interesting?

    How do you know your fellow countrymen and women have the same ethnic background as you do? Or are you going by colour alone? After all, a white person living in the US, may have a completely different ethnic background to you, for example. In fact, the US is a veritable melting pot. You will not get 60% with your ethnic background.

    A person of Irish ancestry, for example, will not have the same ethnic background as someone who has German ancestry.

    The thing is that you don't and won't live in a country where 60% have the same ethnic background as you do.

    Ergo, your desire to live in a country where a majority of the population shares your "ethnic background", makes you sound like a bigot.

    Why would not wanting to live in Israel make you a bigot? Would you not consider living in Israel because the majority there do not share your ethnic background?

    What makes you a bigot is the desire to live in a country where a majority share your ethnic background. Coupled with your fit about people speaking Spanish in the US.

    So why do you complain about people speaking Spanish in the US as you did in your OP?
     
  10. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    18,935
    No, bigotry is not about having preferences.

    Bigotry is about starting a discussion to voice one's preferences in an attempt to rationalize and justify them.


    Harry Potter had some wisdom on this: "There is good and evil in all of us. It is how we act on it that makes the difference."


    The take-way here might be this: accept that you are uncomfortable around other races. Accept that this is your shortcoming. And that's OK. But it is one that you might address on the road to being a better, more tolerant person - not one that you rationalize, defend and entrench.
     
    Last edited: Mar 10, 2017
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  11. Oystein Registered Senior Member

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    I have a similar saying, although I'm not sure where I first read it, years and years ago: "There's a little bit of good in the worst people and a little bit of bad in the best of people."

    Although there are some people on this planet that tend to invalidate the first part. There are some people who seem to have no good whatsoever in them as adults, but maybe as children there was a ray of hope that was dashed.
     
  12. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    Agree. What I was hoping highlight was what and how one chooses to act on it.
     
  13. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    I wouldn't want to live in Israel either, but due to politics not ethnicity.
     
  14. sideshowbob Sorry, wrong number. Valued Senior Member

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    Hitler's dog liked him.
     
  15. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    We pretty much all think you're a bigot, but not because of your preference for an ethnic group to live among.
    You could choose to live in almost any country - subject to their immigration laws - so why not choose one that matches your requirements?
    Instead, you seem to be demanding some kind of adjustment to your preferences of the country you do live in, which has been a constantly changing land of immigrants since its founding.
    You seem to be demanding that one particularly large group of immigrants refrain from speaking or putting up signs in their native tongue in their own neighbourhoods.
    Your rationale appears to be that previous waves of immigrants have been subsumed - according to your limited understanding - by the English-speaking majority, and therefore,
    if Spanish-speakers don't disappear fast enough, they must be receiving special treatment.

    I think you need to reflect on the logic of your argument, and then consider why made it.
     
  16. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    According whom - Hitler, the dog or an objective third party?
     
  17. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    I guess he doesn't live in the Los Angeles area. Drive ten miles in any direction and you'll be surrounded by signs that you can't even read, much less understand--such as Armenian, which does not use the Latin alphabet, or Arabic, which is written right-to-left with no vowels (because vowels are not phonemic in the Afro-Asiatic language family)... and Chinese, Japanese and Korean, which appear to be almost the same but in fact neither the languages nor the writing systems are mutually comprehensible except to a scholar.

    I spent most of my life in the American Southwest, including 40 years in L.A. I can carry on a simple conversation in Spanish, and at least make myself understood in Mandarin.

    And this doesn't help me at all now that I've moved to Maryland, on the opposite side of the country. All the foreigners here speak Russian, Arabic, Farsi and several languages of India--which are, indeed, languages, not dialects. And of course there are Spanish-speaking people here too, so I don't feel completely lost.

    --Fraggle Rocker, Moderator, Linguistics
     
  18. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    Nail Salon; Denture Clinic; Specialty Foods; Car Detailing; Nail Salon. The one with the really thick bars has liquor and cigarettes inside. The one with a cage in back full of spray-paint is a Michael's. But that's in a predominantly English-speaking mall.
    ....unless LA has changed very much in 20 years.
     
  19. sideshowbob Sorry, wrong number. Valued Senior Member

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    The dog and any objective third party.
     
  20. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    [derail]Okay, smartypants, what was his name? And who published his diary? [/derail]
     
  21. sideshowbob Sorry, wrong number. Valued Senior Member

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    Blondi was a she. From all of the evidence we have, she behaved toward Hitler as any dog would behave toward its human.

    It isn't entirely off-topic. I was responding to a post that said, "There are some people who seem to have no good whatsoever in them as adults...." If dogs can see some good in a person, maybe we can overcome our bigotry and see some good too.
     
  22. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    Ah, I see. With a great deal of effort and good will, we might attain the generosity of spirit that comes naturally to 'dumb' animals.
    100% agreed.
     
  23. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    It has. Arabs and Armenians are taking over.

    Go north to San Francisco and you'll discover that the Chinese people moved out and left it to the Vietnamese.
     

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