By: Elisabeth Staton

Elisabeth Staton — Wed, 04 Dec 2019 14:00:46 +0000

The whole point, Harold, is to make “systemic” into a viable philosophy to promote victimology. If our individual actions are not the problem, then the activists need to create the problem elsewhere. Macdonald doesn’t say why thinking of a culture as “primitive” (meaning: having the characteristics of the earliest stages of civilization) causes death and destruction. Presume he’s referring to anything done in the last 300 years to bring indigenous culture into the modern age. This incorrect trope not only negates any good accrued to modernisation but also says it would have been better to just have left everything the way it was. Anything else is racism. You can try to make a philosophy out of this but it negates the reality of how you clearly described your own life. You can get more grants, funding and other money by blaming “institutions” , which are not, according to Macdonald, made up of people. It’s “ideas that are quietly held by large groups of people.” Well isn’t each one in the group thinking this? So isn’t each individual responsible? How does an idea hurt anyone? It’s the action taken as the result of the idea that should be at issue. But MacDonald can’t define “racism” as individual actions because, well, there almost aren’t any he can point to. This is the sorry state we’re in where “non-indigenous” people are to blame for all the current ills of the world. It’s a lie.I’m not a racist and no institution I am part of is racist. We should stop focusing on imaginary evils and start helping individuals.

By: Harold Rice

Harold Rice — Mon, 25 Nov 2019 23:30:59 +0000

I’m kind of left not knowing how to respond to this, apparently I can’t say “I am not racist”, as it seems you have made that assumption for me, so that is out. I have interacted with a lot of different races of people and have never treated any of them with contempt and have gotten along with all of them as I treated them as I treat others of my own race. What more can I do? Our son had football friends that were indigenous and black and they were always welcomed in our home and treated with no prejudice. What more can I do? Before you assume me a saint, there are things about other cultures that I don’t like, but when I interact with the person I am not concerned about their culture, it is how we treat each other face to face that counts to me.

Comments on: Resisting racism’s evil, infectious spread

By: Elisabeth Staton

By: Harold Rice