Brazzil

I would like to congratulate Dr.Wardle for this excellent article.It is a must read for scholars like Senator Buarque who constantly and tirelessly campaign for better and easily accessible education to all.

It would be very interesting to receive comments of our distinguished fellow Brazilian bloggers like Ricardo Amaral, "A Brazilian" and several others who have studied both in Brazilian and foreign educational institutions.

That’s a first, Americans teaching others about racial relations. This is the essence of hypocrisy, purely and simple.

Costinha

It is really that simple.. So nothing is going to change. This is a national and global circumstances. You choose the 'have' and choose the "have nots'. Color-coding just makes it easy. No society with this system is going to educate the "masses" well. Too many people will qualify to compete for limited resources. Until selfishness and greed is eliminated countries will always have these issues. The U.S model of education still leaves its inner city population of youth with minimal funds for a good education. It is no different from Brasil.. Just that the U.S has more money to distribute. Minorities still end up experiencing the same disparities.
It becomes silly to hope that this will change . The poor are locked out deliberately.. Fortunately though ,, being "relatively" ( because it is all relative) poor materially , doesn't mean that you don't have to live a quality life. An "education" on 'that" is available to all. You have to want it. This is the only way out of misery for the materially poor. Don't count on the system to change.
I just wish whoever wrote this article reads these blogs.

Read these blogs for what? You hope that the two, juvenile, immature, recactionary comments above should be regarded above the content of the article.

America is, in many areas, in a good position to advise others of racial relations. Just as Germany is in a good position to advise other how to protect a Jewish minority. Just as Japan is in a position to advise others how to build a non-militaritic society.

They were sick societies THAT DIAGNOSED THEMSELVES and are seeking, with many levels of success to heal themselves.

And Brazil....?

The article is very good. America which had huge racial problems is light years ahead of Brazil in addressing the problem. To begin to find a cure for a disease one must first diagnose it. There seems to be a collective conscience in Brazil to avoid this type of diagnosis. It reminds me the research done by Folha do Sao Paulo where 10% of Brazilians considered themselves racist but when a series of questions were asked about racial attitudes more than 80% are racists. (with no apologies to that amateur piece of work by Ali Kamel NAO SOMOS RACISTAS). The author identifies several areas and the American system of financing education was not one of his recommendations.

The federal government does not control American education. That is the function of 50 (51) including D.C. separate school boards. Each of which sets their own state standards. They also have their own formulas for financing, which, as the author states, depends much upon local taxes. Inner city funding problems are primarily a function of a decreasing tax base as the population shifts out of the older cities for the southwest and south. It is not someting endemic to the U.S. Educational system (which does not exist). Urban cities such as Philadelphia and New York have school populations that are larger than the population of entire American states. So urban financial solutions are slow to implement. The Federal government can 'try' to influence education by offering funds with strings attached which the various state boards can accept or not accept.

It is extremely naive to say that "all' a child has to do is 'want' an education and they can get it. That indicates NO understanding of the Brazilian educational system.

I would expect that whites who THINK that they are not the products of white supremacist socialization would have issues with the essential point of this article. That's too bad. An educational system that socializes a multi-color society of children with the myth that whites are the gods and goddesses of the universe is a dysfunctional educational system. That a white supremacist televison station such as O Globo supplements this education with 80 to 90% of its novelas depicting actors who are phenotypically "bem brancos" only complicates the situation. My friend in Rio has a beautiful neice with a head full of heavenly curly black hair. When she brought her neice a doll baby with black hair, the little girl (5 years old) cried. They exchanged the doll for one with blonde hair (the exact same doll) and she accepted that doll.

The author of the article stated that Brazilians should not 'imitate' American solutions but a sick society with the same racist infection should begin to diagnose itself and learn from what others have done to cure themselves. To insist that you are well, while snot is dripping from your nose, is the true hypocrisy.

How do you find so many words to describe so little?

Costa

Look at this sick sob:

http://www.dumpert.nl/mediabase/43462/9fb16ab3/us_soldaat_gooit_puppy.html

Worse of all, he probably will go unpunished and get a medal.

SWF

Or is it... "so little I WANT t hear?"

But you're right. For those segments of Brazilian society (or any society) that prefer to generalize and dismiss entire societies with labels and derogatives...'serious analysis' becomes an oxymoron. Superfluous. Societal solutions(?) become one dimensional - more electrified walls and a blind eye to masked exterminators pumping bullets into the heads of teenagers.

Or is it... "so little I WANT t hear?"

But you're right. For those segments of Brazilian society (or any society) that prefer to generalize and dismiss entire societies with labels and derogatives...'serious analysis' becomes an oxymoron. Superfluous. Societal solutions(?) become one dimensional - more electrified walls and a blind eye to masked exterminators pumping bullets into the heads of teenagers. Placing a bandaid over skin cancer.

Or is it... "so little I WANT t hear?"

But you're right. For those segments of Brazilian society (or any society) that prefer to generalize and dismiss entire societies with labels and derogatives...'serious analysis' becomes an oxymoron. Superfluous. Societal solutions(?) become one dimensional - more electrified walls and a blind eye to masked exterminators pumping bullets into the heads of teenagers. Placing a bandaid over skin cancer.

I believe Brazil is light years ahead of the Disunited States of America and their ethnical ghettos. We are so ahead that the Americans themselves can't imagine a society without designations such "people of color" to describe "those who are not like us". Isn't "white" a color in the US? You are out of your mind. But I have a few questions for Mr. Wardle:

- Why do you associate judgements of value to people's colors? This is what strikes me as the utmost hipocrisy. You have just pointed out, with your own words, that you consider "them" to be different than you, so much that they "need" a special kind of education to build "their identity". If you do associate values to someone's color you are being racist, it doesn't matter if it is a good value or a bad value.

Which sentence is the racist one: "All blacks are intelligent" or "All blacks are dumb"? Both are racist, because you are making a judgement based on how the person looks. I have a piece of advice to American whites, "racism" is not measured by the quantity of good things you say about others. By saying good things, like in the first sentence above, in the hope of portraying everybody as "equally capable" you are just making yourself a racist! Do you want not to be racist? Then do nothing, say nothing and continue with your life.

- Wouldn't it be the institutionalization of racism to teach children to associate values to races?
- What's your opinion about identity politics and propaganda? Don't you think that teaching kids that they are "different" would be the same as segregating them and that would destroy the possibility of intermingling? Therefore balkanizing the country?
- Being Brazil one country doesn't it make sense to have one Brazilian identity?
- Being the Amerindian and Afro cultures inferior, in the sense that they are prehistoric (no writing system, therefore no science, no literature), doesn't it make sense for us to use the European culture inherited from the Portuguese as a starting point for our own culture? I would rather see physicists and engineers building nanomachines than some "afro culture" in our daily lives.
- Are people equally capable?
- Don't you think that the afro-culture is already way too much overrepresented in Brazil, given that they are only 7% of the population?
- Isn't multicultural politics just a workaround to the inability of intermingling of the anglo-saxon peoples? Therefore instead of actually having to see each other as human beings, they can just express "appraisal" for "proving" they aren't racists.

Let's use our imagination and try to see a future without racism. Don't you think that in future without racism the notion of race would lose importance? Therefore promoting it, either in the form of "identity" or any other euphemism Americans like to use to hide the truth from themselves, is the exact opposite of fighting racism?

We are closer to this future than you, that's for sure. You are blind.

Talking about race to an American, who is still locked up in this ancient race obsession, is like trying to explain what a cellphone is to a medieval person. They lack the basic understanding to picture in their minds what it is.

It is rare to see an American who truly attempts to grapple with these issues in Brazil instead of saying, simply, "You godamned barbarians ought to do what we did and then you won't have any problems."

Wardle's article is thus a refreshing change. It points out many of the reasons why I, as a Brazilian educator, do not support university quotas. The many, proven tactics that Wardle talks about can be implemented without quotas and without a broader view of what affirmative action can be, quotas won't resolve our difficulties anyway.

However, Francis...

Of my many observations, one that sticks with me the strongest is that the poorer the school, the more children of color attend; the wealthier the schools (private and federal schools) the lighter the skin of the children who attend (Wardle, 2005b). Thus, in Brazil, race and income are very closely linked.

...this isn't an observation that is limited to Brazil, alone.

@a brazilian - You would find a huge segment of the American population who would agree with you.The new tactic of the right wing, frustrated in their blatant racism, is to appeal to some amorphous, vague "western culture". Of coure, its politically correct to imply racial superiority so now the tactic is "cultural superiority". It works, if just as you did, you begin to apply culture to what you say doesn't exist race -- "afro culture" "amerindian culture". In social application, a hierarchy is established, which strangely, follows racist hierarchies, despite it being based upon 'culture'.

And yes, you will have difficutly conversing with many Americans who, familiar with Brazilian society sees a stratification that "walks like racism, talks like racism, smells like racism, leaves the same devastation as racism" but is really a "racial democracy".

Because 'race' is socially defined, then a 'racist' system (which in the United Nations definition means the a system developed upon a race being SUPERIOR to another race as opposed to the scientific definition that means "any belief in a race-based behaviour)..a racist system can morph into many forms. Bi-polar like the United States. Or multi polars, like Brazil. They each do their dirty jobs effectively.

Racism is tied up in cultural institution. It would be wise for Brazilians to know exactly how racism infects a society than to suggest that "doing nothing" is the most 'color-blind' route to take. To the contrary, it is the most effective assurance that racism will continue. The supposed privileged position (mental or real) that racism imbues into whatever racial group thinks that they are superior is not ceded without a demand. Privilege rationalizes its position. It rarely abolishes the rationale for their status.

A one country - one identity goal is not something admirable when when members of a society have to shed parts of themselves, or limit themselves to conform to dictates of this identity.
Beyond that, it's simply bullcrap.

Before I comment further, I would like to invite some South African bloggers (if any) to tell us how the quality and accessibility of education during and after the "Apartheid".

To: "A Brazilian", "Costa", et all: The author is a Brit, living in U.S. I am yet to discover the nationalities of "adrianerik" and my old friend "dnbaiacu". dnbaiacu has made some interesting comments in other threads and he has points.

btw, I did NOT expect the author or the commentators to assume that the Brazilian Public Educational System is discriminating against the blacks. My point is that it discriminates against ALL the races that do not have money to pay for the cursinho for the vestibular for their kids to get into a decent university. May be I am wrong and I stand corrected if I am.

As for the narration of the story of the niece of the friend of "adrianerik": If I she was my niece, I would have given her a tongue lashing (gently) and impressed her the importance of beauty and brain power, regardless of the skin (or hair) color.However, I must agree with "adrianerik" that the "Rede Globo" and other networks do broadcast only crap of no educational value.

A Brazilian says...

Being Brazil one country doesn't it make sense to have one Brazilian identity?

Y'know, I was actually grooving on your critique of the politics of identity and then you have to go say something stupid like that.

It makes no difference WHAT institutionalized identity you teach: they are all lies and shams. So when you eschew ethnic identity for a singular and cohesive national identity, then what, exactly, is the gain, A Brazilian?

Instead of critiquing identity politics, you seem in fact to be making the argument that the wrong kind of identity politics are being taught.

Frankly, I can't see what the teaching of a single, national, unified identity would bring to Brazil that's worth anything. The idea itself is redolent of fascism. All you'd be doing is exchanging one sort of determinist, reductionist bulls**t for another. Ultimately, all identity politics - national or ethnic - is based on the attempt to transform myth and lies into naturalized "fact".

Being the Amerindian and Afro cultures inferior, in the sense that they are prehistoric (no writing system, therefore no science, no literature), doesn't it make sense for us to use the European culture inherited from the Portuguese as a starting point for our own culture? I would rather see physicists and engineers building nanomachines than some "afro culture" in our daily lives.

And here we come to the real nut of your problem, don't we?

I frankly don't see why you think the sort of brutal, ignorant ethnocentrism which you preach is superior to racism, A Brazilian. If it's true that there's no scientific basis to determine whether one race is better than another (or even, in fact, if race exists), it's equally true that there's no scientific basis to determine whether one culture is superior to another. And culture itself is as much a historical and political construct as "race". There's no real proof that it exists. It CERTAINLY doesn't exist in the stullified, petrified, lego-block sense which your comments above indicate.

"African culture", scientifically speaking, is anything that African people do, A Brazilian. I'll let you in on a little secret: Africans read and write books. I'll let you in on another little secret: Northern Europeans didn't invite reading and writing. Literacy is a transhuman cultural artefact and - while it has occurred in some places later than others - it cannot be said, in any way shape or form, to be particular to one or another culture: or even to a SET of cultures.

There were, after all, African and Native American cultures which invented their own forms of writing. And almost ALL existing African and Native American cultures I know of today are literate. Meanwhile, there are European cultures which have been highly illiterate in historical times. By your reducto ad absurdam logic, we should all learn Babylonian culture. After all, they apparently invented reading and writing before any other people on record.

Your comments reveal more about your own personal prejudices than they do about Brazil or the U.S., A Brazilian. Methinks you're simply another post-modern Green Shirt, talking alone at nights to your Plínio Salgado poster and shouting "Anauhé!" into the void. You're as anti-scientific and as politically motivated as the ethnonationalists you spurn. At least, however, they have the good grace to make their true politics plain, instaed of trying to hide them behind pseudo-intellectual hypocrisy.

All this bulls**t you spout is simply overcompensation for your own feelings of inferiority.

What I love about guys like you is that no matter how religiously you spout your neo-fascist, euro-supremacist dogma, you will never be accepted as "white" or "european" by anyone you feel who matters simply because you were born in Brazil.

Posting screeds of bulls**t day after day on this site is never going to change that, A Brazilian.

Wardle's article is thus a refreshing change. It points out many of the reasons why I, as a Brazilian educator, do not support university quotas.

I am not an educator, but do not support university quotas either!

To "A Brazilian".. I am really trying to give you the benefit of the doubt. And I hope you are enjoying this and laughing. . You sound like you actually believe the myths that Brasil promotes , or has promoted.. That racism doesn''t exist. You also revealed a lack of knowledge on a variety of subjects. For example, certain races and their history with writing. I don't have time to go there with you. But just remember something basic.. As some populations continued their migration "away" from Mesapotamia , it stands to reason that the last to reach the furthest distances on any of the continents would take longer to involve themselves with writing , and that is if they decided it was a priority for their existence. Sumerians, pre-flood.. and Egyptians , post flood were "writing..... I'm finished with this..

At the end of the day it is all about money. And this "alone" controls who gets educated the best. This is on an international, national and statewide level anywhere and everywhere in the world. It is simply about distribution of wealth..

Joao,, thank you for the compliment. And your input was refreshing. And everyone that responded to "A Brazilian" had very good points.

By the way , I am bi-national.. Half afro-brazilian and half afro-american. Born in the U.S , but I have traveled back and forth since childhood.. And I have lived in Brasil in Salvador/Island of Itaparica for a 3yr stint. I now travel back and forth with the intent to move back to Bahia permanently this year. Everything Dr. Wardle wrote was correct. But as long as humans continue to "dominate" one another on any level , these disparities willl continue to exist. The U.S model is just a better "financed" model which allows the disadvantaged more of an oppurtunity to overcome great odds. And this , if you just start with the fact that there are great libraries in every major city. There is greater access,, due to money, to higher educational oppurtunities. This , coupled with motivation "AT HOME" can give ANY child a greater chance.
Brasil has "less money" overall to work with . And probably as a consequence has not made the overall education of the mass majority a priority. And why?.....When it is easier , albeit temporarily , to keep the masses ignorant , so as to be better controlled by the selfish , "self-proclaimed" elite.
Brasil is "dominated" by other more affluent countries. So naturally , the "elite of Brasil " are going to have their fun dominating others within its boundaries. Every society has this issue.. It is a HUMAN issue.

Fortunately ones "education' and what it can become can be greatly influenced by upbringing. Someone from a poor family has to decide they want more . And develop the love of learning on an academic level and pass this on to the next generation. At some point in the history of that family someone WILL prosper. I have darker skinned relatives in Brasil who are very educated. And they continue to "attract" the oppurtunities that help them to stay on an upwardly mobile path. It all starts with ridding oneself of a poor mans mentality. EVERY society started off with meager resources educationally and otherwise. Most cultures have borrowed ideas from other cultures and expanded and capitilized on them.
Nothing will change in Brasil in respect to education until the powers that be "want" the masses educated. And of course that would not come without a price.

Why would you teach your slaves??? Please , does anyone think anything has changed?

Jesus said,, " the poor will always be with you". (John 12: But thank God that the very book that statement comes from is the most widely distributed book on this planet. Churches are everywhere . And if you just have the desire to read that book alone.. that is a start to educating yourself , if only to read. And you take it from there. The possibilities are endless from there ,even if the results are seen tangibly many generations later.

Simply put , no one should depend on the State to be responsible for the education of their children. This is the true error.

But it is also unfortunate the degree that Brasil downplays the importance of reading.. It appears almost deliberate.. I have seen the statistics on the overall lack of bookstores and libraries in the whole country. And the prices of books and newspapers are absurd!! It is truly a fight to be knowledgeable in Brazil in general. It is sad.. Principally because it appears to be a deliberate conspiracy against the general public. Books should not be that difficult to access. Will this change? No . Not without funding.

Again,,why educate your slaves.? Of course the little black niece cried about the black doll. She doesn't want identify with the slave. Even if that slave looks like her.
Her mind can only be freed by a "proper" education. One Brasil,, at this point , is not willing to pay for.

It makes no difference WHAT institutionalized identity you teach: they are all lies and shams. So when you eschew ethnic identity for a singular and cohesive national identity, then what, exactly, is the gain, A Brazilian?

The gain: living in a country without worrying about some subcountries in it claiming independence (balkanization); common values (good christian ones); trust; a foundation for something greater. This is not social engineering, this is just describing things as they are. Some Indian tribes had alphabets and science, such as Astronomy, but none of them were in Brazil. The Brazilian Indians were hunter-gatherers. Have you ever asked yourself why Brazil doesn't have any ancient ruins? Our Indians weren't civilization builders. Some Africans that were brought here had education, but the ones that actually knew how to write and read were Muslims from the North Africa. So "their culture" wasn't exactly African.

The only thing that holds the USA together is that each ethnical ghetto believes that it is in their best interest to participate in this idea called "USA", in order words, prosperity. They believe they have more to gain there than anywhere else. If, by any chance, something really bad happens the USA would disintegrate quickly. Brazil, on the other hand, has survived many hardships that would make Americans wish to kill each other.

If it's true that there's no scientific basis to determine whether one race is better than another (or even, in fact, if race exists), it's equally true that there's no scientific basis to determine whether one culture is superior to another. And culture itself is as much a historical and political construct as "race".

I disagree. The notion of race was a scientific fact until not long ago and it is fundamentally different from culture. Unlike race we can measure which culture is superior by seeing their scientific and technological achievements.

Amerindians and Africans had their own "traditions" and "religions", but who cares? So did the Greek, and look now! All those gods are dead. Zeus? f**k Zeus. What always moved the Earth? Technology. Empires arose and fell because of it.

Do you think they are all equal? Then let's make a deal, give us the aerospace technology and we give you carnaval. Isn't it fair?

"African culture", scientifically speaking, is anything that African people do, A Brazilian. I'll let you in on a little secret: Africans read and write books. I'll let you in on another little secret: Northern Europeans didn't invite reading and writing. Literacy is a transhuman cultural artefact and - while it has occurred in some places later than others - it cannot be said, in any way shape or form, to be particular to one or another culture: or even to a SET of cultures.

They didn't invent reading, but they happen to be the most proeminent in the Western world at this moment, and since this is the moment we are living on this Earth, then that's the moment most important for us. Scientific and technological advancements can be said to be particular to one culture or another, those are the ones that we care about.

But you are right in a way, culture can't be limited to a group. That's why the "identity" crappy notion of Americans is destructive, because it limits certain groups like the so called "Afro-americans" or "Latinos" to certain pre-approved behavior, way of living and thinking, etc, and that could make them not to see the big picture. They could learn a lot from other cultures. If I see something I like in japanese culture, for example, I see no problem in incorporating it, and that's the idea. If you segregate people in groups because they are "different" and need "special education" in order to build "their identities" then you will inevitably limit their horizons.

Another thing, the very idea of "models" that look like you is ludicrous. Do you mean that only a jew could ever identify himself with Jesus, just because Jesus happened to be a jew? Or only Arabians identify themselves with Mohammed? This thinking is so small that makes me sad that people even consider it.

By your reducto ad absurdam logic, we should all learn Babylonian culture.

It is reductio ad absurdum, and we did learn from the Babylonians, like, for example, the 24 hour day. But they are gone. Let's worry about the future.

Excellent article. Some of you guys espescially "the Brazillian " are misguided. The author of this article is 100% correct. Despite the vitriol you spew against the United States. The bottom line is this, you probably wish you were American. From a person whose skin color classifies him as a member of the lower rung of society in Brazil. I can proudly tell you this. The U.S. of A is the greatest country on earth. I am not putting you down, but until you admit you have racial problems, you will not be able to become a first world nation

If "being American" means having access to the resources, educational and economic opportunities in America then I would agree wtih you. If "being American" means imitating perceived American "behaviour" then I disagree.

It is a discussion killer to make absolute comparisons of societies, unless you are comparing absolutes such as land size and population figures. The United States (my country) is not THE model for other countries to slavishly imiate. Neither is it the home of the anti-christ for other countries to blindly reject. Blindly running TOWARDS something or blindly running AWAY from something is still "running blindly". So much of these blogs seem to fall into either of the two categories.

The story about the little girl is true. They live in Ilha do Governador. It's interesting to note that some think that the little girl is black (and was rejecting a 'black' doll). She is not. She is white (Brazilian white). Her hair is black. (she actually looks a lot like Shirley Temple). She is an absolutely gorgeous little girl. However she lives in a household where two aunts strain to keep their black hair dyed blonde. Where another aunt (the one who brought the doll) has had her cute little button nose, cut and re-shaped to be more aquiline. She is the darkest in this family. (Brazil would call her morena) In America, she was stopped in the airport and a person said she was the most beautiful women they had ever seen. In Brazil, there are members of her family who insult her by calling her 'preta'. They rub their fingers along their white arms and point at her and laugh. I've seen her cry because of this.

The Brazilian scholar and activist, Abdias Nascimento, wrote a play several decades about a successful black Brazilian and the pressure he feels to reject all things 'black' in his life to be a 'real' Brazilian.

Many of my white friends from Canada and Europe (females) are shocked when they go to mostly white clubs in Brazil and listen to the unbridled racism falling from the lips of white Brazilians, many of them studying law.

Racism, cultural hegemony, white supremacy, brancura, enbranqueization are varying manifestations of the same disease that affects all color ranges in society.

It's funny. When the television novela NORDESTINA opens, it pans across a scene of a 'typical' nordestino small city. The streets are full of people, typically 'mixed'. Suddenly, from a wide-angle view a woman, with milky skin who looks like she just stepped off the boat from Europe, enters the scene. The camers zooms in on her. Then the novela title. NORDESTINA!

There is no shame at O Globo!

not money .
name
or who you know

just back to the bosses taking the money for themselves , and not paying the teachers.
the teachers being paid even if they dont show up for work .

according to blacks , latins , asians , and the other tribes of earth
only whites can be RACISTS.

In Brazil, there are members of her family who insult her by calling her 'preta'. They rub their fingers along their white arms and point at her and laugh. I've seen her cry because of this.

This is bulls**t. The word "preta" ou "preto" is a slang for "honey". If that family use it in a racial manner then they are dysfunctional, not Brazil.

This type of "A cousin of a friend of a friend of mine told that..." is the kind of lame argument that is brought up in sites like these to "prove" something about Brazil. Try again.

Long story short.. There will be no equality in education until governments "of ANY nation" allow all of it's citizens a quality education. This will only happen in a perfect world. For now those with the best access to knowledge will maintain the power. Its always been that way.. And this transcends ,racial , cultural and national lines.

I was nice to "A Brazilian" clearing up some of his opinions. He or she deserves an A for effort. We are all thinking on this blog if nothing else. The counter arguments to "A Brazilian" are exellent.

In support of "A Brazilian" , I think his point is that there should be an effort on the part of the larger consciousness not to put emphasis on race to begin with.. Almost saying that if we "imagine" that it doesn't exist or that it is not an issue then the problem would take care of itself. No notion of race. No racial inequality issues.
The problem is most of "any" race won't think that way.. Not at this point in mans history.

Joao.. Affirmative action with its use of quotas has been the only way minorities have been given an oppurtunity to enter the middle class and upward mobility at large. People have a tendency to take care of , "hire and educate" their OWN. This is just a sorry fact of human nature at this point. Why hire a stranger when you can hire your cousin?
Quotas worked successfully in the U.S exactly because of the overt racism that has always existed there. 1/8 part negro descent gave one second class citizenship. It became very easy to determine who was going to given oppurtunity or not.

The quota won't have much success if any in Brasil simply because the concept of race is ambiguous there. The concept of who is negro and lacking oppurtunity is not as systematic as it is in the U.S . There is no sure way of making sure that those who stand to benefit the most from such a program aren't cut out of the loop by whiter looking individuals claiming negro blood ( of course when it is to their advantage) who want to benefit from "quotas" also. I wouldn't agree with a quota system in Brasil either. It's a system that only works wtih the longstanding "American" concept of race.

Brasil has to want to give ALL of its citizens a quality education. And this costs money.
An educated person would understand the folly in most of "A Braziilians" comments. An "educated" person would not maintain a poor mans mentality or a slave mentality. It was the economic prosperity of the U.S in general that allowed many of its oppressed minorities to overcome obstacles. Nothing more nothing less. And companies and schools had to be "FORCED" to admit negros in their institutions otherwise they would have NEVER been allowed the oppurtunity. Again,, why hire or educate a stranger as opposed to your cousin?
Smart governments know anyway that you can only hold people down for so long. History has shown us this. There will always be a revolution against injustice at some point. How Brasil is paying for the oppression of its masses is through its crime rates. And its generally exploitive culture. The government overtly exploits citizens. The South exploits the North.. The rich exploit the poor.. And it goes on and on.
Where Brasil decides to tokenly give a little in respect to this issue remains to be seen.

according to blacks , latins , asians , and the other tribes of earth
only whites can be RACISTS.

An educated person would understand the folly in most of "A Braziilians" comments.

Like what? The only folly is to believe that all cultures are equal and lock people up in stereotypes that have no future. Now, go shake your ass on Carnaval and wait for a spaceship to fall from the sky. Apparently that's how the "pride" logic works, no study, no learning, just being proud and magically things improve.

@brazilian - No hearsay, my brother. Unfortunately, I am first hand witness to all of this. And more. By the way, there are few Brazilians who can say what Brasil attitudes are. Residents of the same city cannot say what the attitudes are of residents who live blocks away.

@dnbaiacu - good points. Except - am I wrong in discerning the general "that's the way it goes" tone of your post. There ARE activists in Brazil. And despite the david against Goliath scenario they face there are advances and victories of the people confronting the system.Without a population that exposes, accuses, SUGGESTS AND IMPLEMENTS viable alternatives, there is NO democracy. You say a 'revolution at some point'. How does that happen? Not necessarily a revolution but the persistence and growth of 'democratic activists' in Brazil, Brazilians who believe the Brazilian constitution. To reach that-- 'at some point'-- level, it becomes imperative for aware Brazilians today to support those flares of activism and not merely point out where these community initiatives are lacking. Complaining about those who 'DO' without involving themselves is one of my greatest issues with the Brazilian community.

When a social issue is not critical then perhaps there is the luxury of searching for the ideal solution. However, in the development of most societies the 'perfect idea' rarely comes neatly packaged. When a social issue is critical then sometimes anything that is 1% better than the status quo should be supported. My and good buddy T.B. disagree on this but that is the basis for my support of 'cotas' in Brasil.

Does it poke it in the eye the vestibular system? It should (IMHO). Sometimes it's best to allow an issue to keep the entire community at at state of outrage than to allow them to slip back into the sputtering status quo.

Everyone on this blog is obviously intelligent. And it is refreshing to see people responding to an article like this. At least is shows some concern on the issue of education and as it pertains to certain segments of society.
We must admit that the State is not going to change its' fiscal policy towards education anytime soon. So what ideas can we circulate as to how we "are" or can help others in this area in Brasil ( our country of obvious mutual interest). This would make this blog more productive. PLEASE. ! Everyone who has contributed here , including "A Brazilian" , what are you doing to help a poor uneducated Brazilian of ANY shade of color. The State won't fix this ..

To "A Brazilian" has SOMETHING of value to contribute to the variety in stimulation on various levels of the HUMAN mind. It is not about cultures being equal. That implies a cultural standard to be met. Are you suggesting that there is a particular culture that all other cultures should aspire to emulate? . No reply necessary ,please.
Caranval is just as much a contribution as an aerospace program.. Only they are "different " contributions., and to some degree equal wasters of money considering money could be better spent "on this planet' and also not on a five day partyl.

I have poor , illiterate cousins in Bahia . But with all their lack of formal education ANYONE can learn from their advanced and undoubtedly impressive spatial skills under and above water due to their "culture" as fisherman.. Point being ALL cultures have SOMETHING to contribute to the overall well-being and stimulation of the HUMAN RACE.

Education is the interest of this blog.. What ideas can we exchange to help a poor Brazilian who just MAY have a State sponsored low self-esteem issue.?

Yes,, I myself thought the little niece was black...Sorry I assumed that... But the fact that she wasn't further proves the point. The monied "few" will continue to exalt and glorify themselves through the media at the psychological expense of the oppressed masses This won't change on a large scale. So the resulting problems will persist.

I agree that the vestibular system should be scrapped, Adrian. That should be the first step.

I'm against quotas because they are being used as a panaceia which won't make a bit of difference unless other reforms are implemented - and if those reforms ARE implemented, it's doubtfull that we'd need quotas.

After all, the U.S. has been able to increase Black university education levels without recourse to quotas.

I'm in favor of more scholarships and of an admissions policy which takes into consideration a SERIES of characteristics and not just a "one shot takes it all" entrance exam. I think race should be a tie-breaker in this scenario and not a "get in free" ticket.

A Brazilian sez...

The gain: living in a country without worrying about some subcountries in it claiming independence (balkanization); common values (good christian ones); trust; a foundation for something greater. This is not social engineering, this is just describing things as they are.

So you ARE a fascist, in the strict, historical sense of the word.

Interesting.

In the first place, pluralism does not mean balkanization. There is no proof at all that the one leads to the other and plenty of proof that it does not. The U.S., Canada, Switzerland and even Great Britain are all pluralist nations and they are hardly sliding towards disintegration and misery.

Second, "common values" do not necessarily lead to peace, trust, enlightenment,
understanding, or "something greater". The worst wars are almost always civil wars fought between groups who have much more in common with one another in terms of cultural values then not. As to "something greater", the fascism you're apparently promoting as the salvation for all the world's ills got its ass righteously and roundly kicked by the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. - both notriously racuous, ethnically mixed countries.

Sorry, A Brazilian, but that "one nations, standing erect, facing the rising sun" jive is a bunch of humorous hoo-hah to anyone with more than a passing understanding of modern history.

Third, you may coinsider your "Christian" values to be "good". From what I've seen you post here, I have my doubts that your values can, in fact, even be classified as "Christian". Seeing as how there's no proof that a homotopia is any better than a heterotopia, I wonder where you get the balls to suggest that the world would all be hunky-dory if we'd just allow you, A Brazilian, to shove your "superior" values down our collective throats?

Finally, yes, what you are describing is very definitely SOCIAL ENGINEERING in the strictest sense of the term. Unlike the "communists" and "racists" you oppose, however, you simply don't have the honesty to admit that that's what you're talking about.

You also don't know your African and Native American history very well. Why "Muslim Africans" aren't really Africans is a mystery to me. Your "Christian" culture didn't come from Europe, but you obviously have no qualms about considering it to be European. Nor were all - or even most - of the Brazilian native peoples hunter-gatherers. You are REALLY behind the times on paleoanthropological data if you believe that - like 60 years behind the times.

I disagree. The notion of race was a scientific fact until not long ago and it is fundamentally different from culture. Unlike race we can measure which culture is superior by seeing their scientific and technological achievements.

Both are based on a common essentialist and reductionist fallacy that peoples are discreet, homogenous, historically stable, measurable objects. They aren't. And because they aren't, there is no rational and objective way to measure their achievments and superiority. The only way to even ATTEMPT to do so is to make a series of value laden, a priori and essentially arbitrary judgements as to what constitutes a "people", what precisely is an "achievement" and where and when these things occurred, something which you obviously feel compelled to do.

However, there is no consensus, scientific opinion on any of these points. At all. And because of that, A Brazilian, you feel that you can make up whatever the hell you want and call it science. Unfortunately for you, that's not true.

They didn't invent reading, but they happen to be the most proeminent in the Western world at this moment, and since this is the moment we are living on this Earth, then that's the moment most important for us.

Bulls**t.

Your earlier argument was based on the notion that European culture (however that's defined) is "superior" because it "invented and achieved" more than "African". Now, when it's pointed out to you that very few of those achievements you point to are really or simply "European", you go off on another tangent entirely, appealing to contemporaneity and pragmaticism.

But if THAT'S your argument - that things are the way they are now and that's what we need to go by - then know, oh sage, that your original arguments about African illiteracy are so much horse-piss blowing in the wind, for in both the Luso and Anglo speaking sphere, Africans are a HIGHLY literate people today. They are writing some of the best extant literature in both the Portuguese and English languages.

Just because you can't be bothered to read it does not mean its crap. In fact, given the fact that most of your arguments here seem to be based on historical and anthropological errors that a high-school sophmore could point out, the fact that you DON'T know about something is probably a high mark in favor of its relevancy and quality.

Again, A Brazilian, if you're going to make 70 year old arguments which were pioneered by the likes of Benito Mussolini, at least have the guts to come out and claim what you are: a fascist. A post-modern one who's learned to substitute ethnocentric bigotry for classic racism, but a fascist nonetheless.

I changed my mind.. Yes,, anything 1% better than the status quo should be supported. Excellent writing , both of you. Let's just hope @Brazilian is just kidding because he is not representing well. This is good dialogue..I am very involved in trying to help out in education on a personal level. No hands down approach from me. And I am glad to hear about the activism you speak of Adrianerik.
I am back and forth to Brasil every 2 months. And I give away a new notebook computer each trip to family that would never in a lifetime be able to make that a priority purchase. I also taught a cousin of mine that "was" illiterate how to read Portuguese and I am native "English" speaker. I am "that's the way it goes " in attitude in reference to waiting in vain for the State to reform its priorities as far as education is concerned. Even the U.S has been "dumbing down" its' population. They must keep the majority in chaos and distracted to continue to control. .........Why did I even get on this blog??????
Please everyone.. "EACH ONE ,JUST TEACH AT LEAST ONE".. This is where we make a real contribution.

I need to proofread my own comments if I ever expect anyone to appreciate them.. sorry.. "To @Brazilian, each "culture" has "something" to contribute to the variety of stimulation on various levels in the HUMAN mind.

I changed my mind..

Please don't do it. You are doing extremely well with your opinions. But in a mixed society like Brazil, what are the criteria to determine that some has is black to get into the quota system? I have traveled to the Nordeste and it was impossible for me to say who was really a black. Here in the South, you find people with dark skin color,but without kinky hair. Sorry, my friend, this quota system is going to cause us lots of problems and the real big money makers are the lawyers!

Coming back to the favorite topic of ours: Is Obama really black? To my knowledge, he is the son of a Kenyan father and a white Kansan lady. His parents and he were given opportunity to educate themselves and be something in life. The same thing applies to your relatives from Bahia who are upward mobile (without the state help). My question is:Are we going to discard "brain Power", because of the color of the skin?

I agree with you when you said that the elite want to keep the masses ignorant.You yourself mentioned about the price of Newspapers, books and lack of libraries in Brasil. Who is going to correct the situation? I think the government should take the initiative and I would not mind seeing my tax money being spent on some concrete projects. btw, I do not put too much faith on the private sector in Brasil.

I think I have said enough for the day and it is your turn to say something

Abe the subhuman arises, falls, arises again to spew once more that which it has been stuck on (or stuffed with) for years and gets buried without even the thinnist ray of light finding it's way in to be contemplated in parte. Gotta love folks with personality (multiple?)

Pq tudo aqui acaba em briga, em?
Eu preferiria que acabasse em pizza
ou em samba de crioulo doido

baita beijo pra todo mundo daki
amo voces todos

I know that it would be a messy situation with the quota system in Brazil. I instinctively know this. And my initial reaction is that it wouldn't work exactly for the reasons you say. But I bacame sympathetic to Adrianeriks "anything 1% better than the status quo should be supported." But I do completely agree with you on your point.
You are right.. the government "should" take the initiative , but until is does the issues being discussed will persist.

Obama being black??? Obama differs from the average American of African descent by having a family history that has no connection with slavery (being a slave that is) in the U.S.
Though as a man of African descent navigating through the system is not as easy a white counterpart.
Obama is the posterboy of choice for the new puppet in the White House. He is a part of everthing this country is made of . Part of the white experience.. The black experience . The immigrant experience. It kind of makes you wonder if he were "groomed " for this all along.

I am not sure of your question about "brain power".. But in the U.S , you can have all the brain power in the world yet prejudice can rear its ugly head at the wrong times. Quotas are important in the U.S. The new myth they attempt to promote here now is that it is an equal playing field. Nothing can be further from the truth. And why this myth is being promoted now is because there is so much more "competition" for the privleged class to contend with now. Minorities who are equally as qualified and outsourcing by many companies to locales overseas is making the pie a lot smaller. Subsequently the clamor that Affirmative Action is "reverse racism".

Trust me on this Joao, without quotas here, I wouldn't have the ability or even the desire to write you as I am now. I would NOT have received the education. My family on my fathers side has benefited from it for years. Access to better jobs and integration in schools. None of this would be possible without "forced integration".
The residual damage from slavery here in respect to race relations runs long and deep.
I've heard the argument that Brazils overall concept on race relations is different due to the fact that Portuguese colonists didn't bring thier women and miscegenation was not frowned upon but encouraged. Whereas in the U.S the English brought their women and any "mixing" with the slave women was a slave row secret. Real emotional bonds with owners was prohibited and in no way necessarily advantageous. Whereas in Brazil the attitude towards "mixing" may have been different. Resulting in an obviously more casual view about "race" in Brazil today.

Again , is Obama black? Politically speaking ,, for sure. Socially ,,? In reference to other African Amercans,,, it is in question in some segments. But overall the black population has adopted him to represent them . At the end of the day all that matters is that he looks like one of us, and would be treated like any one of us despite his democratic nomination for president.

Ah, but is Oblack 'bama enough? There's a real tough question that needs to be answered.

Black folks aren't going to necessarily vote for his ass just because it's black.

Black people are already voting for him in record numbers... Where are you ? ( I'm a conscientious NON VOTER)

It appears that Obama is Black Enough for the "entity" behind him having a history making fund raising campaign. So politically ,,for the powers that be , he "is" black enough. Perfect for his platform that touts being "all inclusive". Half black, half white, with immigrant orgins.
If he were what some want to call the "real deal" , I doubt that he would have made it this far in his campaign. He's just "NOT " THAT" black to serve the intents and purposes of the money making machine behind him.
Follow the money. .. This is no "we have overcome" situation. Obama is being pimped either as a distraction or fall guy for the difficulties ahead or both. This kind of investment and show isn't being made for nothing. Worse case scenario is that he is being set up to lose against McCain and some contrived or provoked( to be fair) terrorist attack on U.S soil will take place "conveniently for the actual election , to either cause "no election" or sway public opinion to the more "experienced" McCain and republican side of the war issue.
Troops , in or out of Iraq is and will be a mess. . Act II ,WWIII. . All nations against scape goat "terrorists" of all persuasions.
I just want to know does Obama himself know just how much he is being used. ? Or is this just a case of participating in anything to make history. Black vanity will continue to be used against blacks for as long as we refuse to wake up to the games. ie, Condaleeza Rice. I'm sick of it already.
Black voters are coming out in record numbers naturally . So whether he is "Black Enough" by their social standards doesn't appear to make a difference to the vast majority.
We are at a point where it doesn't matter "who" is president now. Presidents don't have enough control over the fiscal policy of the country. If any that matters at all.
Obama could just as well be purple . At the end of the day , the joke is on us!
Proud NON VOTER

written by Thaddeus Blanchette, 2008-03-06 18:02:08
Third, you may coinsider your "Christian" values to be "good". From what I've seen you post here, I have my doubts that your values can, in fact, even be classified as "Christian".

A Brazilian may have well intentions - or he may not - it's hard for me to tell 100% of the time because sometimes things he says seems very well intentioned, other times they seem racist or ethnocentric to me. It's difficult for me to really tell because English is not his first language and perhaps other cultural aspects become a hurdle. The same of course applies to me if I'm expressing an opinion to a Brazilian national or anyone of any other nationality but that of the U.S. (however I can only communicate in English so that minimizes my mistakes in trying to communicate my thoughts or idea)

But A Brazilian has some beliefs regarding culture and multiculturalism that are now popular amongst a number of political right-wing peoples. I don't know how this all plays out in Brazil but in the United States being Catholic or Protestant really means little in difference in being "Christian." The term "Christian" or said idea is tossed around now to infer what *politics* you adhere to. Granted Democrats do it as much or more than Republicans but right-wing people have taken to this "Christian" thing to refer to a sort of white-pride wherein the it infers the history of 1400s onward with white people coming to dominate the world socially, militarily, and economically.

I have no problem with Brazilian cultural way of assimilation. I think it's pretty awesome actually. I do have a problem with putting down all West African culture. And Muslim, black, West Africans could read also, it was not just North Africans. In fact there was a case in the United States in the 1800s where a black prince who was Muslim, and could read Arabic, was freed from slavery in the U.S. but upon the U.S. President finding out this guy was not North African, refused to help him free his family. (he created a family while enslaved in the U.S.)

Whether one agrees with adrianerik's propositions or not, he is right that one can not change until they first acknowledge the problem.

(P.S. while Catholic official teaching always acknowledged the humanity of every human regardless of race, it has had a horrible historical record as being a culture of positive and or active change in racial matters. Almost in every case and era the vast majority of Catholics have taken to aligning with the very racist white Protestants. There are some minor figures like De La Casa, but from era to era Protestants have been the wind of change as a collective group or at least as a large cultural movement. Where were the Catholics? Absent as usual. Even the Vatican sided with the Confederacy, expressing convoluted abstract theories to support their position, rather than extending simple human compassion and empathy. At least the Protestants can say they brought about Historically Black Colleges & Universities through "Reconstruction." No doubt it was Catholics supporting the racist Protestants when it came to breaking Reconstruction. H*ll, Boston didn't end segregated schoolings I don't think until the 1970s)

Your comments were very much appreciated .. I will assume that you have read at least part of the Bible. Hypocrites, "wolves in sheeps clothing", were prophesied to come. We have been in that era ever since the apostles died off. You may find it comforting to know that the complete and utter destruction of false religion is on the horizon.

15 And he says to me: “The waters that you saw, where the harlot is sitting, mean peoples and crowds and nations and tongues. 16 And the ten horns that you saw, and the wild beast, these will hate the harlot and will make her devastated and naked, and will eat up her fleshy parts and will completely burn her with fire. 17 For God put [it] into their hearts to carry out his thought, even to carry out [their] one thought by giving their kingdom to the wild beast, until the words of God will have been accomplished. 18 And the woman whom you saw means the great city that has a kingdom over the kings of the earth.” Revelation 17:15-18

Yes , God himself will see to the destruction of this lying Satanic enterprise of religion. It all unfolds graphically in chapter 18 of Revelation. Substitute the symbol of the Whore Bablyon for the world empire of religion and do the math. .Only after this event will humans be on their way to true freedom. So much bloodshed.. So many lies. Gone for good!
Most irreprehensible is in fact the Catholic church which claims to worship the God of the Bible. The same enterprise that prohibited even reading the bible and having it translated out of the long dead Latin language. Talk about oppression! Unfortunately this is the very religious persuasion that dominates Brasil . And is basically the root of most of its problems. The spiritual culture promotes mass ignorance . Passivity is promoted. Few question anything. So as a whole it continues to get "screwed" by Protestant countries, (none the better, to say the least ). Naturally following male dominating female instinctive rules action.
This is why I suspect there will never be a full scale civil-rights movement in Brasil . Due to the dominance of Catholocism and syncretism , the cultural pysche for such a movement just isn't there. When you put more emphasis on "Mary" and the "Godess of the Sea, what do you expect. ? How can you take on a proactive male consciousness praying to a female diety???? Duh??? This and this alone is probably about 90% of Latin Americas subjugation issues in reference Europe and the U.S.

Thanks for bringing out some TRUTH!

e harmony
written by dnbaiacu, 2008-03-08 00:54:55

Due to the dominance of Catholocism and syncretism , the cultural pysche for such a movement just isn't there. When you put more emphasis on "Mary" and the "Godess of the Sea, what do you expect. ? How can you take on a proactive male consciousness praying to a female diety???? Duh??? This and this alone is probably about 90% of Latin Americas subjugation issues in reference Europe and the U.S.

Thanks for bringing out some TRUTH!

dn,

I think you may have read more into what I wrote.

I came up Catholic and it would be very difficult for me to embrace wholly a Christianity without the Virgin Mary. It would be easier perhaps for me to embrace Islam wholly before taking a Christianity that disregards the Holy Mother. I do not find Catholicism in and of itself evil, nor its Priesthood or hierarchy, but men are men, and I'm certainly no angel myself. Catholicism use to lead Europe but in my opinion it went into reactionary mode ever since the so-called "modern era" (roughly dated at 1500) and still has not completely gotten out of that mode of rejecting everything "modern" or "post-modern" and acting as though everything prior to the 1500s was wonderful or golden.

In Catholicisms favor, it ought be said it never favored unrestrained freemarket capitalism like Protestantism did, so that along with the fact early in the industrial revolution it was predominately Catholics who migrated into the industrial cities such as Edinburgh, Munich, and Pittsburgh making up the working class, the Catholic Church (hierarchy wise & laity) supported the "working man's" issues and dignity far more than Protestantism. In fact during those early times Protestants weren't really known to be members of the urban working class - they were usually urban professionals. Of course there were plenty of poor white and black Protestants that were either slaves, sharecroppers, or yahoos in some small town or rural areas (whether these were company coal towns or not). So, Catholic clergy, especially in the United States (where most the Bishops originally actually came out of impoverished immigrant homes - unlike the European peers) had a much stronger connection to the poor industrial works through the 19th century into the mid 20th century. And almost all her intellectuals, be they conservative and or confederates or not, scoffed at the racist Protestants frequent and explicit proposition that black peoples were less than fully human. Catholics viewed slavery like most ancient man did (and they derived their ideals about it from the ancient Romans/Greeks): they accepted peoples humanity but they thought some people just were fated slavery.

New Orleans, until it was fully brought into the U.S. fold culturally around I believe the time of World War I (1914 or so), never had that same level of racial hatred that was found in the likes of Mississippi or Alabama. So, it's not like Catholics were simply horrific. But Catholics be they in Boston, Chicago, Rio de Janeiro, or Mexico City have never really felt they "needed to change" per se on racial things. So, Protestants have been the harbingers of change for the better when it comes to race. And black Protestants like Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth have displayed enormous courage and amazing virtue.

But I might also pint out to you that American Catholicism (USA) is head and above currently, on an intellectual level, above that of most of non-denominational Evangelical Protestantism spreading through the U.S. and Latin America. With the dramatic decline of mainstream Protestantism and generation of American Catholics improving numerically on education, today American Catholics are statistically better educated (on average) than American Protestants. Catholicism and American Catholicism has also led the world - by wide margin gap at that - in the sphere of biomedical ethics. I believe already around the 1940s or so when Protestant or Jew had barely set pen to paper on any ethical theories revolving around biomedical issues... Catholicism had already produce tons of literature on the subject through an enormous amount of case studies at that!

Good day DN.

Follow the money. .. This is no "we have overcome" situation. Obama is being pimped either as a distraction or fall guy for the difficulties ahead or both. This kind of investment and show isn't being made for nothing. Worse case scenario is that he is being set up to lose against McCain and some contrived or provoked( to be fair) terrorist attack on U.S soil will take place "conveniently for the actual election , to either cause "no election" or sway public opinion to the more "experienced" McCain and republican side of the war issue.
Troops , in or out of Iraq is and will be a mess. . Act II ,WWIII. . All nations against scape goat "terrorists" of all persuasions.

Very good description of the current world scenario. My bet is on McCain. I hope our other friend Lloyd Cata who is in another thread reads your comments and joins us to enrich our discussions.

Proud NON VOTER

As you know, in Brazil, voting is obligatory and I have heard several friends and relatives complaining about it. I am in favor of it for the simple reason that it is the only weapon the educated middle class has against the abuse of power by the authorities who could be booted out, though it does not function many times due to the manipulation of the uneducated masses by the media. My fear is that if the voting is made NOT obligatory, our middle class will remain at home on the election day and a large majority of ill informed citizens will elect politicians that have commitment only to themselves and not to their electors nor to the NON VOTERS. So what is your reason for being a Non Voter in your country?

As far as I know, Australia is only other country where the voting is (or was) obligatory and the Aussies have the habit of kicking out the politicos that do not perform. If John Miller is reading my comments, I would like to hear his opinion about this issue.

Thanks for taking the time to respond.
I really don't want to list many scriptures on how "creation" shouldn't be venerated but the "Creator" reserves the right to be worshipped.. This is according to the Bible which the Catholic faith claims to ascribe to.
I just wanted to point out that this idolization of Mary which goes against Bible teaching is what would take a sincere person that wants to worship God (again according to the Bible) off course. Therefore subjecting that individual to a host of deceptions in other "spiritual" areas. And wouldn't you agree that it is "spirituality" based on Truth is what the poor need most of all? Worshipping seas , suns , rivers , trees.. Even people.. We are so much bigger than this. We are created in Gods image. This is the beauty of Truth found in the Light of the Bible. Praying to humans , forces of nature , animals, just take us off course from what we were meant to be. Praying to something equal or beneath us makes no spiritual sense if we are to elevate our consciousness.
The Catholic church has a history of keeping the Bible away from the laity class. Prohibiting reading the Bible and keeping it in Latin. Is it any wonder that we see the rotten fruits of its sanctioning, sponsoring and participating in some of the worse atrocities in history.
One small example about hiding Truth. The Bible does not condemn the use of contraceptives. Something that was condemned by the Church for centuries. And conveniently so, because it perpetuates a poor class needed to serve the selfish interests of an elite. But if you don't READ the Bible , you wouldn't know any better. Fortunately people are waking up to this quackery. But unfortunately many are turned off by anything that has to do with religion , including the Bible. THIS is the perfect deception!

Hello Joao,
I don't vote because I know that the politicaly system is "rigged" globally from the spiritual dimension on down. Have you done the research on secret societies yet? Well to make it a lot easier, the worlds most widely distributed book , the Bible (and not by coincidence) already condemns astrology , divination and the like for guidance. But these are the very things that governments by means of these secret societies have been known to work with in decision making. Its this huge pyramid to an unseen realm.. Do you know that Washington D.C and the Vatican sit in the center of a civil eigineered 5 pointed star? It gets deeper than you can ever imagine if you do the research. The more you find out about this end of it, the more it convinces you that man is against unseen spirit forces that want us all dead. They literally play chess with world governments and bringing all back to a tower of Babel of sorts in opposition to God. The two opposing forces being God and his Son for peace in the world by means of His kingdom and whatever man decides independently of Him to bring peace in the world . Of course the whole time being manipulated knowingly or unknowingly by these evil spirit creatures . That by the "possess" people all the time. We can't deny their existence. You see it all day long in Candomble. This is very real.
Even if I didn't have this bigger picture of things. From a purely scientific/political standpoint the whole "democratic" system is rigged with an outward appearance of being "ran by the people" .. The electoral college system . Then the "delegate" arrangement.. Come on?...Who are they fooling. These "delegates can be bribed at any point. And if that doesn't work they will just throw ballots away like they did in Florida for the Bush election. Bush didn't steal the election "SOMEONE' gave it to him. We just don't know WHO this is.
Being neutral to all of this madness keeps my conscience clean. I can say I trust NONE of IT! Jesus a "good" spirit creature said.,"my kingdom is no part of this world". When Satan offered Jesus the kingdoms of the world if he'd do one act of worship to him, Jesus never denied that the kingdoms of the world weren't Satans' to give. The bible indicates that there are evil angels in designated to different countries. This is all a game of power by mind control. Thank God we all have "CHOICE" on our side. But we must get this type of knowledge to be able to see through all the smoke. Knowledge that I am trying to help e Harmony see the Church has been deliberately hiding.

I don't vote as a position.. Not out of apathy. But if I didn't know any better I would vote for Ron Paul.. He is anti Federal Reserve Bank. Money rules this world to a large degree.
But I know too much.... I like political science and I study the Bible. So now I know too much. But I am glad I can see through all this. Many are bamboozled and apathetic.
There is so much happening this year Joao. It is like this huge show. I am enjoying it and trying to be WISE along the way. It isn't easy . We are up against a lot. Everyone is fighting for PEACE OF MIND.

Dn,

I think proper biblical exegesis finds nothing wrong with veneration of the Virgin Mary, after all not only do the authors of the gospels go out of their way to present her as a significant part of their theological story, but Jesus himself is presented as deferring to her at the wedding of canna. Hence, if Jesus (second person of the Trinity) finds his own mother worthy of reverence and regard, surely his disciples are not wrong for following his example. Mary after all is presented as a symbolic representation of the Arc of the Covenant (something I might add ancient Israelites placed high reverence on).

And the Catholic Church claims to follow not just the bible but orthodox belief. The bible as it is found of saying, came from the Church the Church did not come from the bible. (the bible is a canonized compilation of texts - many texts where never chosen [by human discernment] to be put in the "bible"). And the Catholic Church early concern about the individual biblical reading and interpretations - aside from the fact most people where illiterate for thousands of years (a problem both the U.S. and Brazil are not totally free of even in the 21st century) - was that it did not want what has happened to Protestants since the Reformation to happen: 60,000 consequent denominations claiming to properly interpret the bible correctly (all springing from 1 denomination: Lutheranism). Modern science has proven that certain stories in the bible e.g. Genesis... are not true and allegorical anyways.

But... I really don't want to turn this thread into a religious debate.

I don't want to debate either. We all get it figured out along the way in the amount of time we have. And we choose for ourselves. To be informed. And to call things as we see them. How deep one chooses to dig for Truth and apply it with Wisdom will determine how peacefully they can mentally navigate through this chaos. The Bible is not to be debated. It was meant to be "studied" by those who have "chosen" to believe in it. It wasn't written for everyone. Every book has its target audience. The Bible is no different.

eHarmony , You wrote:
P.S. while Catholic official teaching always acknowledged the humanity of every human regardless of race, it has had a horrible historical record as being a culture of positive and or active change in racial matters.

I was just agreeing with you and capatilizing on the fact that "rotten trees produce rotten fruit" Matthew 7:15-20
We can't discount the role religion plays in the human experience. Science shows we're wired for it. Religion and the Bible has been effectively used against people to oppress them. I see that you are very informed and must know this for yourself. So if you chooses to be part of a religion that claims the Bible as its authority it is pertinent to read and study the book for oneself so as not to "remain"confused amongst the over 60,000 Protestant denominations you mentioned exist.
The initial article is about Brasils' education system.
Then "Thaddeus Blanchette " wrote Third, you may coinsider your "Christian" values to be "good". From what I've seen you post here, I have my doubts that your values can, in fact, even be classified as "Christian".
Then you clarified something..
." The term "Christian" or said idea is tossed around now to infer what *politics* you adhere to.

To show that this is the very problem I gave my two cents. It all gets connected at some point. Belief systems and government. There is no way of getting around this. Brasils' education issue is ultimately a political issue. A State either deliberately or apathetically not caring for the education of the majority of its youth on a more equitable scale. And that inevitably becomes a "moral" issue. And you cannot seperate anything considered moral, immoral or amoral without talking about a "belief "system.
So it has become "politically correct " and "polite" NOT to GO THERE . And just maybe THIS IS the problem. We are socialized to "prefer" not to talk about it because it becomes a "sensitive" issue.
I WONDER WHY?..........

Joao,
Good day! In response to your question... I conscientiously do not vote as a stand for neutrality. I know too much now. I love political science and I read the Bible. So my research has led me to understand that the whole global political system is "rigged" from the spiritual realm on down.
Remember we commented on secret societies that permeate the government.? Have you done your research? Well occult societies like these rely heavily on astrology and divination. No wonder the Bible condemns these practices as a source of guidance because one can open oneself up to demonic influences. In this case , governments soliciting info from spirits on how governmental affairs. Evil spirits that want us all dead.
No one should question whether these being of another life form exist. You can see some of their activity any given day of the week at your local Candomble ceremony in Brasil. This is very real. I need not go to blblical references to back up this point. I am just glad of the insight the Bible does give on these spirits objectives with humanity at large. They are highly organized with apparent designations and and assignments in reference to earthly governments . ( Daniel 10:12-14)
Do you know that Washington D.C and The Vatican sit smack in the middle of a street grid that's the shape of a five pointed star? All civil eingineered by Masons.
From a strictly political/scientific standpoint the whole election process is made to "appear" as if the peoples vote counts. Whereas the reality is the voters "hope" they can count on the delegates to vote as they said they would. The whole business of the electoral college system and the "delegate" and "superdelegate" arrangement only allows the process to be manipulated excluding the general public opinion. And when that can't be effectively done , they just throw out ballots as was done in Bush's re-election in Florida. Bush didn't "steal" the election. But the "powers that be", and who knows who they are , put him in there. We all know this here. But of course it has been said that Americans have short term memory.
So it ends up being that the people think they have a true voice , but it actually doesn't count aa much as they want to believe.
Not voting is a position that ultimately keeps my conscience clean from the lies and deception that permeate the whole system. If I were drafted I wouldn't even go serve. They'd have to put me in jail. This is how serious I am about this. I won't shed blood. And my brothers blood in another country. I pledge no allegiance to any State. But my faith obligates me to pay my taxes and obey whatever laws do not conflict with Gods' . My position is conscious and not merely apathetic. I don't have a hands down approach to societal ills. I do what I can to spread knowledge.
In Brasil one has to vote , but fortunately you can opt for an empty ticket. There are many that take this position in Brasil .
If I didn't know so much. And participated in the whole process. I'd vote for Ron Paul. He is for getting rid of the Federal Reserve Bank. But I am thankful to know what I know. So that I am not waiting in vain for solutions to world problems that will not be solved without divine intervention. I find it unfortunate that most prefer not to truly recognize and investigate the spiritual connections to this chaos. The "conspiracy" is to have everyone think that it IS just another "conspiracy theory" . That is can't be real.. This ultimately is the biggest trick.
You are betting on McCain? I am going to sit back and watch the show. I am still convinced that all this money invested in Obama is for him to be a huge charismatic propaganda machine. A cheerleader for the U.N. I don't think McCain has that much theatre in him. Americans like to be entertained. McCain seems like a war-monger. And that won't pacify the people. But that all depends on how scared we get I guess. And that is why a terrorist attack between now and the election is probable if the intent is to put McCain in office. Even then I don't think it will work. People just don't want Republicans in office here anymore. They appear to stand for wars and recessions. Obamas platform is "CHANGE".
I say, "be careful what you ask for."
Proud NON VOTER

I was used to make this joke in the US while attending my PhD at Pennsylvania State University, USA. We Brazilians are so poor and old fashioned that we still make babies at home by the old and dirty traditional way.

I was used to tell Europeans that Brazilians are so short deprived on their intelligence and our memory is so short that we are forced by nature to have sex everyday in order to accomplish our nature duty. Advance modern man in the developed countries they are so intelligent and far away ahead in their intellectual profile that thye can do sex just annually or once in a life time that they sill know how to make it.

Australians are so advanced and now becoming rich accumulatin fat in their bodies like Americans do.

As a scientist with three issued American patentst pursuing a sort of 'scientific discovery' I feel proud of Brazil for being poor and behind.

As a poor country we do not have problems of rich societies, mainly obesity that is promising to reach half of the world population byt 2050.

______________________
Free Fruits on Public Areas to Curb Spreading Obesity

Fruits are low in calories and highly nutritional already grown on public places at increasing ratios to face obesity trends. Tree climbing also can be a body exercise for kids harvesting fruits.

Fruits have around four times more water content than cookies and easily satisfy hunger taking less energy. Refrigerators full of fruits easily beat junkies.

In Brazil we are increasing fruit trees in the public areas changing the country to a large tropical orchard. Then, sidewalks, squares, parks, roadsides will be plenty of free fruits bearing appropriate food to fight spreading obesity. Free fruits are protected from the power of the economic system pursuing profitability.

Other countries are invited to join us on a fight against global obesity toward a Public Fructification. Brazil intends to become a developed country without common problems of a superpower.

Planting fruit trees is easy!.
http://revver.com/watch/225528
http://revver.com/watch/529604

Carnivores?
http://revver.com/watch/218695

written by Elson Silva, PhD, 2008-03-09 09:56:45
I was used to make this joke in the US while attending my PhD at Pennsylvania State University, USA. We Brazilians are so poor and old fashioned that we still make babies at home by the old and dirty traditional way.

I was used to tell Europeans that Brazilians are so short deprived on their intelligence and our memory is so short that we are forced by nature to have sex everyday in order to accomplish our nature duty. Advance modern man in the developed countries they are so intelligent and far away ahead in their intellectual profile that thye can do sex just annually or once in a life time that they sill know how to make it.

Australians are so advanced and now becoming rich accumulatin fat in their bodies like Americans do.

As a scientist with three issued American patentst pursuing a sort of 'scientific discovery' I feel proud of Brazil for being poor and behind.

As a poor country we do not have problems of rich societies, mainly obesity that is promising to reach half of the world population byt 2050.

damn Elson, Penn is a really good university. Guess you still haven't achieved how to speak/write proper english even after attending one of the elite universities in the world.

And Brazil doesn't have a problem with obesity??? What f**king country are you in? I can tell ya that here in the northeast of Brazil I see daily women that have asses the size of a train!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anomy

Anomie, in contemporary English, means a condition of malaise in individuals, characterized by an absence or diminution of standards or values. When applied to a government or society, anomie implies a social unrest or chaos.

I don't feel like discussing with you anymore. I would like to point out though, why do Americans and others (such as the Canadian Thaddeus) promote "culture" as some form of ass saking in other countries, but they do not practice the same thing in their home countries? Why someone else's daughter can be an illiterate whore and theirs can't? Don't wish for others what you wouldn't wish for yourself.

You can scream as loud as you can that nanotechnology is the same thing as carnaval, but that won't make it true. But why don't you become illiterate and promiscuous yourselves? Even if a parcel of your population is illiterate and promiscuous, and I believe that's easy to acknowledge by your pop culture of rappers and bitches, at least you still have enough people with the mind in the right place (i.e., in their heads and not in their genitals).

Basically the idea of "culture" according to people like you works this way: all cultures are equal, some promote stupidity and promiscuity and others promote science and good values, you are illiterate and promiscuous and we are the ones who build great things. We are all equals being what "we are" (a quote of the infamous black nazi illogical concept that people should be proud of "what they are", as if they could be anything else). Then all is needed is you to continue to be stupid, and we can give you a pat on the back so you will feel not entirely worthless, and we will continue making money and developing technology.

WTF! No, this is not good.

This is the most racist thing I have ever heard in my life. Any compliment to favela builders, to those stupid African noises and people that don't value education, the mere consideration of them as some sort of representative of anything in detriment to mathematics, physics, engineering, medicine, etc, is an insult. How can ever be improvement if everybody is equal? The very notion of good and bad, better or worse, comes from the comparison between different approaches. There always will be a better one in a given context, and by picking the better one we can improve things. The refusal in seeing this is plain stupid.

I can tell ya that here in the northeast of Brazil I see daily women that have asses the size of a train! smilies/cheesy.gif

Oh, God. Amtrak has taken over beloved Nordeste

I am starting to understand where you are coming from a little better. First world countries and their cultures being "entertained " by third world cultures or "sub-cultures" within their own boundaries. Keep the later dancing and singing and playing sports for them. While they continue to improvise more ways to create an even bigger divide of haves and have nots.
We have to remember that given the same oppurtunities in wealth creation and education , these "sub-cultures"(for lack of better terms) can and would achieve the same things.
But let's not forgot that many of the "sub-cultures" I assume you are referring to are decendants of cultures that lead the world in scientific , academic , and cultural advancement in times past. One need look further than Egypt. Greece borrowed and capitalized on much of Egypts prior achievements.
Besides all societies are strutured so that the elite are entertained by the peasants.
We all want this perfect world in which EVERYONE is given the oppurtunity and resources to max out their brain power. We need a PERFECT GOVERNMENT. And that doesn't exist..
At least not yet.
Read the book that we are being deceived into believing is full of folk tales and myths. (guess)
P.S
Actually it was good to see you blog. You let people keep expressing themselves and you can begin to see at some point where they are coming from. This is a good thing.

"All this I have seen, and there was an applying of my heart to every work that has been done under the sun, [during] the time that man has dominated man to his injury."
Ecclesiastes 8:9
This is just a harsh human reality at this point

Trust,"A Brazilian". No one is getting away with anything.

written by João da Silva, 2008-03-09 16:08:17

Oh, God. Amtrak has taken over beloved Nordeste smilies/angry.gif

No João....AmCrack!!!

Oh dear, as a black person not from the Americas, I am feeling really sorry for Brazilian and American blacks...but the American black are infinitely better off. Why do Brazilian blacks tolerate such racism???

Why do Brazilian blacks tolerate such racism???

Because there isn't any really. This is all made up by racists.

As a poor country we do not have problems of rich societies, mainly obesity that is promising to reach half of the world population byt 2050.

You obviously haven't been out to Realengo or ABC much lately.

I don't feel like discussing with you anymore.

It's been my experience, observing you on this board now for some time, that you generally don't like to discuss these issues with people who have a good grasp of what they are talking about. You'd rather buffalo gringos whose understanding of Brazil's racial history could fit in a teacup.

However, I'm a social scientist; you're a polemicist. And a polemicist can never, ever risk arguing with someone who can show up his theories for the irrational crap that they generally are.

I would like to point out though, why do Americans and others (such as the Canadian Thaddeus) promote "culture" as some form of ass saking in other countries, but they do not practice the same thing in their home countries? Why someone else's daughter can be an illiterate whore and theirs can't? Don't wish for others what you wouldn't wish for yourself.

First of all, A, I'm a Brazilian citizen, living in Brazil, and thus as Brazilian as anyone else here - probably more Brazilian than you, because I highly doubt that you are, in fact, a Brazilian citizen living in Brazil. To claim that I am not is to precisely fall into the "identity politics" which you've supposedly been decrying since the beginning of our discussion. So yopur speculations as to my other nationalities are rather humorous. If they had any bearing at all on this issue, then the racist ethnonationalists would be correct: culture would have to be logically transmitted through the blood, from father to son, instead of learned. Such an ideology is racist in the strictest sense, A, and I thought you were an anti-racist...?

Secondly, my recent work on prostitution is molded after initiatives that have been introduced in certain parts of Europe and which I would very much like to see employed in Canada and the U.S. as well as in Brazil. So your claim that I'm backing policies and behaviorfor Brazil that I would never support elsewhere is simply a lie. To put it in terms that even you can understand, if a woman or a man decides to "sak their ass" (to use your term) for pay, then I think they should be protected by the same laws that protect any other worker and that, furthermore, they should be able to decide when and how they want to work and when and how they don't, like any other professional.

Finally, if my daughter were to decide to "sak [sic] her ass" for pay, I would whole-heartedly support her decision. I admit that it's not the job I'd like my daughter to have. But then again, I'd equally not like to see my daughter working as a maid, a factory worker, as someone's wife, or - for that matter - as an underpaid Brazilian university professor. I would hope she could find better and more fulfilling employement. So again, you are simply making s**t about me and my values.

You can scream as loud as you can that nanotechnology is the same thing as carnaval, but that won't make it true

Lost me there. Sounds like you're trying to employ some sort of mixed metaphor.

But why don't you become illiterate and promiscuous yourselves?

There are prostitutes (both male and female) and illiterates in every country in the world, but in seven years of studying sexual tourism in Rio de Janeiro, I have NOT ONCE met an illiterate prostitute. You don't even know what you are talking about, A. There may indeed be illiterate pros in Rio, but they are generally not to be found working the Copa strip. What we generally find there are working- and lower-middle-class women who have quit jobs as beuticians, tourism workers, checkout clerks and counter girls to work in a more lucrative trade. The kind of stereotypical prostitute (poorly paid, ignorant, illiterate, disease-ridden and exploited) that you seem to be talking about is much more likely to be found working in Brazilian-only venues deep in-country. So if you want to stamp out THAT sort of exploitation, may I suggest that you look at our fellow countrymen and not at gringos as the primary perpetrators?


continued below...

Basically the idea of "culture" according to people like you works this way: all cultures are equal, some promote stupidity and promiscuity and others promote science and good values, you are illiterate and promiscuous and we are the ones who build great things. We are all equals being what "we are" (a quote of the infamous black nazi illogical concept that people should be proud of "what they are", as if they could be anything else). Then all is needed is you to continue to be stupid, and we can give you a pat on the back so you will feel not entirely worthless, and we will continue making money and developing technology.

Your statement here simply shows up your very deep ignorance with regards to how the culture concept is used in the modern social sciences. In spite of what you may have once heard in a Soc or Anthro I class, cultural relativism does not imply cultural equality. In fact, it implies exactly the opposite. It implies that all cultures are unique and ultimately incomparable in qualitative terms. We simply do not have an objective ruler by which we can scientifically claim one culture as "better" than the other. All such claims are thus political, emotional (generally due to simple bigotry), or moral in nature. But NONE of that means you can't make such claims: you just can't claim a scientific foundation for your statements. If you want to say "Blacks are inferior because Jeezis told me they are" or some such nonsense, go ahead. Such a claim is rightfully categorized as prejudice backed up by ignorance and superstition, however, and not as a scientific argument. And if you want to cherry-pick your anthropological data - as you do above - so that "christianity" suddenly becomes a "European" cultural trait whereas "Islam" is not likewise African, then - once again - your arguments are based on ignorance and the desire to politically manipulate people. They are not scientific.

So claim away whatever the hell you like, A, just don't expect to fart out your mouth around social scientists about how "African Illiteracy" somehow "scientifically proves that blacks are culturally inferior" and not get anything but a long, drawn out raspberry in return. such an argument is ignorant, prejudiced and simply agressively stupid as the day is long.

As for relativism, all the culture concept claims is that there is no ONE TRUE SUPERIOR AND OBJECTIVE set of cultural values against which all others must be weighed. It does NOT claim that all cultures are equal. I defy you to find one rep**able anthropologist or sociologist writing in the last 50 years who makes that claim.

This is the most racist thing I have ever heard in my life.

Well of course it is. They are your words, not those of anyone who has yet presented an argument here. So why are you suprised at their content?

How can ever be improvement if everybody is equal? The very notion of good and bad, better or worse, comes from the comparison between different approaches. There always will be a better one in a given context, and by picking the better one we can improve things

That is one of the most patently ridiculous things I have ever heard anyone ever say on this board. Difference does not necessarily mean superiority or inferiority and to claim that it does is simply stupid. So stupid, in fact, that any 4 year old child can see right through your argument, A: is strawberry ice cream the same as chocolate? Obviously not. Does that mean that one is thus better than the other? Only if you have a subjective preference for one over the other. Period.

There are simply things in this world that cannot be quantitatively compared, or even qualitatively compared in a reductionist "better/worse" sense.

I find it rather amusing that you feel your beliefs are superior and "scientific" when they are, in fact, simply a more elaborate version of the tribalist ignorance you claim to despise. Your belief that "your" people and values are intrinsically superior to others is, in fact, the mark of a profoundly primitive way of thinking that is deeply linked to other totemistic beliefs. You simply believe that your values are better than other peoples'. You have faith in that statement that's rock solid and will withstand any logical or rational argument.

That's not science, A Brazilian: that's superstition. If it is indeed true, as you claim, that there are more or less evolved concepts in human culture, then the arguments you make above situate you as a particularly unevolved specimen of humanity. There's no difference between what you've been preaching here and some Hutu beating his chest over the Tutsi menace.

I am starting to understand where you are coming from a little better. First world countries and their cultures being "entertained " by third world cultures or "sub-cultures" within their own boundaries. Keep the later dancing and singing and playing sports for them. While they continue to improvise more ways to create an even bigger divide of haves and have nots.

If A Brazilian would end his analysis at that point, he'd be spot on. Unfortunately, his point is a bit wider than that, DN. When it comes right down to it, A Brazilian AGREES with the notion that certain peoples need to be kept within boundaries - or even, in fact, erradicated. He is just mortally offended that certain Americans and Europeans seem to act as if Brazilians were one of these peoples.

So it's not as if he's offended by Euro-Yank bigotry. He's as bigotted as they are, or worse. What offends A Brazilian is that such bigotry is directed against people like himself, who he feels are "superior" Brazilians based on their supposedly "superior European culture and values".

In other words (and I hope our black American readers forgive me for using this term, given the context), A Brazilian believes that n****rs exist and that they are pathetic, worthless and expendable. What he objects to is being classified as a n****r himself.

TB ur forgiven at least by the /black American readers. For more than two years I've not seen anyone provide such an in depth and precise disection of what abe is all about. Kudos. You will not have anything resembling a rational response. CoshstaK may appear but only to try to be proposta finial given the next commentable article.

Your'e an excellent writer. I enjoyed your responses to A Brazilian.. You pretty much summed it up.
I was feeling the pain in his writings. Hopefully your responses will help A Brazilian where HE or SHE is coming from a little better.

I missed all the fun. I will read it all entries and reply later today.

However, having read a few so far I have to say that racism does exist in Brazil and Brazilians turn the blind eye on this issue. Our society is highly stratified, much like the US and England for that matter. The US has serious racial issues, but at least they are dealing with the problem. More and more we see this issue coming up. The election is a great example where people from different walks of like are discussing about the fact that OBAMA is black. This brings the issue of racism to the top and unless we discuss about what makes us uncomfortable, we will continue to live in denial.
Racism exist because of our internal fears about the other. How we see the other, our perception, upbringing and social structure all influence how we see ourselves and the people around us. I do believe that being different is healthy. Homogeneity is a dream, a fascist wish. Hitler, Franco, Mussolini all had the same thing in common: Their race and culture were superior to all others, therefore if a person was different, he/she/they was/were considered an enemy.

Therefore A Brazilian, we in Brazil have to face to own issues. The educational system in Brazil has a lot of faults, and the university exam is one of them: a way to keep the poor out of the education system. I was educated in private schools, went to foreign universities, but my friends back home can hardly afford a "cursinho".

Dear friend, you are literally knocking on wood. Forgive me, but this is the same guy who has said over and over again that our native population (our indians) are less cultured, backwards trapped in some long gone era and that we need to bring them into the 21st century. He needs to go beyond Anthropology and sociology 100 class to understand that all cultures have something positive to give.

It's been my experience, observing you on this board now for some time...

I meant I don't want to discuss with you anymore because it is pointless and your latest posts are the evidence of it. You completely twisted everything I said, turned into some sort of genetical matter of race (very American indeed), when in fact I never used this kind of argument and never associated races with cultures, and made some simplistic comparisons (like the ice cream one) in order to build that pile of bulls**t of have been defending so far.

I said that some of the North Africans that came to Brasil were Muslims, therefore NOT QUITE AFRICAN. Why, oh Christ? Because Islam appeared in Arabia and later they invaded the north of Africa. The Africans that lived there adopted a culture that was alien to them. I never said christianity was exclusively European, but instead that we came to know it through he Portuguese during the colonization, so it is a fair to refer to it as "European". And by the way, if they can adopt Islam, Why, oh God, WHY can't they adopt something else!?

Another thing, please cite one, JUST ONE, one Brazilian indian tribe that had an advanced culture? In America there were a few, but they were not in Brazil. If the Aztecs were the "Europe" (or Arabia or India, given that for some time they were ahead of the Europeans in terms of knowledge) of the new world, then the Brazilian Indians would the "tribe in the middle of some forest in Africa" of the new world, by comparing them in terms of technological advancement. While the first weren't prehistoric, the latter were.

In order to compare something qualitatively we need to have goals. So comparing them in such a context implies the existence of a goal. What is the goal? It is the improvement of our lives through several ways, be it scientific, technological or moral. Against this goal we can tell what works and what does not. Hence a better and a worse.

Unfortunately the stereotypical African way of life, and I say stereotypical because the self-proclaimed "afro-somethings" in several countries consider this nonsense to be "their" culture, doesn't work very well for this purpose. Just watch Brasil for example, they spend a lot of time promoting dances and some horrible noise, and not time enough promoting things that matter. It's a mistery to me why they don't adopt as a culture to be number one in everything they do. Frankly, that would be a lot better.

This has a direct impact on how different peoples perform. While in some countries good values are promoted, good for progress that is, in some others a "shake your ass" culture is promoted. And cynically those who are too busy making money in the first world say "all cultures are equally valid" and give even more strength to the ass shaking whores, while in their home countries they continue with their businesses. Hypocrisy. Pure hypocrisy. If their children were to do half of what someone else's children do, with full support of the local idiots and foreign scholars, they would have a heart attack.

Of course it's perfect for you, you stay there living a life of consumerism, and when you get too much stressed you just take a vacation and go on a ride on "exotic places" like Brazil, where a bunch of locals will be more than glad to entertain you for a few days. Then when you get tired of this you can go home. Oh, I was almost forgetting, another advantage of having "equally valid cultures" in many places is that you have cool documentaries on the Discovery Channel, so if you don't have the money or will to travel you can see the ass shaking people, that give no value to education and progress, on TV.

You are so full of s**t. If I say that "afro-tards" have a s**tty culture is because I am being honest I sincerely hope they drop it and start working towards progress or, at least, don't mess with those Brazilians that are trying to make a good life for themselves. Racism is enforcing a strictly racial rule for all, like you do, like the afro-tards do, like some white-tards do as well. A society free of racism must first drop this euphemism for "race" called ethnicities and target great things.

PS: your joke about the typo I committed, sake => "shake", was just too low and not funny. But I appreciate your effort.

TB, You are a Fuc*king excellent writer. I really enjoyed your article. It is funny that A BRAZILLIAN has the same knee jerk reaction every ignorant Brazillian has when faced with actual facts. He claims he does not want to discuss with you anymore. I will be in Rio in a month. I will gladly buy you a drink.

If A Brazilian would end his analysis at that point, he'd be spot on. Unfortunately, his point is a bit wider than that, DN. When it comes right down to it, A Brazilian AGREES with the notion that certain peoples need to be kept within boundaries - or even, in fact, erradicated. He is just mortally offended that certain Americans and Europeans seem to act as if Brazilians were one of these peoples.

Here is the challenge: where did I say anything even close to it?

This is what I am talking about. You make things up or twist them in order to fit in your little world. Your mind can't conceive the idea of a free soul, therefore you rationalize everything into what's familiar to you, i.e., a racialized society. In the US, or Canada, or where the hell you came from, probably there are only racism 1.0 and racism 2.0, the first is the one of the KKK and the beginning of the 20th century, the latter is the politically correct and newer one.

You aren't the center of the universe. Why does Americans and Europeans or others think that everybody cares about what they think, or are worried about what they will think? I don't give a s**t about you. It's none of my business what happens in your country. But it is my business what happens in mine.

The problem is not what you think, but a bunch a Brazilians actually believing in the load of crap you are selling and start internalizing it to the point that they start acting as if it were a fact. My duty here as a Brazilian is to warn other Brazilians about you and your racism, and avoid that more idiots internalize this nonsense.

Maybe if people start thinking right, picking up what is good in other cultures and eliminating the undesired aspects of those same cultures (as for example the promotion of stupidity), then we will have progress in this country.

Why does Americans and Europeans or others think that everybody cares about what they think, or are worried about what they will think?

I certainly don't think that others care about what we (americans) think. But obviously you seem to be convinced of this. These are your problems Abe, not ours (mine).

And you calling someone else a racist?? That's hilarious coming from someone that called the historian, who is a black american, a n****r.

Nice Abe....very nice.

I just have a question. And I am not attacking your view. I just want to understand where you are coming from..

Do you think that if given # 1 . TIME and #2 RESOURCES. That any culture can achieve what other "advanced" nations have achieved?

A lot of your negative comments are targeted towards the "afro-brazilian" culture. But do you understand that given the academic resources the poor could in fact contribute in a more substantive way besides entertainment for tourists?
For the most part , the poorer class in Brasil, which happens to be darker in most instances, are just operating in their realm of oppurtunity and understanding. Which in most instances IS limited.
Europeans and "wanna be" Europeans run Brasil. As nature would have it people look out for themselves. Some WILL be left out of the loop.
So the question is why are they left out of the loop?
Is it to maintain a poor class to fuel capitalism?
Is it outright racism?
Orr both?

Rest assured, I know exactly who I'm talking to.

Do you think that if given # 1 . TIME and #2 RESOURCES. That any culture can achieve what other "advanced" nations have achieved?

Only if they practice the correct values. That's why values are important. In Brazil we have plenty of resources and money, the money goes away in bureaucracy and corruption and the resources are depleted by a few.

A lot of your negative comments are targeted towards the "afro-brazilian" culture. But do you understand that given the academic resources the poor could in fact contribute in a more substantive way besides entertainment for tourists?

First of all, the criticisms aren't limited to blacks, but they are directed towards anybody that agrees with the "cultural" nonsensical belief of Thaddeus. There's no reason to believe that someone should have his horizon limited by some social norm, where the "culture" is given as if it was set in stone. So it is reasonable to expect from anybody to do their best and not waste our time with this bulls**t.

So the question is why are they left out of the loop?
Is it to maintain a poor class to fuel capitalism?
Is it outright racism?
Orr both?

To answer your question would imply in agreeing with this dicothomy European-NonEuropean and this idea that every single Brazilian is trying to be European. That is false.

They are left out of the loop because they lack the proper values. They aren't worried about education as a means of improving in life, and someone among them is dedicated to that it is likely that he is going to be target of jokes. If you know anything about the Brazilian culture you know the disdain there's for people that study. They are likely to spend R$ 200,00 in a tennis shoe, but not in a book.

Later they will complain about social inequality. It only happens that part of the society wants to improve and another part wants to party. And don't even mention racism. We had several synonyms for WHORE in the beginning of the XX century like "polish girl", "italian" or "french" because a bunch of them were running away from the war. They were treated like s**t and worked in coffee farms. What do the afro-something want? An invitation?

I haven't even looked at A's comments yet, but let's see if I can guess their gist, based on past experience. I will make three predictions...

1) A will make some highly inflamatory statements which supposedly "scientifically" underline the superiority of himself and those he considers to be "his people".

2) He will call me a racist, because he's either too dense or too cynical to grasp the fact that I am - as I've repeatedly pointed out - against ethnonationalism and the concept of fixed cultural identities, not to mention the absolutely nutso concept that a man or a woman's behavior is controlled by their biology.

3) A will also engage in a prolonged rant against unspoecified "racists" and "anglo-saxons" who are supposedly corrupting all that is pure and good about Brazil, conveniently ignoring the fact that no one here - and certainly not me - has made any comments at all regarding the U.S. or Britain's supposedly superior racial system.

So, now let's go to A's comments and see how close I came, shall we?

I meant I don't want to discuss with you anymore because it is pointless and your latest posts are the evidence of it.

I know it's pointless. People like yourself always find it "pointless" to discuss science with people who are better informed because your only "point" is to use a public forum to soapbox up a load of ridiculous bigotry in the hopes that the lesser intelligent or uninformed members of the public will be impressed by your verve and rhetoric. If someone comes along to show you up for the rabble-rousing ideologue you really are, the best thing to do is beat a quick retreat under a cloud of wounded dignity.

Evangelist street preachers and anarchists use the same methods, A. I suppose that they are commonly taught in fascist and integralist circles, too.

You completely twisted everything I said, turned into some sort of genetical matter of race (very American indeed), when in fact I never used this kind of argument and never associated races with cultures, and made some simplistic comparisons (like the ice cream one) in order to build that pile of bulls**t of have been defending so far.

I have no idea what a "genetical matter of race" is, nor does anyone else here, I suspect. Nor has anything I've written above been based upon the notion that you conflate race and culture. What I HAVE implied is that you use culture in such a way that it is effectively an ideological stand-in for race. Your ultimate point is that there are superior and inferior peoples on this planet and that you believe you should be classified in with the first set. You - like most post-modern fascists - are smart enough to realize that arguments postulating biological inferiority/superiority aren't going to be bought by anyone brighter than a 50-watt bulb. However, you also realize that most people will buy the same sort of argument if it's couched in culturalist terms. You thus use the cultural concept in an ignorant and exceptionally preverted fashion to "prove" the same thing folk of your type are always trying to prove: that you and yours are, in fact, a superior branch of humanity and that the rest of us should kneel down and kiss your sanctified asses.

Now, that's the second time I've had to lay the argument out for you in clear, simple English. If you haven't understood me yet, there's not much more I can do for you.

As for the ice cream metaphor being simplistic, I agree. But it is no more simplistic than the argument that Christianity and literacy are "European". So I was simply employing your level of rhetoric in the hopes that I'd some up with something simple enough for even you to understand. After all, you're having a hard time with the cultural concept, something most high school sophmores can handle, so I didn't want you to strain yourself.

The nut of the matter is that you quite clearly claimed, above, that difference necessarily implies superiority and inferiority. I don't care if you're talking about cultures, ice cream, or color of paint: it doesn't. That is a very simple fact that most children grasp but which you, unaccountably, are having a hard time grasping.

Continued below...

What I HAVE implied is that you use culture in such a way that it is effectively an ideological stand-in for race. Your ultimate point is that there are superior and inferior peoples on this planet and that you believe you should be classified in with the first set.

Then you have given up any argument and now is just trying to see if some label sticks on me in order to discredit my ideas. I only said it is possible to classify cultures as better or worse. It implies the goal being the improvement of manking in general.

I never made any affirmation that this or that "culture" is forbidden or impossible to be achieved by anybody. As a matter of fact I have been constantly urging people to change to better. It is not a revolutionary ideology, in the sense of establishing a goal and socially engineering people towards that goal (like fascism, communism or ecologism), but a self-improvement philosophy and a meaning for our nation.

I think you don't know what you are talking about. The Aztecs had a writing system and advanced egineering techniques without having contact with Europeans. I only said that some tribes in here were prehistoric, and prehistoric means that they had no writing system, therefore made no records of their history and didn't build civilizations. That's a fact, not bigotry. Does it say anything about the future? No, it doesn't. Could they adopt proper values and live in the same society as we do and work towards their own improvement and that of the country? Yes, they could. So, where's the racism?

I urge people to participate in the country as best as they can, and I attack backward cultures and values that help to cause all the disgrace we see around here.

Besides, if we aren't thinking in terms of cultures, then they must be identifiable. If they are identifiable then it means it has a set of properties. If they have a set of properties then they are finite. And if that set of properties is what defines them, then changing it would mean destroying it. If I promoted this or that culture I would contract the very idea of self-improvement and the purpose of our nation. Therefore interpreting it as some sort of dicothomy is very American, but not what I have written at all.

Thanks for responding.. I appreciated your comments. And I am understanding A LOT better.
I was tempted to ask you where you were on the color spectrum as a Brazilian..But after analyzing you comments it doesn't matter because I see that at the heart of your arguments are VALUES.
I will reveal that I am half brasilian and half american of mostly visible african descent. I have been back and forth to Brasil most of my life. And I lived there 3 years. I have first hand experience with the effects of RACISM in both countries.

Values ARE an issue.. But we have to remember that values are LEARNED..The segment of society we are referring to are going to have to SEE , through the MEDIA and any other way possible positive role models that promote the VALUES that you speak of. The only thing that is coming close to doing that "somewhat' on a large scale is the magazine RACA. Popular television is NOT helping for the most part , or is limited. Be it do to lack of financing to promote such projects or mere apathy.. Why is this?....
I see the recent movement to have classes on afro-brazilian history and indigenous history in the school. In fact it was in A Tarde newspaper today. (Salvador) . This is good and a start.
You struck a chord in me about the "studious" being ridiculed. That happens in the U.S also albeit to a lesser degree with the latest generation of youth. It is much more prevalent in the poorer segments of the population,,not the middle class. The problem in Brasil is that there is very little "middle class" among afro-brasilians. So there is not much of root for these "values" to flourish and spread.
The "studious" among the poor is a true exception. It IS a hard fight. But the more examples set and the ADVERTISED and PROMOTED visibly, the more there is for the poor youth to aspire to and KNOW and INTERNALIZE that individual greatness can be achieved. That it ISN'T hopeless. Or a waste of time. That a man is not how he plays futebol , or how many women he can bed. These are the standards to measure manhood amongst a "SLAVE CULTURE' . But you have LEARN how to free yourself of a slave mentality.
Now the MASTERS have to want to free the minds of the slaves. Or some of the slaves have to unify and help free their brethren.
Slave culture still exists in the U.S disguised under the commercial prosperity of Hip/Hop Rapp culture. The very same way slave culture is popularized in Pagode.
Energy will go somewhere. And if it is directed mostly towards the next time you are going to get laid. Then there you have it. A LOT of wasted creative energy. Without the resources and motivation and role models put in place, the poor will continue to measure their worth with their physical and sexual prowess.
We can't count on the Masters "wanting" to free the minds of the slaves. So the slaves will have to form a movement. They will, when they have had enough. But maybe no time soon because the government is very successfull with its "circus and bread" social manipulation. There are far too many HOLIDAYS in the north east. And if I am not mistaken it is the North east that provides most of the "labor" (hard labor , lower wages) for all of Brazil. Continue to give these folks parties and of course the best Carnival in the world ,and they won't protest as much.
Why did Southern Brasil want to form their own country?....I won't assume it is a racial issue. But I do know that people of darker hues are not well accepted at large.

Values have to be LEARNED.. Who will teach them. It becomes a matter of circumstance for the most part. What you don't know.. you don't know. All governments count on this to control the masses. Brasil is no exception.
Just be glad YOU KNOW and HELP someone else , if that interest you.

I was taken aback by you comments on who cares what Americans or Europeans think. This is a website for anyone interested in Brazilian affairs written in ENGLISH.
I digress

It's a mistery to me why they don't adopt as a culture to be number one in everything they do. Frankly, that would be a lot better.

Frankly, A, I think a lot of us here are asking the same thing about YOU.

I mean, you are having a real hard time understanding simple concepts that have been the basis of history, anthropology and sociology for the better part of a century now. If you were some sort of illiterate macaxeira farmer from down the valley, I'd be a bit more understanding, but you obviously know how to read and write, are bilingual (presumably, though no one here, AFAICR, has ever observed you writing in Portuguese), grasp the fact that history exists and can use a computer. So when you come along with la-de-da bulls**t like "Indian cultures are inferior to European cultures because they aren't as advanced"... Well, gee, old sport, a body's got to wonder, given all the bennies you've so obviously availed yourself of in this life, how you can manage to be so aggressively butt-ignerint.

Maybe if you'd put half as much effort into learning about the world as you do into trying to prove that you belong to a superior branch of humanity, you would find that you could get published in more forums than Brazzil.com or integralist yahoo rags.

Just a thought, Janer.

Of course it's perfect for you, you stay there living a life of consumerism, and when you get too much stressed you just take a vacation and go on a ride on "exotic places" like Brazil, where a bunch of locals will be more than glad to entertain you for a few days.

BING!!!!

Got the boy on #3!

A Brazilian, if you want to rant about evil Yanks or Canadians spoiling "your" country and not caring about its future, please do us the favor of actually attacking people who fit that description and not someone who's just come from teaching 6 solid hours in 40 degrees of heat to a band of freshmen students, half of whom live in the Favela do Maré. You couldn't handle the Brazil I deal with 258 days a year, and certainly couldn't handle it at my pay level, so please don't make an ass of yourself by publicly lecturing me about my supposed consumerism and love for the Brazilian exotic. You talk a nice talk about "civilizing the poor" and "teaching people to be the best", but I suspect that if you actually had to go out there and do something to that effect, you'd be whining like Caco Antibes on the train to suburbia. Given your loudmouthed, smirking brand of arrogance, you'd probably wind up in the micro-ondas to boot.

PS: your joke about the typo I committed, sake => "shake", was just too low and not funny. But I appreciate your effort.

I admit it was a cheap shot, but a man who talks about "afro-tards' s**tty culture" deserves no less.

Here is the challenge: where did I say anything even close to it?

Your comment re: afro-tards giving up their s**tty culture speaks for itself.

You aren't the center of the universe. Why does Americans and Europeans or others think that everybody cares about what they think, or are worried about what they will think? I don't give a s**t about you. It's none of my business what happens in your country. But it is my business what happens in mine.

You obviously care or you wouldn't be spending your time here ranting the way you do, let alone the hours necessary to craft your amusing little pieces for the main news and views board.

As for Brazil being "your" country, I wasn't aware I was talking to Dom Pedro II's great-great whatever. That's be about the only person who could claim some sort of personal ownership to Brazil.

I have news for you A: Brazil's been a constitutional repbulic for over a century now. Citizenship - and thus responsabilities and rights - within said republic are not limited by birth, nor does Brazil recognize

jus sanguinus

as the exclusive means of obtaining citizenship. I am as much a citizen of this country as you are - presuming, of course, you are even a citizen, which many readers of this board highly doubt. For you to claim that you somehow have more rights and responsabilities than me - or ANY OTHER citizen - based on religion, country of birth, color, or religion is in fact illegal. Worse, given the fact that you've just spent the past 5 posts attempting to convince us that you DON'T believe that culture or nationality are biological traits, it's just f**king stupid.

Take your own advice, son, and realize that you are not the center of the world. You are not even the center of Brazil. Like it or not (and I'm happy to note that the fact must really piss the likes of you off), I'm a citizen of this country. And you know something, A? I'm actually far more of a patriot than you: I CHOSE to be a Brazilian. You, if your claims are to be believed, were simply born one.

Just to add some humor in all this serious debate. I came across this video on another site... funny as h*ll. lol

The product of America's superior educational systems.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJuNgBkloFE

I meant to spell: Interlude. Sorry.

Then you have given up any argument and now is just trying to see if some label sticks on me in order to discredit my ideas. I only said it is possible to classify cultures as better or worse. It implies the goal being the improvement of manking in general.

Yes, that is PRECISELY what I said. When you use culture in that reductionist, essentialist and wholly unscientific manner, it performs the same function as race. The technical term for what you are doing is "ethnocentrism". It is the irrational belief that one's own culturally inculcated values are superior to others.

Ultimately, ethnocentrism and racism perform the same function: they allow humanity to be arbitrarily divided into superior and inferior groups, generally in function of some larger political objective. In this sense, they are FUNCTIONALLY EQUAL.

In other words, it really doesn't matter if you believe that it's culture or race which make other groups inferior, as long as you get to classify them that way.

Now, there's one possible exception to that general rule, which we often see in the U.S. American version of ethnocentrism. This is an evangelist ethnocentrism, one which wishes to convert other peoples' to ones' superior values. In this brand of bigotry, the Other is inferior unless and until he accepts conversion to superior cultural values.

When you occasionaly take a step back and realize how stupid you come off sounding and how much your underlying prejudices and bigotry are showing, Abe, you occasionally sound as if you are preaching evangelical ethnocentrism. However, your constant sniping at me, a Brazilian citizen, as a "non-Brazilian", simply because I wasn't born in Brazil, kinda shows you up, doesn't it?

Now, you could make the ridiculous claim that I'm "not really" a Brazilian because I don't share your "superior" cultural values, but that would mean that MOST Brazilians are, in fact, non-Brazilians by your lights. After all, you don't like "afro-noise" and I think we can pretty much agree that most Brazilians do.

And I find it interesting that you believe that dichotomies are "American", seeing as how you repeatedly divide the world's cultures and peoples into "inferior" and "superior" brands and believe that difference needs must indicate "better" or "worse".

I can't think of a more dichotomic brand of thought than that.

That's some set of brass balls you've got there, Abe. Tell me, does your momma polisdh them for you or is that the maid's chore?

A Brazilian has cleared it up for me with the last blog. It's values everyone. And this will spill into other terriotory that it may not be politically "cordial" to get into. "A Brazilian" promotes VALUES in all cultures. Descendants of slaves , indigenous, whatever. He just wants "cultures" to aspire to some VALUES and this will uplift them.
We have to admit this is true.
Now if some of the oppressive or dominating cultures would adopt some VALUES too we WOULD be headed for a much better world. But the reality is , it won't happen without Divine intervention.
In the meantime , the best any of us can do is teach another young person some VALUES . And no matter what his race or culture he can reach his or her full potential within whatever the circumstances will allow.
It is going to take a lot more effort on the part of the government AND philanthropy from a few generous people and institutions to help uplift some. Let's hope that this supposed up and coming prosperity many hope for in Brasil will provide these oppurtunities. A darker and visible middle class may be on the horizon after all.

For those of you gringos who didn't get my "Caco Antibes" comment, Caco is a well-known "tipinho brasileiro", immortalized by the late, great sunday evening comedy show "Sai de Baixo". Here's what wikipedia has to say about Caco (consider this translation my ato de contrição for so much heavy posting today):

A Brief Biography
Once a member of São Paulo high society, Caco Antibes was the victim of an federal income tax audit which discovered an apparently unlimited number of shady dealings, some involving influential politicians. Because of this, Caco and his wife Magda were evicted from their mansion along with their mother-in-law, Cassandra Mathias Salão, and went to live in Largo do Arouche with Vanderley Mathias, also known as Vavá, Cassandra's brother.

A descendent of the Danish Baronness Waisse Füder, noble member of the Schupënpau family, the blond, blue-eyed Caco Antibes Caco is the most snobbish resident ofArouche Towers: he hates poor people, gets nervous around anyone darker-skinned than he, loves to use English words to show off his superior education and is, in general, a perfect bum, given that he hates work and considers himself to be a "Claudia Schiffer in pants". Caco tries to use get-rich-quick schemes to win back his fortune while he puts up with his mother-in-law's cutting comentary and his wife Magda's Barbie-doll like stupidity.

Caco Antibes is interpreted by actor Miguel Falabella.

The Antibes Philosophy
Some pearls of wisdom from the mouth of Antibes:

"Poor people give me the creeps."
"If a poor person eats chicken, it's because one of the two are sick."
"Poor people float in the ocean, buoyed by their beer bellies while the rich sink due to the weight of their Rolexes."
"The poor always have more than one name in order to appear rich: 'Pamela Regina Soraia call yer cuzin Romulo Gustavo Herique to th' dinner table!"
"The poor love to make up and 'prettify' the names of their 'young'ns': Cristienny, Nathalya, Jullyeny, Cristillayne, Judisleny. They also like to use the names of foreign celebrities, especially those they can't pronounce: Jenniffer, Stéphanie, Cameron, Uâxinton, Charles".
"I had to take the bus today and all these poor people got on. I was surrounded by short brown people and I went into a panic. I felt like Márcia Fú, being surrounded by the Cuban Women's Volleyball Team!"

You can see Caco in full form here...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Te9Aw2JYIcc

Caco Antibes? Janer Cristaldo? A Brazilian...?

You decide.

(Here's an english wikipage with more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sai_de_Baixo)

[Abe] just wants "cultures" to aspire to some VALUES and this will uplift them.
We have to admit this is true.

Whose values? Dn, Abe is saying that samba, for example, is "inferior" to the waltz, that Christianity is a "superior" religion to anything else on the planet, that wearing Levis is "superior" to wearing a dashiki made out of pano da costa...

I'm not getting it. Please explain to me how and why I must admit that these values are true.

I am very leery of people who preach some sort of generic "values". In my experience, they are some of the most ammoral bastards on the face of the planet.

Yes, that is PRECISELY what I said. When you use culture in that reductionist, essentialist and wholly unscientific manner, it performs the same function as race. The technical term for what you are doing is "ethnocentrism". It is the irrational belief that one's own culturally inculcated values are superior to others.

No, it doesn't mean any of that. First it is not irrational because it can be measured. Second it is not ethnocentric because it's not based on race, but values. And if some are better it is because they can produce better results and they are morally correct. If some are immoral or not aiming at great things then they are not good.

Replying to you is monotonous, here I am repeating the same things over and over again and all you can do is to call me of several things and use the "appeal to authority" argument while you can't disprove that values can lead to better results and cultures aren't set in stone, so improving values is actually natural to them. How can we improve anything if we can't compare?

You obviously care or you wouldn't be spending your time here ranting the way you do, let ...

What I do here is my duty as a Brazilian and the target audience of such comments is the Brazilians that come here and weren't infected by this propaganda.

However, your constant sniping at me, a Brazilian citizen, as a "non-Brazilian", simply because I wasn't born in Brazil, kinda shows you up, doesn't it?

But you aren't Brazilian. You may have a Brazilian passport and be recognized as a citizen, but you didn't grow up in this country and culture isn't passed through the blood. Your values are Canadian to the core. You just mention your "Brazilianity", assuming that it is true, because in the Anglo-saxon world race and culture are intimately connected. If you were Brazilian then you would know that we see others as Brazilians, regardless on how they look, because they were born here and not because they have some blood-non-sensical-link. Some like to say where they ancestors have come from, but that's NOT a social requirement and you are not required to think of yourself belonging to some block separate from the rest.

And I find it interesting that you believe that dichotomies are "American", seeing as how you repeatedly divide the world's cultures and peoples into "inferior" and "superior" brands and believe that difference needs must indicate "better" or "worse".

There are many shades between two extremes. If you were Brazilian you would catch that very quickly.

For those of you gringos who didn't get my "Caco Antibes" comment, Caco is a well-known "tipinho brasileiro", immortalized by the late, great sunday evening comedy show "Sai de Baixo". Here's what wikipedia has to say about Caco (consider this translation my ato de contrição for so much heavy posting today):

That's called humor, just in case you don't have that in Canada. And it is just Brazilians making fun of themselves. This "Caco" was bankrupt, but pretended to be important somehow. All things he said were just ridiculous given his situation.

That's some set of brass balls you've got there, Abe.

http://www.ventriloharassment.org/balls.wav

"I only said that some tribes in here were prehistoric, and prehistoric means that they had no writing system, therefore made no records of their history and didn't build civilizations."

- And thus you insist these cultures are a dead end and must be educated, by force if necessary.

"I attack backward cultures and values that help to cause all the disgrace we see around here."

- Leaving these cultures alone and not insisting "they adopt proper values" (up to exactly whose standards? yours and yours alone?) may not lead them to contribute to mans future on the grandest scale possible, but it sure does not cause anyone (except maybe your own self) any disgrace. Pushing is what most read into your forceful statements Abe - it will generate resistance (and resistance is futile Abeborg). Underneath it all I think you actually mean to lead but that takes one with a more receptive, adaptive, accepting persona than your culturalization will allow you to muster.

No, it doesn't mean any of that. First it is not irrational because it can be measured.

No. It can't be comparatively measured without making a series of arbitrary a priori definitions as to "better" and "worse". It thus cannot be objectively measured.

Second it is not ethnocentric because it's not based on race, but values.

Abe, you obviously don't understand the meaning of "ethnocentric". Ethnocentrism is based on values, not race. This isn't exactly esoteric knowledge, btw. While you may indeed be repeating yourself, that is certainly not because I'm not rationally refuting your arguments and this is a very good example of that. You either do not understand what ethnocentrism is or you are cynically pretending not to, but that's certainly not my problem, sir, nor is it due to any lack of rational argument on my part.

...while you can't disprove that values can lead to better results and cultures aren't set in stone...

This bit is somewhat confused. Are you actually telling me to prove a negative, Abe? Science and rationality are positivist: they are based on proof, not disproofs. I do not have to "disprove that values can lead to better results". In fact, that's not even my argument. You have to prove that values lead to better results Abe, and if you want said proof to be accepted as rational and scientific, this needs to be based on sort sort of objective measurement of "better" and a clear definition of "values" - neither which you seem willing or able to provide. It is your hypothesis, man: YOU furnish the proof. That's you science works.

As for the "cultures aren't set in stone" bit, I'm completely lost there. Are you claiming that they are or that they aren't? I'm claiming that they aren't and that is very, very easily proven.

But you aren't Brazilian. You may have a Brazilian passport and be recognized as a citizen, but you didn't grow up in this country and culture isn't passed through the blood.

First of all, you don't have the slightest idea where I grew up. For your information, it was as much in Brazil as anywhere else. I'd lay you odds, in fact, that I've spent far more of my life in this country than you have.

Secondly, you don't have the slightest idea if I'm Canadian or not. Don't assume.

Third, you couldn't even define "Canadian" (or "Brazilian" values) if they ran up and bit you on the ass. As far as I've seen here, your only definition of said values are "they are whatever I say they are and f**k any historical or anthropological evidence to the contrary".

Fourth, regarding your comment that "we see others as Brazilians regardless of how they look", that is so full of s**t I don't even know where to begin to start. Birth in a nation does not necessarily pass you its culture, nor is that the only way to acquire culture. If that were the case, you wouldn't be writing in English.

Finally, you do know that the universe doesn't change to fit your whims, right Abe? In our several run arounds on this board, I have never defende the idea that race and culture are intrinsically linked. In fact, I've gone out of my way to show, repeatedly, that they are not and that both are, in fact, historically bounded and political concepts, not natural "essences".

There is no way in hell that point can have escaped you. It certainly hasn't escaped the other readers of this forum. So given that you keep on insisting upon something that is very blantantly and manifestly untrue (to whit, that I believe in an essentialist linkage between race and culture), you reveal yourself to be a demagogue. And a rather simple-minded one at that.

There are many shades between two extremes. If you were Brazilian you would catch that very quickly.

So if you are indeed Brazilian and that is indeed true, why do repeatedly insist in dividing the world between those poles? As Roberto da Matta has often pointed out, traditional Brazilian non-dichotic thinking isn't simply an excercize in recognizing shades of grey, it's a cultural preference for an entirely different third option. When you say things like "There always will be a better approach in a given context", you are definitely not working within that cultural context. You are, in fact, apeing the very American dichotic approach you claim to despise.

What all your arguments boil down to, Janer - I mean Abe - is "Things are the way they are because I believe that is so. And those who do not believe as I do must be diametrically opposed to me". This is why you simply cannot fathom an approach to race and culture that is not either a) what you believe is the norm in Brazil or b) what you believe is the norm in the States.

Face it, Abe: you're as dichotic a thinker as they come.

We have to be realistic Macun
Come on now . There has to be some values. Some basic moral standard everyone can agree on. If nothing else, the "Golden Rule" . Which I am sure is pretty standard in most cultures. If people only did something that simple.. Treat others as you would want to be treated ,we wouldn't have an issue based on the article by Dr W. to blog about.
At some point man has to agree to adhere to a set of values that would benefit everyone on this planet. The problems that exist with injustices and inequities of every kind is precisely why we do need a standard set of values. History hasn't proven that we can peacefully co-exist without a standard set of values for all. That all should strive for.Every has different values which sometime incredibly clash and violently. This is the problem.

Whose values?...We have to let the Creator be the judge of that. And that is if we believe one exists. And that's another thing.. Some believe a Creator exists .. Others don't. And yet others aren't sure. And those that believe in a Creator hold varied concepts on its personna.

I am trying to reach middle ground with Abe. The point where he gets to "values" is something we can't ignore. And to raise the question "whose values" is just going to open up another Pandoras Box. And of course it is popular these days to pretend that humanity will be ok without a standardized set of morals across the board that apply to everyon. And that ONLY because it implies that we somehow have a Higher Power to answer to. . The one that made this "moral code" . And of course no one will agree or want to agree to WHO or WHAT that just might be.
So naturally we stay stuck here. This is basically the end of the thread because no one is going to go there. It would just be too politically incorrect and arrogant.
If we say everyone can have their own values. Well, what 's wrong with ANY of Abes ideas. If he has enough people that share his views . He has created his own world according to Abe and his followers. The problem remains that he and his followers share the planet with the rest of us. And each of "us" have our own VALUES .
We are in gridlock here. Naturally..
I wonder why?..... And this is precisely where we should all look in the mirror and say.."Duh"?.....
Staying in gridlock over "Whose Values" , is like saying it is ok do suicide bombings. Genital mutilation is ok. It's ok to invade a country on a false premise of hiding weapons of mass destruction. That Apartheid is ok. That genocide is ok.. Afterall they are all just products of different "cultures or races or ethnicities , or whatever you want to call it, SETS OF VALUES.
Clear this up Macun , if you can. If not , we can all just continue to look in the mirror and say ,, "Duh"?

No , samba is not better than waltz. I'm not agreeing with Abe on that. Although I don't remember him saying that. LOL , just had to clear that up real quick.

Sorry - didn't mean to bring up the WHOSE e WHAT's (or maybe I did but subhuman-conciously). I think we all can agree it's beyond Abe to even contemplate. As to no one having the bolls, prying mind, arrogance and tendency towards political incorrectness to go there - Eu Ten.

Since we are not so advanced, I say let's wimp out and be democratic about it (or pragmatic at the very least). Anyone willing to vote for adopting Forrest's values as the baseline set? Not much of a "moral code" ring to it - more like what is right is just plain right (although there is that thing about there being no aetheists in foxholes that might be used to irrationally reject some or all that he's atuned with). Add a motto or two - say Don't Tread On Me, Right Makes Might, and there you have it - a bandwagon everyone can jump on. Problem with Abe is that there is this persistant cranking of the bell ringer on the party line and no one is picking up. Some can see that there is probably a good cause / something of meaning underneath it all but it get's a bit grateing / irritating after a while, just like the cultural tendancy to continuously bring up one's educational accomplishments / certifications / etc., etc., by folks from India / Bangladesh / thereabouts for no real reason, and not within the conversational flow of thing - like that somehow in a past era ones "culture" was somehow trained one to feel insecure / underaccomplished / inferior unless one kept openly promoting an association / belonging / possesion of modern day equivalancy to the best of the best.

Boa Noite.

No. It can't be comparatively measured without making a series of arbitrary a priori definitions as to "better" and "worse". It thus cannot be objectively measured.

Not arbitrary, values exist and are objective and based on that we can see that better values lead to better results. If they are objective then they are independent of any culture.

Abe, you obviously don't understand the meaning of "ethnocentric". Ethnocentrism is based on values, not race.

Not really. Ethnic groups include religion, languages, customs and racial characteristics of a certain population and the term is used most of the times to denote all those things together (and I have never even talked about any those things). There's no chance a Hispanic would be considered Caucasian or a Asian an Afro-american just because they happen to live in the USA.

You can't just single one of those characteristics out and use it. Just because I speak English it doesn't mean that I belong to same group as you do. And that's not even what the discussion is about. Not sure why you are taking the conversation this way anyway.

Are you actually telling me to prove a negative, Abe? Science and rationality are positivist: they are based on proof, not disproofs.

I can help you. I said that better values lead to better results in several fields such as science, technology, economy, etc, and that's verifiable in a smaller scale just by taking a look at the performance of students of different backgrounds and in a greater scale in indicators of many countries (not just economy, but also education, the rule of the law, corruption, freedom, etc). That's what I meant. If you disagree then say it so.

Secondly, you don't have the slightest idea if I'm Canadian or not. Don't assume.

You told us once. You are from Quebec, right?

As far as I've seen here, your only definition of said values are "they are whatever I say they are and f**k any historical or anthropological evidence to the contrary".

I would never say anything like this. Defining cultures in simple terms is impossible, despite of what some social scientists think. Can you define yourself in words? You can try by describing yourself phisically or in some other way, but those words will never be the totality of yourself. The same happens with cultures.

That means that defining them and assigning them to a group of people is just a futile exercise (and that's also why you can't deny who you are), because that will always be inaccurate. Which brings to the original article where the author makes a lot of assumptions, that there's a "us" an a "them", that they are different and need special attention. They surely are different from each other, but not in the way the author imagines. Even if we consider "culture" strictly as being a way of communicating symbols through various ways, then those children would belong to the same culture. Then what's the point of his article?

When I refer to "Anglo-saxons" I am referring to ideas usually found among them, like for example the race obsession in the USA. I am not defining them in precise terms, property by property.

(continue)

Birth in a nation does not necessarily pass you its culture, nor is that the only way to acquire culture. If that were the case, you wouldn't be writing in English.

You can't acquire all kinds of culture just by reading a few books. For example, growing up in a certain country gives you a clear idea of the scale of values usually adopted by the people and symbols used and lots of other things. It also gives you some automatic responses, like seeing things first always through a certain point of view. For example, you insist in racializing everything, and you don't even have a clue that in other countries things don't work that way. You grew up in a place where this is so natural, so automatic and always assumed to be true that you don't even question it. It is like second nature. In Brasil the most proeminent thing that seems to be implanted in us as soon as we are born is to act extra nice to everyone and try to make friends, which in turn makes Brazilians look shallow and false. This is so forced around here, and assumed to be a fact of life that nobody questions it. All of this has historical roots of course, in the US it is the brutal racism of a recent past, in Brazil is the colonial era where the power was concentrated in the hands of a few, so you always needed the support or friendship of someone important and powerful if you wanted to go up in life.

So if you are indeed Brazilian and that is indeed true, why do repeatedly insist in dividing the world between those poles?

Either you didn't read what I have written or you are just doing some wishful thinking. If we have such variety in Brazil then a comparison would not be between two options only, but between many. Then we would have a first, a second, a third, etc. How could that be dichotomy?

No one wants to go there... But everone is getting some good points in just same. Abe is not all wrong. Neither is Macun or TB.

I just want to comment that "institutionalized racism" such as that is found in the U.S fuels and is the basis for capitalism. It is really that simple. And to soothe their immoral consciences the founding fathers had to declare their slaves as inferior to justify what they sub-consciously knew to be wrong. The form of slavery adopted by these so-called nations with Christian values was inexcusable and they knew this.

Abe Said

"I said that better values lead to better results in several fields such as science, technology, economy, etc, and that's verifiable in a smaller scale just by taking a look at the performance of students of different backgrounds and in a greater scale in indicators of many countries (not just economy, but also education, the rule of the law, corruption, freedom, etc). That's what I meant. If you disagree then say it ."

Sorry, but No one intelligent can disagree with this. So we can say we are in gridlock now. There are no superior or inferior cultures . But what they can achieve will be limited to its adherence to "certain" VALUES.

At some point man has to agree to adhere to a set of values that would benefit everyone on this planet. The problems that exist with injustices and inequities of every kind is precisely why we do need a standard set of values.

Never going to happen, Dn. And you're saying we should be realistic? C'mon...

It's a sociological reality, well explored by Emile Durkheim and Max Weber, that as societies become more complex and - particularly - as labor becomes more specialized, values inevitably become more fragmented.

If sociology has proven anything, it's proven this one point.

The only way to return to a society where one would have homogenous values instead of a plurality of values would be to reverse the urban and technological revolutions, accept an average life span of about 40 years and cut the population of the planet by a factor of 20. Now, if you're willing to say "That's what we gotta do", then I submit you're cold-bloodedly contemplating a massacre some 1000 times bigger than anything Adolf Hitler thought of.

But if you LIKE using computers, driving cars, eating pretty much whatever you want and living to an average age of 70, then you need a society with an intense and specialized division of labor. Said society will inevitably develop a plurality of values, if for no other reason than the fact that peoples' day-to-day lives will be radically different from their co-citizens'.

I am trying to reach middle ground with Abe.

That's nice, but why would you want to? The guy's basically a fascist. Halfway to a fool doesn't make you any wiser.

Staying in gridlock over "Whose Values" , is like saying it is ok do suicide bombings. Genital mutilation is ok. It's ok to invade a country on a false premise of hiding weapons of mass destruction. That Apartheid is ok. That genocide is ok.. Afterall they are all just products of different "cultures or races or ethnicities , or whatever you want to call it, SETS OF VALUES.

You misapprehend cultural relativism and its role in the social sciences.

Cultural relativism is not and was never intended to be a philosophy for living life and any one who says otherwise knows very little about it. It is intended to be a scientific tool, used to better understand cultures and socieites. Weber, Durkheim, Marx, Parsons, Geertz... All the big social scientists of the past 200 years have been quite clear on one point: it is impossible to live a valueless life. One must inevitably choose one's path.

However, that is a moral, ethical and political decision, not a scientific one. As I've said above several times, Abe can believe whatever the hell he wants. I expect him to. No one here - and certainly not me - is proposing that people wallow around in a supposedly valueless existence. However, it is incredibly dangerous to NATURALIZE one's values, to presume that they are superior and anointed by God, Mother Nature, or whatever transhuman force you choose to name. WE create our values, not God, and we are responsible for what they do, not Mother Nature.

So the point of relativism ISN'T - as Abe would have it ans as you apparently believe - to live a valueless life. The point of relativism is to take responsability for one's values and realize that they are created by mankind, not God, and as such, can and do change.

I happen to believe in sort of a bastardized positivism, though I'm quite aware of all its faults as a philosophy. I am aware that it appeals to ME and works for ME and I do not require - as Abe seems to do with his philosophy - that it be understood as THE SUPERIOR HUMAN VALUE SET OF ALL TIME.

To me, there's a very large and crucial difference between knowing one's values and realizing that they are just one set among many and presuming that one's values needs must be shoved down the rest of the world's throat for "peace", "harmony", or "progress" to occur.

Abe says....

You told us once. You are from Quebec, right?

You are a real hoot, Abe. Go back and look at what I said. No, I did not say I was from Quebec. And if I were, it would take a real idiot to run around claiming that I was an Anglo-Saxon, wouldn't it? So either you are being stupid or you are making wild assumptions about me. Either way...

Thanks for the explanations I 've never heard before on cultural relativism. You are right , a standard set of values is never going to happen . Not without divine intervention.
And it is great that we do all have free-will to choose which values we want and deal with the consequences . And continue to evaluate the consequences based on our adopted values and adjust as nature would have it .
No I don't agree that relativism is leading a valueless life. I agree with you. I learned a lot. I don't believe in shoving ones values down someone elses throat . But instead "demonstrating" your values and letting others choose for themselves if your values are ones to aspire to.
This has been a very interesting analysis of culture and values. It was great! I digress. I am glad the Truth is so simple. And that it is found ONLY by those looking for it.

...particularly as I know that it'll really frost Abe's nuts to hear about how I'm warping all those young Brazilian minds in accordance with the CIA's Master Plan to Dominate Brazil. Buarararararara....

Today I taught a pedagogy course of beginning freshmen. It's still the second week of class, so I'm basically opening the class for discussion of terms and topics which will come up repeatedly over the semester. Monday, we talked about A.L. Kroeber's concept of the "superorganic" and how it applies to social scientific study.

Today, we talked about racism.

As always, I found myself completely blown away about how uneducated even these relatively elite students (it's a federal school, after all) are about the topic and how very difficult it is for them to talk about it with any precision.

Let's get one thing out of the way though, first: contrary to Abe's ridiculous remarks about what Brazilians believe, most recent studies show (including a just published one by the Ministry of Education and Culture) that 80% of Brazilians believe that Brazil has deep problems with racism. Only 20% of Brazilians believe, however, that they personally act in a racist manner.

Of the 30 students, all are women. 2 are self-described as "black" (and would probably be described as such by pretty much anyone) while another 15 or claim to be "brown" or some other euohemism for "mixed" (and would probably also bee seen as such by most Brazilians). The rest are "white" and would probably be seen as such by anyone this side of a deep-fried U.S. Southern good ol' racist.

Among my students, all but one claimed that Brazil was a racist country and it didn't take very long at all for them to bring up (entirely unprompted, I might add) a score of examples from their day-to-day lives which show that, contrary to Abe's claims, many Brazilians do indeed see race and color when they look at their fellow citizens.

The stories that were told were quite shocking and would be classified as racist events pretty much anywhere in the world. One of the girls who classifies herself as "black" says just last weekend she was working at a children's party and a 12 year old child told her he didn't want her to touch him because she was a "filthy black monkey". Another girl (this one self-described as "brown") said that her fiancé's family wasn't at all happy about her color and had pressured her boy to ditch her for a white girl. None of the students contested these stories. In fact, as soon as they came up, hands shot up in the air. People had PLENTY of stories to tell about their personal run-ins with racism and racial prejudice or about things that they had witnessed.

This is, of course, not the first time that I've discussed this topic with a class and the results have always been the same. So this is one of the reasons why I give Abe the big raspberry when he claims that Brazilians don't see race. Almost any black or brown Brazilian will tell you: we certainly do. So basically, for me to believe Abe's tripe about Brazil having no problem with race, I'd have to ignore the stories and words of every black and brown Brazilian I've ever met, inclusing my wife who - while she hates quotas and dislikes racial classifying intensely - could tell Abe stories that would curl his hair...

All that's by the by, however, and many, many people - both gringos and Brazilians - have had similar experiences when talking with Brazilians about race. The only people this should surprise are those Americans who seem to think that the "average Brazilian" is someone like Abe who has a near-religious faith in Brazil's lack of racism. Fact: 80% of Brazilians are quite awarer of the racism in Brazil and can fill your ear with stories if you choose to listen.

But what really interests me is how clumsily my students talk about the topic.

...continued...

First of all, there was a general confusion as to racism and discrimination based on prejudice in general. The kids are liable to call anything "racism" as long as it postulates the essential inferiority of another human being. This means, for example, that ethnocentrism (the belief that others are inferior due to their values), sexism (the belief in inferiority due to gender), heterocentrism (the belief that homsexuals are inferior), nativism (the belief that foreigners are inferior) and even simple personal dislike are likely to be labled as "racism". In other words, they feel it is wrong to discriminate based on prejudice and "racism" has become a simple synonym for said discrimination in general. There is little recognition of racism as a specific form of discrimination.

So we got down to brass tacks, defining what racism is. We came up with three definitions. The first was a vulgar, popular definition (the general "discrimination = racism" view detailed above). The second was scientific racism, which can best be described as the belief that humanity is divided into discrete, stable, biologically defined subspecies with specific behaviors. I explained to them that this sort of racism didn't necessarily have to postulate inferior or superior sub-species, but that it generally did, setting up races in a heirarchical order as "more or less evolved".

Fewer of the students had heard of this definition, but a significant number had. One of the black students, for example, told about how she had had health pronlems precisely because of scientific racism. She suffered from a disease which her doctor assured her she couldn't have because "only middle aged white women get that disease". She had to go to two other doctors to get a proper diagnosis before she could get the treatment that she needed. She correctly identified what she had passed through as scientific racism. Most of the students seemed to grasp the concept though, as per usual, there was all sorts of discussion about what made Kenyans run faster, sickle cell anemia, and is humanity biologically homogenous? (No, we aren't. But seeing biological patterns in human populations is not at all the same thing as believing in the existence of discrete and stable sub-species - i.e. races).

So finally I pulled out the biggie, which I knew was going to confuse them: what I like to call "the American sociological definition of racism". This definition became popular in the States in the 1960-70s-80s and it basically postulates that racism and prejudice are linked, but discrete, concepts. According to this view of things, racism is prejudice plus social power - institutionalized prejudice in other words. As per usual, this concept completely flummoxed almost all the students and it needed to be discussed in depth. They couldn't see, for example, how someone could be acting in a racist manner and yet, personally, not be prejudiced. This seemed to completely be beyond their ken and experience, even though I gave them several examples of how it worked and they agreed that said examples were valid.

...continued...

All this underlines points that were made some 50 years ago by Oracy Nogueira in his discussion on how prejudice works in the U.S. and Brazil and it brings up some points regarding why it's so hard for Americans and Brazilians to have a dialog on this issue.

In the first place, Brazilians tend to personalize prejudice: it is seen as an individual and not a social problem. On the few occassions when it is looked at sociologically, it is analyzed in very superficial forms. A generic "society" supposedly informs people that other groups are inferior, but most Brazilians, for the life of them, couldn't tell you how this is done or point to a clear example (Xuxa is about the only thing that ever comes up and that rarely).

Americans would be wise to not believe that this reluctance to socialize racism is a result of inferior intellect, repression, or (as many black americans have said on this board) generalized "backwardness". As Oracy points out (and as Da Matta and Sérgio Buarque de Holanda have also shown) Brazilians tend to personalize EVERYTHING. This is the country of the "cordial man", after all.

Secondly, most Brazilians seem to have an aversion to essentializing, something which most Americans seem to prefer. They are not willing to believe that simply because someone fits into a social category he or she needs must act a certain way. This makes it very hard for them to believe in the idea that all blacks or all whites are necessarily "the enemy" or what have. It goes against the grain of five hundred years of assiduous cultivation of personal relationships as a means of obtaining social advancement.

But thirdly, and most importantly, none of this precludes Brazilians from grasping the fact that there are plenty of people around them who, given the right circumstances, will cheerfully exclude or discriminate against other based upon supposedly essential characteristics. The recognition is that this sort of thing may be either an indication of a permanent character flaw in the discriminating individual, or of a cynical manipulation of certain categories in order to generate prejudice against people for political or personal reasons. Such discrimination, however, is widely recognized and is generally labled as racism.

This means that Americans who believe Brazilians don't perceive racism are wrong: most Brazilians do. They just happen to perceive and react to it in different ways than most Americans.

The ironic thing here is that Abe and many of the Black American activists he dislikes have something in common: they both believe that if racism isn't exactly like and perceived in exactly the same way in Brazil as it is in the States, then it can't properly be labeled "real racism".

Thought I'd get back on topic and write about my day teaching at UFF...

Dr.Blanchette, you went up by several notches in my esteem. It does require lots of patience to teach the urchins who do not want to learn anything. Even though I am not an educator, my wife and many of my friends are and I know what it is to be in a class room full of spoiled brats.Keep up your good work, though you may find it tiresome and thankless at times.

I am going to have to "file" what you just wrote. LOL . I laugh really hard because as a half afro-brazilian and half afro-american I can relate to the total confusion in my own head as it relates to this issue. Racism does have many forms and it is all ugly no matter the twists and perceptions about it. I have noticed firsthand dealing with my family that racism and prejudice are indeed perceived differently. But I conclude that it all ends up being the same., destructive. Whether you are the perpetrator or the victim.
Here is my interesting experience. One in which I felt like I was time warped back to the 1600's.

I am paper bag brown in shade. I am in line at "Perinis" market ( a high-end food store ) I thought it was pretty obvious to the "Baiana" (who by the way was darker than me) and to the other few white looking customers that I was next in line at the Acaraje counter. I was taken aback to see her act as if she instinctively know to wait on the white customer first. !!!!????
I have never experienced anything like this in the U.S.The originators you’d say of this type of situation . I was so shocked that I don't think I remember saying anything. Although I think I did make it known that I was next after I snapped out of my shock and the other customer also acknowledged , or more or less admitted and aquiesed to the fact that I was in fact next only “after” I did say something. Only after noticing I had an English did she realize what she did and apologized.
Same case scenario almost while trying to enter a coastal restaurant in Salvador. The dark complexioned security “insisted” that the restaurant was full. (and yes it was full of lighter skinned to white customers) , But I saw plenty of seats for me and my cousin.
It just so happened at that moment the host (about my complexion) passed and I spoke my mind in Portuguese , (to which they were shocked) yet with an English accent , by then discernable to the host. The security guard thought I was “pretending” to be a tourist and apologized. The host let me in explaining that they have “theft” problem. I was floored. Racial profiling at its finest.

Now this may not be exactly classified as racism because it was done against me by people similar to me in color , But it sure is an example of the fruits of just maybe "institutionalized racism" in Brasil that has obviously been” internalized” by the victims of the system and played out in a form of self-hatred and /or just blindly following the "system". A “system” that obviously does exist whether or not it is acknowledged or not.

THIS is exactly where Dr W's article comes into play. !!! This madness can only begin to be eradicated by an education referential to the ethnic, cultural , racial, whatever you want to call it, make-up of the students in the classroom. THIS is where some of Abes VALUES platform is desperately needed along with your platform that racism , irrespecting its form, is alive and well in Brasil.
My third noteworthy experience of a more common twist was that at Club Med I am again , "in line" at a buffet as a customer ( could not have been mistaken as an employee, because I had nothing remotely similar to a uniform on) and a white brazilian bogarts his way in front of me to take from the same dish I intended to serve myself from. With a definite air of "privlege" that I detected. (with the American experience ,,you know it when you see it and feel it) . He was shocked and apologetic when I put him in his place . Like he couldn’t believe I had the audacity to call him out on it. Shocked that I did. And probably more shocked or embarassed when he realized that I was native English speaker "checking him" in Portuguese. It appeared that ONLY at that point he realized he had made a mistake.

It just made me cry to myself , “What in the world are my cousins dealing with?!, This is colonial behavior!” I never experienced anything like this in the U.S probably because I was raised in the north of the country. And my mother , the brazilian apparently knew where to and where not to go in Salvador. So I never got exposure to this in Brasil until venturing out on my own as an adult.

These examples are proof that racist prejudice permeates the "psyche" of many brazilians( I won’t say average, to be fair) black, white or pardo.

This will only end with proper education on the subject and dealing with the issue on a grade school level appropriately. This cannot go on ignored . And if it does take looking at a U.S model to address the issue. So be it! At least it is a start .
Does it really matter "how" Brazilians perceive racism or prejudice? Just PLEASE educate "just as well," those whom it affects most detrimentally.

In other words, they feel it is wrong to discriminate based on prejudice and "racism" has become a simple synonym for said discrimination in general. There is little recognition of racism as a specific form of discrimination.

I've noticed that. Brazilians that I know do indeed use the word racism for just about any type of predjudice whether it's a form of predjudice based on race or not.

It shouldn't be a surprise that black people discriminate against other black people. Sexism is usually internalized by WOMEN and women become the primary enforcers of sexism. Racist values and imagery are internalized by a good number of black people and the hierarchy suggested by these images and values are enforced by BLACK people themselves. A study published in the New York Times (about two years ago) pointed out the existence racism in American society. This was the scientific racism (the belief that that there are set behaviour traits in human beings based upon race). Here is where "scientific racism" clouds the ability to expose the real destructive apparatus of racism. Of the black "racists" (scientifically speaking) who believed that behaviour was based upon race, more than 60% believed that Asians, whites and Jews had superior 'behaviour' than their own people. This was in contrast to the other groups who believed that that their behaviour was superior to black people. Both groups would be considered racist but the definition fails to take into account the pathological dichotomy of a black person whose racism is against the very image they see in the mirror. Brazil has so banalized the definition of racism that it is like the captured leprechaun, who was forced to tie a yellow ribbon around the one tree in the forest under which was buried the pot of gold. He promised his captors that he would not return to untie the ribbon. When the captors returned to the forest they couldn't find the tree because the leprechaun had returned and tied a yellow ribbon around every single tree. In this way the teeth of racist structures are hidden. Situations such as the inability of managers at SHOPPING BARRA, SHOPPING IGUATEMI and SHOPPING SALVADOR in Salvador to hire any black people in a city that is 80% black is muted because the policeman who smashes a black youth in the mouth or the drugstore clerk who skips over you in favor of a white person is also black. In whose interest is that policeman acting? In whose interest is that clerk acting? Their own ingrained superiority? Where, in their socialization process, did they determine that this individual who shares my color is lesser than this other lighter individual. From church? From school? From television? From magazines? From O Globo? Academicians like Frantz Fanon (BLACK SKINS WHITE MASKS) and W.E.B. DuBois (THE SOULS OF BLACK FOLKS) and THE CRISIS OF THE BLACK BOURGEOISE shows that there is a RACISM (imbedded in the imagery of social, cultural and educational institutions) that does supports a defined social group as being superior and others inferior and that there are racist 'agents' and racist 'victims'.

Who cares about racists if they have no social, cultural or educational support? (A racist without racism?). If the images and values imbedded in the institutions of a society (schools, church, media etc) spew healthy images and associate the potential for virtuous behaviour with every member of their society then a racist in that society is a victim to their own internal sickness. Their racist behavior (not being supported by society) would bring them, maybe, a smack in the mouth. To paraphrase Zora Neale Hurston "A white man who doesn't like me must be crazy because I am all of that!"

I don't know if we can eliminate racists but we can expose, accuse, attack and suggest alternatives to those apparatus of society that support racists. I sometimes wonder if Brazil is too quick to attack racists (in the banal way that racists are defined) but not interested in attacking racism.

Unfortunately it won't happen anytime soon in Brasil. It is barely happening if happening at all in the U.S.. In fact it is going backwards with "reality shows" and the glamorization of hip/hop.
And this is where the "values" issue comes in. The State is only going to do so much , and only "that" after much protest. And worse for Brasil there is not much of a protest culture in Brasil. We can thank Catholicism for that.
I have seen the youth protest impressively against higher bus fares in Salvador in 2004 I believe. But they've since been beaten down (morally speaking). General public is paying a ridiculous 2rs for bus fare.
(got off the subject)
But yes racism IS sociallyand culturally supported in Brasil through the media and education,(or lack thereof).
A lot can be learned from Blanchettes last essay. It is true that Brasil doesn't have an "us and them" system or mentality.More so "haves and have nots". It's all about getting in good with who has the "condicoes". And marrying and dating "up" in color by any means necessary. Brasil is still "there". And it won't change anytime soon.
Hopefully with the influx now of "investment" in Brasil there will be gracious "individuals" the financially support and target "specific disadvantaged " groups. Similar to the founding and support of Historically Black Colleges & Universities in the U.S. But then you a talking about private enterprise in a country that has still a way to go in being business friendly. Particularly "small business" friendly.
Not to mention that there are a lot of people opposed to these ideas of change. You'd be surprised by how many people that a quota system would NOT affect one way or the other are opposed to it. This I fail to understand.As if it were some sort of threat. Hell, if you are already "privleged" as a racist society dictates "part" of the population has to be in order for racism/prejudice to exist. What difference does it make if "some" others are given an oppurtunity? Pure selfishness! And here we go with "values" again. In this world some situations have to be made fair by "FORCE". It is unfortunate but true.

If so much of the propaganda we hear these days about Brasil "coming up"is true. Then there should be no problem sharing a piece of the pie.
Slowly eliminating affirmative action such as what is presently going on in the U.S . is largely in part due to the fact that there is less of the pie to go around. And the "privleged" are feeling threatened.
You'll hear the argument that we don't need U.S. models to solve our problem, (our problem that doesn't exist). But that's just pure anti-U.S hog wash.
It would be nice for people to get over anti-U.S sentiment. It is so superficial. The U.S is OWNED by the Federal Reserve Bank. Whose strongest ties financially are in LONDON ENGLAND. Britain never let the U.S go behind the scenes. So the U.S is just a plantation. And that is becoming more obvious with each passing day..Everyone wants to create this "enemy" Do your research U.S haters. It is Britain you need to gripe about. The pound is worth more than the euro , but we never here anything about that do we?

Brasil is getting all happy about the credit it is being given. But it is only the next plantation to conquer. And you can thank your overseer Lula for that!
I am on this tirade because I hate to hear anti U.S sentiment in areas where it is not deserved. Especially in the area of civil rights. Brasil does have race issues. And instead of finding ways to prove and pretend it doesn't exist. They'd be more productive finding ways to "capitalize" on it. It is all going to come down to that anyway.
Yes! Bring it on with the lawsuits. The books. The movies. The discussion. Put some MONEY in peoples pockets. And that way the downtrodden will be lifted UP!

No, Thaddeus. You are Anglo-saxon to the core, and as I said in another comment, you incorporated this racialized view of the world so much that you will see it everywhere no matter what. You simply can't see things in another way. Your "findinds" aren't there because they exist, but because you want them to exist.

A few comments.

Let's get one thing out of the way though, first: contrary to Abe's ridiculous remarks about what Brazilians believe, most recent studies show (including a just published one by the Ministry of Education and Culture) that 80% of Brazilians believe that Brazil has deep problems with racism. Only 20% of Brazilians believe, however, that they personally act in a racist manner.

This doesn't prove anything. It is politically correctness, plus the definition of "racism" in Brazil (a lot more vague than the American one) and the usual Brazilian over self-criticism. If you ask them if politicians are corrupt you will see that the vast majority will say so, if you ask them if Brazilian women cheat their husbands more than in other countries then the vast majority will also say yes, and so on, even if they have no data to prove either way.

Among my students, all but one claimed that Brazil was a racist country and it didn't take very long at all for them to bring up (entirely unprompted, I might add) a score of examples from their day-to-day lives which show that, contrary to Abe's claims, many Brazilians do indeed see race and color when they look at their fellow citizens.

Let me see, a gringo talking about racism and they "unpromptedly" came up with examples. Interesting. First, anecdotal evidence (a friend of a friend of a cousin of mine said..). Second, they were trying to find something in common to socialize with you. Third, they are worried about grades.

This doesn't prove anything. I could come up with plenty of "examples" as well, but I guess those don't serve your theories, right?

Almost any black or brown Brazilian will tell you: we certainly do. So basically, for me to believe Abe's tripe about Brazil having no problem with race, I'd have to ignore the stories and words of every black and brown Brazilian I've ever met, inclusing my wife who - while she hates quotas and dislikes racial classifying intensely - could tell Abe stories that would curl his hair... /quote]

You invert the causes and effects. These aren't findings, but the reaction to YOUR actions. You are the one bringing up the topic of racism, therefore the will recall "cases" (in the very Brazilian vague way).

For you to have an idea, most Brazilians never heard of scientific racism, nordic theory, racial purity, anti-miscigenation laws, racist movements and organizations, etc. They actually think that the Nazis just woke up one day and decided they were better than others, and the problem for Brazilians is that it is "bad" to think that you are better than anybody else, not in a racial way, but in ANY way. It's funny in the professional life, because if you imply that others aren't as good as you this is seen as a mortal sin. Once I almost got mob-lynched by a bunch of Brazilians because I said something like "If someone doesn't learn English it's because he doesn't want to. English is too easy". The world fell down! Everybody in the room looked at me with the eyes full of rage and from that point and on nothing I said would be taken into consideration.

What Brazilians don't know is how "racism" work in other countries, especially the US. Racism is not so irrational as some say. Until some time ago it was accepted as a scientific fact and that became so ingrained in the popular culture that even today some people believe in it. They have no clue, for example, that for a racist the Portuguese, considered white for any Brazilian and usually referred to as the "evil Europeans" (and Europe is used to refer to all European countries as a whole, as if they looked all the same) by the left, aren't "white". They make no distinction between a Swedish and a Spanish, physically speaking.

It's pointless to take Brazilians talking about racism seriously, like you do, and draw conclusions from it.

I could come up with a bunch of examples of friends and others saying the exact opposite of what you are saying. What would that prove? For example, a friend of mine that would be classified as black moved South to a city that were mostly populated by European descendents, and later he invited me there because he said the women were cool. How could he ever reach that conclusion if there was racism? How could he ever have girlfriends or a social life if racism is so blatant as you speak? And he could be anything, but lonely there.

The way social scientists work is an insult to science.

One of the black students, for example, told about how she had had health pronlems precisely because of scientific racism. She suffered from a disease which her doctor assured her she couldn't have because "only middle aged white women get that disease"

How is that racism? Some diseases affect some more than others.

The kids are liable to call anything "racism" as long as it postulates the essential inferiority of another human being.

This is another cultural aspect of Brazilians that you would know if you were Brazilian. This is getting tiresome. Why do Americans are more interested into fitting a square in a circle than actually learning something? This is the real mistery here.

(with the American experience ,,you know it when you see it and feel it)

This tells a lot about any American's experiece in Brazil, entirely subjective based on what they were taught to see, as I have pointed out about Thaddeus.

I was writing a text for you about your remarks about my notion of values. I think you understood it well, but didn't quite get it completely. Yes, with the proper values we can evolve, but by "proper" I mean real values, objetive ones. Values do exist and are objetive and based on that we can seek the best. By values I don't mean rituals or going to the church every Sunday, but more general concepts that are appliable to anybody, regardless of origin, such as notions of good and evil. Is it good to perform human sacrifices? That's one example of something universal and not relative.

I was going to explain it, but then I had to stop to do something else. I don't have the time now.

The problem with moral relativism, as Thaddeus and other leftwing nuts promote, is not that you are automatically agreeing with genital multilation, you can be moral relavitist and disagree with that. The problem is that it relativizes the truth, i.e., virtually everything can be "true" or "right" depending on your point of view and that's what gives legitimacy to the Maquiaveli's Prince or the Strategy and Tactic of Lenin. In other words, you can lie, but the lie can be truth.

That doesn't mean that moral relativists are immoral and will lie as much as they can, but it means that in such a society there's no axis and it's a bunch of people together. Who wins? Who has power. So the prevalent "truth" in a relativist society is that of the whoever is in power, and can be for good or bad.

It's right to affirm that there are advanced cultures (techonologically, morally, scientific, etc) and backward ones. Brazil is a bit of both, but it seems that the tendency is to backwards because of the evangelization performed by moral relativists that validate promiscuous behavior and little value for education among the general population. They won't achive more not because they can't, but because they don't think they need to. After all everything is "equally valid", so we can have beer.

Saying that values aren't objective, just like childishly does Thaddeus, is the similar to saying that numbers don't exist because they are nowhere to be found. Who gave us numbers? Shouldn't we use numbers because we don't know who is their "creator"?

It does require lots of patience to teach the urchins who do not want to learn anything. Even though I am not an educator, my wife and many of my friends are and I know what it is to be in a class room full of spoiled brats.

You're being a bit harsh there, João.

At UFF, the Education Department gets a lot of smart, lower middle class and even lower class kids. I wouldn't qualify my students there as spoiled brats.

In fact, the students I teach at the private school where I work are often way more spoiled, even though they are generally poorer.

A working or middle class kid passes the vestibular and gets into a public school, they know they are good and they also know they are competing with Patricinha and Mauricinho and will have to work twice as hard, juggling jobs, school and family commitments. You don't get much arrogance there.

Stick the same kid in a private school, where s/he pays tuition and it becomes immediately obvious that s/he's in the top 10% of the studetn body... Well, that kid is likely to soon develop a very inflated notion of themselves and will start doing stupid ass s**t like stop reading, skipping out on classes and tests... etc.

I'm a FAN of Brazil's public system.It doesn't need to be destroyed, just somewhat democratized. And I don't think that quotas are the way to do that.

DN says...

Who cares about racists if they have no social, cultural or educational support?

Precisely. Without institutional and social support, prejudices are generally annoyances and at worst a personal tragedy.

This is, in my view of things, one of the reasons Abe is so browned off by the discussion of race in Brazil. It was never discussed when he was a kid and things were just FINE (at least for him) back then, so who the hell are we to discuss it now?

Whether he knows it or not, I suspect that what's really emotionally motivating Abe is the fact that he knows he's living in a country where the genie can't be put back into the bottle. With his "there's no racism in Brazil" rap, he's in a very small minority among Brazilians and that's probably a new and unsettling experience for him.

Adrian brings up Fanon's "Black Skin, White Masks" which is one of my personal faves. Anyone who wants to look into the work of a fantastic Brazilian scholar who covers much the same ground as Fanon, but in a Brazilian historical context, should look into Laura Moutinho's new book "Razão, Cor e Desejo". Simply excellent.

Please DON"T waste you skills with A Brazilian. Once he started talking about a black in Southern Brasil with a girlfriend.....? ..

What I get from his last posting is this.. Brazilians haven't been TAUGHT enough . EDUCATED enough. To know that racism exist. In other words, ignorance has been bliss for them. That is of course until non-brazilians have them "taste the forbidden fruit".

A Brazilian, PLEASE just stick with your VALUES platform. This is where you win..All this other stuff is making you seem whacky dude.

Let me see, a gringo talking about racism and they "unpromptedly" came up with examples.

Your faith in our co-citizens intelectual honesty and independence is heartening, Abe.

First, anecdotal evidence (a friend of a friend of a cousin of mine said..). Second, they were trying to find something in common to socialize with you. Third, they are worried about grades.

Maybe you didn't understand what I wrote: most of these stories were from personal lived experience, not from what "a friend of a friend" said. As for "socializing" with the prof and "being worried about grades"... You haven't been inside of a Brazilian university classroommuch, have you Abe? When the prof asks 40 people to give their opinions on racism in Brazil, does it exist or not, and leaves them to it, the students are hardly "socializing", nor do they have any idea of what the prof himself thinks. In fact, before bringing up the topic, I said I was full-square against quotas. If anything, I expected that that would earn me at least SOME brown-nosing from your ideological colleagues. Only one student bothered to take a stance similar to yours, however.

As for grades.... Given how the course is graded almost entirely on multiple choice exams and papers regarding classical sociologists, there's very little room for me to downgrade anyone for ideological incorrectness, even if I were that big of a bastard.

But the fact that YOU seem to think that it's a professor's roll to downgrade students who don't agree with him tells me a lot about what you'd probably be like as a professor. [shudder]

The way social scientists work is an insult to science.

That comment would probably have a lot more sting if it actually came from a scietnist. But coming as it does from a man who seems to be wholeheartedly committed to fascism - one of the most irrational doctrines to ever have stalked the planet - it's really rather hard for me to get worked up over it, Abe.

The problem with moral relativism, as Thaddeus and other leftwing nuts promote, is not that you are automatically agreeing with genital multilation, you can be moral relavitist and disagree with that.

And here's one of the reasons the comment doesn't hurt. We were talking about CULTURAL, not MORAL relativism, Abe. And as you can see, if you'd bother to look, I fully agreed above that moral relativism is impossible and unviable.

So when you accuse me of being "a left wing nut" who "supports moral relativism", you are either showing yourself up as an ignorant ass or a simple liar.

Either way, it's not a good stance to take if you truly want to be popularly acclaimed by the masses as the defender of all that's right and truly Brazilian.

Rest assured, Abe, I'll be thinking of you in class tomorrow and laughing my ass off.

...I have to go off and warp another batch of young growing minds.

Buarararararararara!

Whether he knows it or not, I suspect that what's really emotionally motivating Abe is the fact that he knows he's living in a country where the genie can't be put back into the bottle. With his "there's no racism in Brazil" rap, he's in a very small minority among Brazilians and that's probably a new and unsettling experience for him.

Thaddeus, the Brazilian history didn't start with you. If I thought that I would have been ignorant. There have always been black movements in Brazil, especially in the time of the civil rights movement in the US. The only difference is that they never managed to achieve anything because their assumptions are fundamentally wrong. People just don't see it in their daily lives, therefore they don't think that's a reason to act.

So what happens today is business as usual, with the difference that some in the government are trying to push something the people isn't asking for. There's no public clamour for any measure, but they do it in the hope of gaining new voters.

If there were as much injustice as anyone like you or like any other militant of a black racist movement of the past or present thought there was then this country would have seen a lot more turbulence. How can the allegedly "50%" of the people stay quiet in front of such "injustice"? Hahahaha. I say "allegedly 50%" because it's only 7% in reality, but the black racists applying some scientific racism Math sum it up to 50% because any non "racially pure" person can't be white in their opinion (but they can be black, which makes it quite illogical). The KKK would be proud of them.

One example for you:

http://forum.educacao.blog.uol...-8953204-0

See the quantity of people opposing it compared to those supporting it. Now see the contents of the comments. Those supporting it use a lot of letftist jargon as "Elite", "Colonizer" and other emotional appeals, such as calling others "selfish", but no argument whatsoever. This is clearly ideologically motivated.

The fact. There was no clamour coming from the people for such action, but it was bureaucratically determined by a few, and it is ideologically motivated.

Your texts are usually full of fallacies, but this last one was the lowest so far. For those who haven't caught that, here is a link for a better clarification:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_motive

Basically he is trying to discredit my ideas this way, and in a few others as well. If I had to choose the funniest one I would pick his leftist automatic response of calling a "fascist" anybody that's not a leftist or are not into this "let's go primitive, primitiveness is cool" idea.

Maybe you didn't understand what I wrote: most of these stories were from personal lived experience, not from what "a friend of a friend" said. As for "socializing" with the prof and "being worried about grades"... You haven't been inside of a Brazilian university classroommuch, have you Abe? When the prof asks 40 people to give their opinions on racism in Brazil, does it exist or not, and leaves them to it, the students are hardly "socializing", nor do they have any idea of what the prof himself thinks. In fact, before bringing up the topic, I said I was full-square against quotas. If anything, I expected that that would earn me at least SOME brown-nosing from your ideological colleagues. Only one student bothered to take a stance similar to yours, however.

It is not that simple. It's not for anybody to go against the tide inside of a group. They certainly know what the professors think, and some students are also ideologically motivated and would defend their ideologies fervorously. A good part would be neutral and would want to avoid controversy, so they would just play along. Only a few would stand against it.

Anyway, your little experiment may be anything, but scientific or some sample from which we can draw conclusions about all Brazilians. Not sure what you meant by mentioning it. Does the majority of your students think this way? That may be. But Brazil isn't a sociology classroom.

That comment would probably have a lot more sting if it actually came from a scietnist. But coming as it does from a man who seems to be wholeheartedly committed to fascism - one of the most irrational doctrines to ever have stalked the planet - it's really rather hard for me to get worked up over it, Abe.

I think everybody can see how "scientific" you are.

And here's one of the reasons the comment doesn't hurt. We were talking about CULTURAL, not MORAL relativism, Abe.

My commitment is with the truth, I didn't mean to hurt you. Morals and values are inside of what a culture is. What I was saying is that as an evolving culture we must seek the best. Of course this notion is wider than the amoral notion of culture as means of communicating symbols.

What can we learn about primitive culture such as the indigenous or african ones?

Excellent post. My mother is a teacher in Rio and I have a number of family members who teach in public schools. I am glad we have people like you trying to make this situation change once and for all. You nailed the issue: Brazilians in general do take everything personally. In my line of work, I deal with a lot with conflict transformation (centered towards solving environmental disputes). In conflict resolution we never change values or try to solve them. Simply because we learn them as we grow, but what we can change/teach is how we perceive the other.

I have been for the past few weeks working in the Philippines with a particular local community trying to get some peace resolutions related to environmental conservation. Basically, another ethnic group was dumping some toxic waste into the water and this other group lived downstream and had some serious health problems like cancer, respiratory issues etc. I quickly learned that by bringing the issue-specific to the surface (which was years of racial hatred), that the other issues were a lot easier to solve. By going deeply into the racial context, we were able to progress and get all the parties involved at least talking to one another. Any conflict arising today has a history, it can go back thousands of years of just a few centuries or even weeks. Kenya is a good example of deep ingrained racial tensions, whatever happened in the last month or so had roots in history.

Brazil needs desperately to do the same. We need to have an open forum on racial discrimination and how it affects our society. Before we can grow as individuals, as a group, and as a country we need to address what makes us uncomfortable. You cannot build trust on false premises. Unless we are serious about this, many more children will be left out of the loop. A Brazilian mentions that some kids don't want to study, this is true with all children, howeverin Brazil black children are denied education and are forced work (pay a visit to the Northeast or even in Rio, many kids are working long hours in order to survive). Enforcement needs to be taken seriously, hardly anyone gets sent to jail for not sending a kid to school. The social workers are underpaid and overworked. In the end, I truly believe that the system must be changed. I believe that we need a top-down/down-top approach in order to solve racial conflicts in Brazil. Anyone interested should read A nested theory of conflict, and will see that racial conflict is an intertwined problem which does not have boundaries, but it has a beginning. It starts with you and I and it transcends all the way up to the government officials (the system).

One thing is certain, by denying that racial discrimination occurs in Brazil and inside the classrooms, we are in fact neglecting our children. I challenge anyone on this board to think seriously. Will Brazil have a future by denying today's citizens the right to education, health, sanitation, equality under the law? We are signators of the Declaration of Human Rights and it is my opinion that Brazil violates basic human rights. We violate every single article.

Excellent post. My mother is a teacher in Rio and I have a number of family members who teach in public schools. I am glad we have people like you trying to make this situation change once and for all. You nailed the issue: Brazilians in general do take everything personally. In my line of work, I deal with a lot with conflict transformation (centered towards solving environmental disputes). In conflict resolution we never change values or try to solve them. Simply because we learn them as we grow, but what we can change/teach is how we perceive the other.

I have been for the past few weeks working in the Philippines with a particular local community trying to get some peace resolutions related to environmental conservation. Basically, another ethnic group was dumping some toxic waste into the water and this other group lived downstream and had some serious health problems like cancer, respiratory issues etc. I quickly learned that by bringing the issue-specific to the surface (which was years of racial hatred), that the other issues were a lot easier to solve. By going deeply into the racial context, we were able to progress and get all the parties involved at least talking to one another. Any conflict arising today has a history, it can go back thousands of years of just a few centuries or even weeks. Kenya is a good example of deep ingrained racial tensions, whatever happened in the last month or so had roots in history.

Brazil needs desperately to do the same. We need to have an open forum on racial discrimination and how it affects our society. Before we can grow as individuals, as a group, and as a country we need to address what makes us uncomfortable. You cannot build trust on false premises. Unless we are serious about this, many more children will be left out of the loop. A Brazilian mentions that some kids don't want to study, this is true with all children, howeverin Brazil black children are denied education and are forced work (pay a visit to the Northeast or even in Rio, many kids are working long hours in order to survive). Enforcement needs to be taken seriously, hardly anyone gets sent to jail for not sending a kid to school. The social workers are underpaid and overworked. In the end, I truly believe that the system must be changed. I believe that we need a top-down/down-top approach in order to solve racial conflicts in Brazil. Anyone interested should read A nested theory of conflict, and will see that racial conflict is an intertwined problem which does not have boundaries, but it has a beginning. It starts with you and I and it transcends all the way up to the government officials (the system).

One thing is certain, by denying that racial discrimination occurs in Brazil and inside the classrooms, we are in fact neglecting our children. I challenge anyone on this board to think seriously. Will Brazil have a future by denying today's citizens the right to education, health, sanitation, equality under the law? We are signators of the Declaration of Human Rights and it is my opinion that Brazil violates basic human rights. We violate every single article.

How can you tout "values" WITHOUT being "ideological? And just how do you see Brazil? Is it a fair place..(and not to say ANY other place is wholly just)

I''d also like to know what is the difference between cultural relativism and moral cultural relativism? All cultures have their own sets of morals.How does this fit into your discussion?
I am very curious.. Please help me understand

Will Brazil have a future by denying today's citizens the right to education, health, sanitation, equality under the law?

This is a logical mistake. You make a question whose answer is obvious, but it is not connected to the subject being discussed. The subject is about racism and there's no connection between those things you mentioned and racism. There's no system designed to keep people that way. It has historical roots, but it is not impossible for someone to improve his life.

What I get from his last posting is this.. Brazilians haven't been TAUGHT enough . EDUCATED enough. To know that racism exist. In other words, ignorance has been bliss for them. That is of course until non-brazilians have them "taste the forbidden fruit".

Of course, that's just ridiculous.

My wife is currently working with the Brazilian black media of the 1920s. There was plenty of discussion about race and racism, even back then, and the U.S. influence in Brazil at that time was basically nil.

Abie says:

If there were as much injustice as anyone like you or like any other militant of a black racist movement of the past or present thought there was then this country would have seen a lot more turbulence.

Again, Abie, your unfortunate habit of building strawmen and setting them on fire is coming to the fore, once again. I certainly am not making and have not made any claim as to the measurable level of injustice in this country, whatever these anonymous black militants you like to cite say (and really, Abe, almost every argument you’ve made so far has referenced some poorly-defined “they”. Are you sure you aren’t paranoid?). While there certainly is injustice and racism in Brazil, neither I nor you have any way of measuring it quantitatively. I wouldn’t even try. But the argument that “It must be relatively little injustice because I don’t see turbulence” has very little weight coming as it does from you. One thing’s damned clear from our discussion, Abe: you spend an awful lot of time trying to “wish racism away” and such a wishful thinker is certainly a poor judge of how much racial strife there is and has been in our country.

With regards to your apparent fascism, this isn’t an “appeal to motives” but, as I mentioned above, a quite honest and measured appraisal of your world views, as you’ve portrayed them here. You believe that a people of a country are and should be naturally united through a common politics and culture and that variants need to be stamped out for the “good of the nation”. You presume that nations do indeed have discrete, bounded, unique cultures and that such cultures should be homogenous and homogenized. The only difference I can see between your world view and that of classical fascism (or, more properly, its Brazilian Integralist variant) is that you have substituted race with culture in your ideology. Instead of working for a racially pure people, you propose we work for a culturally pure people. This, at least, is what I’ve managed to glean from your constant appeals to a supposedly homogenous and homogenized “Brazilian culture” and your claims that political and cultural plurality will inevitably destroy the nation.

As I’ve said before, whatever adjective you give to your ideas, they are deeply rooted in classic fascism. Again, this is no ad hominem attack: it’s an honest appraisal of your ideas, as you present them to us. The idea that anyone who uses “fascism” is making an “appeal to motives” argument is ridiculous. If that were the case, then fascism itself would need to be a mythological creature. But fascism is a historical ideology which has given birth to many variants and which still, unfortunately, has many adherents today, as your arguments prove.

Saying that if something quacks like a duck, waddles like a duck and looks like a duck it probably is a duck is not an appeal to motives attack, Abie. It’s a simple, rational and logical description.

They certainly know what the professors think, and some students are also ideologically motivated and would defend their ideologies fervorously.

These are Freshmen in their first class with a sub teacher who has only told them he opposes quotas. How are they magically supposed to know what I think, Abie, ESPECIALLY when I don’t know what I think? As Adrian will confirm, I’m certainly as skeptical of the American Sociological Definition of race as I am of the Popular Brazilian Definition of Race. It’s YOUR rather innocent belief that people are programmed, like robots, by specific national cultures and can never get around them, but I certainly have never believed in hypodescendency as a valid definition of race. Hell, Adrian and I have argued that one into the ground several times on this forum.

So what, exactly, are these kids supposedly picking up with their extra-sensory powers, Abie? Long before they met me, their opinions on this topic were WELL FORMED. That is how they had a million and one examples ready to give of how racism exists around them.

Seeing as how you aren’t an educator, you can be forgiven for not understanding how classroom dynamics really work. But if you ever DO have the opportunity to ask kids about something they’ve never thought about for themselves, you’d quickly find out that what follows such a question is SILENCE.

Anyway, your little experiment may be anything…

Who ever called it an experiment?

I think everybody can see how "scientific" you are.

Thank you. Relative to you, I’m sure they can.

My commitment is with the truth, I didn't mean to hurt you.

I guess this is another example of “Brazilians taking everything personally”, eh Abe? Looks like you’re having a hard time separating arguments from emotions. My point – to which you addressed this comment – was that we are talking about CULTURAL relativism, not MORAL relativism. How I could possibly be “hurt” by someone else’s ignorance regarding the distinction between the two is beyond me.

Morals are not culture. Or rather, morals can be a part of culture, obviously, but they do not encompass culture. Cultural relativism is a scientific and pragmatic concept. It is the belief that, in order to better understand a culture, one needs to approach it on its own terms. That is all it is. Moral relativism is the belief that there is and can be no moral position in the world that is better than another. Of course there are – but said “superiority” is only valid within the context of a subjective choice. It is not determined by the natural or divine order of the universe.

The study of culture is objectivist in nature. The moral and political decisions we make facing culture are subjective in nature. The problem comes not from the fact that you take a moral and political stance, but from the fact that you then presume that your stance is inherently superior and that such superiority is ingrained in the very nature of the universe and not created by your specific set of circumstances.

Dn sez:

How can you tout "values" WITHOUT being "ideological?

You can’t. The problem isn’t being ideological, however, the problem is presenting ideologies as if they were universal and eternal truths – “naturalizing” them, as we say in the social sciences.

And just how do you see Brazil? Is it a fair place..(and not to say ANY other place is wholly just)

How would you objectively measure such a thing, DN? All you can do is give a subjective opinion. Mine is that no, Brazil is not a fair place. Is it “fairer” than the U.S.? That simply can’t be said with any degree of certainty. My personal feeling is that anyone who tries to compare two highly complex and immense nations like the U.S. and Brazil and come up with a simple “thumbs up / thumbs down” kind of response is probably a fool. It’d take far more information and study than I’ve ever seen anyone accumulate. I’ve been trying to compare the two for close to 25 years now and all I can say is that the more I learn about both, the more impossible simple comparisons appear.

Abe feels qualified to make such comparisons because he’s not a scientist. He thus feels free to cherry pick his data and discard whatever doesn’t fit his preconceived notion of the world. The idea that Christianity is somehow “European” while Islam “is not really African” is an excellent example of this sort of thing. A scientist looks at data, then builds a hypothesis, then tests it. Most people I know who discuss race in Brazil and the U.S. do exactly the opposite: they have a conclusion in mind to begin with, then they go looking for data to cut to fit that conclusion.

With a quarter century of studying race and conflict in the States and Brazil under my belt, all I can say for sure is the following:
1)Both countries definitely have racism.
2)Race, however, is an ideological construct and, as such, it’s been built in different ways in both countries. Trying to apply one country’s historical experience to come up with policies for the other is thus pretty foolish and probably doomed to fail.

That’s about it.

The irony of Abe’s position is that he’s simply a flip side of the “black militants” he hates. They believe, ultimately, that the only “real” racism is the American brand, so if that’s what we’re not seeing in Brazil, then it must be “hidden” somewhere, by damn. Abe works from the same fundamental premise, but then flips the conclusion: because we DON’T see in Brazil exactly the same thing we say in the U.S., then we obviously CAN’T be racist.

My view is that racism in Brazil is not better or worse but DIFFERENT than it is in the U.S. and the steps taken to combat it must also be different. Racial quotas, for example, simply won’t work as they are supposed to in a country that doesn’t believe in hypodescendency.

So I find both Abe and the anonymous “militants” to be the flip sides of the same coin.

I’d also like to know what is the difference between cultural relativism and moral cultural relativism? All cultures have their own sets of morals. How does this fit into your discussion?

Moral relativism and cultural relativism, not moral cultural relativism. See my arguments, above. All cultures have their own sets of morals (plural, note), but culture is not a synonym for morality. Some moral sets are shared between cultures (partially or completely), cultures tend to have more than one moral set

How can you tout "values" WITHOUT being "ideological?

An ideology is a system of ideas designed by a group of people to serve some purpose, examples: communism, fascism, ecologism, etc. If we are talking about values that are above all people and cultures then it makes no sense to talk in group, because the group would be the totality of mankind, therefore it can't be an ideology.

I''d also like to know what is the difference between cultural relativism and moral cultural relativism? All cultures have their own sets of morals.

I don't know, you should ask Thaddeus because he is the one that mentioned a difference between the two things as if they were completely separate. As I see the values and morals are included in the culture, that's why we need to get it from sources other than our own.

And just how do you see Brazil?

Brazil is not a good place at this moment, but can be better if some effort is put in the right direction. I am very skeptical of the current economic stability, because we still have 50k murders a year and problems with violence and education. Why is there so much violence? Poverty? If poverty was the cause of violence we would see a lot of people pickpocketing or stealing food from supermarkets. What poor individual buy machine guns and grenades and a few kilos of cocaine to sell in front of schools? The problem is not poverty, but values!

Thaddeus and his colleagues sound like animals born in the zoo arguing with a wild relative that the life in the zoo is good because they have meals everyday. This is basically what quotas are, and other measures to compensate blacks. They have what to eat but aren't free.

Using the same argument that "blacks are better off in the US" we could say that prisoners in American prisons are better fed and taken care of than many people in third world countries. Should we all go to jail then!?

Two things:

- You see things wrong. What prevents you from cutting others culture to pieces in order to find those good sentiments that make humanity improve? Why should we be limited by what wackos such Thaddeus think? Inidigenous cultures, some african ones and a lot of pagan European stuff are all trash. Useless garbage. Why don't you just pick whatever is is good and discard the rest? Why do you have to carry this dead weight with you wherever you go?

It is not bad to admit that the culture that came from Europe did a few good things. Why deny it? Is it admitting that there's something there that works and that would be useful in your culture something to avoid? That's why Thaddeus' views are so narrow.

Can you imagine such freedom? Limitless, boundaryless.

- The current ideology of multiculturalism serves the purpose of the racists. Yes, those same individuals that less than 100 years ago were claiming to be somehow more evolved. Why? They know that what a few did in the past was wrong and they want to fix it, they know it's not viable to pursue a racist way, but they don't want to stop being white (or black, depending on the case).

So recognizing the "validity" of other cultures is a way of keeping them there and avoiding diluting their beloved identities into something else.

Some people may have good intentions, but they are either unconsciously following the herd or they know what they don't want, i.e., mixing.

With regards to your apparent fascism, this isn’t an “appeal to motives” but, as I mentioned above, a quite honest and measured appraisal of your world views, as you’ve portrayed them here. You believe that a people of a country are and should be naturally united through a common politics and culture and that variants need to be stamped out for the “good of the nation”. You presume that nations do indeed have discrete, bounded, unique cultures and that such cultures should be homogenous and homogenized. The only difference I can see between your world view and that of classical fascism (or, more properly, its Brazilian Integralist variant) is that you have substituted race with culture in your ideology. Instead of working for a racially pure people, you propose we work for a culturally pure people. This, at least, is what I’ve managed to glean from your constant appeals to a supposedly homogenous and homogenized “Brazilian culture” and your claims that political and cultural plurality will inevitably destroy the nation

The problem with discussing with you is that you don't stop saying nonsense and I have to come here and write a lengthy response when I could be doing something better of my life.

No, it's not replacing race with culture. No fascism ever defended the assimilation of other races, or cutting the races in pieces and using what work in them, nor admitted the need for improvement by looking for solutions in other places. Either you don't know the first thing about fascism or you have reading problems.

Read the f**king text! The "appeal to motives" that I mentioned wasn't related to you claims of fascism, but to this part:

Whether he knows it or not, I suspect that what's really emotionally motivating Abe is the fact that he knows he's living in a country where the genie can't be put back into the bottle. With his "there's no racism in Brazil" rap, he's in a very small minority among Brazilians and that's probably a new and unsettling experience for him.

Got it? Do I need to draw for you?

It’s a simple, rational and logical description.

Of someone that can't read properly you mean, right?

These are Freshmen in their first class with a sub teacher who has only told them he opposes quotas. How are they magically supposed to know what I think, Abie, ESPECIALLY when I don’t know what I think?

Are you for real? How can you even consider yourself Brazilian if you don't know how people think most of the times? Leftist ideas are pervasive in the Brazilian society and that's easily verifiable by the quantity of leftist words used in our daily lives (such as Elite as synonym for "rich people, the capitalist opressors") and by reading newspapers. Lots of people actually think that the FARC are a valid political movement depite of all the crimes they commit.

When I said they were ideologically motivaded I mean they were already before attending any class. They got to the university that way.

My point – to which you addressed this comment – was that we are talking about CULTURAL relativism, not MORAL relativism. How I could possibly be “hurt” by someone else’s ignorance regarding the distinction between the two is beyond me.

Morals and values are included in the culture, and you are the one who first cited the term hurt here and I just referred to it:

And here's one of the reasons the comment doesn't hurt.

Are you personalizing things? That tells a lot about your "scientific" capabilities. You have lost argument and now is cherrypicking things here and there just to make it look like you know something we don't. Ridiculous.

Morals are not culture. Or rather, morals can be a part of culture, obviously, but they do not encompass culture.

Changed your mind? What have I been saying for so many comments!? You are wasting my time. I really have more important things to do than to talk to you.

It is not determined by the natural or divine order of the universe.

Is mathematics cultural or is it part of the natural order of the universe? If it is part of the natural order of the universe then where's it? Can it be measured? How big is the number 3 in kilometers? Can you see a 5 in a microscope?

The problem isn’t being ideological, however, the problem is presenting ideologies as if they were universal and eternal truths – “naturalizing” them, as we say in the social sciences.

The problem is that you don't know what an ideology is. If it is universal then it can't be an ideology.

Abe feels qualified to make such comparisons because he’s not a scientist. He thus feels free to cherry pick his data and discard whatever doesn’t fit his preconceived notion of the world.

That sounds a lot like you. Why do you discard stories of people living nicely without facing racism? Oh no, only the stories of your students that actually think that they saw racism are important.

The idea that Christianity is somehow “European” while Islam “is not really African” is an excellent example of this sort of thing.

These are historical facts! The catholic church was founded there and influence greatly the culture of the region, later the came the reform also there! Islam appeared in Arabia. Is Arabia in Africa? The muslims invaded Africa later and took with them the Islam.

With a quarter century of studying race and conflict in the States and Brazil under my belt, all I can say for sure is the following:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_authority

An appeal to authority or argument by authority is a type of argument in logic consisting on basing the truth value of an assertion on the authority, knowledge, or position of the person asserting it.

So I find both Abe and the anonymous “militants” to be the flip sides of the same coin.

Judging by the fact that you can't do basic text interpretation and haven't really read what I have written anyway I think it's futile to say that the notion of assimilating what is good in others and discard the rest doesn't fit a pro/against binary mentality because there would always what have to discard in some cultures.

Well, who cares. You have your own world of illusions to live with, like Arabia is in Africa and islam is genuinely African, Christianity didn't develop itself in Europe (was it China then?) and certainly black movements and black racists never ever existed in Brazil until last week.

I will make a note of the college you work for and will make sure I never send my kids there.

What poor individual buy machine guns and grenades and a few kilos of cocaine to sell in front of schools?

Yeah, that happens an awful lot, doesn't it Abe? Just millions of those bastards, lining up outside of the schools every day...

I TEACH in and around some of the wosrst favelas and even there this isn't happening except on very, very rare ocassions. You are simply trying to buffalo people into fearing that the sky is falling because people who are afraid are much more likely to buy your fascist bulls**t.

It is not bad to admit that the culture that came from Europe did a few good things. Why deny it?

Who's denying it? Tell me Abe: do even KNOW how to make an argument without setting up a strawman first?

Yes, those same individuals that less than 100 years ago were claiming to be somehow more evolved.

Really? The same individuals, huh? Well, damn. Imagine that.

So let me get this straight: you think multiculturalism is somehow run by a secret cabal of 120-year old racists, Abe? Is that what you're claiming here?

The problem with discussing with you is that you don't stop saying nonsense and I have to come here and write a lengthy response when I could be doing something better of my life.

All I can say is that I guess I just love ordering you around, Abe.

Got it? Do I need to draw for you?

Please do. I'm at least honest enough to admit that it's my speculative reading of your motives while you go about affirming to one and all that I'm a) a racist, b) a Canadian, c) an Anglo-Saxon, d) a multi-culturalist and attributing the most ridiculous and spurious motives imaginable to my arguments, none of which you seem properly able to even grasp, let alone critique. So much for your whining about "appealing to motives".

Are you for real? How can you even consider yourself Brazilian if you don't know how people think most of the times? Leftist ideas are pervasive in the Brazilian society and that's easily verifiable by the quantity of leftist words used in our daily lives (such as Elite as synonym for "rich people, the capitalist opressors") and by reading newspapers. Lots of people actually think that the FARC are a valid political movement depite of all the crimes they commit.

What could any of that possibly have to do with my students and my relationship to them, seeing as how I don't believe FARC are freedom fighters, I don't use "elite" as synonymous for "rich oppressors" or what have you? Your argument is essentially that students are so incredibly brainwashed by massive leftist propaganda that they can't think for themselves even when someone encourages them to do so. And to you, as far as I can see, any opinion you don't agree with is "leftist propaganda", produced by a little cabal of marxist humanists hidden away somewhere, perhaps under the Kremlin. That's a pretty ridiculous view of humanity, Abe. In fact, it borders on something that a sociopath would come up with: a complete inability to see human beings as real people.

All I can say is that I WISH it was so easy to get students to absorb things. They generally don't and any educator will tell you that. And yet here you are, arguing that wee little brains are so maleable that they´ll do and believe any old thing someone suggests.

Abe, you need to get out of whatever hole you're living in (which I suspect is somewhere in Forida) and interact with REAL Brazilians for a change. Especialy with real Brazilian youth. You don't seem to know them very well at all.

You are wasting my time. I really have more important things to do than to talk to you.

So don't let the screen door bang you on the ass on the way out, Abe. I'm trying to have a discussion with the reasonable people posting here, not with a paranoid fascist, though I'll cheerfully beard the fascist on. It should be obvious, even to a clueless person like yourself that I'm more than HAPPY to waste your time, especially when, by doing so, I get a chance to show you up for the paranoid shmuck you are.

Is mathematics cultural or is it part of the natural order of the universe?

At its base, math is philospohical and thus cultural. There's no God- or nature-given reason why you calculate in base 10, Abe. Other cultures have worked out perfectly useful mathematical systems based on base 6, for example.

These are historical facts! The catholic church was founded there and influence greatly the culture of the region, later the came the reform also there! Islam appeared in Arabia. Is Arabia in Africa? The muslims invaded Africa later and took with them the Islam.

Ahn. So you're claiming that Catholicism is the only true Christianity, then? Because Catholicism was a relative late-comer in the game and it's founders did not see themselves as "European" but "Roman" - an appelation which included parts (and only parts) of Europe, Africa and Asia Minor, a fact of which they were well aware, even if you seem to have a difficult time comprehending it.

So you're out 2 for 2 now, Abe. Christianity certainly wasn't "European" in origin and Catholicism wasn't exclusively so.

I think it's futile to say that the notion of assimilating what is good in others and discard the rest doesn't fit a pro/against binary mentality because there would always what have to discard in some cultures.

My only problem with that is your assumption that you have some God- or Nature- given ability to discern ultimate truth and decide - for everyone else in Brazil - what is good and must be assimilated and what is bad and needs to be discarded. Ultimately, it seems to me that you are too cowardly to simply state "This is my opinion, based on what I have learned". You seem to have a need to believe that your opinion is ultimate truth. This strikes me as a deep-seated moral and ethical malaise. Confronted with a universe in which Man will never know for sure and must thus take moral responsability for his positions, you retreat to a false moral absolutism. You're like a child hiding under his covers, afraid of monsters in the dark but also equally sure that, if you refuse to look at them, they can't get YOU.

I mean, really, Abe... NOBODY here has been preaching the sort of ultra-black militant line you are reacting against. Not even Adrian! NOBODY here is a screaming commie leftist. NOBODY here is claiming that European culture (however defined) is useless and harmful. And yet everyone of your screeds so far presumes that this is the rock-bottom position of everyone in the world who doesn't agree with you. Finally, you seem to mistake any position that is not 100% congruent with you own as brainwashing. Listening to you, all I hear is a man raving that an evil cabal is trying to unfairly manipulate others simply by expressing their opinions. And because you can't deal with the opinions that people are really expressing here, you need to transform them into 2 dimensional ridiculous strawmen and then fight THOSE.

Some guy says he thinks African history should be taught in school and you automatically transform him into a fire-spitting, white-hating, Afro-fascist who'd overthrow all of civilization in the name of a romantic dream. Jesus. I bet you sleep with a pistol under your pillow [roll eyes].

I will make a note of the college you work for and will make sure I never send my kids there.

Well, it's too bad that you feel you have the right and ability to control your children's minds even after they become adults. Methinks you're going to be in for a bit of a shock when they grow up and - like all children do - start exploring the world for themselves. But knowing their dad and the probable sort of education you're giving them (given your views, I presume it's some sort of home schooling regime that teaches, for example, that evolution is a lie and the world is onyl 20,000 years old...?), your kids probably won't be able to pass a federal vestibular anyway.

Which is a shame, but hey, somebody's got to pay tuition to keep those private schools going, hey?

Rest assured, the Global Liberal Communist Multicultural Cabal knows where you live and we are coming to suck out your children's brains. There's nothing you can do to stop us. Buararararararararara!

Betchya Abe's son ends up gay, marriesan Angolan transvestite and makes an international name for himself as the first Brazilian pornorap star. Any takers?

This is a logical mistake. You make a question whose answer is obvious, but it is not connected to the subject being discussed. The subject is about racism and there's no connection between those things you mentioned and racism. There's no system designed to keep people that way. It has historical roots, but it is not impossible for someone to improve his life.

You seem to be the person making some real logical mistakes here not me. It doesn't take a child to figure this one out. Brazil, is not a the "land of opportunity" and especially if you are a Black person. We don't have a concrete system, but a we do have a system of social oppression which does not need to have a "SEDE"' or an address because it resides on the minds of people like you. Therefore Abe, our friend's example of discrimination (while visiting Bahia) is a perfect example of what goes on everyday for a black person in Brazil. By denying people education or a right to live in a dignifying manner, we are setting the country for failure. Tell me Abe, how else would you do? Do you really believe that the 10% of "middle class whites" in Brasilia can do it?

Discrimination is a terrible thing for a person to have to go through. America and Brazil have serious issue to resolve, but at least Americans are talking about in a honest manner. Turn on MSNBC or any other "news" and you will see it. Everyone is talking about it and it is a good thing. Brazil on the other hand...

You don't see the connections because you cannot make it or see it. This is why Thaddeus has brilliantly exposed you lack of intelligence.

Abe,

You need to stop blaming America for every single failure in the world. You portray yourself as an uneducated person (I am sure this is not true). Tell me why do you think we are a Third World Country? Do you think corruption, mismanagement, etc. has anything to do with it? Education is the ticket to freedom. Why do you think we have Globo? Why do you think the soap operas are Brazilians favorite past time? I agree with Thaddeus, you are paranoid!

Also:

Using the same argument that "blacks are better off in the US" we could say that prisoners in American prisons are better fed and taken care of than many people in third world countries. Should we all go to jail then!?

You are making illogical comments. The fact that in the US prisoners are well fed has nothing to do with what you are trying to imply. The US is not a signatory of the Human Rights Declaration, but in this case it does treat prisoners with dignity. There are cases of abuse, once they surface, they are dealt with. In Brazil, a signatory of the Human Rights Declaration, prisoners are dealt as if they are animals. Hummm.... Brazil as our dearest Pele once said, "is not a serious country".

You mentioned that we are how we are in Brazil because of our values. I have read a book called Culture Matters by Samuel Huntington (it is available online on netlibrary), and he does actually mention the same idea. Let's take a look at corruption. Do you think this is a cultural issue or it has do to with values? I am an optimistic, and I would like to believe that most Brazilians are hard working people, just trying to make ends meet. Then, you may say that the police is corrupt, the local governors, etc. In my opinion, this is a systematic problem, which needs to be dealt with by the people at the top=Brasilia, setting an example. Values are PART of culture, but it doesn't meant that it is culture. If it was cultural as you like to portray, then it would be accepted as a norm by the majority and certainly there are a lot of honest Brazilians out there.


You demean the poor so badly. Here another "Out of this World" comment"

Brazil is not a good place at this moment, but can be better if some effort is put in the right direction. I am very skeptical of the current economic stability, because we still have 50k murders a year and problems with violence and education. Why is there so much violence? Poverty? If poverty was the cause of violence we would see a lot of people pickpocketing or stealing food from supermarkets. What poor individual buy machine guns and grenades and a few kilos of cocaine to sell in front of schools? The problem is not poverty, but values!

Obviously you are mingling poverty with crime. Not all poor people are criminals, if it was true we might just as well forget about living. Also, drugs will ALWAYS be sold in rich countries, poor countries, middle income countries. Legally or illegally, drugs have been and will be part of society. However, poverty is created by so many aspects and it not connected to values. Poverty is a complex issue, the lack of opportunities such as good education, jobs, BEING DISCRIMINATED, are some examples. What you are implying here is that Brazilians do not have values. I beg to differ. Poor Brazilians do not know how to vote, if they did know we would not be in our current situation. Lula and previous highway thieves, bought votes with empty promises, food for a few day and later delivered zero. Why is that poor Brazilians do not know how to vote? Because they worry about feeding the children next day, therefore today and tomorrow is very important, but the future is a blank page. You assume too much and understand very little about Brazil. Bolsa familia is an attempt to shut the eyes and the mouth of voters with "esmola". Give most people jobs, a decent salary and education (there will always be some that would rather sit and do nothing) and you will see that people (humanity) like progress. We all strive to be better today to excel tomorrow, it is part of our evolution as human beings. We seek to understand medicine, technology, improve agricultural yields because we desire progress. Nobody, Abe, wants to stay in poverty. Ask a street child in Brazil what he would like to do with his life: stay in the streets or have a roof over his head? I have done that, and I challenge you to do the same.

I thoroughly enjoyed your responses to my questions. Thank you , because you didn't have to do that and so thoroughly also. Great! I learned A LOT.

1. Both of you want a better Brazil. And this is good. You obviously aren't content with the status quo.

Not that my opinions matter the least.. But this is what I see from your arguments as an observer.
Abes platform of values is VERY important. And eventhough I haven't heard him say it directly , he thinks they should be "standardized" . At least taking the best in values from other cultures and discarding what is "useless'. But the question is WHO measures that.
I would interject that “ HUMAN values” or better described "moral code" does in fact exist by nature in our CONSCIENCES. And this explains the many similarities in laws against stealing, adultery, murder, etc in almost all cultures.
It just makes it obvious that by nature or divine providence ( to get a little politically incorrect) that we are "wired' with some pretty standard values or morals.
Problem is we humans deviate from and outright violate this inner moral code conveniently when it serves a "self-centered" purpose to do so. A general 'innate" moral code violated when it serves "self" not the interests of the "group" , or in this case , since it appears to be "innate",and existent in all peoples , HUMANITY as a whole.
It appears that Abe would agree that cultures also "evolve" . (borrowing values that "work" discarding "destructive" ones. This even indicates more so that there must be some achievable "standard". Especially if this process of taking the good and discarding the bad continuously results in an "uplifting" of the culture ,observable to all , and in any respective area. We instinctively know beauty and harmony when we see it. We can even "feel" it.
Then BEYOND the obvious innate or conscience moral codes within MOST if not all civilizations , is that even more finer value system of PRINCIPLES. Which appear to accelerate a cultures' "evolution" even further, ie (working hard, being thrifty , etc)
But this is where it becomes "politically incorrect" to go with all the 'secularism" going on in societies today.It’s like no one wants to admit where all this comes from. It all of a sudden becomes a sensitive “religious issue So I digress on this point.
Thaddeus appears to promote "identifying" a problem . Addressing it as such. And working towards a workable solution WITHIN the framework of the cultures current level of evolution as a whole or maybe can we suggest, "consciousness"????

Abe appears to promote that if evolution or develpment of "conscience" is the main focus, such "problems" as racism (if it does in fact exist) would by nature work themselves out. Because instead of looking at things in terms of "this race and that race" and the help that "this race needs to give that race" .Or what freeedoms or oppurtunities to allow "this race or that race" to have , EVERYONE as part of the HUMAN race would on a individual basis and collectively have evolved to the point where inequities in the community at large don't exist. Everyone in the group working on an established and evolving “value system” would in time promote the desired equity in opportunity for all.

But then of course this would mean that a STANDARD on values or morals does in fact exist. AND that IS superior.
And this is where we all become SILENT..... Now talks about about or identifies this innate system of values and consequent principles and WHERE they come from.
You both present good arguments to support your points. But it becomes obvious you need a little of both of what you present as starting points to solve the issue discussed.
Thaddeus everything was excellent that you brought up about Brazils form of racism that is unique to itself and can’t possibly be attacked using American methods. And that in itself appears to actually give credit to “A Brazilians” argument.
The thing is, you can’t expect the State to adopt a “value system” and enforce it , that will benefit “all” of its’ citizens. Everyone , officials and citizens alike would have to agree to follow such a value system. And for this very same reason “quotas” are ENFORCED in the U.S. because there are people who aren’t fair. Actually NOT hiring or admitting those “best” for the position just “BECAUSE “ they don’t like their color. These types “WITHOUT “ values will always be present.

Brazil, on the other hand, since it is a country that doesn’t believe in “hypodescendency” should in fact be acting and supporting each other like one big happy family. But they don’t !. Just like different cultural groups within other countries made up of the same “race”.
Maybe THIS is the whole mistake to begin with.??? The concept of RACE. . In the end the we are all HUMANS. Wired with consciences. And there is no proof that we have come from anything other than two people. As there is also no proof we evolved from apes. Maybe it is acting likes APES that keeps injustices of all kinds going.
Now come on,, do you really think the Italians and Germans of the southern most parts of Brazil don’t believe in hypodescendency????They both respectively have strong racists histories from their contries of orgin. How do you fit that in?
Again , thank you both for all your input.

My youngest son goes into Wendy's to file a job application today. A couple of the jovem that work there quickly intervenve to be sure he doesn't turn his application over to the first line manager. They say to him "You're white, don't give that to her, if you do that you're an idiot, she'll just chuck it in the trash!". They persisted until a more or less father figure type (my guess is he was the franchise owner) shows up from the back room to interact with him directly. He says they told him they'd "call" - "does that mean I'll get hired" he asks me. He says he thinks maybe he'll get hired because out of the whole crew, he "was the only white person there - don't they need to have a mix?". "Don't you think they might think that that was important, ya know, to mix it up a bit considering where they are at and the customers in that area - to have both white and black employees?" he continues. He's very anxious, he really wants to get his first job.

I am assuming you are talking about the U.S , because I haven't seen a Wendys' in Brazil yet.
Maybe youngsters were looking out for your sons best interests. Not wanting your son to feel uncomfortable as the odd ball out. But then maybe the manager "will" mix it up. Especially if the area is mixed. It is funny though that all this has to be considered.
I am black. On the return back to the States I wanted part time work "quick". I asked for an application at my neighborhood McDonalds downtown Phoenix. The staff was predominately hispanic. Every look I got , including from the manager (hispanic also) was like, it's not going to happen.
I didn't really take it as racism. Just an unspoken understanding that it could get "complicated". Or better yet , just one of those instances of them wanting to leave a spot for "one of their own." As far as they are concerned I can get a job anywhere. Whereas , truth be told,, they can't. And I understood this instinctively.
It's almost safe to say that this is exactly what happened your son.
Maybe your son should venture off into a richer neighborhood where his color will give him a free pass. More than likely the few , if any black of hispanic employees there are just to fill a quota.

Yes baiacu, the young boys were clearly watching out for my son - holding a spot for "one of their own" was not on their agenda. Maybe they understood some things my son was oblivious to. Either they must have thought he was cool or something (he is quite gregarious and had a riot / got along very well with everybody we introduced him to in Brazil) or they knew the gal was some kind of Be-atch or they wouldn't have spoken up.

As for a richer neighorhood, ours is but is also a bit isolated / more rural like setting - he will have to go about a mile or two in town / a bit downscale to find part time work of any kind. I'd venture to say that at least 90% of the employees for that establishment live considerably farther away from it than we do. Being all of the employees were black, I don't see the "fill a quota" thing coming in to play. Maybe the owner will decide to mix it up - both discrimination and reverse discrimination suits seem to be all the rage these days. My other son has worked the McD's across the street from there as well as the infamous Wmart up around the corner. Ignoring these kids working the hot dog stands, the vast majority of the black and hispanic people you see in that zone are just like us - they come there to shop all the new stores that are opening while those in the city in the big malls / strips nearer to their homes are closing down.

ok I get . Now that you described the demographics. I can see why it's funny
Fortunately with God's will all this foolishness won't be an issue. It is something only God can undo. I enjoyed the previous debates on the subject . I learned A LOT. But it's really all very simple. Man-made governments aren't going to change anything. Simple BECAUSE they are man-made. There will always be people deviating from very basic values. And even more not even considering principles. Especially in a world where it has become fashionable to believe that no superior values and principles exist. Like nothing in the Bible , the Koran , or the Torah is anything of substance. Just a bunch a values and principles that came out of nowhere.
Many cop out with the excuse that really doesn't fit. "Well this group or nation claims to have these values from this or that book but they violate just about every principle in there. ... True, there are hypocritical individuals and nations. But it doesn't take anything away from the book and the obvious life-elevating standards it has. Every self-help book on the shelf is full of watered down versions or explained versions of principles in the three so-called holy books. That to this day are impacting the world. t he current anti-religious ,pro secular climate we are in now proves just that. True impact, albeit in many cases not positive. But that a consequence of individuals and nations "picking and choosing" which values and principles they want to apply. What is convenient for their own selfish interests.
Science is showing us more and more that nature is "harmonious" . Apparently "purposefully". Anything that doesn't serve it purpose eventually disappears.
It's about time many of us get out of denial. Otherwise....Nature WILL take care of it.

And this explains the many similarities in laws against stealing, adultery, murder, etc in almost all cultures.

Sorry, Dn, but that is simply not true. Or, let's put it this way: yes, stealing, murder and adultery are illegal in most cultures, but WHAT is considered stealing, murder and adultery is RADICALLY DIFFERENT.

I'm presuming you're a fairly main-stream Christian, DN. So this means that according to the laws you follow, having sex with anyone other than the one person who is your spouse is either fornification or adultery, correct? And yet most human cultures don't see things that way. In many if not most human cultures, people are allowed to have more than one spouse, to divorce (generally without any sort of religious authorities' consent or that of the State), to have sex with people not their spouses under certain circumstances... In fact, what is considered to be "adultery" (by which I assume you mean some sort of illegal sex between consenting adults who already have partners) varies so radically from culture to culture that there's no way in hell you can claim it's grounded in some sort of transhumanic values.

I won't even get into theft and murder, but I'm sorry, man: what you're saying just isn't true. There is no transhuman set of values that exists by nature in our consciences. It's a nice and comforting belief, but it simply isn't so.

What it breaks down to here is that I base my arguments on where I think society needs to go based on scientific proof while you and Abe seem to base yours on faith.

Because there is, in fact, very little scientific proof that one set of values is better or more evolved than another, I generally withold judgement, even when something personally alarms me, unless I can see that the behavior in question is a clear and present threat to my life or those of people I love. I CERTAINLY wouldn't want to be in the position of saying, as Abe claims, that one form of music or religion is more "evolved" than another and that all others thus need to be discarded. That is simply ridiculous.

Most human hecatombes in history were promulgated by a relatively small group of people who convinced themselves that they had the inner skinny on what God or Mother Nature wants all human beings to do. They then felt that priviledged knowledge gave them free license to run around and do God's work for her, killing, torturing, or imprisioning those who had wrong values. For all the griping about it (and I gripe about it myself), there is an awful lot to be said for multi-culturalism's promotion of tolerance. It seems to me that it's far too easy to convince human beings to go off on lethal crusades and, in my personal value system, erring on the side of tolerance and diversity seems to be a much more likely way of preventing mass killing than believing that one group or another is in posession of superior values.

If you disbelieve that, well... Take a look at the way Abe presents his worldview here and the way all of us supposedly "communist multiculturalists" do so. I'm happy to live in a world with guys like Abe, but I am pretty sure he doesn't feel that way about me - or about anyone who isn't fundamentally like him, for that matter. Hell, just listen to him. Abe doesn't balk at all at gratuitously insulting the better part of the human race, flipping off other people's religions, worldviews and even taste in music as "inferior and unevolved". This is a guy who has a SEVERE problem with how 90% of humanity actually lives its lives. He has an incredibly low tolerance for cultural diversity and a deep-seated faith that God is on his side. You only need to look at what typically happens anytime people like Abe get anywhere near the reigns of power: masscres.

You want to talk "unevolved values"? If we're presuming such things exist, I can't think of anything more unevolved than the rock solid belief that one's own tribe is superior to everyone else on the planet. I don't really give one dram of rancid bat-piss if you think said superiority is based on biology, values or what have you: it's fundamentally the same position, whatever agency you attribute your "superiority" to. When you talk about the need for homogenous values, DN, I'm sorry, but I don't see progress: I see the same old whip-song humanity's labored under for the past 15,000 years or so and I see no reason to believe that THIS time, that stale old line about Chosen Peoples and God-given Values is going suddenly bring on the Jubilee. It has NEVER done so before.

Thaddeus everything was excellent that you brought up about Brazils form of racism that is unique to itself and can’t possibly be attacked using American methods. And that in itself appears to actually give credit to “A Brazilians” argument.

No it doesn't, Dn. Not in the slightest. Abe does not believe that racism exists or ever has existed in Brazil. He's made that point many times. My point is completely opposite: I believe that racism is very much alive and well in Brazil, but that because of Brazil's history, it has some very specific characteristics that are not congruent with racism in the U.S.

These are two completely different points, Dn. About as different as can be, in fact. When you look at what we're saying, Abe is much more closer in values to those Black Americans who believe that Brazil is "backwards" on racial matters than he is to me, because both Abe and those Yanks see the American racist experience as the only "true" one in the world.

Maybe THIS is the whole mistake to begin with.??? The concept of RACE.

Of course race is a stupid concept. But the problem is, race DOES exist as a historical and political artefact which has been used to screw with people's lives. To discuss its effects and formulations in THAT sense doesn't make one a racist. That's one of the big problems with Abe's argument: discussing how race has worked in the world is not racism, any more than discussing how Christianity has worked in the world makes one a Christian.

Now come on,, do you really think the Italians and Germans of the southern most parts of Brazil don’t believe in hypodescendency????

WHICH Italians and WHICH Germans in WHAT PART of Southern Brazil? I've lived in SP and areas south for decades and I know plenty of mixed couples there, so obviously your statement doesn't have a blanket value, does it? In fact, almost every black Brazilian I know in SP and Rio has some Italian ancestry. Now, when you go off to some place like the Vale do Itajaí, yeah, you'll probably find some folks who have a more hypodescendant view of things. But so what? Not everyone in the U.S. believes in hypodescendency, so if we're gonna start looking at small minority views, the very idea of a homogenous national culture on this point is nuts.

That said, however, it's pretty clear that hypodescendency is the hegemonic view in the States while mestiçagem is the hegemonic view in Brazil. A couple tens of thousands of examples to the contrary - or even a few million - doesn't change that general pattern.

Especially in a world where it has become fashionable to believe that no superior values and principles exist.

Whatever the fashion may be, Dn, I do not believe in absolutle superior values because a) there is no proof at all that they exist b) what proof we do have - and there's a lot of it - is that REAL human values (meaning what people can actually be shown to do) are as diverse as the day is long.

Just a bunch a values and principles that came out of nowhere.

What they came from, Dn, were concrete human historical experiences. And I don't know many people who'd claim there is nothing good in those books you mention, so it seems to me you're building a strawman, here. Athiests are DEFINITELY in the very small minority in this world, so I don't get your claim that doubt is fashionable these days.

Science is showing us more and more that nature is "harmonious" . Apparently "purposefully". Anything that doesn't serve it purpose eventually disappears.

Huh? Where'd you get that one from? Even if we could say that nature's harmonious, that's no logical proof of purpose.

Whether predator, symbiot or parasite, man simply will not go harmoniously forward together with the non-human part of nature in this world much less than with his own kind. Although it may seem this way or that way or that such and such values are better / more advantageous / "proper", all that becomes "sacred" in a sense, joined to rigourously by a majority, staked out as undeniable / unchangeable, becomes stagnant as time passes and "nature" only tolerates that for so long. Purpose is a logical construct used to explain men's machinations, not some intrinsic essence of nature. It matters little what motivates ones purpose.

You are right from your perspective......No argument from me.

I have chosen to "believe", ( in the end that's what it is all about anyway, no matter what your position) that the issues such as racism WILL NOT ever be solved by any of mans efforts. You can spend a lifetime studying it.. Present it to the government. And there will always be resistance to some form of progress. Because there will always be certain ones that will not call that progress.
You "do' have to "believe" and this is where we differ.. And that is ok. That is the gift of choice and free will. I just like to hear other peoples opinions. And thank you for responding.
I have learned from my own personal experience ( and it is always "personal" anyway) that I NEED GUIDANCE. I have read a book that distinguishes itself by it's prophecies. And that convinces "me" that it is a light in this mess that we are in. I have witnessed first hand how the values and principles advocated in this book when applied dramatically change the lives of many irrespective of race, culture , ethnicity for the better. What 's even better is that this book of guidance is practically available all over the world. And I don't think it is by accident.
I challenge you after studying racism for over 25 years to give us the solution. ......You can't... It is that simple. Neither can Abe expect all peoples to accept whatever values he may found to be superior. There will be no mass conversion. There will be no forced acceptance of anyones values.
So we are back at square one.. Something bigger than ourselves has to resolve it.
Man , with all that he has achieved SCIENTIFICALLY , has still failed to provide the basics , like peace , security and prosperity for most. Won't happen. Not only will the dominant selfishness in man (as evident by the whole concept of race and its' subsequent problems) , but other life forms exist (for the time being) that will insure that doesn't happen. You can't other spirit forms of life out of the equation. Take a look at any local Candomble ceremony. The activity of these invisible life forms manifest itself in many ways. Hilter was heavily involved in occult sciences. No one denies these unseen forces exist.
Everything we "need" to know about them is explained in that book. Mainly that they don't have mankinds best interests in mind. Really they want us all dead.
We don't stand a chance against them..... That's why we need "GUIDANCE".
But of course,,,, from a purely scientific and secular position... That's all hogwash..
There is no PROOF that energy came out of nowhere either.
It is all what you choose to believe.. It has always been that way.
I have been around long enough to understand that men aren't going to get it right on there own.

Sorry I was being vague.. Now that I have been exposed I might as well make it clear that I believe in a GOD that has a PURPOSE. And consequently we humans are here for a PURPOSE to fullfill. With that in mind, it may behoove us to find out WHAT that purpose is. Man , left to his own devices is going head first to self -destrucion despite all of his SCIENTIFIC achievements.
I am sorry I used the word NATURE . Nature itself can't explain written prophecies nor written values and principles that when applied actually work and transcend time and cultures. There is no other explanation for this but a HIGER INTELLIGENT DESIGNER.
The arguments are interesting.. But at some point it just becomes entertainment going nowhere.
If we all spent 25 years studying Love , Dr W's topic wouldn't even be up for discussion

I have chosen to "believe", ( in the end that's what it is all about anyway, no matter what your position)

Dn, that's silly and you know it. If you TRULY think belief trumps reality, then I want to see you climb to the top of my apartment building, flap your arms, and fly off like a sparrow. Believe and anything's possible... right? When it comes down to brass tacks, both you and I know that you will act as if a foundational reality exists, in spite of your beliefs.

...such as racism WILL NOT ever be solved by any of mans efforts.

Well, people said the same thing about slavery at one point, and well it certainly still exists in the world, we can definitely say it's been greatly reduced. Likewise, for all the pooh-poohing of civil rights in the U.S. that certain people engage in, that struggle has DEFINITELY made the U.S. a better place to live. So while racism, per se, may never be completely eliminated, it - like the bubonic plague - can be reduced. And that, of course, it the entire point in studying it.

I challenge you after studying racism for over 25 years to give us the solution. ......You can't... It is that simple.

By that same logic, we shouldn't bother to study AIDS, correct? After all, we can't cure it, so why bother to study it? Likewise we shouldn't study cancer...

It's not an "all or nothing" universe, Dn. Measureably reducing some plagues is a worthwhile thing, even if we can't eliminate them entirely.

While I can't "solve" racism, I can most definitely give you some ideas on how to reduce it that have been proven to work. The first of these, obviously, is to avoid enshrining essentialist classifications in law. The second is to educate our children to respect diversity - or at the very least, most forms of it. I do happen to agree with Abe that every human being on the planet is going to have their personal "line in the sand" on this issue beyond which he or she will not go. But there's a huge difference between, say, believing that female circumcision or concentration camps are horrible and need to be fought and believing - as Abe apparently does - that European musical and literature forms are the most "evolved" in the world and thus only those should be taught to our children. Teaching people to perceive difference as not necessarily threatening greatly reduces racism. Teaching the depth and breadth of human experience instead of just a small, narrow section of it because we believe that is "superior" is also a way to reduce racism.

Man , with all that he has achieved SCIENTIFICALLY , has still failed to provide the basics , like peace , security and prosperity for most.

And yet, nevertheless, basic indicators of human well-being have been climbing for the past 500 years all across the planet. I have very little faith in peoples' denunciations of evil or powerless science when these come couched on an internet bulletin board. Let's face it Dn: 200 years ago, both you and I would be busting our backs from sun-up to sundown hoeing rows, picking and planting. Without a doubt, our current life offers us more choices, more control over our lives, greater amounts of material wealth to play around with and less pain and fear (though perhaps more anxiety). Knowing what I know of 1808, I would not switch with a Joe average back then. There has very definitely been material progress in human existance which has translated to better living all around and that's true even among the poorest third of the planet. Science has been directly responsible for these changes, Dn: not God (though I'm sure God has been happy to see all this and is rooting us on).

Hilter was heavily involved in occult sciences.

Let me get this straight: you think that a syphilitic megalomaniac's belief in astrology is good proof that "invisible forces" exist, Dn? Because that's what that argument looks like...

But of course,,,, from a purely scientific and secular position... That's all hogwash...

That's where you're wrong: a "purely" scientific and secular position is very much open to the hypothesis that such invisible forces exist. In fact, experiments are constantly being carried out all over Earth which seek to uncover these forces. And just given the nature of the universe and what our past discoveries can tell us, there are almost certainly "unseen forces" at work which we have not yet learned to perceive.

So it would be a very poor scientist who'd say such a hypothesis is "hogwash".

But the name of the game of science, as you point out is PROOF. Reproducible proof that something exists independent of someone's subjective belief that it does. and so far, there is vanishingly little proof that there are malevolent unseen entities manipulating human destinies in the way you describe.

BtW, Dn, no physicist I know of claims that energy comes out of nowhere, so why you're holding said belief up as a limitation of science, I have no idea.

dn, you are correct with respect to searching for what such purpose is that has been set forth for each of us. Few if any ever really find it or even ken a glimmer of the thread through time that is to be followed to achieve it. Eventually one comes to understand that one has fallen short of maximally excercising one's greatest potential, contribution, execution of selfless beneficial deeds. Like the rollers coming ashore, every time one surges forward toward peaking, a combination of things beyond our choice and control like the tides, eddys, mounds of sand and rock squelches the power to overcome all. Regarless of one's strength, from time to time one will be caught in the undertow, dragged under out and away. Thoroughly submerged and exhausted, somehow, someway, most resurface after a time, emerge once again and push forward toward that end or goal which is found good by our own limited understanding of our choices.

Intelligent Design is an American experience. It is not an issue in Europe or other parts of the world. I have an excellent article on this subject. I was a student at Dr. Crocker at GMU. She was fired for teaching ID in a Biology class-rightly so. The fact of the matter is that most of ID's argument has to do with ID's follower belief that man has a special place in creation. It is an emotional argument, hard for a believer to get it. What is hard for Christians, Jews, Muslim to believe that their life is simple way to share DNA and to spin the evolutionary wheel. It is funny how people to pick and choose--specially ID's followers that evolution cannot be proven. I will even say, just because it is unexplained it doesn't mean that it will stay forever in such state. Not long ago physicists were the black sheep in science. Did you know that the plate tectonics theory took a long time for American geologists to accept it? It was finally taken into full consideration in the 70's, no wonder evolution still such a controversial subject. Some people still argue about climate change!


I feel that evolution is a subject which a few people truly understand--even for myself a hardcore scientist, therefore to blurt science a hogwash is a sophomoric behavior. The ID crew cannot even agree on the book of Genesis, as you many know, there are 3 groups out there currently arguing about the "7 days" idea vs an epoch and so forth. In my opinion, ID is pure religion and no science (even if some say it has some scientific explanation). In a theory, you have to set your hypothesis out there in different situation and get the same result every time and be able to predict that it will occur in future. The theory of evolution does that, specially with the advent of DNA analysis. Religion on the other hand, has zero proof in a scientific standpoint. God cannot be proven or quantified. It is your interpretation, belief and choice. I am Jewish and even tough you may think I would go against Darwin for writing Decent of Man, I do not. I won't because his work was taken out of context, much like the Bible during the Crusades. Man in the end is the "evil doer" (Bushism). Darwin on his trip to Brazil was horrified at the slave situation, wrote a passage about it on his book and even help influence the abolitionist movement. Also, ID's gang forget the fact that in 1994 a fossil of animals found in the Indian subcontinent had front and hind limbs capable of walking on land and swimming on water. I have read a couple of ID books and they do not mention it once!

..such as racism WILL NOT ever be solved by any of mans efforts.

Wrong. This attitude is like saying" let's keep things the way they are, not worth