no, that is not at all what i'm saying. people do naturally put themselves in groups, but i'm specifically talking about how races came about naturally (though it was not justified and there was no scientific basis for it).

that's what the Renaissance was all about. what happened was that the while the oppression of the monarchies and religion went away to an extent, the camaraderie of the people disappeared as well and created loneliness and made people feel alone in life. it gave people no reason to freely associate and lead people to drink more, care less about others, etc. and the effects of this have been seen since the Renaissance in European nations and European derivative nations (such as the US). i remember studying this in English 2 where we covered this from a literary standpoint (we studied the artistic time periods, specifically poetry. it was basically a history of literature class). we need a middle ground where people associate in a group setting (i prefer communities, communes, syndicates, districts, etc.), yet they are individuals and we strive off of the strengths of the individual in order to benefit the group. the plan is not to build warring communities, but for neighboring communities rather to communicate peacefully and cooperate with one another. if two communities get into a dispute, all voices are heard on the matter from both sides and it is dealt with like a court case.

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erikboyd60@hotmail.com

"True poetry can communicate before it is understood"

-T.S. Eliot

battle record:

7-0-0

i don't think that's always true, maybe some hardcore patriots will ignore the bad things but not most people from this part of the world anyway. people just like to carry on the traditions of their culture, nothing wrong with that. like my Fijian side, i wanna learn about the pacific island history, culture and traditions.

no, sadly even moderate patriots fall for the whole "we can do no wrong" mentality. my dad is someone i would consider a somewhat far right, while still a bit more moderate that some of the extremists i've met type of guy, and he won't accept any claim that America has ever or will ever be involved in foreign terrorism. the "hardcore patriots" you speak of are called nationalists and those are the type of people that you would find at a Nazi rally with a copy of Mein Kampf in one hand and a club with Jew blood on it in the other.

my new theme song



erikboyd60@hotmail.com

"True poetry can communicate before it is understood"

-T.S. Eliot

battle record:

7-0-0

I just read this, not any of the replies yet.

but wtf is it with americans and white/black people?

its european. not white. im getting sick of catogrising ppls in colour and not coluntry/continent of origin.

if you want positive european history then just ask. damn.

yup.

looooool. what are they teaching you over there? whats a hispanic european? you mean a Spanish person.

How can Latino be a race when you have "white, black and mixed race" people.

Jennifer Lopez = Latino, right???
Carla from Scrubs "im latino not black".

??? isnt a "race" suppose to be the same colour or people (caucasian, negroid etc <<< these names are just wrong and i sure dont want to be named after them) , come on latino is a culture, well thats how we see it from europe anyway.

i disagree, different people will react in different ways but overall i dont think this is the case.

exactly

that's the thing though. this is EXACTLY what happened. this is also what happened when we first came across the Native Americans when we got to America. even Howard Zinn recognizes the hostility of the common European settler in America towards the Natives. and i'm not even talking about hostility, i'm talking about automatically recognizing "we're not them". the automatic reaction of the people in general was "whoa, what are those people? i've never seen anything like them".

no, wrong again. CULTURE, not ethnicity. Latino CULTURE is more than a mere skin color, language or group thereof, and/or region from which the people are from. it's an entire way of life. every bit a person's life -- his/her mannerisms, the food they eat, the slang they use, the specific dialect they use, they stories they tell, they jokes they find funny, the religion they follow, etc. -- is a part that person's culture. this goes for the Latino culture, just like my Hungarian culture. we eat Hungarian foods, my grandparents used to share stories of Hungary, we follow a lot of European traditions, including having wine at the dinner table, my mom would remedy our stomach flu's by giving us a cap full of hard alcohol, etc. that's a culture. though i'm not immersed in Hungarian culture like she was, i still very much have Hungarian culture embedded in me. i also am a little bit immersed in Latino culture because a majority of my friends are Latino and the homes that i considered a home away from home were owned by Latino families. my friend's mom (she's half Mexican, half Salvadorean) was pretty much like my second mom and i'd go over there every Sunday for carne asada bbq's. also, there are Mexican restaurants EVERYWHERE (and i'm sure it's the same there) that i go to quite consistently.

that is culture. it doesn't discriminate on race/color/ethnicity, it doesn't exclude anyone for being different, it doesn't show hatred to other cultures (though individuals within may choose to because that's just how some people are no matter what you do), it just is. if we got rid of culture that would be a travesty. culture is what gives us a sense of oneness while we remain individuals. community is another one of these things. to get an understanding of how it would play out in my mind, just check out a YouTube video on the Sudbury Democratic Schools. the one that Menace posted in the Philosophy/Science thread is pretty good. it will give you a good perspective. you could also just look up Sudbury on YouTube and they have basically a short documentary on the school. it shows how people can be a part of a group, yet still be individuals at the same time. when you lose a feeling of being a group, loneliness ensues, which can lead to psychological problems. this is proven by history.

my new theme song



erikboyd60@hotmail.com

"True poetry can communicate before it is understood"

-T.S. Eliot

battle record:

7-0-0

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

i see what u sayin, but there goes the WE (WHITE PPL) card again,

I didnt go to the americas.

my ancestors went there 1000 years ago (swedish side of me) and we didnt do shit to the natives. like the other europeans did 500 years later/ago.

so ppl have to stop using the WE cos I DONT REPRESENT THE BRITISH/SPANISH/PORTUGUESE/DUTCH/FRENCH just cos im "white".

i was around 5 first time I saw an african growing up and i didnt have those reactions so keep ME out of the WE.

i think, meaning u can freely disagree, that europeans just saw natives as a race of ppl with no land ownershp and very weak militarely, not some purple aliens. which made it easy for them to use religion on top of that to justify the new world discovery back home to go and kill and takeover. multicultalrism has been happenin for 1000 of yrs, greeks in egypt, romand down in sudan, jews and arabs in europe for over 1000 yrs. trade with Asia thru the silk road etc. this wasnt new to them, they didnt see them as "woah look at those mothafuckers".. jus my opinion dough feel free to disagree.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road
The Silk Routes (collectively known as the 'Silk Road') were important paths for cultural, commercial and technological exchange between traders, merchants, pilgrims, missionaries, soldiers, nomads and urban dwellers from Ancient China, Ancient India, Persia and Mediterranean countries for almost 3,000 years

but ethnicity has to do with colour/race so u sayin jennifer lopez, carla from scrubs, christina aguilera and some of the black african-cuban vollyball team are the same race? and ive heard that argentinians and mexicans dont have shit in common but the spanish language. so ive heard from ppl online... they jus speak the same language thats all i see it as and have some latin european and native culture mixed in one, and african culture in most the countires in latin america on top of it. i could be wrong though.

We are talking about common people from Europe in the DARK AGES going to a "new world " seeing strange people . Of course Europeans were like Whoa . Before the new world such mass immigration didn't occur . Only merchants were going up the silk road not common people .

no, i'm saying WE as in Americans.

same here, but you have the internet now, your parents had undoubtedly told you about black people, etc. you were already well oriented with the concept of a black person. and btw, when i was 5, even with the forewarning, i was still kind of in shock when i saw the first black person i ever saw (though not in a bad way. it was just kind of like "whoa, cool!")

the ruling class among the Europeans, specifically the ones that had already seen other types of people, viewed them in such a way, but i'm talking about the common European.

exactly.

no, i implied what Menace was saying from the beginning. re-read what i wrote.

my new theme song



erikboyd60@hotmail.com

"True poetry can communicate before it is understood"

-T.S. Eliot

battle record:

7-0-0

we are a part of a group called American culture whether you like it or not. it's stupid to sit here and seclude yourself from a group just because you don't want to acknowledge their actions. it is a part of your group's past. you didn't do shit as an individual you take no responsibility, but you're an American. recognize that a group you are a part of did terrible things, as well as great things. if you accept that you are a part of that group, you will have a reason to realize that you are in part responsible for making it better.

they come from the same culture. idc what wikipedia says. apparently the person that wrote that hasn't taken an anthropology class in the last several decades.

my new theme song



erikboyd60@hotmail.com

"True poetry can communicate before it is understood"

-T.S. Eliot

battle record:

7-0-0

http://www.google.com/search?....10&sa=N