User talk:SprSynJn

White
There is no such thing as "white" culture and more than there is a native american culture. People who are labeled "white" are such a diverse group of people, with differing cultural histories and tendencies, to call it "white" stems directly from a antiquated way of racist thinking (by definition its racist thinking, and as with all racist thinking, except perhaps the most trivial, will do nothing but cloud your thinking). Much of the dominant culture in Europe was developed by people who were not what you would call "white" as much as it was influenced by people who were. Many groups of "white" people had a lot less influence on it than other groups of "brown" people. You might be suprised at how much Middle Eastern and Indian (as in southeast asia) has shaped European culture (and indcidentally vice-versa, as with all cultures that are in any contact).

So are you saying we should judge people based on what their ancestors did? When a murderer is arrested should we arrest their children too? Or should we just make make sure they feel ashamed of what their parent did? What if they were adopted and were quite rational minded and thought "well I'm not my genes, so what my father did, while quite heinous, had nothing to do with me, so I'm not going to go feeling guilty about it" would that make them a bad person?

There are plenty of things to feel guilty about (or rather ideally to work on fixing), like using fossil fuels and in general being wasteful, or not helping the less fortunate in the world. If your going to feel guilty, feel guilty about something your doing, not something that already was done by someone who is not even you! Perhaps you feel guilty because your living on what once was native american land? Well then stop feeling guilty about it and go find out what tribe inhabited the area you live on, go see if you can find any of their ancestors, and give them your house, and move back to wherever your ancestors came from--or work towards requiring everyone else to do the same (quite quixotic, but perhaps its the right thing to do.) Stop feeling guilty and do something. Brentt 19:09, 30 August 2006 (UTC)


 * You do have some good points, and I have taken them into consideraton. Still, I feel that your logic is a bit flawed and that you are still "white-washing", in a way, what western culture has done and what they are doing now. I am fully aware that other cultures have had some influence with western culture, and vise-versa. I am also aware that not all white people are bad, as I stated in your past response, but you don't seem to realize that one bad apple can very easily affect what will be thought of the entire tree. There are sterotypes all throughout this planet with all the different cultures there are. Just because you feel we should not use them when assessing others does not mean everyone shouldn't as well. To me that is no different then when president William McKinley advised he was going to take the Philippines to educate the people and Christinize them. He was looking in their best interest, thinking he was going to save them by doing what he thought was right for them. Sounds bad now many people would say, yet it does not sound to far off from what you are generally saying. I do not mean to offend, if that is the case, but that is how I see it.


 * On your comment about the father being a murderer. This will probably sound a bit harsh to you, but I am going to mention something I have learned of a culture that I study at the moment: Japan. You might be aware of what happens to a family when one person commits a crime such as murder, or anything harsh like that. Basically, the entire family will suffer. Of course they will not all be put to death, nor will they face charges for their fathers crime; society will basically shut them out. Their children will find it very hard to get a job when they are older, schools will not allow them in, people will steer clear of them, etc. Reputation is important there. You, I am sure, believe this is bad and not fair, but I believe it is fair and just. It keeps the family in line. It has even been done ever since ancient Chinese civilizations have written texts. When a single person rocks the boat, all passengers will be forced out. When one person does something that society does not approve of, the entire family is blamed. Something this country should really start doing.


 * I have heard that whole speach "stop feeling guilty and do something about it" so many times. Yes, I should do something about it, but hearing if from someone like yourself who has absolutely no remorse is utterly ridiculous. You have no right telling me or anyone what they should do to redeem themselves. You of all people should be telling yourself what to do, I mean you dont even believe you have any fault do you? Do you even associate yourself with your culture and its past? What about your ancestors? You pass it on as history yet not even realizing that the very same mistakes are still being made today by people like yourself. You tell others to do their best to make things right so you can sleep at night knowing you helped someone by doing nothing. Well thank you very much for the advice. I know exactly what I am going to do, I decided it long before we had this conversation. People should help their society. That's a must. If you are going to live in a country that is either yours by birth or one that you want to become a part of, then you must assist that country. You are basically saying the same thing, in a way, am I not correct? That is exactly what I am going to do. SprSynJn 17:46, 16 September 2006 (UTC)