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Re: Racism <longish>
Ania Lian (ania@LINGUA.CLTR.UQ.OZ.AU)
Wed, 20 Mar 1996 13:02:50 +1000
On Wed, 20 Mar 1996, John McCreery wrote:
> Clyde Davenport objects to my writing that,
>
> "any claim whatsoever that people should be treated in a certain
> way because they were born into a certain group is, ipso facto,
> racist."
>
> I would agree, absolutely, that this is a hasty judgment, flawed by
> the vagueness in "treated in a certain way." If, for example, I am
> careful not to serve ham to an orthodox Jewish or Muslim friend,
> that is not racist in the usual sense of the term.
I remember a year ago or so we had a discussion about INTERFERENCE into a
culture. Example of a problem:
Do Chinese people just "culturally" wash themselves twice a week, or
because of teh conditions that they live in? Now, would it be right to
interfere and give them a better water supply? They did for so long so
well without it.
Correlation: Would it be right to tell/show to Indian women that dying
with their husband should be an option not a bounding law? (or allowing
their men to beat them to death, after all this all is cultural: let them
beat them, and if they get born to it and know no better (ie. this is the
norm), why show anybody otherwise?
ania
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