Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Apology

I apologise for the idiotic racist comments I made in a previous post.

The word ‘darkies’ is clearly an offensive word, and although I was expecting it to be taken in the light-hearted, half-serious manner that it was used, I realise now that its use in that context was ill-judged and in bad taste. I make a mistake and I’m sorry.

Please understand that while I do hold politically incorrect views, those views in no way affect how I treat other people outside of the internet. I work with several non-white people and I’m very proud of the unbiased and colour-blind way I treat them.

Not only would I never use that word ‘darkies’ in real life, but I wouldn’t tolerate that kind of language from anyone else either. I should have known better and I’ll make sure to avoid such inappropriate language in the future.

I apologise as well for the name-calling. It was immature of me to use the name Aspergers boy. It was partly as a result of my anger and frustration at him for having exposed my numerous errors and factual inaccuracies and partly because I wanted some way to distinguish him from the other Anonymous posting on the site. I was wrong to call him the name I called him though. I can understand why he found it insulting.

Anonymous, I regret that my behaviour has resulted in your decision to stop posting on the blog. It’s entirely my own fault and I don’t for a second believe that it represents any lack of ability on your part to respond to my comments. You’ve shown that you’re more than capable of holding your ground in the debate and so I know you would never bow out so easily. Other people would have given up a long time ago. I think you’ve made some very valubable contributions and I would be grateful if you would reconsider your decision.

Posted by Macmorris at 19:11:13 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

How I became a racist

Alot of people wonder how it is that old Mac came to hold such extreme racist views. I’m not going to pretend that it all happened instantly but there was one thing that first got me thinking about the world in racial terms. It was this map of the world:

I first saw a map similar to the one above during a geography class in 4th year in secondary school. I was browsing through the geography book when I came across a chapter that dealt with global poverty. They made the point that the world could be divided into a prosperous northern half and an impoverished southern half. While on the surface it seemed to make sense - most of the poor countries in the world clearly are located in the southern hemisphere - when I looked at the map more closely I noticed something strange. The line seperating the northern and southern halves doesn’t run parallel to the equator. It seems to take a detour in order to take in Australia and New Zealand in the southern hemisphere. It then takes another detour to take in South Africa.

That’s when it suddenly dawned on me. This is not a map dividing the southern and northern parts of the globe, this is a map separating the countries populated by fair-skinned people from the countries populated by dark skinned people. The rich countries of the world are populated by fair-skinned people (East-Asians, Europeans and their descendants in the new world) while the poor countries are populated by the dark skinned people of Africa, Southern Asia, and South America. It seemed so obvious to me at the time that I was amazed that nobody had failed to point this out. Of course at that time I wasn’t aware of political correctness and the pressure that people are under not to point out the obvious facts of human development. But still, it got me thinking. I suppose I had always known that white countries tend to be richer than black countries but I hadn’t known enough about the world to know if this really was the case.

I was only 17 year old at the time and I had never even thought about the subject of race before. It was a year or two later when I first got access to the internet that I began to explore the issue in more detail. Like most young men who have unsupervised access to the internet the first thing I looked up were the racist, neo-nazi sites (actually it was the second thing I looked up) with all the Aryan white-power literature. The first night I was on the internet I found this page
http://www.davidduke.com/library/race/african101facts.html

After reading that there was no going back.

Anyway, that’s how old Mac became a racist. It was nothing personal. It’s not like I was attacked by one of them. In fact, all my personal dealings with people of colour have been positive, just as I would like to think that their dealings with me have been positive as well. My views on race are scientific rather than ethical. They’re related to matters of fact rather than matters of value. I don’t believe in discrimating against people on the basis of their colour and I’m opposed to any kind of mistreatment of people on account of their race or gender or religion or sexual orientation.

Now that I’ve shared an important formative influence on the development of my worldview maybe Aspergers or Wicknight might like to share with us how they came to hold their views. I’ll even post their comments in a separate post.

Posted by Macmorris at 21:04:55 | Permalink | Comments (6)

Monday, June 2, 2008

Is the word ‘Darkies’ funny?

And how Macmorris do you think using the term darkies is funny?

Because it’s the language that working-class people used back in the old days to refer to them. I don’t use the term to make fun of black people. I use the term to make fun of uneducated, working-class people and they’re backward, prejudiced ways.


And why do you use it on the internet in the first place since you dont have the balls to do it in public?

It’s not that I don’t have the balls to do it, it’s just that I won’t do it because I don’t want to hurt people’s feelings. As an educated young person from a middle-class background, I would consider it in very bad taste to use that kind of vulgar working-class language to refer my fellow human beings.


Does it make you feel like a big man?

A big man with a big balls. Like Stalin!

Posted by Macmorris at 21:09:44 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Sunday, June 1, 2008

View of Delft

Posted by Macmorris at 11:52:33 | Permalink | Comments (2)