Is it racist to be anti-american?

[kester]

Is it racist to be anti-american? Or more to the point are people from the United States of America a race in themselves?

[Jeremy]

Jeremy is a completely different person to Kester and takes no responsibility what so ever for anything that Kester writes. The text written by Kester are his opinions alone and have no connection to anything that Jeremy might believe.

[Nightmare]

Yes its racist to be anti-american Kester... If your going to be racist you got to say no, Im not racist i hate all people equally... =)

[mc]

I think it's racist to be anti-americans. as in, you hate the people as a group.

as for being anti-american *policy*, that's just common sense. As many of us here hate the nonsense as the rest of you out there.

[Jeremy]

I really think it depends on what you mean by "anti-american"

About 99% of the time when people refer to themselves as being "anti-american" they are not refering to people from the US but the politics from the US.

American culture is noticably different to other cultures around the world - and that leads a lot of people not to like many American's - because due to cultural differences, people from the US often come across as rude and self-centred. However when somebody calls themselves anti-american I would almost gaurantee that that's not what they're talking about.

Rather they're talking about what they percieve as arrogant, greedy, ignorant and evil foreign policy that is - at least in the eyes of an "anti-american" basically screwing over the world so the US can stay rich. Considering the US is the "World's Greatest Democracy" and the ideals of which democracy stand for - it's easy to blame the people of the US since what's happening is happening in the name of people from the US - and to a large degree it is the people of the US who are supposedly reaping the benifits of the murder and suffering that is happening in their name (for example petrol is about 50% cheaper in the US than any other Western country). However many "anti-american's" would argue against this - mentioning the various people in other countries that do horrible evil who have stood up against what is wrong and have stood up for humanity. Even the most hardcore anti-american would concede that their are people who live or lived in the US who considered themselves part of the human race before they were an American.

I guess another issue is the media in the US - which from some accounts is very biased. This leads to many American's presenting very one sided and ignorant views about global issues. Some "anti-american's" would immediatly dislike these kinds of people, while others would feel sympathy for people who have been brainwashed in such a nature.

Basically I think "Anti-american" in its standard context is clearly not racist at all, and really has no connection with race - or in fact what the people of the US are like.

Having discussed, or tried to discuss this from an objective point of view, I finally want to add that I often call myself "Anti-American" and I have no shame in doing so. I find that almost all people who complain about that are actually people who really have no understanding of what that means and are nationalistic to the point that it is very easy to compare them with other nationalistic groups - I'm sure some of you know what I'm talking about.

[delakong]

That's a retarded question. Is it racist to be anti-american? Is it racist to be anti-semetic (sp?)? Is it racist to be anti-black? Is it racist to be anti-australian? Who's sig says something along the lines of:

The only thing dumber than loving a country is hating a country.

This is the stupidest topic to ever be allowed posted. I'm gonna start a different threead along the same lines now.

[delakong]

The sig needs to go too. If I had the same sig but changed United States of America to Blacks, I'd be banned the second someone noticed it. Stating your feelings about the policy of a country is fine. Spewing your hate for every person in that country is completely wrong and should have no place on modified.

[Jeremy]

This is a bit hard for me to deal with since Kester's my twin brother and I live with him so I'm a little paranoid about being biased either in his favour or against it.

However I'd appreciate it if people didn't comment on his signature. It's being discussed, it's not really what the topic is about. If you don't like it maybe you should start another topic about it or send a pm to somebody (me, him, Tom Mosher - I don't really care). If you do want to discuss his signature in this topic - I won't stop you - I just don't think it's the place and I think you'll look foolish when he changes it and you can't change your post.

Kester's signature is basically an injoke that I doubt anybody on this forum will get. When you post about it you're basically making the joke funny and giving him what he wants. I'm sure he'll be pissed off at me for posting this but please don't get worked up about it - I don't think I can explain it in a nice way - so just trust me that it's not worth mentioning.


On the topic at hand - I think it's pretty obvious when you study history that nationalism (loving a country) has caused many many more wars than hating countries. Many wars happen because people irrationally love their country - very few happen because they hate another.

Einstein had a lot of good things to say about nationalism and the US:

Nationalism is an infantile sickness. It is the measles of the human race.

It is horrifying to realize that the poison of militarism and imperialism threatens to bring undesirable changes in the political attitude of the United States….What we see at work is not an expression of the sentiments of the American people; rather, it reflects the will of a powerful minority which uses its economic power to control the organs of political life.

I came to America because of the great, great freedom which I heard existed in this country. I made a mistake in selecting America as a land of freedom, a mistake I cannot repair in the balance of my lifetime.

and a bit off topic but a cool quote anyway:

He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, deplorable love-of-country stance, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.

[delakong]

Okay, just so I don't look foolish when/if he changes it:

The United States of America is the most retarded, evil country on the planet. The day the terrorists nuke it is a day the world will rejoice.

HUZZAH

Kester Takayama

And I thought the topic was whether if it was racist to be anti-american.

an·ti-A·mer·i·can (nt--mr-kn, nt-)
adj.
Opposed or hostile to the government, official policies, or people of the United States.

anti-american

adj : opposed to the United States and its policies [syn: anti-American] [ant: pro-American]

rac·ism ( P ) Pronunciation Key (rszm)
n.
The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.
Discrimination or prejudice based on race.

racist

adj 1: based on racial intolerance; "racist remarks" 2: discriminatory especially on the basis of race or religion [syn: antiblack, anti-Semitic, anti-Semite(a)] n : a person with a prejudiced belief that one race is superior to others [syn: racialist]

By definition, it is racist to be anti-american.

[Jeremy]

Is it racist to be anti-american? Or more to the point are people from the United States of America a race in themselves?

[jon]

Is it racist to be anti-american? Or more to the point are people from the United States of America a race in themselves?

No, they are not.

[delakong]

If American isn't a race, what are the "mutts" (for lack of a better term). I am a mix of %50 Puerto Rican and the other %50 is caucasian (sp?) (French, Polish, Swedish), so what does that make me? I'm not pure hispanic but I'm in pure caucasion either so what am I? What will my even further mixed children be?

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=race

By some of those definitions American is a race. By some of them it's not. Either way, hating a large group of people based on nothing more than stereotypes and generalizations is racist.

[Jeremy]

hmm, well I'm half Japanese half english and I live in Australia. I don't, and have never considered "Australian" to be a race - unless maybe you're talking about indigenous Australians. Australia isn't a race - it's a country or a better term would be "nation". I criticise Australia a lot. Other people I know criticise Australia a lot. Don't get me wrong, I think Australia is a great country and I would be happy to live here for the rest of my life, but we have a lot of problems - cultural problems, political problems and environmental problems. I think it's safe to say that no country is perfect. When somebody criticises your country there are really two ways you can react. You can say "that's bullshit" or you can weigh up what they're saying, think about it and then comment on how you feel. The first option is the easy one I feel myself doing it all the time - I fight this hard. This option is called "nationalism" - it led to the biggest two wars in the history of this planet.

To be honest, as somebody who has experienced a lot of actual racism directed at me for being half Japanese living in a country that was almost invaded by the Japanese - I really don't think you can call anti-americanism racist at all. I don't think it's very similar at all. I've dealt with lots of people dissing my country in the past and I really prefer that to being told I should go back to my own country.

I think the US probably is the most nationalistic country in the world and has been for the last 50 years or so. I can see because of this cultural difference why you'd be more offended at somebody dissing your country than I am about my country - but I really don't think it's racist. A person can't really change races - at least I believe that - but you can definitly change nationalities.

[delakong]

But by definition, nationality is race also:

race1 ( P ) Pronunciation Key (rs)
n.
A local geographic or global human population distinguished as a more or less distinct group by genetically transmitted physical characteristics.
A group of people united or classified together on the basis of common history, nationality, or geographic distribution: the German race.
A genealogical line; a lineage.
Humans considered as a group.
Biology.
An interbreeding, usually geographically isolated population of organisms differing from other populations of the same species in the frequency of hereditary traits. A race that has been given formal taxonomic recognition is known as a subspecies.
A breed or strain, as of domestic animals.
A distinguishing or characteristic quality, such as the flavor of a wine.

I think the best thing about that whole page on dictionary.com was this:

Usage Note: The notion of race is nearly as problematic from a scientific point of view as it is from a social one. European physical anthropologists of the 17th and 18th centuries proposed various systems of racial classifications based on such observable characteristics as skin color, hair type, body proportions, and skull measurements, essentially codifying the perceived differences among broad geographic populations of humans. The traditional terms for these populationsCaucasoid (or Caucasian), Mongoloid, Negroid, and in some systems Australoidare now controversial in both technical and nontechnical usage, and in some cases they may well be considered offensive. (Caucasian does retain a certain currency in American English, but it is used almost exclusively to mean “white” or “European” rather than “belonging to the Caucasian race,” a group that includes a variety of peoples generally categorized as nonwhite.) The biological aspect of race is described today not in observable physical features but rather in such genetic characteristics as blood groups and metabolic processes, and the groupings indicated by these factors seldom coincide very neatly with those put forward by earlier physical anthropologists. Citing this and other pointssuch as the fact that a person who is considered black in one society might be nonblack in anothermany cultural anthropologists now consider race to be more a social or mental construct than an objective biological fact.

That being said, there should be no such thing as race. And we should just change the question to "Is is okay to hate people because they live/were born in America?"

What's gonna come out of this discussion? If everyone gives their answer as "No, it's not racist to hate Americans, there is no such race as American." Does that justify hating an entire country just because it's not racist? If everybody answers "Yes, it is racist." Does that make you feel bad about hating Americans now because you can be labeled racist. That's all this thread really seems to me, a reason to justify hating Americans.

[Jeremy]

I really don't think, and I'm pretty sure that I've said this before, that being an "anti-american" means you hate American's. Some of my biggest hero's have been described as anti-americans and yet lived there for some or all of their lives:

Muhammad Ali
Tom Morello
Albert Einstein

These people didn't hate Americans at all - they opposed the government and they opposed parts of the culture. That's completely different to hating the people.

[delakong]

Is it racist to be anti-american? Or more to the point are people from the United States of America a race in themselves?

Then the question is very misleading. So pretty much racist should be changed to wrong and the last part of the question has no place in the way you define this thread. That's the only way that I can put what you're talking about with the topic of this thread. And, technically anti-american should be changed to anti-establishment or anti-government.

an·ti·es·tab·lish·ment ( P ) Pronunciation Key (nt--stblsh-mnt, nt-)
adj.
Marked by opposition or hostility to conventional social, political, or economic values or principles.

Main Entry: antigovernment
Part of Speech: adjective
Definition: going against a current government or administration

I don't like the way our government is but that doesn't make me anti-american. And yes, it is still wrong to hate the people of a whole country based solely on the decisions of a few douchebags.

[Jeremy]

I think the term "anti-american" is a fairly old term - coming I'm pretty sure from the cold war (maybe even older) and referred to "commies" or other people who thought that there were better ways of running the country than the way the way the US was run at that time. I don't think the word has ever meant "hating American people" - there are lots of words that don't literally mean what they might appear to mean and I really think it's a good thing not to get caught up too much on the literal meaning - but instead talk about the accepted and used variation of the word.

A good example is "steam" - 99% of the time when people talk about steam - they are actually talking about water vapour - which is what you see rising from the boiling water - steam is invisable - you can't see it at all. It would be a really pointless and stupid arguement to have with somebody about what "steam" actually is. It has a technical meaning that only geeks and scientists use and a common meaning that everybody else use.

You can debate the meaning of "anti-american" as much as you like, the fact it is that 99% of people outside of the US and probably something close to that inside of the US are very clear on what they think it means - which is not "hating every person who lives in or has ever lived in the US"

Anti-American was originally used as an insult - accusing people of not loving their country because they didn't want to kill civilians in a country they had never heard of. In Australia we have a similar term - "Un-Australian". A lot of things are "Un-Australian" - to be honest, I often call myself "Un-Australian" because it refers to politcs and frankly I don't want to be associated with the decisions that our politicians make.

You're also un-australian if you don't like beer, vegimite, David Boon, sport, meat, Ned Kelly, Cricket, bbqs, seeing people hurt each other or you don't swear.

[delakong]

Oh, I got you now. Still, the title of this thread is very misleading. I take anti-american for exactly what it says, against americans. I didn't know about the steam thing, I always thought steam and water vapor were the same thing, gonna have to check that one out. Anti-american is still wrong. Saying something so blatantly and trying to mask it as something else isn't right. It isn't the "accepted and used variation" where I come from, so to me it's offensive. If you walk into a bar in North Carolina, and probably most of the south, saying you're anti-american, you're not gonna have much time to explain that it doesn't mean what it sounds like it means, you're gonna have a broken jaw before you could even begin.

It's kinda like the whole "gay" argument.

Accepted and used variation
"Yeah, I just went and saw XXX. That movie was fuckin gay."

Literal meaning
"Oh what a beautiful day. I'm so gay!"

I think I've gotten of topic.

[Splint]

The most interesting part about this topic is that I never had any idea that Jeremy had/has a twin brother. I find it very suspicious that Kester all of a sudden joins in speaking in the most extreme way that Jeremy might, leaving Jeremy to respond to the issues raised.

Here's the real question... Does Jeremy actually have a twin brother or is it some weird alter-ego he has created???

I think some video verification is in order. Pictures won't do, because they are too easily manipulated. Definitely should be video.



As for the topic at hand. No it's not racist to be anti-american...it's juvenile, stupid, and about as well thought out as terrorism. Being anti-american is like me being anti-australian. I hate the politics of Australia surrounding the Aboriginal tribes. That doesn't mean that I hate all Australians, nor that I'm anti-australian. It means that there are certain decisions that Australian leaders make and have made in the past that I disagree with.

Same goes for America, France, Germany, Britain, Russia, South Africa, India etc....

We're talking about democratic countries who have all made and continue to make horrible decisions that adversely affect people all over the world, including their own citizens. Somehow, they still elect stupid leaders and promulgate idiocy all over the world.

So if you're going to be anti-american than you had better just expand your horizons and become anti-world, find a private island about 50 feet by 50 feet and form the "Independent Nation of Kester".

Hate is such a waste of passion.

[idain]

So if you're going to be anti-american than you had better just expand your horizons and become anti-world, find a private island about 50 feet by 50 feet and form the "Independent Nation of Kester".

Hate is such a waste of passion.

Excellent