QUOTE(the_undertow @ Thu 1st October 2009, 2:17am)
my silence here and on wiki is difficult, especially having to relive the accusations of white supremacy and mental instability. Not to mention the worst, which is watching potential heads roll.
For Wikipedia to work according to the original concept, true consensus is required. And one of the poisoners of consensus is the habit of telling other people what they believe. It's offensive even if you are right, and thoroughly stupid if you are wrong. After all, would you trust someone who confidently tells you that you believe what you know you don't believe?
I did a great deal of what could be called "Muslim apologetics," on usenet, and I became friends with some Christian apologists in the process. And then there were those whose habit was promote their own beliefs by attacking ours, and they were fond of telling us what we believed. Definitely not a good technique for a missionary!
There are people who seek understanding and people who don't. Those who seek understanding may disagree strongly, but can still work together and even find surprisingly deep consensus, but those who imagine that they already know what others believe, you know, those POV-pushers or fanatics or whatever, will never find peace, for their approach is battle and conflict. And contempt.
And this is far more common than I'd like to believe, it afflicts some of the best people, sometimes.
In any case, reading the comments about "white pride," I was mostly reminded about how I feel about my youngest daughter. I don't believe that race is a reality, it's a social construct, that's what the academics came to, and they are right. But identity is something else, and my daughter's identity includes that she was born in Africa, she has kinky black hair, big lips, chocolate skin, and smiles like the sunrise, all of which are very much characteristic of the people where she was raised for her first three years. And I'm proud of her and I want her to be proud of herself, and, in fact, that's a kind of "black pride." Black is beautiful, and my God, she's beautiful. But it's not racist. I have other children, five, who are "white," as people would think. And I'm proud of them and I want them to be proud of themselves, and I don't, for some reason, think of that as "white pride," and, in fact, I wonder why. Maybe it's because of associations from a racist past, a past most of us have been moving beyond, even as it is practically impossible to eliminate all of the stain of it.
There is nothing wrong with being proud of one's culture and family and tribe, as long as it does not lead to denial of the worth of others . So, Law -- somehow that seems more fitting than "the undertow" -- welcome to the community of those who remain connected outside the too-often-abusive whirlpool that is the wiki. I see more wisdom here in one day than in months on-wiki. And a lot of junk, as well, that's the way it goes....