Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!security!genrad!decvax!harpo!seismo!rochester!ritcv!ccieng5!ccieng2!kfk From: kfk@ccieng2.UUCP Newsgroups: net.flame Subject: Re: What ever happened to Human Rights? Message-ID: <201@ccieng5.UUCP> Date: Wed, 7-Dec-83 16:58:42 EST Article-I.D.: ccieng5.201 Posted: Wed Dec 7 16:58:42 1983 Date-Received: Fri, 9-Dec-83 07:32:39 EST Lines: 83 ---------- From ut-sally!jsq: If you think people have to give up their historical, ethnic, or racial identity to avoid discrimination, why don't you also propose that all blacks dye their skin? ---------- No, no, no! I *NEVER* said that should give up any of its iden- tity to avoid discrimination. I never said that should give up anything at all. What I said was (from my article): ---------- >> ...if I were in a position to >>consider whether to hire a particular individual or not, I would be >>concerned with two things: 1) Are you good at what you do? 2) Can >>others work with you? I don't care if you're black, white, yellow, >>pink, or phosphorescent purple. ---------- So I don't want to be bothered with your ethnic origins. It's fine to be pleased with (and maybe proud of) them, but I DON'T CARE. When I hear someone discussing "his people," I immediately have to think of which "people" that is, even though I am not concerned/bothered by it. The natural followup is the realization that I am not a "member." Also: ---------- >> ...how many >>people do you know who openly go looking for others UNLIKE THEMSELVES >>with whom to associate? Well, if the view of "my people" doesn't try >>to separate oneself from the rest of society, I don't know what does. and >> ...if you come across to me as being >>a member of some "other" group (pick the group; race is just the cur- >>rent example), and I can clearly see that I don't qualify in that >>group, it becomes equally clear that at least *I* will have trouble >>dealing with you, since we lack some significant common ground. ---------- I stress that this "missing" common ground is only "missing" in the mind of the person with whom I am currently working. In the realm of job interviews, the only common ground I want is computers. What I meant by the last part quoted is that, if a member of obviously indicates to me that s/he and I are not alike, and this fact is obviously important to him/her, then we are going to have problems. *I* couldn't give a darn one way or the other. If someone is deeply into punk rock and wants to play a stereo at work, s/he and I will have problems. If a black is so convinced that all whites are concerned with his/her dark skin (this was the original example), then s/he and I are going to have problems, because *I* am not concerned; I just couldn't care less. If a woman is so convinced that all men are out to deli- berately undercut her pay rate, then she and I will have problems; I want a given job done, which is worth x dollars to me, regardless of the person I pay to do it. This is the thing to which I object: that such group definitions (and, in my opinion, limitations) are made a focal point for anything. As I said before, I'm from Dutch and Swedish stock. I am pleased with that fact. Not proud of it, just pleased with it. The Swedes are good peo- ple, and so are the Dutch; I'm glad they're my ancestors. I have a sister who is madly in love with Sweden in particular, but I don't be- lieve she considers herself a Swede. Why should she? She's an *Amer- ican.* So why do the Boston Irish, southern whites, Scots, Poles, Puerto Ri- cans, Haitians, or Cubans (to use jsq's examples) work so *hard* at maintaining the fact that they're *different* from everybody else? This is not to say that they shouldn't maintain their ethnic tradi- tions; they are historically valuable, to say the very least. But ethnic traditions are not generally the target of discrimination. (At least, not in my experience with those who have been discriminated against.) But to frequently point out the fact that one is somehow unlike the rest of the world cannot reasonably be expected to lead to the rest of the world asking to be your closest friend. ---------- From ut-sally!jsq again: It's not how members of the group see themselves that causes discrimination, but how people *outside* the group see the *group*. ---------- Exactly! But what if those viewed as "outsiders" are given the dis- tinct impression from the *inside* (as with a discussion of someone's "people") that they are, first and foremost, outside? Karl Kleinpaste ...![ [seismo, allegra]!rochester!ritcv, rlgvax]!ccieng5!ccieng2!kfk