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Whoopi Goldberg awkwardly demonstrates how the idea of race varies by place and changes over time

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By Robyn Autry

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Another lesson learned? TV/Movie studios and “Entertainers” should just go back to “Entertainment”. From the article:

- “Yes, many of us think Goldberg got it horribly wrong. And yes, her apologies made matters worse.” -

Most of these former entertainers, now daytime news-commentators, never finished their education at a real high school.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

never finished their education at a real high school.

But during my own education, the only teaching about race I received was that there were three races. (I was born the same year as Whoopi Goldberg.) That distinction stayed with me, and I don't recall the term race generally being used to distinguish between other ethnic differences (north and south Europeans, west and east Africans, etc.) So I can kind of understand her own understanding. I think it is only in more recent times that race has taken on a broader meaning.

that self-descriptions of “race” used to extend quite seriously right down to what we now describe as “national” - as in the British, or even the English, “race”?

I don't think "race" is used in that context so often. Has the term "nation" not been used more commonly in a kind of ethnic way - the English nation, the nation of Zion, the Great Sioux Nation, etc.

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When black celebrities make racist remarks it does not reawaken suspicion that it’s a collective failing, except perhaps in the minds of those already bigoted. It does highlight that bigotry and racism is a universal failing common to some in all groups and not just a “white” thing despite what some seek to characterise it as being. Seeking to project this purported “projection” generally and then claiming it is an anti-black thing is to distort the reality so as to reinforce the “special status” of blacks in the USA as victims. Thereby sadly undermining the whole argument of the article.

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This article seems to suggest that there is no "sustained national dialogue" about race in the U.S. Well, after moving back to the U.S. in 2020 after having lived for more than 20 years in Japan, to me it appears that the U.S. is totally obsessed with race and everything, everywhere is about race and only race. It is a national obsession that really bewilders the mind. So, I am not sure that I agree that a lack of focus on race and racial issues is really the issue.

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I was surprised at the outrage over Ms. Goldberg's comments. Had someone asked me before this controversy if European Jews and other Europeans were different races I would have said no. Different religions, yes, and maybe different nationalities but the same race. They are white Europeans just like their tormentors were.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

This article seems to suggest that there is no "sustained national dialogue" about race in the U.S. Well, after moving back to the U.S. in 2020 after having lived for more than 20 years in Japan, to me it appears that the U.S. is totally obsessed with race and everything, everywhere is about race and only race. It is a national obsession that really bewilders the mind. So, I am not sure that I agree that a lack of focus on race and racial issues is really the issue.

What you hear are people talking, no shouting, past each other without actually listening. It's a shouting match, not a dialog. Nobody is learning anything, just reinforcing their existing biases.

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We're constantly told how many Jewish people died in the holocaust. But no one has a number of how many Africans died during apartheid.

Multiple sources place the death toll from Apartheid related political violence at a high of 21,000.

https://www.sidmartinbio.org/how-many-south-africans-were-killed-in-apartheid/

A lower end figure I have seen claims from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission states that between 1960 and 1994 the Inkatha Freedom Party was responsible for 4,500 deaths, South African security forces were responsible for 2,700 deaths and the ANC was responsible for 1,300 deaths.

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