How Gays Can Save The Republican Party

[operafan]

Anyone who thinks that the Republicans are going to ever have anything to do with supporting gays is delusional. Kind of like GOProud. "How's that workin' for ya?"

 

[Ram]

Biden's remark about Indians in convenience stores is right on. Acknowledging that fact is no more racist than is Fox for featuring the character Apu on The Simpsons. Biden was not complaining about the fact or being derogatory. (I have actually myself asked Indians why so many of them run convenience stores and the answer is always the same. "I don't know." But I don't think I'm being racist by asking.)

Yes you are. You are being racist with that exceptional thick question. Ok, you are lonely and fat and haven't got anyone that loves you enough to cook for you and you go to a couple of convenience stores to get food and encounter brown people. Suddenly, you build a image in your head that ALL brown people must own such stores. But hey, you're a pure bred democrat. You are absolutely nothing like the evil dirty half-human Republicans. As a Democrat, you must think you're not racist. So you build an image in your head that a majority of Indians own convenience stores, not all. A majority. A smart statistical analysis. And to make things better you ask the question of "Why do so many of race X..." And as a race that moves, thinks and performs as a single entity, we are happy to answer that ignorant question. I can't believe they said they don't know. Have they not been attending the mass meetings we have and the memos we distribute? It makes you feel better than you're trying to understand even though you are incapable of understanding.

Let's make this thread far more fun than it should be.

dry cleaners and food services, and massage shops --> Korean, Chinese

convenience stores and hotel --> Indian

taxis, terrorists -- Pakistani and Arabs

unemployment, drug trade -- Black people

jewelry, banking, lawyers -- Jews

honest, excellent jobs that spread purity, creativity and good working values -- of course, white people

The Republican and Democratic camps are both racist. Just start a Boddy Jindal thread and it would be hard to tell the democrats apart from the republicans.

I am not an American and I don't have any affiliations with any of your parties but I can tell that the behavior of most Democrats or liberals here are repulsive, arrogant and hypocritical. Republicans are fucked up bunch of people and you are no where far from there.

 

[T-Rexx]

Yes you are. You are being racist with that exceptional thick question. Ok, you are lonely and fat and haven't got anyone that loves you enough to cook for you and you go to a couple of convenience stores to get food and encounter brown people. Suddenly, you build a image in your head that ALL brown people must own such stores. But hey, you're a pure bred democrat. You are absolutely nothing like the evil dirty half-human Republicans. As a Democrat, you must think you're not racist. So you build an image in your head that a majority of Indians own convenience stores, not all. A majority. A smart statistical analysis. And to make things better you ask the question of "Why do so many of race X..." And as a race that moves, thinks and performs as a single entity, we are happy to answer that ignorant question. I can't believe they said they don't know. Have they not been attending the mass meetings we have and the memos we distribute? It makes you feel better than you're trying to understand even though you are incapable of understanding.

But why is it racist if it's true?

Indians and Pakistanis dominate the US Covenience Store Market.

Acknowledging simple facts about human demographics is not racism. Asking why such differences exist is not demeaning to the people under discussion.

Most school teachers here are female. Is it sexist to point that out?

Most business owners here are white males. Most Hispanics are Catholic. Most prisoners are black males. Most cops are young white guys. Most doctors are men. Are these facts too uncomfortable to discuss? Is it insulting to these people to acknowledge who we are as a society?

Closing your eyes to the truth around you does not make you a better person. And refusing to acknowledge (or discuss) basic differences between ethnic and religious groups does not help to make society more egalitarian. Nor does discussing these issues denigrate the groups under discussion.

 

[Ram]

But why is it racist if it's true?

Indians and Pakistanis dominate the US Covenience Store Market.

Acknowledging simple facts about human demographics is not racism. Asking why such differences exist is not demeaning to the people under discussion.

Most school teachers here are female. Is it sexist to point that out?

Most business owners here are white males. Most Hispanics are Catholic. Most prisoners are black males. Most cops are young white guys. Most doctors are men. Are these facts too uncomfortable to discuss? Is it insulting to these people to acknowledge who we are as a society?

Closing your eyes to the truth around you does not make you a better person. And refusing to acknowledge (or discuss) basic differences between ethnic and religious groups does not help to make society more egalitarian. Nor does discussing these issues denigrate the groups under discussion.

While there are no tabulated figures for South Asians, industry watchers estimate the number of South Asian owned stores nationwide between 50,000 to 70,000, almost a third to half of the total. Satya Shaw, president of Asian American Convenience Store Association, (AACSA) which was formed in 2005, estimates there are about 70,000 South Asian owned stores, raking in over $100 billion in revenues.

Even your article is not very sure. And 70,000 is a pretty small number for a country like America.

By Jizzeater:

They're not truths, they're stereotypes. Buying into racial stereotypes and perpetuating them is racist. Not loud, blatant racism such as screaming racial slurs, but racist nonetheless.

There is a fine line in discussing a racial statistics and using that statistic and making a racial assumption and then transforming it into a stereotype. You and Biden crossed that line.

I don't go to a black person ask him or her why a lot of black people end up in jail.
I don't go to a female doctor ask her why didn't she become a teacher. Most of them are.

 

[T-Rexx]

Even your article is not very sure. And 70,000 is a pretty small number for a country like America.

While there are no tabulated figures for South Asians, industry watchers estimate the number of South Asian owned stores nationwide between 50,000 to 70,000, almost a third to half of the total.

http://www.littleindia.com/news/141/ARTICLE/1662/2007-02-02.html

Nowhere near one-third to one-half of Americans are of South Asian heritage. Therefore, something interesting is going on here.

You can pretend, if it offends your sensibilities, that there really is no association between ethnic heritage and employment choices. But I find the truth more interesting and useful to acknowledge.

I don't go to a black person ask him or her why a lot of black people end up in jail.

No. You ask a prisoner if he thinks his being black was a factor in his incarceration. And, if so, why does he suspect that?

I don't go to a female doctor ask her why didn't she become a teacher. Most of them are.

No. You ask a female teacher if she believes her sex was a factor in her career selection. And was she discouraged from pursuing other careers because of her sex?

Sorry, but finding out what makes people tick, why they make particular choices, and how their background have influenced those choices is not racism. And pretending that all demographic groups are the same is not a form of respect.

 

[T-Rexx]

You and Biden crossed that line.

Biden is from the New Jersey/Delaware region.

For whatever reason, New Jersey and Delaware have a particularly high concentration of Indian Americans. There are cities in New Jersey where almost 18% of the population is of Indian or Pakistani descent. Biden was pointing that out in the clip.

Biden knows his state. He is not being racist by understanding (and acknowledging) who are the people who elected him, where they are in his state, and what they are doing there. Racism is prejudice based on a lack of understanding. Biden was demonstrating quite the opposite.

Would that all elected officials understood their constituencies so well.

 

[jizzeater]

Biden is from New Jersey.

For whatever reason, New Jersey has a particularly high concentration of Indian Americans. There are cities in New Jersey where almost 18% of the population is of Indian or Pakistani descent. Biden was pointing that out in the clip.

Actually, he's originally from Scranton PA, as he frequently mentions. When he was in the Senate he represented Delaware, and that's the state he's talking about in the video. Edit: I see you already corrected that

Biden knows his state. He is not being racist by understanding (and acknowledging) who are the people who elected him, and what they are doing in his state. Racism is prejudice based on a lack of understanding. Biden was demonstrating quite the opposite.

Would that all elected officials understood their constituencies so well.

I don't see how assuming all the Indians coming to the U.S. own 7-Elevens demonstrates understanding. There are a lot of doctors from India coming here too:

Kaushik is Indian himself. He has done research at the Harvard School of Public Health on the brain drain of doctors out of India. He tracked hundreds of graduates from the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences, India's equivalent of Harvard Medical School. He looked at alumni dating back to the 1950s.

"Over this period, we roughly had 450 physicians who graduated from the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences," Kaushik says. "And almost 50 percent of them emigrated to the U.S."

In 50 years, Kaushik says, only one of those doctor-emigrants went back to India — and he returned to America a year later.

No other country has exported as many physicians as India. More than 40,000 practice in the United States, making up one of every 20 U.S. doctors.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16774871

 

[Ram]

You can pretend, if it offends your sensibilities, that there really is no association between ethnic heritage and employment choices. But I find the truth more interesting and useful to acknowledge.

*shake heads* You just don't get it. Of course you find the "truth" more interesting, the "truth" doesn't affect you.

There is a big fucking thing we need to understand here: every time we try to link something back to race, if you do it wrongly, you are going to be accused of racism. You did it extremely poorly.

You want to know why Indians prefer to start business in convenience stores in America? The culture of Indian business. There are possibly billions of little mom-and-pop stores in India itself. It's a practice of selling goods. The business of trade is very ingrained in certain parts of India. When they come to America, this culture of trade follows and it usually leads to either big businesses or convenience stores. Lastly, job openings and the opportunity. Not a lot of people are willing to work the hours and put up with it. It's the same with Korean laundry shops. They see the opportunity and some of them are business-orientated. It's not the same here in Singapore or in South Africa or in Dubai. They all react to their environment differently.

You make it sound as if it's something they do it because of the color of their skin or the religion they are in or some part of their culture where convenience store is the height of their cultural experience. I make it sound as if it's something they do because of the circumstances America provides and how they want to perceive business as a community or as individuals in that country. That's a big difference.

You know, there are a lot of Indians in IT as well. And in America too. You forgot that "truth" or you preferred to use the one that you want to believe in and makes you feel better about your little world.

I can't fix computers or selling shit in the convenience stores. I can however get the fuck of this discussion.

 

[T-Rexx]

I don't see how assuming all the Indians coming to the U.S. own 7-Elevens demonstrates understanding. There are a lot of doctors from India coming here too:

No one is saying ALL Indian-Americans work in convenience stores. This is just one interesting demographic.

South Asians who come to the USA demographically tend to be highly educated, and are very much disproportionately over-represented amongst doctors and university professors (especially in the sciences).

But I suppose it is racist to point out these facts.

 

[T-Rexx]

You want to know why Indians prefer to start business in convenience stores? The culture of Indian business.

But I understood you to say there is no association between ethnic heritage and career choice. No effect of culture on business.

That would be a racist claim.

You know, there are a lot of Indians in IT as well. And in America too. You forgot that "truth" or you preferred to use the one that you want to believe in and makes you feel better about your little world.

Indians are dramatically over-represented in the sciences in the USA - far out of proportion to their presence in the general population. That includes IT.

When I was in graduate school 20 years ago, our large science department had but a single Indian professor (out of dozens). I was back on campus last year. All but two of the professors in that department are now Indian-Americans. I'm not complaining about that. It is a commonly-observed demographic in modern America, and says a lot about what fields to which traditional American students are gravitating and what fields to which Asian-Americans are gravitating.

But I suppose it is racist to point that out. And I suppose it would be inappropriate for me to discuss these changes with the professors.

 

[jizzeater]

No one is saying ALL Indian-Americans work in convenience stores. This is just one interesting demographic.

South Asians who come to the USA demographically tend to be highly educated, and are very much disproportionately over-represented amongst doctors and university professors (especially in the sciences).

But I suppose it is racist to point out these facts.

But he didn't mention doctors, did he? He immediately jumped to the stereotype of convenience stores. He did it with an air of contempt, as well: "You cannot go to a 7-11 or a Dunkin Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent".

 

[T-Rexx]

^ It wouldn't have made a difference.

Most people have more contact with convenience stores than with doctors.

And you would still have claimed it was racist.

 

[LoveIsNow]

Sorry, not going to happen. Everything else (except the right to bear arms) that the Republican party stands for is so antithetical to my core values that I can safely say that, barring some mammoth party shift, I would never vote Republican.

 

[Críostóir]

I don't want to save the Republican Party.

I want to wipe it off the face of the Earth.

Saving Republicans is an idea that has merit. Convert them to some kind of sane politics.

But the Republican Party is the largest bastion of pure evil in this country. May it fail, die, and rot.

 

[chgocock]

Well Kirk did vote for DADT repeal.

So it seems he is not totally opposed to equality after all.

that's only if you didn't know that he was slammed with something near 30,000 signed petitions for his vote from his "new" constituency!! plus he's a closet case...you heard it here first!!

 

[hotatlboi]

that's only if you didn't know that he was slammed with something near 30,000 signed petitions for his vote from his "new" constituency!! plus he's a closet case...you heard it here first!!

I had heard rumors that he was a closet case, although obviously there's nothing concrete about that.

And that yeah he was under a lot of pressure to vote yes being that IL is a rather socially liberal state.

Still, he did the right thing there when others did not.

 

[NineOfClubs]

that's only if you didn't know that he was slammed with something near 30,000 signed petitions for his vote from his "new" constituency!! plus he's a closet case...you heard it here first!!

I "heard it first" almost a year ago.

Why can't all these guys just come out already?