On Being a Nobody

[AFK]

Well, perhaps it's simply aesthetics....

Ok, you're going to need to draw that one out a little more. 

well.... some here have expressed that they prefer one race of person or another for romantic involvement.  That's an aesthetic assessment....

Maybe, but that is focused on who a person is attracted to.  You were talking about why people would want to live away from someone.  Not quite the same thing.  

some people simply want to live in a less diverse environment, i would guess.  There is not necessarily feelings of superiority/inferiority associated with that.
Whether this is plausible or not is a side question.

But what would motivate someone to want to live in a less diverse environment?  Let's keep in mind there is a difference between living in a less diverse environment and wanting to live in a less diverse environment.  For example, I live in the whitest state in the U.S.  And I do like living in Maine.  But not because of its lack of diversity, in spite of.  

[Elder Iptuous]

Maybe, but that is focused on who a person is attracted to.  You were talking about why people would want to live away from someone.  Not quite the same thing.   

no?
what, precisely, is the difference?...

[Jenne]

I don't know if that's racist, Jenne.  I think that it's a desire for multiculturalism, in that as you present it, he wouldn't want to live in any homogeneous group, regardless of what that race was.

Ipt brings up an interesting point when he introduced sexual attraction.  Run with it, Ipt.

Yup.  That's what I was thinking, but Ippy's right...there are those that would see that as "reverse-discrimination."

[AFK]

Maybe, but that is focused on who a person is attracted to.  You were talking about why people would want to live away from someone.  Not quite the same thing.   

no?
what, precisely, is the difference?...

I'm trying to stay on target with your scenarios.  Your initial scenario was about someone wanting to live separately from members of other races.  When I asked you why you said aesthetics.  When I asked for follow up on the aesthetics angle you switched to a scenario of attraction.

So let's get back to the scenario on living separately from members of other races.  So you said it was because of aesthetics.  What is it about aesthetics that would cause a person to want to live separatel from members of other races?

[fomenter]

i will let ippy argue aesthetics.
if i was to play devil's advocate i  would give the argument of "simplicity" it far less challenging to live amongst your own kind, people you understand and identify with, than it is to be challenged with different cultures and views of the world, it is a strong part of human nature to seek out the comfortable predictable rut over the unknown 

[LMNO]

That goes back to the territorialism part, the pack mentality of staying in your tribe.

[Elder Iptuous]

Maybe, but that is focused on who a person is attracted to.  You were talking about why people would want to live away from someone.  Not quite the same thing.   

no?
what, precisely, is the difference?...

I'm trying to stay on target with your scenarios.  Your initial scenario was about someone wanting to live separately from members of other races.  When I asked you why you said aesthetics.  When I asked for follow up on the aesthetics angle you switched to a scenario of attraction.

So let's get back to the scenario on living separately from members of other races.  So you said it was because of aesthetics.  What is it about aesthetics that would cause a person to want to live separatel from members of other races?

I dunno, man.
maybe they watched a bunch of andy griffeth as a kid and want to live in maybury....
i don't think i really went off topic, though.  what's the difference, precisely, in who you choose to be romantically involved with and who you associate with on a friendship level, at the level of aesthetics?
It sounds you saying that we are allowed to have superficial and arbitrary requirements on a person only if we intend on being intimate, no? Why is that?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

A lot of Native Americans prefer to live with their tribe... they want to raise their children in a culture that fosters their values and traditions.

Non-tribals are not barred from living on reservations, though they often take some time to be accepted. They're not considered a threat, per se, but merely outsiders.

I don't know that I would consider such behavior "racist", but it's certainly tribalist... and almost everyone engages in it, to some degree. I'm not sure it's a bad thing, as it is how unique cultures are formed and communities sustained.

It becomes a problem is when outsiders are shunned or persecuted for not being part of the tribe, without being given a chance to assimilate. It becomes a racist problem when outsiders are shunned or persecuted on the basis of skin color or ethnic descent.

[LMNO]

Y'know, when you take up the opposing side, saying "I dunno" is kind of weak.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Maybe, but that is focused on who a person is attracted to.  You were talking about why people would want to live away from someone.  Not quite the same thing.   

no?
what, precisely, is the difference?...

I'm trying to stay on target with your scenarios.  Your initial scenario was about someone wanting to live separately from members of other races.  When I asked you why you said aesthetics.  When I asked for follow up on the aesthetics angle you switched to a scenario of attraction.

So let's get back to the scenario on living separately from members of other races.  So you said it was because of aesthetics.  What is it about aesthetics that would cause a person to want to live separatel from members of other races?

I dunno, man.
maybe they watched a bunch of andy griffeth as a kid and want to live in maybury....
i don't think i really went off topic, though.  what's the difference, precisely, in who you choose to be romantically involved with and who you associate with on a friendship level, at the level of aesthetics?
It sounds you saying that we are allowed to have superficial and arbitrary requirements on a person only if we intend on being intimate, no? Why is that?

Because when it comes to what you let other people do with YOUR body, you get to make whatever arbitrary decisions you choose. I don't think poorly of redheads, but I've never met one I was attracted to... does that make me racist toward redheads? Or short fat people with bad breath? Are straight men sexist against men, because they don't want to sleep with them?

It's a completely different ball game when it comes to sexual intimacy. You are allowed to discriminate based on ANYTHING, or even nothing at all. All bets are off, there are no rules, the social norm ceases to apply, period.

[AFK]

Maybe, but that is focused on who a person is attracted to.  You were talking about why people would want to live away from someone.  Not quite the same thing.   

no?
what, precisely, is the difference?...

I'm trying to stay on target with your scenarios.  Your initial scenario was about someone wanting to live separately from members of other races.  When I asked you why you said aesthetics.  When I asked for follow up on the aesthetics angle you switched to a scenario of attraction.

So let's get back to the scenario on living separately from members of other races.  So you said it was because of aesthetics.  What is it about aesthetics that would cause a person to want to live separatel from members of other races?

I dunno, man.
maybe they watched a bunch of andy griffeth as a kid and want to live in maybury....
i don't think i really went off topic, though.  what's the difference, precisely, in who you choose to be romantically involved with and who you associate with on a friendship level, at the level of aesthetics?
It sounds you saying that we are allowed to have superficial and arbitrary requirements on a person only if we intend on being intimate, no? Why is that?

I'm trying to have a focused and deliberate discussion with you here and I think it is advantageous to take it in increments and not jump to different parts of the map.  Saying things like "It sounds like you are saying" doesn't help either.  If I'm going to say something, I will say it.  

You haven't been able to give a legitimate reason for why someone would purposefully live separate from other races based on aesthetics.  That's fine.  And it would seem hard to come up with one that didn't, on its face, appear to be informed by some level of racism or prejudice.

Now, to the other question.  I'm probably not a good person to judge the intimacy question as I've been romantically linked to people of different ethnic persuasions.  I personally can't relate to using skin color as a pre-requisite for deciding whether or not to become romantically involved with a person.  I wouldn't necessarily call someone who prefers to date only a person of their own color a racist.  I would be curious, however, as to why they exclude all other races in their romantic pursuits. 

[Fuquad]

Maybe, but that is focused on who a person is attracted to.  You were talking about why people would want to live away from someone.  Not quite the same thing.   

no?
what, precisely, is the difference?...

I'm trying to stay on target with your scenarios.  Your initial scenario was about someone wanting to live separately from members of other races.  When I asked you why you said aesthetics.  When I asked for follow up on the aesthetics angle you switched to a scenario of attraction.

So let's get back to the scenario on living separately from members of other races.  So you said it was because of aesthetics.  What is it about aesthetics that would cause a person to want to live separatel from members of other races?

I dunno, man.
maybe they watched a bunch of andy griffeth as a kid and want to live in maybury....
i don't think i really went off topic, though.  what's the difference, precisely, in who you choose to be romantically involved with and who you associate with on a friendship level, at the level of aesthetics?
It sounds you saying that we are allowed to have superficial and arbitrary requirements on a person only if we intend on being intimate, no? Why is that?

I hope this doesn't lead to the "Gays chose to be gay" argument.

Sexual attraction is not a choice.

however deciding whether or not someone is going to be your friend based on appearance rather than content of character seems pretty dangerous.

[Elder Iptuous]

I'm trying to have a focused and deliberate discussion with you here and I think it is advantageous to take it in increments and not jump to different parts of the map.  Saying things like "It sounds like you are saying" doesn't help either.  If I'm going to say something, I will say it.  

Fair enough. i appologize...

You haven't been able to give a legitimate reason for why someone would purposefully live separate from other races based on aesthetics.  That's fine.  And it would seem hard to come up with one that didn't, on its face, appear to be informed by some level of racism or prejudice.

Why do aesthetics have to be informed from a feeling of superiority?
can't they simply be arbitrary? perhaps some people just like uniformity...

advantageous to take it in increments and not jump to different parts of the map.  Saying things like "It sounds like you are saying" doesn't help either.  If I'm going to say something, I will say it.   [/quote]
Fair enough. i appologize...

Now, to the other question.  I'm probably not a good person to judge the intimacy question as I've been romantically linked to people of different ethnic persuasions.  I personally can't relate to using skin color as a pre-requisite for deciding whether or not to become romantically involved with a person.  I wouldn't necessarily call someone who prefers to date only a person of their own color a racist.  I would be curious, however, as to why they exclude all other races in their romantic pursuits. 

Why is there an inconsistency here?  Why aren't you insisting that their preference here be informed by the same assumed racism?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Now, to the other question.  I'm probably not a good person to judge the intimacy question as I've been romantically linked to people of different ethnic persuasions.  I personally can't relate to using skin color as a pre-requisite for deciding whether or not to become romantically involved with a person.  I wouldn't necessarily call someone who prefers to date only a person of their own color a racist.  I would be curious, however, as to why they exclude all other races in their romantic pursuits. 

I'm pretty much only attracted to white people. Not totally without exception; I did once meet an indian/black/white mix I was attracted to. Oh, and once a Mexican.

It might be purely coincidence that almost every person I've been attracted to has been white, and I'm not willing to rule out the possibility that I MIGHT meet someone of another race who I would feel that way for, but, sort of like with redheads, the odds seem really low. If I was filling out a personals ad and was supposed to check a #1 preference for race, I'd check "white", because checking any of the others would seem to reduce my odds of connecting with someone I was attracted to.

[AFK]

You haven't been able to give a legitimate reason for why someone would purposefully live separate from other races based on aesthetics.  That's fine.  And it would seem hard to come up with one that didn't, on its face, appear to be informed by some level of racism or prejudice.

Why do aesthetics have to be informed from a feeling of superiority?
can't they simply be arbitrary? perhaps some people just like uniformity...

Uniformity would explain why someone likes to be with their own kind.  But you earlier talked about someone deliberately choosing to live "away" from other races.  That would suppose some thought process to conclude that they needed or wanted to be "away" from other races.  "with", to me, means attraction.  An attraction to be with a certain kind of people.  "Away", to me, denotes a repulsion.  Do you see what I'm getting at here? 

So what would a completely arbitrary thought process based upon aesthetics look like?  Not a thought process of why they want to be "with" someone, but a thought process of why they want to be "away" from a certain kind of person. 

Now, to the other question.  I'm probably not a good person to judge the intimacy question as I've been romantically linked to people of different ethnic persuasions.  I personally can't relate to using skin color as a pre-requisite for deciding whether or not to become romantically involved with a person.  I wouldn't necessarily call someone who prefers to date only a person of their own color a racist.  I would be curious, however, as to why they exclude all other races in their romantic pursuits. 

Why is there an inconsistency here?  Why aren't you insisting that their preference here be informed by the same assumed racism?

"necessarily" is a key word.  Thus the curiousity.