Is this even real?!

[geo85]

The problem is that our generation, on this site were mostly around early twentys, we have been exposed to so much racism from both sides as well as those that scream racism where none existed(those people piss me off the most) that now most people think in terms of race, its a matter of actually changing the way you think and thinking in terms of fellow human being or dude or dudet instead of black guy or beaner etc.

yes i did say dudet (thinking of bill and ted brings me back)

[gohan32]

well, to avoid some of the arguing but to keep enough people offended they should have put both images of white dominating black and vice versa next to each other. That way people could see that neither side was not definitely winning and people would surely be offended enough to think about it, maybe raise a little fuss, but not enough for Sony to retract their advertising campaign.

Another way to look at it, since this is an anime fan site, how often do we see racism in anime and Japanese culture/history? Sony being a Japanese company, i think it's possible that Sony could very well just look at us as stupid gaijin to stur up like a bee's nest of electronics consuming. Now, you tell me, Gubi & others, am i being racist or stereotyping in this last paragraph?

[odin0425]

since we are on this topic, and this is a UK add, i am interested to find out just how big of issue race is in Europe, over here it is obiously a huge part of American history, and i get bad looks from black people all the time...

I know there are a few Europians on this site, and i would really like to know, just how much is racisum part of your sociaty? how does it fuel poloticians, ect? i know my question is asked out of pure ignorance being a stupid american that has no clue of other countries history, but i dont think it could be nearly as bad over their as it is here...which is probably why sony thought it could get away with this add in the first place

[gubi-gubi]

since we are on this topic, and this is a UK add, i am interested to find out just how big of issue race is in Europe, over here it is obiously a huge part of American history, and i get bad looks from black people all the time...

I know there are a few Europians on this site, and i would really like to know, just how much is racisum part of your sociaty? how does it fuel poloticians, ect? i know my question is asked out of pure ignorance being a stupid american that has no clue of other countries history, but i dont think it could be nearly as bad over their as it is here...which is probably why sony thought it could get away with this add in the first place

It's not a UK ad but here in the UK it really isn't anywhere near the issue it is in the states. When you visit the states you feel the tension and feel the seperation. Sure there is some here as there is all over the world but it's not in the same league. The only tensions we have around here are religious in some parts of the UK. We have a lot of muslim imigrants who all go to the same places to live and the places have changed to acomodate it. People who live there don't like the way they feel forced out of their society and a lot of the muslim communities want isolation. A recent poll said that nearly a third of all British muslims want the muslim sharia law enforced over predominantly muslim areas of the UK (hands cut off for theft, death for adultery, gay people killed etc) which doesn't show a good sign of an integrated society.

This has (wrongly) lead to people in those areas to vote for the BNP, a racist (although they say they are not) party to try and stop immigration (and export non-white people). Thankfully the rest of the UK doesn't feel the same. The issue of religion and race get crossed too much. People want to criticise muslims for things they do and say, that is not a race issue yet it gets turned into one and people end up turning to the racist parties to try and sort the issue out as they are not scared to say what everyone is thinking, yet they have their own racist agendas lurking in the background.

[Andromeda18_]

since we are on this topic, and this is a UK add, i am interested to find out just how big of issue race is in Europe, over here it is obiously a huge part of American history, and i get bad looks from black people all the time...

I know there are a few Europians on this site, and i would really like to know, just how much is racisum part of your sociaty? how does it fuel poloticians, ect? i know my question is asked out of pure ignorance being a stupid american that has no clue of other countries history, but i dont think it could be nearly as bad over their as it is here...which is probably why sony thought it could get away with this add in the first place

Racism isn't a very big part of the Portuguese society.
I was talking about racism with a guy from another forum, who lives in London, and he was telling me he knew a few Portuguese as well as people who had lived in Portugal, and that the non-caucasian ones told him there was a lot less racism and oppression in Portugal than in London. He was rather surprised to hear this because London is a multicultural city whereas in Portugal only 4.2% of the populations is made up of (legal) immigrants. I believe that's exactly why there isn't a lot of racism in Portugal. When you have a lot of people from different ethnicities, religions and cultures living together problems are bound to arise. We don't have a lot of people from different ethnicities, religions and cultures living here so there isn't much of a reason for problems to occur. Also, the Portuguese are known for their hospitality, it's part of our culture, and I think that helps a bit.
There is racism in Portugal of course, there's no place on Earth that doesn't have its fair share of racism, but it certainly can't be compared to the level of racism that exists in such places as London or Paris. Besides, we need people from other countries. Portugal has the lowest birth rate in the EU, ours is an aged population, so we really need immigrants to come here and help us keep the country afloat.

[wrxh8r]

What a tricky topic.Nz is a small country but even then each town or city is different.I come from a small town where a bit over half the population are black.The problem here is that people arnt necessarily racist but the media and some groups try to really seperate races.Especially maori activists and politicians.It makes everyone look bad.Even on the census there are options for maori or euopean race.Everyone i know crossed them out and wrote down new zealand.A couple of hundred years in this country and were still classes as european.WTF Why the hell is there even a question that asks if your black or white anyway.Another interesting thing was that alot of people around my age are apparently jedi masters as far as religion goes.

This one time a south african film crew came to our school to make a documentry on such a topic and they refused to film groups that were mixed.Now thats the typical type of media crap that helps fuel the fire.Because they were having trouble twisting their story a little intervention had to take place seperating colours for the purpose of the shoot.I was of the opinion that the school and them could all go get fucked.I bet money was passed round.My school was a tad bit crooked.
OT:The principal and his secretary were fired for steeling the schools entire computing budget for the year.First she found the principal out and blackmailed him before they both got fired.

[Elcoholic]

Same here. Not racism because of a colour. There is racism towards certain groups, mainly Muslim. We have alot of people who come here from Moroco and Turkey. We brought them over in the 50/60's to help build our country after ww2 and they staid. Now there are more and more people from there comming here to work or take advantage of our system (if you don't have work you do get money from the state). Alot of their kids don't work because they get money anyway and they don't feel part of the society and alot also go into crime (trying to take over that whole US gangster culture ala 50 cent). They have no respect for us so we don't have it for them. They all live together too so how do they expect to integrate? There are alot of good people from those places but as always the bad minority screws it up for the rest.

But we have nothing like the US where the society is for the most part split in 2. I think that there has been alot of effort made in the US past to make sure the black community doesn't become as succesfull and won't use their potential. Am I right?

[gubi-gubi]

Same here. Not racism because of a colour. There is racism towards certain groups, mainly Muslim. We have alot of people who come here from Moroco and Turkey. We brought them over in the 50/60's to help build our country after ww2 and they staid. Now there are more and more people from there comming here to work or take advantage of our system (if you don't have work you do get money from the state). Alot of their kids don't work because they get money anyway and they don't feel part of the society and alot also go into crime (trying to take over that whole US gangster culture ala 50 cent). They have no respect for us so we don't have it for them. They all live together too so how do they expect to integrate? There are alot of good people from those places but as always the bad minority screws it up for the rest.

I watched a thing about the problems with the muslim community in the Netherlands. Who was that guy who was killed in the street for a video he made? Well the documentary I watched basically asked the question why would a group of people well known for their strict rules and religion move to a country that's as free and forward thinking as the Netherlands? It can only be to take advantage of it. Seemed to me nearly all the street drug dealers in Amsterdam were imigrants aswell. Can see why that would annoy locals. Not stopping me going back to Amsterdam in a couple of weeks tho yay!

[Elcoholic]

That was Theo van Gogh but he was killed by a wanabe Binladen which is not the average muslim. That guy who killed him was extreme and he sorta had it comming to him. He was looking for the line and he crossed it multiple times. But still, freedom of speech is a big thing here and totaly respected by most of us. But you just know how sensitive muslims are about their religion. He had collums in newpapers where he was very critical about the muslim society and called it and muslims all kinds of names. What he was really killed for is a short movie called Submission. In the movie naked muslim woman with koran texts painted on their bodies talk about the abuse they and other woman get in their culture which is justified by the men through religion. Naked muslim woman is a nono but those koran texts really pissed alot of em of.

It wasn't meant to provocate but make people think. And that's a core problem with muslim culture. They get offended before they even think for themselfs and they're not critical with themselfs. They hardly take a stand against other muslim countries like afghanistan which broke human rights left and right or condemn suicide terrorists. But when there's a cartoon with Mohammed in it all hell breaks lose.

[gubi-gubi]

That was Theo van Gogh but he was killed by a wanabe Binladen which is not the average muslim. That guy who killed him was extreme and he sorta had it comming to him. He was looking for the line and he crossed it multiple times. But still, freedom of speech is a big thing here and totaly respected by most of us. But you just know how sensitive muslims are about their religion. He had collums in newpapers where he was very critical about the muslim society and called it and muslims all kinds of names. What he was really killed for is a short movie called Submission. In the movie naked muslim woman with koran texts painted on their bodies talk about the abuse they and other woman get in their culture which is justified by the men through religion. Naked muslim woman is a nono but those koran texts really pissed alot of em of.

It wasn't meant to provocate but make people think. And that's a core problem with muslim culture. They get offended before they even think for themselfs and they're not critical with themselfs. They hardly take a stand against other muslim countries like afghanistan which broke human rights left and right or condemn suicide terrorists. But when there's a cartoon with Mohammed in it all hell breaks lose.

The thing that annoys me is that muslims are free to criticise, make fun of and just plain hate whoever/whatever they want (Jews particularily) but when something offends them, instead of just taking the moral high ground they take to the streets threatening violence and burning flags... That never accomplishes anything. It's the mentality of a five year old. The cartoons were in bad taste and I would of taken the side of offended muslims had they not reacted in such a way that nearly makes you want them out of your country. I thought our country had evolved enough to get past beheadings and death threats.

I don't know if you heard about this in other countries but there was one guy in the protests in England dressed like a suicide bomber that caused outrage. He was tracked down and turned out to be a convicted crack dealer who got arrested again as going to London broke conditions of his bail. How hypocritical is that? You have a crack dealer who wants to threaten violence on people (who are not even muslim) for drawing a cartoon?! I guess that's my whole word to describe the muslim mentality, hypocritical.

I had a conversation once with a muslim friend I had about how he was going to have an arranged marriage. He kept saying I couldn't understand it as it was just an asian culture thing my western mind couldn't comprehend. I had to point out to him that we had arranged marriage in the west as well until we got rid of it as we realised it was wrong. It's almost like the muslim mentality is hundereds of years behind the western world yet we bring them in the thousands into our modern society and expect it to work.

Wow bit of a rant there Get me started on religion and I talk for hours lol.

[geo85]

Same old Same old,

Change is good

People fear change

That simple, yet not.:o