Inspiration! I did it. I re-created my in person race/culture discussion group.

[RolandCuthbert]

No, this isn't a photo of us. But a good representation.

So I have to admit, GaG inspired me. Its weird. I came here because I thought it was an excellent place to talk about, give and get advice on relationships. But insane crazy race and racist conversations sprung up left and right. The thing I have always maintained is that GaG is a pretty good reflection of American society. At least, looking at the Americans who are here. And since at a site that was obviously dedicated to discussions between men/women and boys/girls, that race issues were top of mind for so many people, I decided that I needed to actually do something about it.

Because just trading insults with trolls and debating people online isn't doing anything. It is only an attempt to argue to the same images, using the same terms, and the same logic that has been recycled for decades.

And unlike online trolls, I can actually do something about this debate. So I did. I created a in-person discussion group to talk about race and culture. Those of you who know me, know that I simply see race as a manifestation of an ignorant person's concept of culture.

I thought that I would get perhaps a couple of dozen people interested and perhaps have 8-10 people meet every other week to discuss current events, controversial topics, etc. But this is why I have been away so long.

The group is now at 207 people. And it is constantly growing. I did not expect this at all. And it has been a maintenance nightmare. So now it is crazy just finding venues where we can meet and have discussions. Organizing an agenda is crazy. Managing discussions is crazy.

But it is good. If you know what I mean. I did not know there was this kind of hunger to talk about these issues. But apparently there is. And I would not have known had I not come here to GaG first.

So, right now, the group meets every two weeks in person. I am looking into the capability of having people dial in also to participate. We had our first meetup just last weekend and things got interesting very quickly with a discussion about complex identity issues vs political correctness vs authenticity.

I have to admit the conversation here at GaG is much different than the in-person discussions we have. I think the group itself is having an issue understanding that. That's why I will have them create accounts here, so they can see and understand the differences.

Many don't get that people who wish to engage in these discussions by definition have a fundamentally different view on conversations around race, culture, identity, etc. That makes our conversations fundamentally different than the discussions that would take place in other settings.

But we have a wonderfully diverse group. The only thing is there are far too few men. I think in our first meetup we only had five attend, including myself. The rest were all women.

[sp33d]

'Those of you who know me, know that I simply see race as a manifestation of an ignorant person's concept of culture.'

I will probably never understand this fascination with semantics issues. My incredibly simplified view admits that race refers to someone's skin colour. That's it. Doesn't have to be neither good nor bad. But you Americans somehow Find ways to BE offended just because someone comments on your skin colour. It's ridiculous.

I also feel the buzzword 'political correctness' is thrown around too freely. Elementary etiquette gets conveniently swept under the political-correctness mumbo jumbo. On the other extreme, it's old news (olds?) , but somewhere in Miami, a teacher sued the school, not hiring her as their Spanish teacher, for discimination, because... she doesn't speak Spanish.
www.miaminewtimes.com/.../non-spanish-speaking-teacher-sues-miami-dade-after-shes-denied-job-that-includes-teaching-spanish-updated-8619707

Now, this is actually not an example of political correctness, rather plain stupidity, but the point is - it is being regarded as an example of PC.

So, what use is PC if its definition gets rewritten on a whim to suit the needs of whomever uses it in a particular situation? More importantly, how do you conduct discussion on it? Do you agree a priori what is what?

[RolandCuthbert]

"But you Americans somehow Find ways to BE offended just because someone comments on your skin colour."

You Americans? How do you know what Americans are offended by? That's is what was magical about the meetup. It became evident that not everyone identified with race or even with how race was supposed to be defined. In our next meetup, we will dedicate a good amount of time to defining terms.

So it is obvious that you are dead wrong. The vast majority of Americans don't think race equals skin color. In fact, I am pretty sure almost no one does.

As for the rest of your post, it seems to be just mumbo jumbo. It really has nothing to do with my post or the discussions that I am not holding. But you are in Estonia, so it isn't like you can understand the conversation about differences in America. Estonia doesn't strike me as a multicultural society. But you can try to educate me if you think I am wrong.

[sp33d]

I don't even doubt if I'm dead wrong about it, I'm rather certain. I did say it's a simplified view. The question, rather, is - what do you need these terminology: political correctness, race for. It is evident, as I have demonstrated with my monocultural ignorance, that it's difficult to objectively discuss these topics.

What is your common ground? What do you agree on?

[RolandCuthbert]

Well, I am certain you are dead wrong. Most people in America do not define race as skin color. And we discussed this in the meetup. I have also explained that issue here.

Whenever a person defines a group based upon skin color, then proceed to talk about beliefs and behaviors common to that group, they have ceased to use skin color as the defining characteristic and have moved onto talking about cultural commonality.

It is simple common sense.

Beside that, it is obvious in American society going back centuries, skin color was not the only factor for deciding group differences, since heritage (when known) was more important than skin color.

We are not trying to objectively discuss anything. That would be silly in a multicultural nation. Like I said, you are in Estonia. You don't have to contend with other cultural viewpoints. In fact, I would think that would be the last thing you would want to do.

But since you are curious, I will go into our discussions;

[RolandCuthbert]

So being in a multicultural setting, we had to agree that our experiences/cultures/worldviews are all different yet all legit. And that we had to even go further than that. That we had to look at and understand each other as individuals. We do not have the luxury of an Estonian who could set cultural or national pride as an "objective" standard. Since we all come from different experiences and we do not share the same national identity.

We have to set out to define these terms for discussion and find a way to compromise and agree upon the ideals and standard that would be acceptable by most in the group.

So a term like political correctness, while define in the outside world with a political bent or as a "loaded" term. It has to be defined differently in our group, because looking at the standard dictionary definition, we could easily see it is not applied equally in all situations.

[RolandCuthbert]

Moving on, it became evident to us that when we are talking about "race", we are merely talking about group differences. And that our chief concern should not be about the nebulous ever-shifting, weird definition of race in American society. For our group discussions, we need to be chiefly aware of how we are group identified and try to understand those unique and specific cultural designations and identities.

I hope all of that is clear.

Glad to be of help. I can send you over the link to the group if you want to participate in online discussions.

But again, we are in two different nations with vastly different standards when it comes to national identity.

Perhaps it is better to simply leave it at that.

[sp33d]

Definitely didn't expect that.
*raises glass*

[Anonymous]

Great my take

[RolandCuthbert]

Thank you!

[monkeynutts]

Sounds good, the debates online would be far less civil than in real life I guess, people would be less likely to offend others. Keep networking though, GaG should be paying you getting them 200 more GaGers

[RolandCuthbert]

Well, I guess you are right. But we did have some contentious moments in the first meetup. I didn't expect for the group to dive right in, but I could not hold them back. We had a woman start off about how she hated being her race's "representative". And then it was one. We ended up talking about that which lead to a discussion about political correctness then it went over to problems with being authentic.

It was very interesting and we have to come back to that. I keep asking the group about how do they define these boundaries and how are they defining the terms they are using.

[Anon-ymous1]

That's cool man; nice work.

[Montana07]

Interesting

[RolandCuthbert]

Very! We have our next meetup this Saturday. I am going to try to set us up with conference call-in capability so that others can participate.

I would even like to engage a few folks here, if they have the courage.