NEWS: Steven Spielberg's Bad Hair Day

I DO get it :-) I just don’t agree with it.

I, and many of the people posting, have agreed from the start that the significance of this loss is severe, and totally warranting compensation. And I, as well as others, have said repeatedly that due to the girl’s culture this warrants greater compensation than someone who’s religion places no value on hair. I also think the majority of the people here who have actually been paying attention to the posts have not taken the line of “It’s just hair.” I know I have NEVER taken that stance.

But, what seems to have pissed you and others off, does not seem to have anything to do with this. What appears to have pissed you off is that everyone on these boards has not automatically rallied around the “racist!” cry as we have all been taught to do by a society smothered in self deprecating guilt over all the horrible things our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents may have done.

I, for one, am probably one of the most non-racist and “culturally sensitive” individuals you know...because when I meet someone, their ethnicity does not even enter into my mind. It does not even occur to me to modify my behavior to someone because they may be black, or Asian, or Martian. I make no assumptions about what they believe in any way...but especially assumptions about what they believe because they happen to have lighter, or darker, skin. Once they have told me what their religious and personal culture preferences are, I observe them completely regardless of whether they are the result of 10,000 years of cultural history...or whether they made them up last Tuesday...as how they arrived at their preferences is immaterial.

However, this confuses people when I also refuse to offer them any special leeway or opportunities because of the terrible events of their history. Every race on the planet has, at one time or another, had their land stolen, been shit upon, been unfairly imprisoned and been genocidally killed...including the “whites” (“Anglo-Saxon” comes from the fact that the Saxons conquered most of Europe...after the Angles took it from the Celts...which were the original the Irish-Scotts...which were me!)

I, personally, have never had anything to do with any injustices you (meaning the member of whatever trampled minority I might be speaking with) have suffered. Therefore I, personally, suffer no guilt and feel no obligation to offer you (the hypothetical minority) any extra considerations.

I see us both ( as in all human beings regardless of race, creed, country of origin, ETC.) as completely and equitably equal. I expect you to pull no more, and no less, weight than I do. And I expect you to have to fight no harder, and no less, to get ahead in this world than I do.

The majority of the individual misery in this country is the result of individuals being raised in poverty, and without adequate education. That is the problem, and it can be solved on a nationwide scale. It is immaterial, at this point in history, as to the fact that minorities suffer a great deal of this poverty due to their historical circumstances as the more we focus on it as a RACIAL issue instead of a SOCIO-ECONOMIC issue - the longer the problem will remain unsolved just as a medical misdiagnosis delays the medical cure.

People are not being denied jobs, at this point, because they are <race>. They are being denied jobs because they are uneducated. The solution is to address the poverty and poor education...not to address what brought a large number of minorities to poverty and poor education.

And I agree totally with the thought that each time anyone plays the race card in any way, they are shoring up the racial divide and self-defeating. It is time for race to become a non issue, so all individuals can FINALLY stand on equal ground.

If I'm offended by a few of the comments that were insensitive is that really playing the race card?

You have over simplified the solution to racial inequality and if you really think that white people don't still have priviledge in many ways then you should really delve deeper. I'm not arguing about that though because this really isn't the place and I don't care to.

I simply have issue with some of the comments that were made and responded to them. I still believe they were insensitive and that many people who choose to see it as "just hair" are being culturally insensitive and are missing the point of the suit and our pain and outrage.

That's reasonable :-)

I do believe that white people have the advantage predominantly because they, historically, have had access to education and wealth...therefore their children and children's children have had access.

I also believe that there are huge regions of minority poverty and ignorance as a direct result of their historical oppression.

I also think there are still very callously racist individuals.

But, perhaps only because I travel in professional circles and work with a huge number of professionals who are of all different races, I have found race to be a non-issue in these circles regardless of whether I was working in Montana, Washington, Colorado, California or Louisiana. It wasn't that they were accepted...it was simply that their race and culture were not even a consideration - pro or con :-)

I like your new profile pic BTW.

....I'm sorry, but...WHAT was lost? The girl could have lost the hair at any time in any number of ways, accidents or not....it's not like they lost the ability to perform the ceremony. They just have to pretend it was never cut-it shouldn't be too hard, pretending is the basis for all religion.

Awareness/attention for.....? "accidents happen"? Sensitivity towards an issue that almost no one will ever face? Fishing for converts?

You just don't get it do you?

Well, that all comes down to what "sensitivity" is, then.

I see it as "just hair" and I recognize the Mescalero Apaches think otherwise. I can hold both ideas at the same time.

Acknowledging something is distinct from endorsing it; I am not obligated - nor are you - to validate a belief just because some people somewhere might hold it. Are the Ponces culturally insensitive for refusing to go along with the majority culture's beliefs and practices regarding children's haircuts? No. They're entitled to believe what they like about it. But so am I.

Had it been within my power to prevent the haircut, I would have - but not because I give a fig about their religious practices. I don't owe them any more reverence or "sensitivity" or whatever you want to call it than I owe to my own heritage and traditions. I would have stopped the haircut because regardless of what I might think of it, that is what they believe and I would respect their rights as parents to raise their children as they see fit.

But it's still "just hair" to me.

As for "missing the point of the suit and our pain and outrage," unless the claim is being made that the haircut was some kind of deliberate anti-Indian slight, I very much question how much "outrage" is called for to begin with. Bumping into someone on the sidewalk is very different than shoving them on purpose.

[Edited on Mar 25, 2006 by BrainFromArous]