Ok so now that I think we can understand kung Flu is racist For the people who actually care, it's use equates a group of people to a viral outbreak. So now the people are not people they are just carriers / creators of this virus. Then when people use the term in connection w hate crimes, my state has had over 800 hate crimes against Asians in last three months, granted CA Is a huge state and with lots of Asian but that is still fucked up.
So I assume most people on this thread A are not people of color who are posting right now AND are not people trained in mental health nor have done work with Marginalized communities volunteer or for livelihood.
I appreciate Alumni's comments as they r solid points.

So imagine your ethnicity is under attack and language used while discriminating verbally and or physically is brought up somewhere u visit. Umd, work, school, tv etc. so every time u hear kung flu or other racist term you are reminded of worker your physical or verbal attackers and then your start to relive your traumatic experience. So for me when I see you post this while I don't fear for my safety as people tend to be scared of me as I don't fit in the stereo typical asian that people feel are easier targets, I do live in fear my gf will be attacked if someone hears her talking about her work in the care giving field. I fear my friends and family who probably look more like the "Easy" passive Asians will be targeted and attacked.
As a POC who does not fit the stereotypical asian look most peope won't target me w the virus related hate. However I have been assaulted by the police a few times physically one even admitted to me it was because I was a darker skinned POC.

If you still think it's nonsense for someone to hear those words and not know why it's wrong to say them lets change the context. Let's say a family member of friend posted something similar (who is white) and some Asians find out and attack that person or people they are associated with. This is a isolated one time incident and a meme grows out of a news article and some angry asian who is upset with the increase of hate crimes and is fearful for legit reasons posts "cracker got Kung fued" going on well flows well and maybe this will make some people stil and think before attacking Asians. So every time you see this meme it reminds you of a violent attack on your friends or family.

So it's not just words once it's used for racist reasons and it's only motor traumatic for people who associate the term with physical violence.

I appreciate the fact that some people are trying on here to learn, and while it's understandable people who have not experienced this may not see it in the same light. If you care about helping people who have been marginalized pls understand it is harmful to explain why something or someone isn't racist. It devalues the trauma one has gone through. I will admit I stayed off umd because I was angry and I'm glad I didn't just lash out and only because messster asked for patience and the hope this could be a teaching moment. I've spent the last 20 yrs in school learning how to help or working with marginalized populations and I will admit I have fucked up pretty bad a hand full of times.

I understand at least in this thread people are well intended and I shouldn't have been so angry but if you really want to understand how this is harmful then really think about what you would do if the situation was reversed

Good morning, all. In particular, a good morning to my fellow UMDers, Potatoman-J, Leonmoomin and Enigmahood.

I have not responded to this thread for a few days with the hope that all of us will have taken time to reflect on our thoughts & actions since our last replies -- after all, one of us speaking up about another's racist comment or behaviour can be a heavy thing that causes us to get defensive and causes discussion to get tense. But the bottom line is that this is our community and I think we all want it to be a place where everyone feels welcome and we all at least respect each other, maybe even like each other.

Having said that, I stand 100% behind everything I said in my last post precisely because I want us to have a safe, welcoming community, and because I do respect and like all of you. Sometimes we have to raise our voices and say critical things of someone we respect if we want to be true to our principles. But that doesn't mean our mutual respect has to diminish. Rather, our relationships and our community can only benefit if we're willing to be honest with each other -- and with OURSELVES -- about behaviours which hurt others.

My goal (in criticizing Potatoman-J's use of a hurtful, xenophobic phrase, along with his weak attempt to explain & excuse it, and in criticizing Leonmoomin's move to publicly forgive Potatoman-J before anything else) was this building of community and relationships. My goal was not to create conflict. But what I've come to realize recently is that, to be effectively anti-racist, I can't let a fear of conflict keep me from speaking up. Yes, it puts people on the defensive. Yes, it makes people feel judged. But what we're battling here is so much worse than the bruising of a few of our egos or the temporary tension & discomfort we might feel at the beginning of this kind of exchange. We need to do this if we ever want to get to the other side where anyone who isn't white isn't made to feel like "the other," where they don't walk into unexpected, stinging slaps in the face every time a white person openly uses a phrase like "kung flu" and doesn't get called out for it -- or almost gets called out, but actually gets explicitly forgiven for it by another white person.

In this post I'm writing, I am very consciously avoiding making reference to or quoting anything anyone else has said in response to my initial post. The reason for this is simple: everyone defended their points of view/their words/their actions in their recent replies. That very fact tells me that there still needs to be more reflection on what's really happening. It doesn't matter how we defend our actions in a case like this; finding a way to defend or excuse our actions or someone else's actions here does nothing to move us toward a racism-free community. All it does is help our white egos. It means we white people don't have to really examine the racism around us or IN us.

I've been coming up against my own ego for many weeks now. It was painful to finally realize that I was fully complicit in so many racist systems & processes, that I was guilty of so much racist behaviour. It was painful because "I'M NOT RACIST" and "I'M A GOOD PERSON." Of course I'm not overtly, consciously racist; I'm guessing most people here also do not consciously, deliberately do or say racist things. But here's the kicker: we still do and say racist things anyway. Does that make us bad people? I don't think so. Does it mean we're guilty of racist behaviour? I think so, unfortunately.

That's where things get sticky for any white person who (a) has never thought of things in that way before, or (b) kicks into automatic "I've never had a conscious racist thought in my life, so you're wrong about me!" mode. We obviously don't want to think of ourselves as racist, because that makes us bad people, doesn't it? NO! I do not think being racists in an unthinking way necessarily makes us bad people! There IS a difference between saying & doing racist things with conscious intention & belief and saying & doing racist thing because you've never really thought about it before and/or all the people around you assure you it's OK.

What would make us bad people would be this: if we finally realized we'd said or done something racist, something that made a non-white person feel excluded, or sad, or angry (or worse, something which denied a non-white person the rights afforded to white people, or something which put a non-white person in danger), but upon realizing what we'd done, we actively seek to deny it and defend it. That's the behaviour we should really apologize to our mothers for.

I don't think anyone here is going to condemn another for making a mistake and then admitting to it, apologizing for it and moving on with the conscious, declared intention of not repeating said mistake. (At least, I hope not, otherwise I'm fucked because I've been guilty of all kinds of these flying-under-the-radar-with-other-white-people racist behaviours for 50 years and I'm just trying to turn it around now.) Rather, that kind of self-honesty and courage to work on yourself in front of your friends is commendable. That behaviour is how we show each other we can be trusted, and it's how our community gets stronger.

So, I read everyone's replies, and I'm human, so I thought of a bunch of points/details in those replies that I wanted to address. But then I let it go because I don't want to engage in any kind of attack-and-defend dance around people's semantics or "what I meant was" explanations. The bottom line for me is:
(a) regardless of conscious intention, a comment was made which hurt at least one other member of our community because of its racist nature, and there was no real apology
(b) the one and only other person who called out that racist comment also explicitly let the original offender off the hook

No explanations or excuses make these behaviours OK. No explanations or excuses are going to erase how this made our Asian friends feel, are they? But acknowledging that this happened -- without trying to defend or excuse the original behaviour -- and being open and willing to examine our actions so that this kind of thing might disappear, that might make our Asian friends trust us and feel more comfortable here.

Please don't think I'm unaware of how preachy I sound. I realize nobody wants to be lectured, because we're all adults. But stamping out racism is way more important than our white egos, don't you think?

Let's have the courage to look in the mirror and see our mistakes clearly, and be sorry for them. And let's also realize that our mistakes do not define us, rather, we should be defined by our best efforts to acknowledge and correct our mistakes, no?

I'd also be more than happy to engage in private discussions about this if anyone wants to message me.

Please don't feel like you're wrong to get angry. Be as angry as you get, man.

I realize it's on me, as a member of this community for 22 years, for not having done anything before now to help make this a place where nobody is made to feel like they aren't welcome. luvs2pie, you and I have known each other for many years, too, and it pains me to think that you might have had to deal with this kind of thing here before and I never had your back. I'm sorry.

Messmaster created a wonderful oasis for us, and I've been enjoying this community for a long time, but I've never spent the time or energy to just speak up -- or even notice -- if anyone here said anything hurtful toward our Asian friends, our Black friends, or anyone else. I realize now that it's up to us to help each other see when we've said things that hurt others. I won't hesitate to speak up now -- just as I hope nobody will hesitate to stop me when I've said something racist.

Staying calm and doing my best to help craft a vaccine

What absolute load of GARBAGE

Economists are so freaking arrogant. They make enormous claims, but have no idea how to rigorously PROVE their assertions about causation: about cause & effect. About how one thing causes another. They have no concept of running Randomized Controlled Trials, the way medical scientists do to prove the efficacy & safety of a drug. Or climatologists massively perform what-if experiments among MANY POSSIBLE scenarios, over many combinations of parameters, and run computer simulations again.

Most egregiously, they make claims about causation in human politics/law/economics, which are statements about the UNTESTABLE FREE WILL CHOICE of a set of players (humans: same concept applies to nonhuman animals). Stating one thing (e.g. shadow banking system) is "the reason" that many businesses and government services were shut down is saying the SBS physically caused these services to be shut down. Causation of nondeterministic events, such as human choices, is ultimately a DEFINITION. You can't prove a definition. A definition is like an axiom.

Since it is physically impossible to rerun history, the next best thing you can do,
& should do, is run computer simulations in economics, varying parameters.
You hold one set - your hypothesized set - of humans' choices (e.g. shadow banking system) fixed and then varying everyone else's choices, and then finally vary the choices of your hypothesized set of causation.

If you did this, you'd see that it is idiotic to define the SBS as "the cause" or "reason"
for these shut downs. Instead, you'd see it is because of rigorous hard calculations by many disease-agencies to minimize the spread of disease with the variance of economic hardship kept to a minimum. (Variance = square of standard deviation)

Also, the idiot rambled on with some BULLSHIT with his brain fetish for the iPhone
and his IDIOTIC PRESUMPTION that "everybody can magically make money on the iPhone".

And calling Covid a "bacteria" nailed this idiot's qualifications to speak about objective testable provable reality.

All choices, all decision-making, involve adding up ALL positives & ALL negatives of one's actions. ALL injustices & unfairnesses (of which racism, homophobia for example are a subset) reduce to logical inconsistencies. And these inconsistencies almost ALWAYS reduce to looking ONLY at the negatives of a position but not the positives, while examining both the negatives & the positives of the position you want, to show how "unbiased" one is.

(Was going to insert example here but will make post too long.)

When the president refers to SarsCov2 as "the China virus",
because he names the virus after its original
play dumb, play innocent, and REPEATEDLY refer to the 1918-1919 influenza
virus as the American virus, because that virus
And just DRILL the logical consistency into the president.
If he does not object, then we are all happy & logically consistent naming a virus
after the country from whence it arose.
But, if he has a problem with that, then you go nuclear.

Obviously, adding up all positives & negatives requires valid well-confirmed knowledge.
Not saying that physical scientists are the only ones who give us knowledge.
Honest unbiased historians can, too.
But, you have to FIRST ask: knowledge about WHAT? What statements are you asserting?
Physical scientists test and prove THEIR assertions INFINITELY more rigorously
than people in ANY other profession, except for mathematicians proving theorems.

And I personally get pissed off and mad at dumbass bigoted statements
against the following groups of persons;
1. animal rights vegans (not pseudomedicine people such as antivaxxers -
in fact, I hate the equivocation with that group)
2. atheists
3. UFO eyewitnesses
4. Bigfoot eyewitnesses
5. people who strongly believe the alien hypothesis
(again, lots of equivocation with conspiracy groups who make up all sorts of
provably false bullshit. And, whether they are right or wrong is less important to me
than getting self-proclaimed "critical thinkers" to actually LOOK
at the videos and photographs
6. "third" political parties generally (and obviously, that includes parties with whom I disagree:
i.e. I get angry somewhat even at injustices against my enemy)

A logical critically thinking person should ask:
What are THEIR reasons for being in this group?
Is the group a political group: fighting for a cause: making a statement about what should be?
Or, is it a group that simply wishes to show the truth about something,
regardless what its impact or consequences are?
If the latter, then look at their evidence for their claims.

Other forms of bigotry, -isms, have already had tons of media attention.
Now, having tons of media attention is NOT the same as tons of action.
Again: reductionism says to separate those two ideas.

Nevertheless, if the so-called "liberal" media pushing diversity of diversity's sake were really so "liberal" and "diverse", then it would cover all these groups &, more importantly, logical ideas, much more frequently.