Color

Fair warning - this May trigger unwanted feeling and emotions but I must ask because I actually care...this is not intended to harm in any way but to think.

Is using color, to discribe people racist?

Do Jedi use color to discribe on another?

If you removed the ultimate worlds - black and white - how else can you discribe some one? Are we stuck with the terms black and white forever as far as race is concerned?

Do colors refer to race?

Why do or did we start using color to discribe people, and is it like this everywhere.

Feel free to post your own personal thought in your journal or here as well.

We believe and teach here In a society that does not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or circumstances of birth such as gender, ethnicity and national origin.

Does that include using color?

Please please please don’t be upset or even put off. This is a real concern for me and I really want to know how “we” as modern day Jedi deal with hearing and dealing with real life.

I’ve heard great Modern day Jedi refer to people as “I spoke to a ( add color) person ...” is it ok ?

Personally I’ve stopped using color to discribe people. I’ve even gone to lengths to chat with people and others on this very thing. Here I am now. What do you think Temple?
Members guests knights council ?
Do Modern day Jedi use color to discribe others?
Is there a better way?
Remeber this is a sensitive topic and I’m looking forward to hearing YOUR side - not others. I get what others do. What do the Jedi in The Temple of the Jedi Order think? What’s real?
Try to Build
Not take down.

Pastor Carlos

Stereotypes and colors are many, the Soul could resonate with human values.

In my opinion, the differences of ideas will be natural today and in the future, I think that describing the racist labels too much could lead us to lose concentration of another Kind of labels.
I like to think about what unites us as Human Beings, the range is wide from: fear, control, anxiety... Including many kinds of love and wanting to enjoy life Unite us ... Seek to build bridges, where I do not need to refute ideas to feel in any particular way.

What unites us?

What labels/skills allow us to integrate while playing a "healthy" win-win game of Life?

Respect, assertiveness and empathy sound basic aspects and each person can contribute something to a better family, group, society.

short answer? No, it's not racist.

There is only one race (human), but different colors. As long as you are describing color as you would height, gender, or shirt color, then you are only using it to differentiate.

There is nothing wrong with differentiating between people.

If I identify someone as Hispanic, do I mean anything negative by it? No. There's nothing wrong with being Hispanic. I love Hispanic people.

To me there's more of a debate if you differentiate by weight. Because even if a person qualifies as being "fat" (no disrespect intended) that word is very much "charged" and is considered an insult.

There is no color that is automatically an insult unless you are a racist and even then I suspect they have different words they use when they mean to be insulting about someone's color.

But a person of that color doesn't consider their own color to be an insult unless perhaps the color is "red" or "yellow". These are typically not colors you see on forms and documents.

The key question is "do they call themselves _______"? Or is it just what other people call them? If they don't call themselves that then most likely they will be offended by it.

Our communications should be about sharing ideas, life, and love. So a big part of that is what do the words we use mean to the people they're applied to?

This also applies to words that are out of date or depreciated. People of a certain era may still refer to people as "colored". While not totally offensive it can be contextually insensitive. The closest acceptable term is "person of color". If that sounds confusing just use black or African American. People of color is still somewhat applicable because it includes Hispanic/Latino people and Islanders.

You may not always know what term is the most appropriate. For example... The physical difference between Chinese, Japanese, and Korean... can be very difficult to see. So you can call them Asian. If someone tells me their specific point of origin I use that. But if the person I'm talking to doesn't know where that is or enough about it I may zoom back out to a broader term, like Asian.

Calling people what they call themselves is not discrimination. Most people, unless they have self-hate, are proud of who they are. We should recognize, acknowledge, and appreciate who they are and where they came from. Why wouldn't we? Doing so makes people feel more welcome.

"Oh, I see you're from Pakistan! That's cool. I don't know many people from that part of the world. Sometime, I'd love to learn more about your culture."

Something like that can go a long way. This idea that everyone should be the same is really a social justice warrior mistake. Everyone isn't the same. Everyone is special. And we should be interested in what makes each person special. What makes them different? Nobody wants to be pointed out for being something negative. But if you're pointed out for being something that is positive then that's good.

Carlos.Martinez3 wrote: If you removed the ultimate worlds [sic] - black and white - how else can you discribe [sic] some one [sic]?

That depends. Do they have any kind of personality outside of "being black" or "being white"? If yes, then that's what I'll use in describing them. If no, then I'll describe them by the fact that they somehow managed to grow up to be so wholly dull and unremarkable as to render nothing left to reference about them outside of something so superficial as the colour of their skin, for that would indeed be quite an impressive achievement in its own right...

It depends on a lot.
Making blanket statements like "we shouldn't use that language" seems rash and reductive. Also language online and off are different.

They are good questions Carlos. You know I can't help but try to see if I can answer them for myself

Carlos.Martinez3 wrote: Fair warning - this May trigger unwanted feeling and emotions but I must ask because I actually care...this is not intended to harm in any way but to think.

Is using color, to discribe people racist?

Depends on the direction it's going I think. Within a group, as a group identifier and in use of group dynamics, there is nothing wrong with using any shared attribute to identify the group - but that should be only of those choosing to be within that group. And its subsequent use can fairly considered likely to be used by anyone for that group and the individual of the group because that groups members have chosen to identify by that (at least in part)....... but that is vastly different from forcing a group association on someone because they happen to have that shared attribute. Why, because group labels mean more then the meaning of the label used for the group! Creating or applying groups to other people based on apparent shared attributes to some group is wrong because it also affords some relationship of those people to other less apparent attributes as necessarily shared by virtue of that apparent shared attribute. TLDR if they look like they are in a group then it’s not good enough to say they are just because the group label is so broad that they happen to have that attribute that a group uses to identify itself. It’s a ‘type mismatch’ or something, and so the question becomes ‘why’ do people do it….

I reckon folk tend to naturally use expression, such as language, to entertain and differentiate themselves from others - as individuals but also members of groups which also go to define themselves as individuals. People who are likewise entertained by that particular expression ‘get along’, and therefore often tend to also use the same groups (in the same ways).

For example, if within a community people speak totally different languages, then they can’t understand each other easily and so inevitably develop fault lines and fractures as different sections operate at different speeds of activity. It’s just not realistic for everyone to learn multiple languages, so its an inevitable barrier of differing heights depending on the language proficiencies. Same thing seems to be happening with defining identities and behaviours to groups instead of to people, IMO.

So considering all that I think the reason is it’s just very easy to be a scumbag…. and indeed people do it all the time for all sorts of reasons in all sorts of ways. No matter how good they think they are, or worse how right they think they are, people will push others down to create an illusion of lifting themselves up.

Now I think that is kinda inappropriate behaviour, not to mention discriminatory and inflammatory and wholly counter-productive beyond the selfish, but I think its a natural tendency given limited energy and competing demands on being alive! I guess a person has a choice to understand it so they see people doing it, and also try to avoid it themselves, or not.

Carlos.Martinez3 wrote: Do Jedi use color to discribe on another?

Good point. A black Jedi could be intepreted as a dark Jedi, or Sith perhaps. Cannot get any darker than black hehe, maybe a Zero Kelvin Jedi would be Sith.

Carlos.Martinez3 wrote: If you removed the ultimate worlds - black and white - how else can you discribe some one? Are we stuck with the terms black and white forever as far as race is concerned?

Race, hell no. Skin colour is not the most useful way to describe a sub-culture but it depends how you define race, because if race is defined by skin color then it might be a suitable label. Usually though race is much more than skin color. I’d say its a left over of old thinking, from the days when regions where more isolated and mixing of cultures and races occurred much less. In those days those groups were distinct and well formed because they were isolated. These days though, its not the case and they seem instead to be sub-cultures within larger multi-cultures. It's more a culture thing than a DNA thing seemingly. It's a bit like gender and sex perhaps, in that on the old days the distinction didn't exist within societal structures but now its not so useful to know someones sex for social interaction when its much more practical to work with the persons gender. For race in the old days the distinction did exist because it could effectively be used, but now we don't really need to know the DNA haplotypes and instead the sub-culture is much more practical.

Carlos.Martinez3 wrote: Do colors refer to race?

What is race, and is it a useful concept these days and into the future? I think we've moved past the concept of regionally localised 'races' within a species. For humans the next races will be Earth, Mars and Belters

Carlos.Martinez3 wrote: We believe and teach here In a society that does not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or circumstances of birth such as gender, ethnicity and national origin.

Does that include using color?

Yep. But people might differ on how they interpret what is discriminatory speech. To me its a human rights issue and requires appropriate respect of the individuals rights, ie egalitarian. Against those natural or maybe human forces which divide and marginalize individuals to turn them from people and into instead group members. It I think it's the meaning of the word 'worth' for the 'human person' in the UNHDR Preamble which gives meaning to the fundamental right of 'dignity'.

ZealotX wrote: short answer? No, it's not racist.

There is only one race (human), but different colors. As long as you are describing color as you would height, gender, or shirt color, then you are only using it to differentiate.

There is nothing wrong with differentiating between people.

If I identify someone as Hispanic, do I mean anything negative by it? No. There's nothing wrong with being Hispanic. I love Hispanic people.

To me there's more of a debate if you differentiate by weight. Because even if a person qualifies as being "fat" (no disrespect intended) that word is very much "charged" and is considered an insult.

There is no color that is automatically an insult unless you are a racist and even then I suspect they have different words they use when they mean to be insulting about someone's color.

But a person of that color doesn't consider their own color to be an insult unless perhaps the color is "red" or "yellow". These are typically not colors you see on forms and documents.

The key question is "do they call themselves _______"? Or is it just what other people call them? If they don't call themselves that then most likely they will be offended by it.

Our communications should be about sharing ideas, life, and love. So a big part of that is what do the words we use mean to the people they're applied to?

This also applies to words that are out of date or depreciated. People of a certain era may still refer to people as "colored". While not totally offensive it can be contextually insensitive. The closest acceptable term is "person of color". If that sounds confusing just use black or African American. People of color is still somewhat applicable because it includes Hispanic/Latino people and Islanders.

You may not always know what term is the most appropriate. For example... The physical difference between Chinese, Japanese, and Korean... can be very difficult to see. So you can call them Asian. If someone tells me their specific point of origin I use that. But if the person I'm talking to doesn't know where that is or enough about it I may zoom back out to a broader term, like Asian.

Calling people what they call themselves is not discrimination. Most people, unless they have self-hate, are proud of who they are. We should recognize, acknowledge, and appreciate who they are and where they came from. Why wouldn't we? Doing so makes people feel more welcome.

"Oh, I see you're from Pakistan! That's cool. I don't know many people from that part of the world. Sometime, I'd love to learn more about your culture."

Something like that can go a long way. This idea that everyone should be the same is really a social justice warrior mistake. Everyone isn't the same. Everyone is special. And we should be interested in what makes each person special. What makes them different? Nobody wants to be pointed out for being something negative. But if you're pointed out for being something that is positive then that's good.

Thank you for posting. I cant tell you how difficult it was and continues to be to chat about this subject. My hope is we dont harm one another but help by sharing. If I cant see ALL side some times I think I cant fully see. Thats me.
I am trying
My question for you Z is can an offence be an offence; without it being an offence?

I've live in a place that the color of my shirt has been offensive. I've been in places NOT having things is offensive. I've been the offence by my very presence.
Most of the time the offence wasn't me but the other persons, hidden, I cant say hate but upset. I had no idea.

Again thank you ZelotX for your side, without you, I could not be able to see it.

Force we share be with you, still.

Gisteron wrote:

Carlos.Martinez3 wrote: If you removed the ultimate worlds [sic] - black and white - how else can you discribe [sic] some one [sic]?

That depends. Do they have any kind of personality outside of "being black" or "being white"? If yes, then that's what I'll use in describing them. If no, then I'll describe them by the fact that they somehow managed to grow up to be so wholly dull and unremarkable as to render nothing left to reference about them outside of something so superficial as the colour of their skin, for that would indeed be quite an impressive achievement in its own right...

I've never met a black person. I've never met a white person before. This is still a touchy subject so please bear that in mind with me.
I've been called colored and I've been NOT served and I've been flat out arrested for being a Carlos. I've turned a few fists and faces AND I've gotten grace. I have been described by many thing and now in life I am know for my height, hair, and practice. My wife gets the " your married to that big "native" looking fellow down the way." That's a real quote from my daily life. I am not a Native American. I was born in Fort Sam Houston Tx. Think about that for a bit. (This is a small joke in my life but I'm as American as one can get, I was born on a ARMY post with ARMY doctors and I was wrapped in a flag the day I was born, I missed the 4th of July by days...)

The other qualities

I've stopped using color to describe others. Truly its not my way and as I did my own reflections, I leaned it from my generations past. That type of blind hate isnt mine. So I don't claim it any more. As you stated, Personality is very ... Individual. To treat some one on a INDIVIDUAL basis is MY way. This, I hope to pass. Skin is very superficial when it comes to individuals. I may use that for the rest of my life Gist!
Thank you for responding and sharing and may the Force we share be with you.

Rex wrote: It depends on a lot.
Making blanket statements like "we shouldn't use that language" seems rash and reductive. Also language online and off are different.

Again, I want to thank you for responding and even in discord as well. There was good chat about this very thing. I think I even read some one say that this particular subject may NOT need jokes or even humor but caution. I agree and thank the whole lot for this.

You are right about there being communication differences online and in real life. Cinema Jedi are able to acknowledge every culture in the room. Can we as Modern day Jedi do the same? This is a romance for me that will dance with me until I glow blue.

I've never liked blanket statements for Modern day Jedi, it doesn't make sense to me. With individuals who understand that most things ARE on a individual basis, some words or phrases just dont... work.
I'll probably spend most of my Modern day Jedi practice finding NEW ways to say the OLD things. Maybe its in the words we don't use any more. Maybe

Thank you Rex and it does me good to see you around Jedi Knight. Keep up the good work and keep sharing-thank you, Im still learning from you.

This, for me is heavy, so I will take a pause and gladly come back later. I love this place still for the way things have been with such a touchy subject. Please feel free to pm me or contact me directly as always with any concerns or gripes or complaints, and May the Force continue to be with every one as we continue to share it.

Im taking a "kitty paws" - get it...