Reminder: TOTJO is global, not just American

I meant (not because of appearance) because of the fact that most bad things are caused by us.
. slavery
. genocide of native americans
. 2 world wars
. The plague
Sorry. I shouldn't have said that.

I wasn't involved in any of those things, but you still claim you don't like me because people I've never met, with whom I share no ancestor less than ~500 years back, may or may not have been - stuff we both agree is morally reprehensible - because I look a bit like them.

Do you see my point? How is that any different from saying "I don't like Muslims because of terrorism" or "I don't like native Americans because they scalp people", both examples of the same logic which you presumably see the flaw in? It's a huge oversimplification. Generalisations always are.

Anyway, I'm dragging this off topic, so apologies for that. Personally I don't think it's ironic that a discussion of whether or not we're too America-centric ended up in a debate about America, because it's kind of implied in the thread that we're going to address the "America Issue" here. If this is the thread where we do that, that's cool. I'd just rather it wasn't every other thread in the forum, too.

Silas Mercury wrote: I meant (not because of appearance) because of the fact that most bad things are caused by us.
. slavery
. genocide of native americans
. 2 world wars
. The plague
Sorry. I shouldn't have said that.

Edit... Misread, my apologies. I am pretty mixed actually, Caucasian, Native American, German, and Irish, and I dont blame myself for any of the atrocities for any of what those individual races may have committed. All the events you have described were carried out by people who are for the most part long dead. People are still animals, some still just a step from the jungle. Atrocities have been carried out by just about every ethnicity on some level, we just hear about the worst, and are constantly reminded of them so as to learn from it. We're capable of great things, dont count us out just yet...

tzb wrote: because it's kind of implied in the thread that we're going to address the "America Issue" here.

I disagree.

Proteus wrote: let's try to remember to specify the country we're talking about instead of saying "this country" for example.

Proteus wrote: Just putting this out there as a mannerful etiquette we might want to develop as Jedi.

To me this sounds like a call to mindfulness. As he wrote, a matter of etiquette, to not assume a generally shared context of living in America. This, to me, has nothing to do with any of the US aspects, merely of understanding that we’re not all living there, not all sharing the same gun laws (or even care the same amount about these laws) not all going to vote for either Hilary or Trump.

To me it was but a gentle reminder that, besides all the focus on the topics above, for some of us it is a spectacle of stuff happening somewhere else. America is not my world, nor my focus and as interesting as these discussions are, they do not concern me (and yes, the future president will affect the world, yadda yadda, but I can do jack about it in any directions so there’s that) It's not even a critique directed at the American members of the temple. It’s easy to get caught up in this when most peers share the same context. Recognizing the others and their views in this literally means thinking outside of the box (which is the context here). It’s a feat, not a triviality.

To me, Proteus post meant for the US members to realize that besides all the US-centric debates, there are a lot of non-US or even non-american members too.

So yes, it is ironic that, in a thread reminding there are other places too, the focus switches to discussing the merits or deductions of US society. Even more so, since apparently this switch was driven by non-american members.
How could that not be ironic?

Edit: If this thread is now to discuss the American society in order to contain that discussion instead of having it in every other thread, that is fine with me. I merely wanted to point out, that in my perception it was not the outset of the original post.

Silas Mercury wrote: I meant (not because of appearance) because of the fact that most bad things are caused by us.
. slavery
. genocide of native americans
. 2 world wars
. The plague
Sorry. I shouldn't have said that.

*COUGHcough*biblical egypt*coughCOUGH*

ahem.. sorry, something got stuck in my throat there.

Proteus wrote:

Silas Mercury wrote: I meant (not because of appearance) because of the fact that most bad things are caused by us.
. slavery
. genocide of native americans
. 2 world wars
. The plague
Sorry. I shouldn't have said that.

*COUGHcough*biblical egypt*coughCOUGH*

ahem.. sorry, something got stuck in my throat there.

Yeah because pointing at someone else to blame has always helped in understanding eachother ,...we are all assholes , all of us , we are HUMAN no matter what colour we have . We are all guilty and we have to stand together to solve this ... how infantile the thinking of some cultures is , is not really my problem anymore , how i can work together and work towards understanding is from now on...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SkEDfcZFfE

Silas, I see an ongoing pattern here. You keep trying to blame us for things that were done in the past, or done by other people. I have never owned a slave. I was not alive during either world war. I've never even met a Native American.

I'll admit, racism is still alive and kicking here in the US. The thing is, it's time to stop blaming people for it, because that just prolongs the hard feelings. Marta is right. We need work together to find solutions.

Things are a lot better than they were back in the days you're talking about. They're not perfect, by any means, but we have made progress, and if we can get over petty differences, we will continue to do so.

MartaLina wrote:

Proteus wrote:

Silas Mercury wrote: I meant (not because of appearance) because of the fact that most bad things are caused by us.
. slavery
. genocide of native americans
. 2 world wars
. The plague
Sorry. I shouldn't have said that.

*COUGHcough*biblical egypt*coughCOUGH*

ahem.. sorry, something got stuck in my throat there.

Yeah because pointing at someone else to blame has always helped in understanding eachother ,...we are all assholes , all of us , we are HUMAN no matter what colour we have . We are all guilty and we have to stand together to solve this ... how infantile the thinking of some cultures is , is not really my problem anymore , how i can work together and work towards understanding is from now on...

I believe it was only done to show that not just [strike]Americans[/strike] white people do it, not to shift the blame, lol...

And, I read that as it was aimed at Silas, not as a general point to all, lol...

Even more so, since apparently this switch was driven by non-american members.

Which often feels like a (personal?) attack, like saying all the mods suck, council sucks, Jedi suck, women suck, blacks suck, Asians suck, UK people suck, Australians suck...

And, then that group, [Americans this time, next time might be women against a misogynist comment/thread) or abortion/death penalty (value of life)] will rally cry against the comment, and the lumping of people...

tzb wrote: I wasn't involved in any of those things, but you still claim you don't like me because people I've never met, with whom I share no ancestor less than ~500 years back, may or may not have been - stuff we both agree is morally reprehensible - because I look a bit like them.

The collective weight is still there...

Somewhere I was reading about it a few years ago...

It will be a long time before it simply stops being an issue...

Jamie Stick wrote: But no, you're right, it's not fair to generalize so please, let's continue with the illusion that each individual bears responsibility only for their own actions and not for the shared action or inaction of the nation which they belong to.

We are doing what we can...

Also, this is a generalization, and (I feel) you know that's not really the case here (lol, generally not the case, ), we TRY to not make it the case, and the reason we are all trying to do what we can...

But, as tzb said, Im not responsible for my ancestors, any more than my children are responsible for me... I dint encourage it, nor do I agree with what they did... So why do I feel a touch guilty?

All I can do, is my best NOW, and try to encourage that in others, as well as keep asking for forgiveness from those who feel downtrodden ancestor-ly (is that a word?) And explain I do agree with their position...

Silas Mercury wrote: I meant (not because of appearance) because of the fact that most bad things are caused by us.
. slavery
. genocide of native americans
. 2 world wars
. The plague
Sorry. I shouldn't have said that.

Silas Mercury wrote: (yatta yattta yatta).... and history has made some of their people crazy. I'm not really a fan of the white person altogether. (Not racist, I am white) ....(yatta yattta yatta)

Silas, please stop apologizing if you don't want to fix what you have done and said. You really should stop BS'ing the people in the fourm. If you were sorry, you would fix what you have done by not doing it again. You really need to stop blaming us for things you clearly have no idea about. You are justifying your racism by saying you are the thing you are being, which doesn't make it right. Racism is racism. If a white person calls a black person the N word, it's racist. If a black person calls a person the N word, it is still racist even if they are black too. And also, most of them aren't crazy, that is why they stopped using insane asylums in the US. No person is really crazy, its just a label that immature people (like you, Silas) have put on people. Your statements 1. Have nothing to back them up and 2. are incorrect as it is. Please refer to my exhibits (A, B, C and D).

Exhibit A: Kaiser Wilhelm II was the cause of WWI, not the US.
Exhibit B: Adolf Hitler was the cause of WWII, not the US.
Exhibit C: We freed those slaves almost 200 years ago. This is 2016, not the 1800s.
Exhibit The plague wasn't caused by the US, it happened before the 1500s. The US didn't even exist then, it was constituted in 1776.

Thanks and much hugs and kisses,
sNe1a