Quote Originally Posted by Bilbo
Quote Originally Posted by superheavyrhun
Sorry Bilbo, but I'm afraid whilst the comment in of itself isn't high on the racist scale, what it does do is suggest something about the man behind the words and the implication that he believes himself to be better than any white man to ever pull on boxing gloves. And in that, he rules out the possibility that any white man could be better than him, which is racist.

In terms of scale of racism, it is close to one one the one to ten scale of severity, but it still is racist.

AS for

Quote Originally Posted by Bilbo
Real racism involves the subjection of one group of people by another, treatment of brutality, of slavery, of intimidation and hostility. It involves the taking away the rights of one race by another.
I can't see how it would need to reach such a scale to become racist, surely just a comment about a p**i at the corner store or a n****r is racist, and doesn't involve any of your description.
It's not racist Rhun. The balck man has a long history stretching back hundreds of years of being oppressed by white's. If they have any resentments it's nothing to do with being racist and everything to do with history.

Growing up as a black in America where white's rule you are bound to feel some resentment and general hostility.

Is it any coincidence that virtually all of boxing's most flashy and flamboyant characters are/were black?

They have come from being part of a social underclass to being achievers in a white world.

It may sound hypocritical to say it would have been racist if the other way around but that is defintely the case here because of history.

I've said this before on the forum but past association is everything.

If Santa puts your child on his knee, ruffles there hair and shouts 'Ho ho ho, merry christmas' and gives them a present it's fun and part of what christmas is supposed to be about. If Gary Glitter on the other hand was to attempt to do that to your child you'd have a different mindset entirely.

Black people in general don't have any power to racially subjecate white people so they have little power to actually be racist.

Black gangs certainly can act racially in America but how can Hopkins actually be racist towards Calzaghe?

If you were to tell me you hated your boss and thought he was a c*** that's no crime. If your boss on the other hand tells another senior member of staff that you are a c*** that could be construed as intimidation or prejadicial seeing as your boss and other senior members of your workplace have authority over you.

Does that make sense?
Bilbo. I typically like your offbeat sense of humor and don't take issue with your words, usually. But this...

I am black and I have a question; what the hell are you talking about? One of the "equalities" that we as black people (I'm slightly disgusted with the "we" concept, associating myself with a group of people I don't know on the whole) was to be seen as no different from anyone else. Exactly for what reason do I have to hold resentment and hostility against white people? Simply because there are more of "them" than there are of "us"? If I went to India right now there'd be more of them than me too but I have no reason to resent them. And to reduce "us" to a bubbling cauldron of emotions ready to pour over at any minute simply because of what happened in our ancestral history. Thinking like that ranks along with the minds who think reparations are a good idea and to me that is one of the biggest jokes/insults running. To pay me for something that has nothing to do with me, that I didn't experience personally out of tax money that I and a country full of people who likewise have no direct knowledge is simply idiotic. You paint black people like were liabel to punch whitey at the drop of a dime. I don't want to hit anybody (especially considering people hit back). I do get what you're saying and recognize there are people who are like that who walk around with that chip on their shoulders, but I avoid those people just as much as any white person would. Don't reduce us to any one thing because "we" are no less complex than "you".

By the way, what exactly did Hopkins say anyway?