racist malawi

sibweni · Senior Member

racist malawi

ambolomtima · Newbie

yes we are racist amongst each other.for example most people from the north like to marry wakwithu,akaladi only likes to marry akaladi anzawo,we can go on and on .i've seen people being called names mzunguuu,nkaladiii,mmwenye when walking in some neighbourhoods.in the government the other races dont stand a very good chance even though we have some in there.gwandachakwamba ndi msena and so forth.

abre les ojos · Guru

That's not racism if the other person is black like you!!! It's called tribalism...

Tiyo · Newbie

the term "racist" bothers me cause I thought we are all part of the human race.

game · Guru

abre les ojos wrote:

That's not racism if the other person is black like you!!! It's called tribalism...

are you serious my friend?

sibweni · Senior Member

its not only blacks i mean why are we concerned so much about the way the whiteman sees us to be forgetting the way we look at the whiteman or asian brother. i remember when i went to start my secondary school in luchenza we had this group of mixed race chaps who were a couple years ahead. people used to call them amwenye i didnt have a clue who mmwenye was i ended up in big trouble when i called the tough one of them all.
the situation in malawi is different from our neighbours like tanzania where you can call arab "we mwarabu" on his face without offending him.
its high time we left the feeling of insecurity and move forward no matter what the whiteman calls you whether we are greedy selfish or whatever as long as you dont call them names.
nakude ndi nakude,mzungu ndi mzungu ndipo amwenye azakhala amwenye

TT · Veteran Member

sibweni wrote:

dont you think that we malawians are more racist than the azungu we deem to be?

are we racists ,yeah ,more than azungu ,dont think so.

remember one of my black friends went out with an indian guy and all the girls thought she was cheap .they talked about her lots .u know stuff like ,amayenda ndi amwenye and she was labelled a slut just cos she went out with an indian chap.as for the reaction from the guys @ school,dont need to say anything .they treated her as if she was disgusting.

I for one grew up experiencing it ,just coz ma mum was coloured and my dad was black ,pple used to ask my mum if she 'stole 'me somewhere.Or they would ask her "bwanji simunakwatilane ndi makaladi anzanu ?

And you tell me that malawians are very loving people.

abre les ojos · Guru

game wrote:

are you serious my friend?

Yes I am. Look it up. Racism is a feeling of antipathy to a member or members of another race. Besides all this dumb generalisation never answers anything or proves nothing.

Black Panther · Senior Member

This whole dscussion would end if people did infact look up "race" - The world race is a social construct it implies bilogical diff btw man when a man in China can have a more similaer DNA strand to and African then a man from Japan.

Sociologists do not recognise race b/c it was constructed by man it is abstract and hence not real... If you want to see where the whole race thing started look up Darwin and how he screwed over the black man and women by categorizing people in to races... we are all member of different ethnic groups that may have light or dark skinnned people in those groups...the world really discriminates about color and shade .... not "Race"

abre les ojos · Guru

Actually Black Panther you are wrong. It isn't Darwin that put people into racial groups. They were there long before Darwin. Darwin only tried to understand the differences between races. Show me a single bit of evidence that Darwin did that!!!

Race isn't a societal construct. Discrimination is... The similarities in our DNA strand just shows that we have similar origins whether we be black or white or oriental.

We can, and obviously do, divide people into races. For obvious reasons . But no thanks to politics and religion discrimination comes to play. It preceded colonization and slavery. White man had to find a lame excuse to brutalize other dark skinned folks.

So division by race is not a bad thing unless it is used as such. Racism.

patrick · Newbie

Yah ur true . even see albino marrying albino !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111

Black Panther · Senior Member

Abre,

Darwin was the first to try and put a scientific twist on race, and look at the biological differences...and porpagated that idea in science. Indeed, chapter 7 of Descent of Man is devoted to examining the question of whether the different races were actually subspecies that had evolved separately. In his own words:

[Man] has diverged into distinct races, or as they may be more fitly called, sub-species. Some of these, such as the Negro and the European, are so distinct that, if specimens had been brought to a naturalist without any further information, they would undoubtedly have been considered as good and true species.

From a dictionary website: Human beings define themselves in biological, social, and spiritual terms. Biologically, humans are classified as the species Homo sapiens (Latin for "knowing man"): a bipedal primate belonging to the superfamily of Hominoidea, with all of the apes: chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, and gibbons.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(human)

If we are one species or one race how can theri be racial groups.. the idea of race has been so ingrained in us that saying it doesnt exist is hard for people to grasp even though the evidence is right there.... thea saying ;there is only one race, the human race' is not just a tree-hugger saying it has biological and scientific backing....

Race is a SOCIAL CONSTRUCT it has not scientific validity or biological one. Trust me, I got my Bachelor of Science in both Anthropology and Sociology. I also minored in African studies ... I researches how racisim came baout from an African and sociological and anthropological perspective and none of them support that race exists. so Im not just giving you my opinion. go pick up any sociology book and look up the term.

Date: Jan 25, 2006

Black Panther, you shouldn't use specialist terminology to prove a point in everyday conversation, especially when your argument is heavily reliant on semantics. Im sure Sibweni didn't start the thread thinking of 'race' in the zoological sense (ie as a species/sub-species). The fact that you pulled your definition out of a sociology book certainly doesn't qualify it for universal use.

-- Edited by awmygawd at 05:16, 2006-01-26

abre les ojos · Guru

awmygawd wrote:

Black Panther, you shouldn't use specialist terminology to prove a point in everyday conversation, especially when your argument is heavily reliant on semantics. Im sure Sibweni didn't start the thread thinking of 'race' in the zoological sense (ie as a species/sub-species). The fact that you pulled your definition out of a sociology book certainly doesn't qualify it for universal use.-- Edited by awmygawd at 05:16, 2006-01-26

Precisely my point.

Darwin was a scientist and I can name you scores of other sociologists before darwin who were using several methods to try to construct race or "prove" the inferiority of the negro.

But my point is... Race is a distinction. Albeit one that is only skin deep - if you'll excuse the pun. The quantifications or divisions are the ones that are constructed by society.

And a word of advice, wikipedia is bollocks! You should see how much of it is inaccurate...

And maybe you ought to read the whole text from Darwin that you quoted from There was a precise point he was making. By quoting it the way you did has totally avoided it in its entirety.

Black Panther · Senior Member

awmygod and abre,

I didint pull out any def from any sociological dictionary, that was from a random doctionery online, my point is not esoteric and only for people who are sociologists. The other definition was from a scientific website. This is b/c my point was thea from a scientific point of view , it doesnt make sense that there is more then one race when we are all one species, from a social scientific point of view, it doesnt make sense either, from an anthropological point of view , it doesnt make sense either.... Abre asked for proof from 'the man' so this is why I put that. I didint initial try and speak using sociological jargon (see previous post) - Its universal use right now, does link people and color, but knowledge in our society and how its passed on is not alwyas corrrecet. We have been miseducated by popular olden day theories from people like Darwin and other taxonomists.

Using everyday common sense, a guy who is as balck as me in India, is not black. In nigeria, light skinned people are called white. but here they are blask, The US censes categorises, since 2000, all people from north africa as 'white' but some of them are as black as an average malawian. The same person can be 'black' in America, but when they go to Malawi, they are 'colored', In Latin America , they would be allowed to choose, and in another country the same person would be categorised in more then one greoup. There is nothing scientific about linking peoples skin color and their 'race', nothing. It is determined by which culture you go to. This is what we mean in lay mans terms as a social construct. IRace is constructed by society , not nature. and Awmygod your right - the universal attachment that we put to race, has been imprinted in to us, albeit wrongly. But the main thing is that once a person recognises how much of a social construct it is, it is hard to get in to arguments about 'race' b/c its doesnt exist it b/s.... color, now is something I can get in to . WE discriminate against color more then we do race...

abre les ojos · Guru

Well that's exactly what we're saying. The fact that humans have different racial characteristics is a result of evolution. One can trace ancestory to different peoples.We're all humans still and can sexually recombine. These recombinations can produce a hybrid of mixes. All can be traced to Africa as the origins.

Humans for sociological reason put race into categories. Black, white etc. That's where the ism comes in.

You keep quoting US consensus. America being a country with a great racial mix always throws in such lame racial discriptions for politcal reasons and probably economical ones.

Race is not constructed by society. Society doesn't make you a negro, your genetics do. That is the pigment in your skin has nothing to do with the government. And even though there are people in the Indian sub-continent who are darker skinned than you, they have other characteristics that are more like other lighter-skinned Asians than you - namely hair etc.

Date: Jan 26, 2006

We all acknowledge that the human race is diverse. How we choose to index that diversity shouldn't overshadow the fact that the diversity is there. Society has found various means of categorising it. While factors driving this categorisation can be more sociological than anything else (eg the US census), the variety, as superficial as it may be, should not be ignored.

-- Edited by awmygawd at 02:37, 2006-01-27

abre les ojos · Guru

..Need we say more to that?

Black Panther · Senior Member

Abre and ahmygod

Abre, I think that awmygod get my point a little better then you do, I do know that there is diversity in the world and it is tht diversity that makes up the modern concept of 'race', but the conspet of race is based on frivolous and fluid or changing social determinations. The point that anthoroplogits and sociologist and scientist make is that its this is why race does not exist... I am not ignoring the fact that in our society we use 'race' or that biological diversity exists and that it has real social attachment and meaning to people...I hope that makes sense .. Abre , your genetics give you certain features , but society says if you have these features you are negro ? taking it to genetics, ethnic groups far removed from eachother can have more similar genetic make ups then there neighbors.... so if my genetics is the same as a man in china, who was telling me that I was black and he chinese.... not sceince, man.

To Abre, everything in thie world doesnt have to be about who wins tha argument or not, sometimes its about viweing the world from a different perspective. Im afriad you have a myopic view on this topic b/c the concept of race is ingrained in you, and I understand why it is hard for you to think of the world without race b/c your a product of modenr day society... If you really thought outside the box, you may understand my point better. In stead of trying to prove me wrong, I would have much more respect for you if you can say 'let me see the world from another school of thought'. Frankly, Abre. Your arguments prove my point, but as far as proving to you that race is social... really, it is like a psycologist arguing with a lawyer about the psycological reasons that some one may have commited a crime instead of the legal.

abre les ojos · Guru

I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realise what you read isn't what I meant.

We basically are saying the same thing only that you are bogged down by the semantics of sociology and anthropology - which I presume must be your background. The fact that you live in America where the arguments of race are a touchy subject I reckon it has a lot to do with your societal explanation of it.

I, on the other hand see it from a purely genetic point of view since societal definitions keep changing all the time. Especially in America.

Black Panther · Senior Member

Im not sure if we really are saying the same thing but the fact that I live in America has nothing to do with my views, its my degree. Race is a touchy subject in America, but Im not American , and its different in academia, b/c you cant avoid talking about race in a race realtions clas..for example...and but part of what sociologist do is study 'race relations ' and the organisationla structures a of society , in order to do this they recognise that 'race exists' and is used but that it is not ' real ' ..

My point is that froma genetic point - 1 species (albeit with variations, means 1 race... a different race genetically, means apes, monkeys etc.. they r a different race from us genetically

Tiyo · Newbie

Black Panther wrote:
My point is that froma genetic point - 1 species (albeit with variations, means 1 race... a different race genetically, means apes, monkeys etc.. they r a different race from us genetically

I could not agree with you more ....Well said.

abre les ojos · Guru

Yes but the difference between a black man and say an oriental one would be slight variation in their genes. For skin colour, hair texture and other anatomical differences that differentiate the two races. Saying that one is more superior than the other is wrong because they're not.

On the other hand, since humans have the same African ape ancestry, lighter skin colour most probably came about the fact that when they moved towards colder climates (either when the plates shifted or otherwise) they lost the use of the pigment in their skins - that is a genetic mutation if you like.

There was a documentary I once saw of which a bunch of people where trying to trace their ancestry from their genes. There was a black guy who was shocked to find out that some of his ancestors were white Scottish. This was a really dark black man. I guess that goes to show that race description on a sociological perspective is flawed. Hell, a lot of Afro-Carribean people have Chinese ancestry too.

I'm not talking about a different species - just last week scientists found that chimps have more in common with men than they have with other apes.

Years ago people thought wrongly that black people meant a different species - one less than whites. And this was the pervading discourse used to justify slavery and colonialism. It's still used today in the case of every neo-colonial adventure like Iraq although they don't go all out and say things like Arabs are less than whites and can't rule themselves. But you get the message.

Black Panther · Senior Member

ABRE - WROTE: There was a documentary I once saw of which a bunch of people where trying to trace their ancestry from their genes. There was a black guy who was shocked to find out that some of his ancestors were white Scottish. This was a really dark black man. I guess that goes to show that race description on a sociological perspective is flawed.

In fact its has the poin u make opposite affect, in arguing that race is a social construct from a sociologial point of view, I would use ur argument ! I would say there is no sceifntific backing b/c of the reasons mentioned above... and yes, peoples genetic make -up is more similar to people of other 'race' or ethnic groups , then it is to theneighbors at time, showing that race is not determied by sceince but by people, hence the sociaological perppective...the only thing right now that flawed Abre is that u dont want to lose a discussion....

abre les ojos · Guru

What are you talking about? I see that I'm being seriously misconstrued here.

But I'll break it down into bits for you even if I run the risk of sounding patronising.

Race - the appearance of it - is biology. What makes our skin colour or hair texture the way it is. While there's no such thing as a "pure" race, from what we observe on a physical level race is a trait. A recognisable one at that. But thanks to migration and evolution when we look at it on a genetic level it is not that clear cut. But we don't walk around displaying our genetic codes, do we?

While the categorising of human diversity is a construct if society, this construct is based on traits that may or may be obvious.

Black Panther · Senior Member

Abre wrote : While the categorising of human diversity is a construct if society, this construct is based on traits that may or may be obvious.

I say:

Abre if u had said this from the beggining , we could have ended countless discussions on thie topic. But now, I can agree with you. but it does sound like u have slightly changed ur argument or manybe we were saying the same thing at some point. Nevertherless. Agreed. Okay, to bring back to the other topic on how fluid race is... the traits that are obvious may not always be obvious.... people that are dark as me sometimes say they are Indian or colored, people light as Brad Pitt call themselves black due to one-drop rules ...a person black in one country is colored in another, or white in another....so u see it is not obvious... and racial groupings are thus are frivolous catergories created by man to let a gourp of people dominate or control others.

Thanks. Im gonna let this topic sleep now..till next time.