Can we continue that discussion from Will's derailed thread?

[Matticus]

Even the ones not written by Robert Jordan?

I've actually been meaning to make a thread about this (since I know a few of the regulars around here are fans). I've only read up to "Knife of Dreams", so I don't know how Sanderson's books are. I do plan on finish the series, but I'd like to start over again from the beginning (too many details get fuzzy over the years), and I probably won't have the time for that for a long while.

[Mario F.]

High fantasy novels are particularly easy target for racism accusations. Not that it is a widespread phenomena, but even Tolkien was accused of racism. Race and differentiation play a pivotal role in this type of novels. Sexism is not just as pronounced. But I distinctly remember authors being accused of practicing sexism by depicting women as only being equal to men when their characters are strong and well developed.

There's no doubt in my mind that this is an effort to look for hints of discrimination, like someone who tries to look for patterns on random numbers. When the show Sisters was accused of being racist for having virtually no black woman as a protagonist and the only non white was an Asian who was good at Photoshop, I remembered the black comedy shows where the only whites are uneventful single-episode guests. Being a white person and a constant target of racial discrimination, I find it particularly hard to support any anti-discrimination movement by singling out a race, a gender, a religion or a culture. The phenomena is felt differently depending on the part of the world one is on. But you can trust someone who has traveled and lived extensively in Africa and Asia, that you have the exact same problem with the exact same intensity in other parts of the world; this time being practiced by the very victims of the western world.

(Which does show how equal we really are.)

Instead discrimination should be fought as a global all-inclusive phenomena, that chooses no race, no religion, no gender or color. A victim of discrimination is not a black person, or a woman, or a jew, or a muslim, or someone with AIDS. A victim of discrimination is a person. We discriminate people, our own kind. Discrimination is an attack on the human race as a whole. And the discriminatory factor should not take center stage. Because every time we center our attention on the race, gender, religion, or culture, we end up trying to kill the tree by pruning the leaves, instead of attacking the root of problem; the human mind.

"Education, Education, Education", someone once said is the solution to the problem.

[Will1]

Speaking of the feminists, and all of that crap, it started back in the 1960s. In the 1980s I boarded a plane for a flight. After we were airborne, I wanted the "Flight Attendant" so I called her by the term I was used to, "Stewardess." She informed me that they were not called Stewardesses, that they were called "Flight Attendands." There just happended to be a man doing the same job fairly close and she said,"You wouldn't call him a stewardess would you?" I replied, "No, I'd call him a steward!" Her jaw dropped. She was obviously too young to remember passenger trains and the stewards on them. That's where the term "Stewardess "came from.

[Alpo]

Speaking of the feminists, and all of that crap, it started back in the 1960s. In the 1980s I boarded a plane for a flight. After we were airborne, I wanted the "Flight Attendant" so I called her by the term I was used to, "Stewardess." She informed me that they were not called Stewardesses, that they were called "Flight Attendands." There just happended to be a man doing the same job fairly close and she said,"You wouldn't call him a stewardess would you?" I replied, "No, I'd call him a steward!" Her jaw dropped. She was obviously too young to remember passenger trains and the stewards on them. That's where the term "Stewardess "came from.

Now it's all equal opportunity. Everyone who gets on a plane has an equal opportunity to get groped or x-rayed! :P

[Alpo]

This video just showed up on the front page of my youtube, it goes with everything we were saying here very well.

Crazy Lady With Road Rage (Curse words) - YouTube

Summary - The guy filming apparently cut the lady off while trying to park at his house. She pulls over and confronts him, at which he calls her 'b*tch', and begins filming. She claims that his taping of her is discrimination, and that he is now responsible for paying for her doctors visit, which she will be late to because she needs to call 911 (she could have left at any point, or not stopped at all).

I say it goes with what we were saying, because the woman in the video chose to pull over to confront someone who had cut her off (usually an indicator of road rage), and immediately shrugged of the responsibility of this action, claiming he was responsible.

Edit: Plus it's sort of funny (if you think seeing people be stupid is funny lol).