in article vnehbtkisc593ap2927t7ik5rhn34ai22h@4ax.com , BM at not@aol.co, wrote on 3/21/01 9:32 AM:

Is there such a thing as a black/asian or latino $cientologist? I am asking cuz most of them are white. Looks like other races are immune to this $cientology bull-crap.

In 1995, when I took my tour of Flag offered by Scientology FSM Stu Sjourman, I posed this question myself, because when I walked around downtown Clearwater on a daily basis then, I saw hundreds of white people in Sea Org uniforms, but only the occasional nonwhite.

Stu's response was twofold: first, Flag was host to many international visitors, and they'd come in by the planeload from Italy or Germany [heh. not anymore], so the predominance of white people at Flag was due to that. Note that this did not explain why there were no "international" visitors from continents other than Europe. I believe Stu is from Europe, initially.

His other point was that people of color generally spend their money on material things, rather than spiritual things [remember Hubbard said black people talk to inanimate objects, like hats, and give them animate attributes]. At this point, I took my multicultural behind outta there.

Even if you disregard Hubbard's blatant racism, evident in his well-documented support of apartheid, his perception of different ways to audit different "races", not to mention his ideas about Chinese people and American Indians, and write it off as standard for a white man of his generation and upbringing, there are indications in the very structure of Scientology (such as its heirarchic, paternalistic nature, linear progression, grades and charts, and dependence upon written culture over oral culture) that might appeal through their familiarity more to white people than to people of color.

Of course, we now know there is, genetically, one human "race" and the differences between humans is primarily cultural. There are no *significant* biological distinctions between human beings. (Even things like sickle-cell anemia occur in other, nonblack populations exposed to malaria). There is more genetic variation *within* one so-called "race" than *between* them. But that's another newsgroup.

-m., human being

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M.C.DiPietra <mdipietra@earthlink.net>, SP4, KoX
"Hell, if you understood everything I say, you'd be me!" -Miles Davis