After years of conflict, Turkey´s tradition-rich Kurdish minority is experiencing a joyous cultural reawakening by Steven Kinzer.

see : Smithsonian latest article

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/Kurdish-Heritage-Reclaimed.html

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Meaning?

Meaning - you should delete the comment Trudy.

 If they put a golden saddle on a donkey, the donkey is still a donkey.

Your guess, but like L.I.R. I guess he disagrees with the article

I knew exactly what it meant Henry and I thought it was a very insulting comment.

Apart from insulting, it is a racist comment..

When you think of that Turkey has the biggest racist/fascist party in Europe and ´racism is considered as the nationalism taken to a tad bit of extreme´, the comments above are normal.. 

But may be it should stay as it is to prove that, Turkey in fact, has a ´Turkish problem´!!

When you want to load lots of other meanings to a word or a sentence, humanbeing can have success on that in anyways...

But that proverb simply means: The nature of a person is hard to be changed, even though you try to change your image or apperance.

Everybody understands what it means and how racist the wording  is.. 

Even softened version of your translation wont cover it Sui..

As I see it it is a wise proverb similar to many used everyday here in Scotland only the context in which it is used here is objectionable to some.

 I cannot do anything about how you want to understand it my friend

but it has nothing to do with being racist to me

Sorry, double post

.....an in the context in which it was used I thought it was intended to be insulting.

Well of course it is not to you..

(And also I explained why it might look  normal to a person from a country which has the biggest racist party in Europe )

That is why I keep saying that we do have "a Turkish problem"..

 Of course insults will always be traded by both sides in a dispute.

When a politician uses that word over a group of people, or over a group of same ethnicity like gypsies, africans etc..., yes it can be heard as a racist.

But there are always two sides on a madallion, which we should never forget...

Put your hand into your heart..

Say we are in Europe and say You are talking about how young Turks are well educated, how cultured they are and suddenly a person is coming up and saying above words to you..What would you think?

There is no medallion here...Even there is, both sides are racism..

But as I said, you NOT being able to see that is quite normal it seems

I cannot agree with what you are saying over here, as during my travels around europe people were hardly believing i am Turkish... i had to show my id... but this was kinda sad and was also flattering after hearing "wow, then there are some nice Turks aswell"

what is it you dont agree exactly?

Tell us how using those words in the context given is NOT RACIST..

Think of a context like similar to Ros´s new..Think that some foreigners says ´Oh Look at this . Turks are coming along with their culture, education etc etc..´ and suddenly another person is coming along and saying ´a donkey is still a donkey even with a golden saddle´

That is a racist comment to me..

I was just defending the proverb itself

Your example at the moment is just a proof to my idea... proverb itself cant be racist, but the usage of it by a person can make it sound as so. So its the users mistake

Well no one in the first place insisted that proverb itself was racist..

What I said was the usage of it in THAT CONTEXT was  racist.. 

So you agree with that..

Thanks...

btw..dont take it personally, there are many people here and in Turkey would NOT think it was racist.. and they would think it was a very normal thing to say or belittle Kurds/Armenians/their culture etc.. And they would be surprised later on why they have been called ´racist´

The comment by Jeth is racist in this context based on my standards. The post is edited and a warning is sent to the sender. 

 You forgot about the translation of the insulting post . Not all understand turkish but all of us understand english ...

True, but I don´t want to be deleting/editing too many posts. The quoted/translated parts can stay to make it clear that such language is considered racist here and is not allowed. 

I read the article.

Its just another sided article. The people who are referred on the article are in close contact with the terrorists.

The writer is hypocrite becouse he supports the killers. What more discousting is he does that in selected paragraphs which are sprinkled amongt a wedding ceramonies memories. Becouse everybody enjoys and feels sypathy to new groons and brides.

However, while the terrorists couse thousands of people to die they also obstacled my Kurdish brothers to recieve public services. Terrorists condemned my Kurdish brothers into poverty.

Don´t worry. We are solving the problems in Turkey. I offer the EU citizens and American writers to focus on their own possible ethnical conflicts that will appear after the economic depression widened.

+1000

 Aren´t some of handsome´s posts rude, racist or simply stupid  enough to deserve to be deleted?    

Can you be more specific?  

 I think the fact that he gleefully introduced one of the pictures with the captions that some found in poor taste into his personal profile tells you a lot.