what a person with these qualities be called?

[kushiel]

Okay - so there is a set of qualities in a person I do not like. I do not like violent people, people in violent gangs, people who do hard drugs and people who aren't motivated to get off of government assistance.

If there are primarily two races in your area, and one has much more of these qualities than the other, does that make me a racist?

I do not immediately dismiss the race that displays the qualities I dislike. If I'm introduced by mutual acquaintance to someone of that race who is dressed nicely, mentions their job as an accountant and talks about the house they are moving into in a nice neighborhood, I like them.

However, if that is a minority of that race, am I being racist? Or just classist? If I see someone of the other race looking strung out on meth, I'm not going to like them. It isn't the colour of their skin that automatically makes me dismiss them.

Do I just look like a racist because of the distribution between the races?

This is really something I want to see people debate, because I'm still in my early 20s and haven't experienced so much in the world. I personally think this is classism, not racism. But at the same time, I do feel like I'm at least prejudiced because I will judge based on my experiences of seeing race 2 display the behaviours I dislike far more.

Obviously inspired by this thread (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=574931).

[qpw3141]

The problem comes when you start to attribute the qualities you dislike to all members of some race without any evidence to back up that attribution.

In some cases it's probably very hard to avoid this effect to at least some effect and you have to be on your guard to avoid falling into that trap.

[TriPolar]

Yes, you are a racist. I don't like racists, and people who otherwise try to categorize people in groups instead of considering them individually. Those people seem to have unleashed the greatest amount of violence on the world.

Here's an easy way to tell if you are a racist. Do you place yourself in some group of people, and attribute to yourself some characteristic of that group? If so, you probably have the racist mentality. Just because someone who resembles you did something good or bad, it had nothing to do with you. And that applies to others as well.

[Chronos]

If there are primarily two races in your area, and one has much more of these qualities than the other, does that make me a racist?What if you live in a place that's overwhelmingly mixed-race, like almost anywhere in the US?

[SmartAleq]

Okay - so there is a set of qualities in a person I do not like. I do not like violent people, people in violent gangs, people who do hard drugs and people who aren't motivated to get off of government assistance.

If there are primarily two races in your area, and one has much more of these qualities than the other, does that make me a racist?



Well, in my particular case it makes me sexist. I notice an overwhelming preponderance of those who engage in antisocial behaviors and attitudes that I don't like happen to be male. To the point where it kind of surprises me to encounter a man who doesn't act like a complete knuckledragger. Noting that the overwhelming majority of those who behave in ways I find disgusting are male is simply a fact--it's the being surprised by good behavior on the part of a man that makes me a sexist.

[SpoilerVirgin]

I do not immediately dismiss the race that displays the qualities I dislike. If I'm introduced by mutual acquaintance to someone of that race who is dressed nicely, mentions their job as an accountant and talks about the house they are moving into in a nice neighborhood, I like them.This is not racist.However, if that is a minority of that race, am I being racist? Or just classist?You're not being racist if you dislike violent drug users, regardless of their race.If I see someone of the other race looking strung out on meth, I'm not going to like them. It isn't the colour of their skin that automatically makes me dismiss them.What if you see someone of your race, or any race, looking strung out on meth? Do you automatically dismiss that person as well?

The real question is -- if you meet or hear about a person without any evidence of violence, drug use, or bad behavior, do you make assumptions about that person based on his or her race? Or do you take all people equally and neutrally until you are able to learn about them? If you do this, you're not a racist.

[Contrapuntal]

Okay - so there is a set of qualities in a person I do not like. I do not like violent people, people in violent gangs, people who do hard drugs and people who aren't motivated to get off of government assistance.

If there are primarily two races in your area, and one has much more of these qualities than the other, does that make me a racist?How could it possibly make you a racist? What did you have to do with it?

[kushiel]

If there are primarily two races in your area, and one has much more of these qualities than the other, does that make me a racist?What if you live in a place that's overwhelmingly mixed-race, like almost anywhere in the US?

That is where it gets tricky. I suppose if you have 4 races in your area and 80% of people arrested for meth use are from 2 of those races you can be [racist, not-racist, prejudiced, etc.] to both of those races.

Okay - so there is a set of qualities in a person I do not like. I do not like violent people, people in violent gangs, people who do hard drugs and people who aren't motivated to get off of government assistance.

If there are primarily two races in your area, and one has much more of these qualities than the other, does that make me a racist?How could it possibly make you a racist? What did you have to do with it?

If I can watch the news, hear the words 'gang activity' or 'stabbing' and 7/10 times I can call out the race of the offender correctly (and all those are people of the same race), I'm guessing people on this board would call me racist, because I am prejudging the race of the offender by the offense.

The following statistic is made up by me for example purposes:
If 7/10 winners of the American spelling bee are of East Asian descent, I can make a good guess that this year's winner will be East Asian. This is not seen as being racist or prejudiced by society because it is a positive event.

[Freudian Slit]

"I'm not a racist! Why black people gotta make it so hard for me to like them?!"

[Contrapuntal]

If I can watch the news, hear the words 'gang activity' or 'stabbing' and 7/10 times I can call out the race of the offender correctly (and all those are people of the same race), I'm guessing people on this board would call me racist, because I am prejudging the race of the offender by the offense.But that's not the question you asked. You asked if simply living in an area where one race has more negative qualities than another makes you racist. I just can't see how it would.

[kushiel]

If I can watch the news, hear the words 'gang activity' or 'stabbing' and 7/10 times I can call out the race of the offender correctly (and all those are people of the same race), I'm guessing people on this board would call me racist, because I am prejudging the race of the offender by the offense.But that's not the question you asked. You asked if simply living in an area where one race has more negative qualities than another makes you racist. I just can't see how it would.

But in the OP, I said that I didn't *like* the people with negative qualities. So I'm not liking a lot of people of a certain race. Does not liking a lot of people of a certain race, not because of the colour of their skin, but because of their behavior make me racist?

[John Mace]

"what a person with these qualities be called?"

Well, for a racist, you speak excellent Ebonics! :)

[Chronos]

That is where it gets tricky. I suppose if you have 4 races in your area and 80% of people arrested for meth use are from 2 of those races you can be [racist, not-racist, prejudiced, etc.] to both of those races.That's not what I said. I mean, what if most of the people in an area have (for example) both European ancestry and West African ancestry.

[Wesley Clark]

These issues are hard to discuss openly.

Anyway, skinheads and Aryans fit all of the descriptions above (violent, drug addicted, gang bangers, social parasites). So do the mafia.

However, if you lived in an area where the mob or skinheads were a strong presence, would you extrapolate those characteristics to all white people? Would a run in with skinheads make you dislike all white people?

If not, then yeah there is some racial bias in your opinion if you do do that with blacks or latinos.

But almost everyone has racial bias. The Harvard implicit association test says 80% of whites and 50% of blacks have a racial bias in favor of whites (I'm not sure how many blacks had biases in favor of blacks and against whites).

[Triskadecamus]

If you think you have no racism in your make up, then you are probably a racist.

If you make an attempt to avoid class judgements of individual people, you are opposed to racism where it counts, in your own character. If you accept that people have deficits of character, and those deficits result in nearly inevitable patterns of maladaptive behavior with social groups, you are making social observations without judging individuals in groups.

If you think the folks in the ghetto deserve the conditions in the ghetto because their behavior causes the conditions, you are making self serving judgements of groups, and that type of thinking is prejudice. Pragmatically, that will be indistinguishable from racism.

[Telemark]

Does not liking a lot of people of a certain race, not because of the colour of their skin, but because of their behavior make me racist?
Pretty much not by definition. You dislike people because of their actions or their behavior; it's not clear how that can be racist. There's no issue IMO if you not the proportions and averages related to perceived race (but it's tricky, since it's mainly a social construct no a biological one).

I think you cross over the line when you make assumptions about all blacks (that's what you're dancing around without saying it, right?) based on the behavior of some blacks, regardless if that is 5% or 75%.

[DanBlather]

Okay - so there is a set of qualities in a person I do not like. I do not like violent people, people in violent gangs, people who do hard drugs and people who aren't motivated to get off of government assistance.In Boston we called them Irish.

[AClockworkMelon]

"I'm not a racist! Why black people gotta make it so hard for me to like them?!"not sure if racist

[godix]

If a large percentage of a subgroup have a certain trait, and you notice that, then you are just being observant and at worst making generalizations based of fact. For example, saying a black male is more likely to have been in jail than a white one is not racist. It's true.

If you assume that because a large percentage of a subgroup have a trait, then that MUST mean the specific person you just met has that trait, you're being racist. For example, asking a black male you just met what he was in for is racist.

That being said, I think you're classist rather than racist. Easy way to tell. Assume you saw a white teenage male with his pants down to his ankles, bling all over the place, and he's sitting in a beat up piece of crap car blaring rap loud enough you can hear it a block away. At the same time you also see a well groomed black male in a business suit and carrying a briefcase walking out of a well kept middle class home. Which of those two are you going to think the worst of?

[tim314]

If there are primarily two races in your area, and one has much more of these qualities than the other, does that make me a racist?

I do not immediately dismiss the race that displays the qualities I dislike. If I'm introduced by mutual acquaintance to someone of that race who is dressed nicely, mentions their job as an accountant and talks about the house they are moving into in a nice neighborhood, I like them.

However, if that is a minority of that race, am I being racist?(bolding mine)

It sounds like you're generalizing from problems that might be widespread among a certain racial group where you live, to traits of that racial group as a whole. You know, because most of those members of race X are all alike (even though you do allow for exceptions). To me, that's racist.

Basically, lets say you meet a member of race X. You don't know what neighborhood he's from. You don't know what his job is. You only know he's a member of race X. If you already have a bad impression of him, based solely on his race, then you're being racist. Even if you allow for the possibility that you may be proven wrong.

Basically, you ought to recognize that the groups we call races are huge, diverse groups of people, and it's unfair (and racist) to generalize from your experiences with one small subset of that group in one particular community to the group as a whole.

I'm sure there are neighborhoods in this country where most of the members of race X are lawyers and investment bankers and what not. But people who live in such neighborhoods still shouldn't hold that against the group as a whole.

[yorick73]

Human nature dictates that we generalize based on certain characteristics. To deny this is to deny biology. If a certain race or sex is overwhelmingly involved in some behavior then it is only natural to be suspicious of anyone of that race or sex. This is true even with the offending race/sex is your own.

Remeber Jessie Jackson saying "There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery. Then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved.... After all we have been through. Just to think we can't walk down our own streets, how humiliating."? Was he being racist? I don't think so. He realized that he is more likely to be robbed by someone of a particular race.

[kushiel]

I'm still here reading - I'm just having trouble thinking of a reply that is for GD, not IMHO. I'm wishing I went to a school with a debate team right now ;) .

Human nature dictates that we generalize based on certain characteristics. To deny this is to deny biology. If a certain race or sex is overwhelmingly involved in some behavior then it is only natural to be suspicious of anyone of that race or sex. This is true even with the offending race/sex is your own.

Remeber Jessie Jackson saying "There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery. Then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved.... After all we have been through. Just to think we can't walk down our own streets, how humiliating."? Was he being racist? I don't think so. He realized that he is more likely to be robbed by someone of a particular race.

But he *was* judging based on race. He was expecting a person of a certain race to do something negative, but upon finding that person was of a different race, he was relieved. He was making a generalization based on race.

[yorick73]

I'm still here reading - I'm just having trouble thinking of a reply that is for GD, not IMHO. I'm wishing I went to a school with a debate team right now ;) .

Human nature dictates that we generalize based on certain characteristics. To deny this is to deny biology. If a certain race or sex is overwhelmingly involved in some behavior then it is only natural to be suspicious of anyone of that race or sex. This is true even with the offending race/sex is your own.

Remeber Jessie Jackson saying "There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery. Then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved.... After all we have been through. Just to think we can't walk down our own streets, how humiliating."? Was he being racist? I don't think so. He realized that he is more likely to be robbed by someone of a particular race.

But he *was* judging based on race. He was expecting a person of a certain race to do something negative, but upon finding that person was of a different race, he was relieved. He was making a generalization based on race.

I don't think that makes him a racist. He prejudged someone based on their race. This does not equal racism.

[Thudlow Boink]

I don't suppose anyone would care to suggest a definition of "racism"?

If we disagree on whether or not something/somebody is racist, are we disagreeing on the definition of racism, or on whether the something/somebody fits a commonly-agreed-upon definition?