# Controversial encounters between law-enforcement and civilians - the omnibus thread **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 10, 2014, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942 "2014-10-10T07:35:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 1301
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2015, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/1301 "2015-03-20T17:15:41Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > The “theory” is itself racist. No, it isn’t. It’s either true or false. It’s not a judgement, or a moral statement, it’s a factual statement to be either proved or disproved. > [@](#): > > Is the assertion “Jews are inherently more greedy and less trustworthy, on average, due to genetics” racist/bigoted? Or “black people are, on average, morally incapable of interacting respectfully with others, due to genetics”? If these are indeed racist, why would an assertion about black people and lower intelligence not be racist? No, they are not racist. The people making the statements, and their reasons for doing so, and the actions they hope to provoke by making those statements, almost certainly are. You may think this is a distinction without a difference, but I don’t. That those statements are almost certainly false makes it much easier to say that the person uttering them is racist, but an assertion by itself, devoid of context, cannot be. > [@](#): > > And if those assertions are not racist, then it sets the bar so high that even _19th century supporters of slavery_ don’t count as having made racist assertions. Not really. “Blacks are subhuman” is a statement that’s either true or false (spoiler alert - it’s false). “Blacks are subhuman so it’s fine to enslave them and treat them worse than animals” is a racist opinion, and a call to racist behaviour. Actually enslaving people because of their skin colour (or for that matter, doing _anything else_ to someone because of their skin colour) is racism. The act, the opinion, the person, they can be racist. The assertion that something is a certain way is either true or false, and by itself has no moral component, any more that “the sun revolves round the earth” does, to pick an example from further back in time. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942)._