Over the last few years I’ve become more conscious (and self-conscious) about a common practice which I’ve observed in the media as well as in casual speech. I do it myself, although I’m trying to knock it off. I can’t describe it so much as illustrate it as you might hear it said:
Example 1: “Man, there were these black kids at the mall being really rowdy and I couldn’t wait to get out of there.”
Example 2: “That woman doctor did not know what she was talking about.”
In both of these cases, you can assume that the speaker would not have said “White kids” or “The male doctor” if the situation were the other way around. Now, two schools of thought:
(1) Describing the kids as black and the doctor as a female is simply including a relevant detail. Because whites teens are the majority, as are male doctors, the fact that these parties were something else was noticeable and the modifier is included innocently.
(2) Describing the kids as black and the doctor as female is including an unimportant detail that does not add to the understanding of the incident, but reinforces prejudices and biases (in the speaker, or the listener) such as: black kids’ rowdiness is more menacing than that of other kids, or woman doctors are more likely to be make mistakes then men.
What do you think? Would you think the speaker was risking sounding prejudiced? Is this feeding into other people’s perceptions about certain groups or types of people? Or is this concern an example political correctness gone awry? Are race, gender, ethnicity, etc, loaded descriptors? Are there times when they are more loaded than others? Would it be as bad if the speaker said “Boy, those black kids sure were well-behaved?” or “That Asian check-out clerk sure was polite” or “That woman doctor sure knew her stuff!”?
I brought this up in another thread, but it really belongs here.
I don’t see it as racist. Now if you said something along the lines of “out of all the mall, the only kids that were rowdy was the black kids” I would be more inclined to think you had a racist outlook on it. But I would not outright accuse somebody of being racist on that one statement either.
People who get all bent out of shape about neutral descriptive modifiers need to calm down.
Would somebody get offended if I was talking about a Green-eyed babe I saw at the park, and said something about her not-so pretty brown eyed friend. Would one assume that I think that ALL brown eyed people are ugly. Of course not.
And what would you be inclined to think if the statement was “out of all the mall, the only kids that were rowdy were the white boys”? Open-minded honesty?
I think it comes down to the patterns of a person’s speech, not any one comment. I am sure we all know pepole who never say anything more extreme than the examples you have quoted, but who mention it every time they see black kids misbehaving or feel that a woman doctor was incompetent or whatever, and who never mention white kids acting up, etc. I would say that such a person was certainly acting in a racist manner, and it would turn me off (for instance, if it was a person I was thinking about becoming closer friends with, I wouldn’t bother if I thought that closer aquaintance would bring these racist ideas to the surface). But I wouldn’t automatically assume that someone that threw in these modifiers was a latent racist.
I, myself, try to avoid the sorts of constructions you are talking about unless they really are relevant (i.e. there were two groups of kids, I saw two doctors, etc.). This is because I think I probably am a bigot: I think we all are, that it is hardwired into our brains to prefer “us” to “them” and that society has taught my brain that “us” and “them” are differentiated by race. I know I notice skin color more than eye color or hairstyle or clothing, and I shouldn’t. So I try and act like I don’t notice it in the hopes that thought patterns follow actions as much as the other way around.
Of course. Why else would you mention the race or gender, rather than the hair color, clothing, or (rationality forbid) the actual behavior that leads you to condemn them?
Nope.
Absolutely, unless those factors are relevant to the reason you descibe the person.
Sure. No loading involved if you’re describing them to a police sketch artist.
Yes. Try treating people as individuals instead of group members.
Well it really depends on the mall. The malls around here have alot of kids in it. Black, White, Hispanic, etc. If only one group was being rowdy I would be hesitant to believe that. If they felt they would only mention on particular group I would be inclined that it was the only group that was noticed out of all the other kids. Hence, an unconsious bias towards that particular color.
If somebody said that the white kids were being rowdy, and failed to mention that most of the kids are always rowdy, then yes, I would be inclined to believe there is a hint of racism there.
Now if somebody said “there was an awful lot of rowdy kids at the mall, most being teenagers, which made me feel unsafe, so I left”. I would probably have to agree.
I don’t know, when somebody cuts me off, and I vent about it to somebody, I use descriptive words.
Just saying “Oh, this car cut me off today” works, but it lacks flavor.
Saying “This %^&$ stupid ass Blue Ford cut me off going down the street today, damn near pushed me off the road”, is much better. Does it mean I have something against Ford? (No, because Im of the type that couldn’t care less about Car Brand Loyalty)
Personally I don’t judge a person by one isolated statement, If they continually did it, and in derogatory ways, then yes, I would believe that they could be racist.
Judging them from one statement or two and saying they are racist is stupid and ignorant. A knee-jerk reaction to something that is trivial.
Or am I wrong to see a connection between the ‘black’ kids statement and the “%^&$ stupid ass” Blue Ford statement?
Not to cast aspersions on Amedeus. But I do believe that the speaker in the OP used ‘black’ and ‘woman’ in much the same way that Amedeus used ‘%^&$ stupid ass’. It’s just more subtle.
The word ‘black’ adds nothing to the meaning of this sentence UNLESS their race is important. Therefore it is racist. Conclusion:- the narrator doesn’t like these kids because they are black.
The word ‘woman’ is redundant, since the word ‘she’ already identifies the doctor as female. Its only logical purpose is to emphasize that the doctor is a woman. This gives a very clear message:- Woman doctor = Incompetent.
Someone might object that no discrimination was intended, they just didn’t choose the best words. But it still shows a subconcious or ingrained bias.
The next time you want to use words such as ‘black’ or ‘woman’ to emphasize a point, think carefully about what this implies.
I often find myself in the same situation.
Like Cranky illustrated, I sometimes include unnecessary descriptors like race or gender both when speaking and thinking. However, for the same reasons Manda gave, I immediately correct myself with an admonishment that I’m being unfair. When I’m at the mall I notice how all the kids are being rowdy, not just the blacks/hispanics/whoevers. It’s plain to me that it’s not just one group. But still, every time, I’ll find myself commenting on the ‘rowdy _____ kids’ instead of the ‘rowdy kids.’
I think that society has taught me that ‘us’ and ‘them’ can be drawn along race lines, and that’s something I can’t seem to get over. But that’s another debate.
How is that better? How is that judging people on individual behavior?
If “There was an awful lot of rowdy peple at the mall, most being black, which made me feel unsafe, so I left.” is not okay, how is the above version okay?
Oh wait, teenagers are inherently more dangerous than grown ups. I forgot. And everyone over 21 is gifted with superior grace and intellect.
Bias is judging someone on a group they belong to rather than who they are. It is not a good thing not matter what group you apply it to, be it women, gays, blacks, Republicans, or even gasp teenagers. People are individuals, and that is one of the priceless things about the world. When you forget that unique gift you deny someone else their individuality.
I notice it when people do that. To me, it raises flags about the speaker. It doesn’t mean I’m sure the speaker is a bigot, but it does tend to say that the speaker might have some level of prejudice (concious or unconcious).
I doubt the speaker notices that they’re doing it.
I also think it depends on whether you’re using the words for identification or not. If you’ve talked to a battery of doctors today, four men and a woman, then neither “Boy, that woman doctor was totally incompentent,” nor “That woman doctor really knew her stuff,” would be inappropriate. If you saw four women and a man, or four Asians and a black, the same reasoning would apply. If someone’s trying to describe a former classmate to me, saying, “You remember Sharon - she had long dark curly hair and dark eyes and sat up in front where she could heckle the professors more effectively,” but doesn’t mention that Sharon was black in the course of trying to describe her, that would be a sign that the person is obsessing over race in a different way.
But to say, “That woman doctor really knew her stuff,” after visiting one doctor, seems to call attention to the idea that you expect woman doctors to be incompetent, and this one surprised you.
Coming from a prejudiced family, and being a minority myself, I personally have started not using such identifiers in general conversation. I find it to be interesting particularly when speaking of people I go out on dates with - I’ll call home and say, “I had a great date last night with David!” and, depending who I’m talking to, the response might be, “Ooo, what did you do?” or, sometimes, “Is he Asian?” Now, most of the time these are from my friends who are amused by my penchant for Asian men, and it amuses me more that they care enough to ask, so that’s one reason I leave it out. But more subtly, it tells them, “What the heck does that matter?” Now, if they ask me to tell them about the person, I of course would include their nationality, along with their occupation, age, looks, personality, likes, etc., and, yes, I’ll say “white” or “Irish” or whatnot. I am also very proud of my diverse tastes, so I don’t have any problem describing them as black, Chinese, Mexican, or whatever the case may be. But, again, it’s relevant when telling someone about them - when just discussing my friends, I am color blind.
Of course, when you date someone named Zhang or Long or Vicente, it sometimes gives it away…
I appologize for the Ford example, it was a terrible example, I was tired, but I now see why it is so.
Well, I just want to say that when I say something along the lines of “We got a new-hire today, a really tall black guy” I am not being racist, I am only describing a person for the person’s benifit I am describing them to. I only can assume that other people are not being racist also. I never say “We got a new guy in” and just leave it at that. Again, its a very knee jerk reaction to come out and say somebody is racist because they use the term black, No…If I was racist, I would say “they hired a goddamn stupid (N word) today, Im quitting” (Which I have seen from racist coworkers many times.)
It is not, it is only describing the group of teens that seem to terrorize the people at the mall. For sake of saftey, I judge before I go in. Do I consider every teenager to be dangerous. No, but from past experience I know that there is almost always a few groups of kids at the mall that harrass people.
Like I said, it depends on the person saying it about the black people. If they were mostly black, then so what? They were only describing the group of people that were causing problems, thats not to say that they think all black people are dangerous. sigh
:rolleyes: Yeah, thats what I said.
You just go ahead and walk up to that group of teenagers wearing leather with green hair in the group of 8 people, and tell them that they are individules and saying that they are dangerous is biased and ignorant, and mabey they wont harrass you or mug you or some of the other things they usually do to people at that mall.
Sorry, I’ll be biased then and judge dangerous looking thugs before I get to know them on a individual level, and I will live. Its called street smarts.
**Of course I never stated that I judge all teens by this judgement. People would know this if they read a sentence instead of jerking the knee.
Example 1 I don’t see as being a problem. Most malls aren’t the province of a single race, so therefore pointing out that a certain group, rather than all in a certain age bracket is merely adjectivial.
That isn’t to say some people won’t quickly brand you a slavering racist, as you’ve seen from the other replies here.
The second example is also unnecessary. I’ve run into enough male doctors who were similarly clueless to know it isnt’ the province of just female ones.
I’ll bet a nickel I know what brought this topic to the forefront.
You can link to it, Cranky. I don’t mind.
Anyway. Here’s the way I figure it.
People come in a wide variety of flavors, colors, etcetera.
Generally, the best idea is to try not to emphasize or draw conclusions from race. On the other side of the coin it’s stupid to pretend it doesn’t exist.
When I’m describing an incident, if a group that I’m describing has a prominent or obvious common characteristic, then mentioning it is merely accurate, and descriptive. I do so.
