# Hector St Clare - racist much? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 6, 2016, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hector-st-clare-racist-much/754048 "2016-05-06T06:14:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hector-st-clare-racist-much/754048/21 "2016-05-06T14:18:29Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Must be the Dravidian/Indo-European split. Not that that makes sense, but it at least has some internal logic to it. Maybe he’s _really_ into Sapir–Whorf ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hector-st-clare-racist-much/754048/22 "2016-05-06T14:55:03Z")
I was _going_ to be upset, but then I saw he said _South Indians_! Whew! ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hector-st-clare-racist-much/754048/23 "2016-05-06T14:58:43Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > I was _going_ to be upset, but then I saw he said _South Indians_! Whew! Yankee Indians are fine, but all ya’ll southerners are just a bunch of rednecks! ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hector-st-clare-racist-much/754048/24 "2016-05-06T14:58:56Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > IME, bigots assume everyone is bigoted. It’s like Republican politicians and butt stuff… I’ve never understood this, but I’ve it to be very true. ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hector-st-clare-racist-much/754048/25 "2016-05-06T16:38:47Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Yankee Indians are fine, but all ya’ll southerners are just a bunch of rednecks! That sounds like someone who’s never been to the Adirondacks. Check out Essex county. There’s rednecks there that make North Carolina look like Oxford, and not the one in Mississippi. Them Yankee rednecks is the worst. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hector-st-clare-racist-much/754048/26 "2016-05-06T16:53:42Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > I must admit, “South Indian” is such a weirdly _specific_ grouping to have this belief over, it makes me a little curious how the belief arose. Not “Subcontinental Asians”, not “Indians”, just “South Indians”. Any takers **Hector’s** loan officer is Tamil? My first thought was that he meant “South Asians” (i.e., the Indian subcontinent) but got it conflated with Indians, and typed South Indians instead. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hector-st-clare-racist-much/754048/27 "2016-05-06T17:30:10Z")
For people not following the original discussion, what’s important here is that in GD, it’s apparently not a personal insult to say “South Indians, such as yourself, have a strong genetic tendency to selfishness and dishonesty” but it IS an insult to say “Hey, you’re a racist” to the person who said it. You’re supposed to understand that when someone says “Members of your group” they don’t mean “you” even though they will later explicitly make the argument that even rare individuals that don’t have the genetic flaw will inevitably find that their kids and grandkids regress to the mean for your race. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hector-st-clare-racist-much/754048/28 "2016-05-06T17:35:50Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > For people not following the original discussion, what’s important here is that in GD, it’s apparently not a personal insult to say “South Indians, such as yourself, have a strong genetic tendency to selfishness and dishonesty” but it IS an insult to say “Hey, you’re a racist” to the person who said it. You’re supposed to understand that when someone says “Members of your group” they don’t mean “you” even though they will later explicitly make the argument that even rare individuals that don’t have the genetic flaw will inevitably find that their kids and grandkids regress to the mean for your race. Right. They’re not saying that you personally are intellectual inferior, just that you probably are, and so, probably, are your family, extended relatives, neighbors with similar ethnic backgrounds, and everyone else throughout the world with a similar ethnic background. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hector-st-clare-racist-much/754048/29 "2016-05-06T17:45:49Z")
Probably worth noting that HSC is apparently himself Asian, although I don’t know what part he hails from. > [@MandaJo](#): > > For people not following the original discussion, what’s important here is that in GD, it’s apparently not a personal insult to say “South Indians, such as yourself, have a strong genetic tendency to selfishness and dishonesty” but it IS an insult to say “Hey, you’re a racist” to the person who said it. You’re supposed to understand that when someone says “Members of your group” they don’t mean “you” even though they will later explicitly make the argument that even rare individuals that don’t have the genetic flaw will inevitably find that their kids and grandkids regress to the mean for your race. This is something of a distortion, of both the rules and the arguments being made. Firstly, the “such as yourself” is your own addition, and I don’t recall anyone ever making the argument in that form. The ones who insist on applying things to themselves are generally the outraged anti-racists themselves, looking to turn the assertions into an insult that they can then suppress. I suspect that if someone made the race-IQ type arguments but gratuitously added “such as yourself” that it would be treated as an insult (since that would be the apparent purpose of that addition) though I can’t say for sure. Second, no one ever said that anyone would “inevitably find that their kids and grandkids regress to the mean”, and this seems to betray complete ignorance of the concept of regression to the mean. Regression to the mean is a statistical concept that applies to groups, not to individuals, and no one could ever “inevitably” find regression to the mean applying to themselves or their children. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hector-st-clare-racist-much/754048/30 "2016-05-06T18:17:04Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Hey, I _like_ butt stuff. Why, some of his best friends are butt stuff! ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hector-st-clare-racist-much/754048/31 "2016-05-06T18:25:23Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > Regression to the mean is a statistical concept that applies to groups, not to individuals In the interest of technical accuracy I should add that it could apply to individuals if you were looking at averages of selected measurements of a variable. (In such a case, the group of performances/measurements is itself a “group” for this purpose.) But in the context that it’s being used in these discussions what I wrote is correct. ---
**Author:** ![Kimballkid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b5a626/32.png) [@Kimballkid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimballkid)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hector-st-clare-racist-much/754048/32 "2016-05-06T19:29:08Z")
But, how does it apply to butt stuff? ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hector-st-clare-racist-much/754048/33 "2016-05-06T19:59:37Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > Probably worth noting that HSC is apparently himself Asian, although I don’t know what part he hails from. Actually, I thought he was of Tamil origins himself. Which if I’m correct would mean he either has some weird self-hate issue, he was making a self-disparaging joke or he was trying to set a rhetorical trap of some sort. 'course I could be wrong, but that’s what I seem to recall. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hector-st-clare-racist-much/754048/34 "2016-05-06T20:08:59Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > For people not following the original discussion, what’s important here is that in GD, it’s apparently not a personal insult to say “South Indians, such as yourself, have a strong genetic tendency to selfishness and dishonesty” … Those who have actually been following the discussion would know that it IS considered a personal insult to post something like that in GD. The fact that many of you guys always seem to exaggerate the situation beyond the acceptable speaks to the weakness of your case. However… why don’t you go and post something like in GD and see what happens, and then we’ll see exactly who is correct. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hector-st-clare-racist-much/754048/35 "2016-05-06T20:14:52Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > Actually, I thought he was of Tamil origins himself. Which if I’m correct would mean he either has some weird self-hate issue, he was making a self-disparaging joke or he was trying to set a rhetorical trap of some sort. Or he might just think he’s an outlier for his group. Or just think it’s irrelevant. (There seems to be some implicit assumption on your part that no one could possibly ever use logic to arrive at a conclusion that’s not in line with some emotional pull.) Any given person is as smart or stingy as he is, regardless of how his ethnic group rates on average for those traits. Some people - most people, probably - would nonetheless be offended at the notion that they are members of a group that’s lacking on average in various positive qualities, even if they themselves are what they are, and that accounts for a lot of the emotion here. But from a purely logical standpoint that has no real bearing. I think that was the point that HSC was making in the other thread. Of course, whatever his motivations are for holding whatever he holds also has no direct bearing on the issue. But since people are speculating here that he dislikes his loan officer or the like, it’s worth keeping his background in mind. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hector-st-clare-racist-much/754048/36 "2016-05-06T20:24:42Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > I must admit, “South Indian” is such a weirdly _specific_ grouping to have this belief over, it makes me a little curious how the belief arose. Not “Subcontinental Asians”, not “Indians”, just “South Indians”. Any takers **Hector’s** loan officer is Tamil? I mean, I’m Tamil? So I know more about southern Indian culture than about northern indian? Anyway, Tamils have a higher rate of consanguinity than any other major ethnic group, which is why I’d guess they’d have genetic tendencies towards less altruism towards people outside their group. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hector-st-clare-racist-much/754048/37 "2016-05-06T20:28:56Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Was going to leave this at “All righty, then”, but really, you had to double down… > Jesus, that’s such a fucking racist thing to say outright, I almost took it for parody. Almost. > > Wait, the way you were trumpeting rational discourse over feelings, I suppose you have some scientific evidence for this statement, right? > > Right. > > At least you “don’t know” if Jews have “greater tendencies to selfishness & low social trust”. It’s good to be agnostic on these things :rolleyes: > > Here I thought the “I’m happy to live in a police state” was the dumbest thing you could say. “South Indians are genetically inclined to selfishness. But gee, Jews, I dunno…” sure beats that one. By a mile. I’d guess most _civilized_ people would be fine living in a benevolent police state. Perhaps not troublemakers like yourself with a seeming lack of humility and obedience, but I can’t say I’m too concerned about folks like that. You might ask the Russians whether they preferred living in the Soviet Union under Brezhnev or under Yeltsin’s liberal democracy. Of course, I don’t actually mean ask individual people, as you seem to think personal anecdotes equal data. I mean, go look at some statistics. If you think that wouldn’t hurt your tender little feelings. ---
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hector-st-clare-racist-much/754048/38 "2016-05-06T20:32:17Z")
> [@faithfool](#): > > I’m glad to see that I wasn’t alone in pitting him forever ago. At least he’s consistently reprehensible. I was going to say that I had Pitted him as well, but I see that it was **Chief Pedant**. I think we can start an omnibus thread for **CP, HSC** and **Fotheringay**. > [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Right. They’re not saying that you personally are intellectual inferior, just that you probably are, and so, probably, are your family, extended relatives, neighbors with similar ethnic backgrounds, and everyone else throughout the world with a similar ethnic background. Conversely, we may not say that “they” are “probably” racist. > [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > In the interest of technical accuracy I should add that it could apply to individuals if you were looking at averages of selected measurements of a variable. (In such a case, the group of performances/measurements is itself a “group” for this purpose.) But in the context that it’s being used in these discussions what I wrote is correct. Oh look who’s here to defend his peeps. All in favor of expanding the Pit to include **FP**? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hector-st-clare-racist-much/754048/39 "2016-05-06T20:41:05Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > I mean, I’m Tamil? Are you?? Or are you not sure??? Or are you just using question marks to indicate a rising tone??? > [@](#): > > So I know more about southern Indian culture than about northern indian? Would you?? I wouldn’t know??? > [@](#): > > Anyway, Tamils have a higher rate of consanguinity than any other major ethnic group Do they?? > [@](#): > > , which is why I’d guess they’d have genetic tendencies towards less altruism towards people outside their group. You’d fucking ‘guess’??? That’s rich, coming from someone berating me for my feels. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hector-st-clare-racist-much/754048/40 "2016-05-06T20:43:16Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > I mean, I’m Tamil? So I know more about southern Indian culture than about northern indian? > > Anyway, Tamils have a higher rate of consanguinity than any other major ethnic group, which is why I’d guess they’d have genetic tendencies towards less altruism towards people outside their group. So, you’re bigoted because you’re racist? It’s like a Bollywood version of West Side Story… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hector-st-clare-racist-much/754048.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hector-st-clare-racist-much/754048.md?page=3)