# How to tell if you're prejudiced against Blanks **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 12, 2004, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-tell-if-youre-prejudiced-against-blanks/264126 "2004-09-12T12:08:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2004, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-tell-if-youre-prejudiced-against-blanks/264126/21 "2004-09-12T14:35:40Z")
> [@Ruby](#): > > Ireallylikeblanks.Lookwhatlifewouldbelikewithoutthem.People,pleasethinkoftheblanks! Fool!Blankstakeuptoomuchspace.Ihatesthem.Ihatesthem.Ihatesthem! ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2004, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-tell-if-youre-prejudiced-against-blanks/264126/22 "2004-09-12T14:58:41Z")
> [@pizzabrat](#): > > Spiders weave webs of moral judgement? The other day I came home, and there was an orb spider in the corner. It just stared at me, it’s compound eyes cold, and filled with condemnation. I could feel the contempt it had for me, as if it was saying, “You wicked man, I have weighed you in the balance and you have been found wanting.” So, I whacked it with my shoe. Goddamn judgemental spiders. ---
**Author:** ![Futile\_Gesture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f05b48/32.png) [@Futile\_Gesture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Futile_Gesture)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2004, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-tell-if-youre-prejudiced-against-blanks/264126/23 "2004-09-12T15:20:13Z")
> [@tim314](#): > > then **YOU ARE PREJUDICED AGAINST BLANKS!** Quit kidding yourself, you damn Blank-hating bastard! You **do** know that you can be prejudice against something without in anyway hating it? Like; “I love blanks, but they shouldn’t bother their pretty little heads with politics.” “I really wish I was blank, then I would have natural rythmn and be a great dancer.” No hate there, just prejudical ignorance. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2004, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-tell-if-youre-prejudiced-against-blanks/264126/24 "2004-09-12T15:39:45Z")
Fucking blanks. They come over here, stop our guns from firing bullets, provide templates for keys and coins, assist our games of Scrabble. Blank bastards. Seriously though, **Lib** , is disliking people for holding a political/social viewpoint that I find abhorrent necessarily “bigotry”? Am I bigoted for despising Nazis or racists? Merely intolerant, surely. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2004, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-tell-if-youre-prejudiced-against-blanks/264126/25 "2004-09-12T15:50:25Z")
> [@jjimm](#): > > Fucking blanks. They come over here, stop our guns from firing bullets, provide templates for keys and coins, assist our games of Scrabble. Blank bastards. I saw this heading in the direction of a Second Amendment dogfight, but I determined not to assist it on its way! 😉 > [@](#): > > Seriously though, **Lib** , is disliking people for holding a political/social viewpoint that I find abhorrent necessarily “bigotry”? Am I bigoted for despising Nazis or racists? Merely intolerant, surely. Define “intolerance” and “bigotry.” Explain what the distinction is, and why people should agree with your distinction. (That’s rhetorical.) ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2004, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-tell-if-youre-prejudiced-against-blanks/264126/26 "2004-09-12T15:52:54Z")
> [@pizzabrat](#): > > Spiders weave webs of moral judgement? There is a device called “metaphor” that students of language used to explore. I know nowadays that l33t is the craze, but I’m talking about days of yore. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2004, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-tell-if-youre-prejudiced-against-blanks/264126/27 "2004-09-12T15:54:37Z")
> [@jjimm](#): > > Seriously though, **Lib** , is disliking people for holding a political/social viewpoint that I find abhorrent necessarily “bigotry”? Am I bigoted for despising Nazis or racists? Merely intolerant, surely. I’m always suspicious of equivocation. It is an enemy of logic. If what describes them describes me, then our labels should be the same. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2004, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-tell-if-youre-prejudiced-against-blanks/264126/28 "2004-09-12T16:21:26Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > Define “intolerance” and “bigotry.” Explain what the distinction is, and why people should agree with your distinction. (That’s rhetorical.) Hmm, I confess to having been using rather too narrow a definition of the word ‘bigotry’. I withdraw. ---
**Author:** ![Muad\_Dib](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/35a633/32.png) [@Muad\_Dib](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muad_Dib)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2004, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-tell-if-youre-prejudiced-against-blanks/264126/29 "2004-09-12T16:24:00Z")
Some damn blank stole my VCR! ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2004, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-tell-if-youre-prejudiced-against-blanks/264126/30 "2004-09-12T18:22:24Z")
There Liberal goes again, shedding crocodile tears for those poor bigots out there that are being made fun of. White Supremacists and Homophobes, just trying to live their lives in peace and not bothering anyone, why do we make fun of them? We’re so mean. ---
**Author:** ![JohnBckWLD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d6d6ee/32.png) [@JohnBckWLD](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnBckWLD)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2004, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-tell-if-youre-prejudiced-against-blanks/264126/31 "2004-09-12T19:38:01Z")
> [@tim314](#): > > If you say… **YOU ARE PREJUDICED AGAINST BLANKS!** Quit kidding yourself, you damn Blank-hating bastard! > > (Where Blanks is any group, and blipity-blah is some heinous thing.) I’m not too sure about tim314’s “_If You Say_ This, ‘You’re Hateful & Prejudiced’ Doctrine” Clarifications required:[ul] [li]Do these rules apply to thoughts?[/li][li]When filling in the _Blanks_, does this doctrine apply to age groups (such as teenagers or senior citizens)?[/li][li]If we label words as prejudiced, how do we define actions that come from a result of those thoughts?[/ul][/li]Examples (neither of which are heinous): While driving in the right lane, I slow down and yield to an Asian woman driving an SUV. Normally, I’d either move to the left lane or keep driving knowing I have the right of way. Is that prejudiced? If I advertize my business or service in the [Jewish Yellow Pages](http://www.jewishyellow.com/DAGM/index.php) or The Gay Guide under the premise that people from those groups tend to be more cliquish and have more disposable income, is that prejudiced? What if I’m not even Jewish? Questions: [ul] [li]Where do stereotypes come from? (Aren’t they usually just harmless generalizations?)[/li][li]Do they have any basis in fact? (Or was some commitee convened centuries ago that passed down these erroneous & overly generalized traits to the ignorant masses?)[/li][li]Would you consider changing the doctrine to: [/li]_If any negative action comes as a result of making generalizations about members of a specific group or from a refusal to judge a person based on individual merits, you either (1)Didn’t have the ability to get to know that person or (2) Have jumped to conclusions. In a free society, you have a right to think or say whatever you like. That doesn’t howerever, afford you the right to act on those thoughts_.[/ul] ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2004, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-tell-if-youre-prejudiced-against-blanks/264126/32 "2004-09-12T20:09:56Z")
The problem with stereotyping and related phenomena which makes this thread so interesting is that the generalizations do often represent a real phenomenon, attributable to many though not all in the subject category. Picking up on the age item mentioned above, it is a good generalization that teens will as a rule be more inexperienced and hence unable to argue from as broad a background as middle-aged adults. The problem with this lies in a few associated thoughts: It is not, therefore, correct to conclude from this that the teen is wrong or less intelligent, or even necessarily less mature in his/her judgments, than the adult – just working from a smaller data base of experience. Second, any given comparison runs the risk of falling flat wrong – I can think of a broad range of adults to whose experience and reasoning powers **dwalin** ’s compares favorably. And he is not an isolated case – I can quickly think of four other teens in my recent experience with comparable abilities, two of whom have remarkably mature judgment for any age, much less the 14-15 that they actually are. The point, however, is that whatever grouping you care to utilize, and whatever stereotype may exist, there will **always** be exceptions to that group. Given the “Gays vs. Christians” thing that occupies space in the Pit and GD on a regular basis, you all might be intrigued by a thread on another board\*, in which the OP set forth her credentials as a strong fundamentalist Christian, and then proceeded to quote off Romans 1 to demonstrate homosexuality as a sin. And I was thinking, “Oh, God, not this again!” At which point, in her third paragraph, she proceeded to speak of God’s command to love our fellow man, and to excoriate the churches’ attitudes about expelling gay people and fighting against their civil rights, instead of bringing them into the church and leading them to Christ. And I felt very sheepish for having misjudged her on the basis of the opening paragraphs. - Unfortunately locked and trashed by the moderators there thanks to a flamefest that broke out, or I would link to it, as it’s a classic example of the point I’m shooting for. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2004, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-tell-if-youre-prejudiced-against-blanks/264126/33 "2004-09-12T20:32:21Z")
I agree with John and Poly. Stereotypes don’t just appear out of thin air. There are, for example, [well documented problems](http://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/naind/html/na_001100_alcoholandin.htm) with a substantial number of Indians and liquor for various reasons and because of specific twists of history. I have heard it said before, and I do agree, that there are two kinds of bigotry: (1) singling out people in a group on account of race or what have you and (2) _refusing_ to single out people in a group on account of race or what have you. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2004, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-tell-if-youre-prejudiced-against-blanks/264126/34 "2004-09-12T21:03:06Z")
```auto I <3 ! ``` ---
**Author:** ![MacTech](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MacTech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacTech)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2004, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-tell-if-youre-prejudiced-against-blanks/264126/35 "2004-09-13T03:19:04Z")
Must…resist…Max…Headroom…reference 😉 ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2004, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-tell-if-youre-prejudiced-against-blanks/264126/36 "2004-09-13T04:19:12Z")
Is anyone else channeling [Tom Lehrer](http://www.easyweigh.com/national_brotherhood_week.htm)? ---
**Author:** ![kung\_fu\_lola](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f4b2a3/32.png) [@kung\_fu\_lola](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kung_fu_lola)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2004, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-tell-if-youre-prejudiced-against-blanks/264126/37 "2004-09-13T04:35:38Z")
> [@tim314](#): > > E.g. “Every vegetarian **I’ve ever met** is a judgemental holier-than-though prick . . . ooh, why are all the vegetarians suddenly offended?” . I think this is a fair statement. WHat if you’ve only ever met six vegetarians and they **WERE** holier-than-thou pricks? Those three little words I bolded make all the difference, and I think someone has every right to recount their experience as it happened.\* \*Provided they acknowledge that there are non-holier-than-thou vegs in existence, of course. But in my case, that goes without saying. ---
**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:** [September 13, 2004, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-tell-if-youre-prejudiced-against-blanks/264126/38 "2004-09-13T05:11:59Z")
Some of my best friends are Blanks. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2004, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-tell-if-youre-prejudiced-against-blanks/264126/39 "2004-09-13T05:22:23Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > Some of my best friends are Blanks. Fucking Blank-lover! ---
**Author:** ![El\_Cid\_Viscoso](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/41988e/32.png) [@El\_Cid\_Viscoso](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Cid_Viscoso)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2004, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-tell-if-youre-prejudiced-against-blanks/264126/40 "2004-09-13T05:39:30Z")
> [@](#): > > _by Liberal_ > > Men aren’t spiders. When men weave webs of moral judgment, it is a suicidal thing. Humor is in short supply. I am traveling, with limited access to words. In context, these are the finest I’ve seen in quite some time. I hope I can someday explain how your contribution to this thread has helped me. Thank you, Liberal. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-tell-if-youre-prejudiced-against-blanks/264126.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-tell-if-youre-prejudiced-against-blanks/264126.md?page=3)