I know you are upset about this issue, and since this is ATMB and you are trying to get something resolved, I am going to cut you some slack. But you have definitely been around here long enough to know that insults and accusations of trolling are both warnable offenses. You know where the Pit is if you need to vent.
Dial it way back, please.
Let’s leave all of the moderating to the real moderators, please.
We have had a discussion about this in the Mod Loop, and upon further consideration, I have decided to upgrade the Mod Note to a Warning.
I try to be lenient in ATMB so that people can feel free to discuss things, even if they are pissed off. But in this case, the insults and accusations of trolling, both against the new poster and against HurricaneDitka, are just too over-the-top.
This is an Official Warning for insults and accusations of trolling outside of the Pit.
To both MrDibble and LHoD: the passage quoted in the OP is not racist. For it to be racist it would require us believing that immigrants are all of an ethnicity different from that of the person who was quoted. Immigrants are wildly diverse, the only thing we have in common is that we moved somewhere different, and did so to stay. So, find an accurate description for that which you find objectionable in that passage. I have suggested some terms in earlier posts.
Your statement about our priorities being jacked is comparing apples to oranges.
The poster in question that you want to see warned is a newbie. While their posts were potentially warnable, the moderators in this case chose not to issue a warning, for reasons that have already been explained in this thread. If we feel that we can change behavior without a warning, that is an option that is available to all of us moderators. We aren’t required to issue a warning in every possible case.
BPC on the other hand is not a newbie, and has a history of Pit-style behavior outside of the Pit, where it is not acceptable. He has made Pit-type comments in ATMB before and was not warned for them, but at some point, if you continue unacceptable behavior, it becomes clear that mod notes aren’t cutting it and that anything short of a warning isn’t going to be effective.
It’s nowhere near the same situation.
I’m not a big fan of it either. Don’t expect me to do it very often.
The main reason for it in this case was that a word to the wise hasn’t been sufficient.
This is incorrect. One simply need notice that the poster in question is extra-concerned about thinking that “our way of life” is not compatible with that of other races, and seems to be focusing on immigrants who are not of European background.
Racists aren’t computer programs, bound to a strict logic, and you can’t P=!P your way out of recognizing their racist claims.
In the sense that BPC adds content to the board that at least leads to productive debate, whereas virulent racists drive people away, yes, it’s comparing oranges to rotten apples.
I understand the distinction you’re drawing. The ultimate purpose of any warning or ban, however, ought to be to make the board a better place. It’s apples-to-apples to look at your reactions.
Thinking that someone like Malaclypse is going to be gently nudged into not making virulently racist posts is not reasonable. Instead, tolerating him here is going to gently nudge other folks into leaving the board for places where virulent racism isn’t tolerated.
If that’s what you want to do, or even something you’re comfortable with, you’re making the right call.
To be perfectly clear, I don’t want him warned. I want folks who post stuff like this insta-banned, because they make the board worse and drive away good posters.
Any debate about immigration that includes a position that advocates any limit is going to contain language that some will label or perceive as racist, xenophobic, or some other phobic. The question will be to what degree.
So it’s racist because you, taking the totality of the posters concerns and how they seem to you into consideration, say it is. And want to instaban for it. That is immensely disturbing.
Back to the OP topic, though: Is, or should the policy of the Straight Dope be that one should be allowed to say offensive things as long as they are worded in a polite and academic-sounding way, or that offensive speech should not be permitted, period?
You’re not as disturbed by someone talking about immigrants breeding like rabbits as you are by someone reading someone’s posts and drawing inferences. Okey dokey.
I’ve made very few comments about that guy, but all of those were negative. I must therefore further doubt your abilities to draw inferences, and feel even stronger that we should not now or ever instaban based on your what you think stuff means. Again, (and I state this outright so you do not need to infer) my point is that negative comments about immigrants, unless further specified, are not automatically racist. They are other things, all ugly. But not racist. Racism has a specific meaning. Calling other, not-actually-racist things, racist, dilutes that meaning. So does banning someone for racism when the statement wasn’t, well, actually racist.
You’ve made your point crystal clear. I believe it’s both self-evidently incorrect and self-evidently a bit of distracting pedantry, and base my claims that this dude should be insta-banned on that.
My hope is that this board’s administration isn’t swayed by penny-ante bickering over what precisely comprises racism and can focus on the larger point that allowing virulent bigotry, whether you call it “racist” or “xenophobic” or whatever term satisfies your pedantic requirements, makes the board worse.
No, you, or anyone, getting to call it, because you know it when you see it, and the board insta-banning anyone on the basis of that. That would make the board worse. So very much worse.
I just want to say that “[they] breed like rabbits” would have been a correct observation about both white, European, Christian sides of my family after (and even before) they arrived in the USA.
There’s a lot worse on this board to get a lot angrier about. Frankly, the comment didn’t tick my liberal button.
That’s one perspective. I have a different one. Isn’t it good we can air our differences openly?
I’ll let two great men speak for me. First, Justice Robert Jackson, in his majority opinion W. Virginia v. Barnette:
Next, several quotes from John Stuart Mill, the great British nineteenth century philosopher (emphases mine):
I may be confused, but I thought that racist arguments/debates were permitted on the SDMB. I know that hate speech is banned, but I genuinely thought that we could have a debate about racism, with my hope that is vanishing, that the debate would be a logical and point by point refutation of that horrible belief.
So, my thought was that topics such as “Why are blacks dumber than whites?” or “Why do blacks commit more crimes than whites?” or “Why do Muslims support terrorism?” and threads of similar distasteful topics were permitted so long as the tone or words used didn’t involve hate speech (e.g. “Why are niggers dumber than whites”? = warnable offense).