Is all bigotry the same?

The BBQ Pit
1

In this thread: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=225438&perpage=50&pagenumber=1

Coldfire said:

I agree with him and have used that argument myself in other threads.

But is all bigotry treated the same at SDMB? Is it okay to ridicule and insult some groups of people – for example, the ones who seem to have control over that which stigmatizes them – and not okay to ridicule others?

How important a role does freedom of speech play in your thinking?

Which of the following groups are “fair game” for insults in your opinion?

moderators – Southerners – Christian Fundamentalists
Blacks – trailer residents – homosexuals
teenagers – old people – women
atheists – the mentally ill – the obese
Republicans – Italians – French
Islamics – Brits – Irish
whites – Democrats – Conservatives
Liberals – POTUS – peace marchers

Add your own to comment on if you wish.

The acts of bigotry which have been most amazingly blatant were because I was obese. They were the most painful. The bigotry which has been the most firmly entrenched has been because I am a woman. The one about which there is the most ignorance is mental illness. (A close second is the bigotry against Southerners.)

If bigotry toward obesity can result in so much pain for so many people, why is it tolerated? Is it because even moderators can remain ignorant about will power and obesity?

But this thread is not just about obesity. It is about bigotry and what is tolerated or not tolerated at SDMB.

2

Almost no hatred is warranted, IMO. It’s counter-productive.

3

I think we have all seen comments here directed at obese people that if they were made based on any other factor, skin colour, religion, sexuality etc would result in an instant banning. I have no clue why we tolerate it.

4

I would suggest that there’s an awful lot of bigotry-like comments directed at fundies.

5

bigot: a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices.

6

POTUS is a group? Hmm…

7

ahem:

http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/bio.asp?oid=21&cf=21

I liked their first single but I still think bigotry against them is perfectly OK.

8

Oh yeah!!! Fucking peach-eaters.

9

All bigotry is not the same. Not at all. I mean, yes, it’s all prejudging someone on the supposed common attributes of a group, whether that group be African-Americans, Jews, heavy people, or what-have-you, but other than that, each bigot, and each form of bigotry, is unique.

For example, many anti-Semites believe that Jews are highly intelligent people who are conspiring, successfully, to rule the world through control of the media and financial institutions. Many anti-black bigots believe that black Americans (and presumably Africans and French or German or whatever people of African descent as well) are stupid, lazy and genetically unfit for anything other than menial labor. It’s entirely possible for the same person to hold both views (or for a member of one group to hold that view of the other group).

These forms of bigotry are very, very different. They demonize groups in entirely different ways. Bigotry isn’t so simple. An anti-woman bigot, for example, might not even think that women are less fit or intelligent than men, but might just believe that they have a divinely-ordained role in the world, and that to deviate from that is morally unacceptable.

Now, I’m not overly sensitive to perceived bigotry. I do not believe, for example, that all criticism of the state of Israel is anti-Semitic. I’m perfectly happy to jump down Al Sharpton’s throat any chance I get. But in general it’s nasty stuff, and it’s pretty complicated.

10

From the bigot definition supplied above by eli_the_fanatic (and double checked in my Webster’s).
I am a bigot,
I am obstinately and intolerantly opposed to adults who have sexual relationships with pre-pubescent children.
I am intolerant of people who are lazy and would not lift a finger to help others.
I am intolerant of people who do things that they believe are wrong, simply for their own benifit.

P.S. Zoe ‘Brits’ could be considered a rude abbreviation (not that anyone in their right mind does) of British. I’m NOT asking that people avoid the term ‘Brits’ just pointing out how language is so tricky in such things

11

Bippy, I had asked a British friend before taking up the use of the term Brits. He said that it was not considered offensive. Do you know those who are British that are offended? Is that generally true?

I also find by Eli’s definition that I am a bigot. I am certainly devoted to my own opinions. Why shouldn’t I be? I’m right!
I’m sure that I prejudge things, but I’m not always aware of when it actually is prejudgment.

Despite having been morbidly obese at one time, I do think that I tend to react to obesity as if it were a personality trait rather than a physical characteristic. I tend to think of Conservatives as somewhat lacking in compassion. And, unlike the Christian fundamentalists of my youth, I see today’s Christian fundamentalists as less loving and more hostile and arrogant.

These are all generalizations and stereotypes. I know they don’t apply to everyone in that particular group. Am I just as much a bigot as someone in the Klan? And does even the previous sentence make me a bigot?

As for POTUS, the P stands for Presidents, in this case.

Actually, that’s a lie, MC but the alternative was to admit to failure on my part. Shudder.

12

Zoe I’m Brittish and don’t find ‘Brits’ offensive, in fact I doubt that anyone finds ‘Brits’ offensive, my P.S. was an attack on language not on your use of language.
‘Jap’ or ‘Nip’ or ‘Paki’(short for Japanese, or Nipponese, or Pakistani) are offensive because they have a history of having been used offensively, not because the words are inherrantly offensive.
It is offense that is key, I think, in determining what makes someone a bigot. It is the refusal to adapt and change on learning that a thing you do is offensive so as to not cause offense in the future, that is the true determinant of a bigotted person. The badness of that bigotry is determined by societies feelings towards those whom the bigotted person would offend.

I am bigotted in my belief that paedophiles who would pray uppon pre-pubescent children need to be psychologically cured of their condition.
Society currently feels that paedophiles are terrible people worthy of nothing but contemt. Therefor this society does not consider me a bigot for that feeling.

If my society was Ancient Greece, then that society may take a much harsher view on my feeling. I would perhapse seem anti-social in denying relationships between men and young boys, since such relationships did not seem to involve women, I might also be charged with being homophobic in that I was attacking part of what was considered acceptable male to male sexuality.

It is all too easy to consider bigotry only in terms of our own society and think of it as a universal thing independent of our society, but I believe it is not.

In a future world it may be considered cruel and debased to eat the flesh of once living creatures, in such a society a staunch meat-eater may be considered a bigot. But it would be a mistake for that society to label us meat eaters from this century as bigots. We merely react as well as we can within the moral confines of our society.

13

Right now my favorites would be POTUS and Consevatives. Trailer Park residents are fair game year round.

Remember, you can be a bigot w/o being a racist but you can’t be a racist w/o being a bigot.

The bigots who have irritated me on thsi forum are the one’s who ascribe potential motives to you and expect you to defend your self when all you did was post what you considered to be a fact.
i.e. a few weeks ago I responded to a post about a judge in New Orleans who wore “black-face” and a “chain gang” outfit to a costume party.

My response was that there was a culture clash between the poster from New Jersey and the judge in New Orleans. I didn’t make any value judgements. I think I was accurate.

All of a sudden a bunch of “bigots” are on my ass about the post and the guy from New Jersey is telling me he is black. WTF. Now that I think about it I should have pitted them.

14

The band POTUS sucks. They had a moronic song with one lyric… and they stole that lyric from a much better song by John Prine.

15

Zoe, you’re exactly right. It’s perfectly okay to write $¢ientology for Scientology, but try spelling Jewish as Jewi$h or Mormon as Moron, and you’ll get flamed or banned in seconds. This isn’t to say that there aren’t things absurd about Scientology, but what religious (or lack of religious) belief isn’t absurd? To give some examples:

Judaism: We’re God’s chosen people, and He demonstrates it by having us subject to centuries of persecution. (One would think that if you were God’s chosen people, nobody could fuck with you.)

Christianity: In order to prove how much God loves us, He killed His son. (Holy crap! What the hell would He do if He hated us?)

Mormonism: God transported the lost tribe of Israel to the Americas via submarines. ([Captain Kirk]Uh, excuse me, what does God need with a submarine.[/CK])

Islam: God revealed Himself to a humble trader. (Okay, so God can dictate His message to a trader, but can’t teach the trader to be literate, what’s up with that?)

Buddhism: You’ll be happy as soon as you stop wanting things. (That is, of course, until your economy collapses, in which case, you’ll be wishing you hadn’t stopped wanting things.)

Paganism: We believe in the beings that people worshipped before Christianity showed up. (Hey, if you’re god(s)/goddess(es) are so great, then why didn’t waving a dead chicken around stop them from being wiped out before?)

Atheism: We don’t believe in God, because there’s no proof that He/She/It exists. (Of course, there’s no logical explaination of how everything got here prior to the Big Bang.)

Mind you, I’m not dissing any of the religions I’ve listed above. I’m merely pointing out that they have aspects to them that are as equally absurd as Scientology’s claim that an evil god ruled the Earth with nukes millions of years ago.

16

Well, my understanding is that it was the Jews who killed God’s son.

17

what’s so absurd about that Buddism approach?

18

county he was killed under Roman law by Roman means of execution. He was killed because he was seen to be a troublemaker. He was born and raised a Jew and God sent him to earth to die for our sins.
I find it as dumb as saying “Italians killed Jesus”.

19

I was thinking about this a couple of weeks ago when there was a big brouhaha over Mel Gibson’s film of the life of Christ, about which the argument was made that the film was anti-semitic, at least partly because of the role some Jews had in the ultimate outcome.

I don’t believe I have ever seen this particular answer to that argument, but here goes. It seems to me that the important part about the death of Christ is that He rose again…indeed, that crucifixion was part of the plan of Jesus’ life from the beginning, in which case, it does not matter who killed Christ …that is not the important part of the story.

Just a thought.

I believe that intolerance is growing in this country and I find that alarming. My brother, who I think is a warm and gentle person, listens avidly to a certain talk radio personality and repeats some of the more hurtful statements this person makes on air. I think my brother feels kind of pissed on by life and he likes this negative rhetoric because he gets to mentally one-up whichever group is the target of the moment. I understand why he does this, but these things are still hurtful and, at the very least, unkind and disrespectful. They diminish him just as much as they diminish the out-group of the day.

20

That was said in response to Tuckerfan’s statement about God killing his own son. Christ, you people are so sensitive.