Is racism the new rape or child molestation? It appears that all it takes is for someone to be accused of being a racist for them to be considered “guilty unless proven innocent” in the public eye. This pool club is denying the use of their facilities to a daycare center after their first visit. The center is almost entirely minority children. The pool says it has nothing to do with race and that it only has to due with overcrowding of the pool. This seems to be proven out by the fact that they did the same thing to two other centers previously which were all white.
Of course since this center is all minorities they MUST have been kicked out for that reason.
All it has taken is the accusation of racism to sink this swim club. In the media they are being painted as racist and essentially have to prove thy are not. This is eerily similar to accusations of rape and molestation in which the “defendant” is found guilty by the media and is stained for life regardless of the facts or outcome of the investigation.
The worst part of this is that there is a Senator weighing in and asking the club to stop being racist and let these poor kids back in. This is based solely on the perception of the daycare.
So is a cry of racism the new rape/molestation? Other instances in the last few years seem to support this but I’m typing this on my Itouch so I can’t pull a bunch of cites in here right now.
No serious thoughts, but I do bring you… The race genie!
At the heart of it racism is intrinsically harder to prove/disprove then the act of raping/molesting. Also Racism is a bad thing… (it was a big bad institutionalized thing, but now its just a bad thing)
IIRC from the other thread about this incident the president club said the following:
“There was concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion and the atmosphere of the club.”
Even if he wasn’t being racist, that was still a pretty dumb-ass thing to say.
I don’t think either the false cry of rape/molestation or false accusations of racism are exactly at epidemic levels. And I don’t see what makes them different from any other false accusation. People falsely accused of almost any heinous actions are immediately judged by the media based on thin evidence (e.g. Richard Jewell).
And most of the characteristics of an accusation of rape or molestation are missing from accusations of racism. The reason a false accusation of rape is so problematic is that rape is almost always not a public event. The witnesses are usually just the alleged victim and alleged perpetrator. And an accusation of rape can rarely be a misunderstanding (since it turns of the victim’s consent), while accusations of racism often can be. Other than an accusation, there isn’t much to go on with most rapes (e.g. rapes where the defense isn’t that the perpetrator wasn’t there, but that the victim consented). This isn’t really true of accusations of racism, where often multiple parties are involved and other evidence. There is a significant stigma on being raped, such that a significant number that are raped never even report it, much less lie about it. And one can get oneself into a lot of trouble by falsely accusing someone of rape. So it is also a self-limiting phenomenon.
In short, I see very little connection between false accusations of rape and false accusations of racism. Except, of course, in the identities of the victims and perpetrators. Usually women and men, respectively, for rape and minorities and white people, respectively, for racism. It is easy to see how white men would feel more threatened by a rush to judgment on these accusations that on others.
As I’ve said in the pit thread, I completely agree with you that people of a certain poltical bent (i.e., those whom I describe as “liberal douches”) are treating the club as guitly until proven innocent.
“Sink” the club? Barring actual legal proceedings against the club, (either criminal or civil)–neither of which have actually been lodged at this point, the club is going to go on its merry way, doing what they have always done.
There may be a civil lawsuit, of course, which will be a hassle for them. Then we can decide whether they have been “sunk.”
The problem is that, in this case, the club had three specific strikes against it: after accepting the day care’s money the club asked the day care to leave, not merely to refrain from returning, with some claims that their removal was based on their “minority” status; people aligned with the day care reported hearing several comments by club members indicating that the daycare was composed of the “wrong sort” of people; the idiot president included the phrase “change the complexion” of the club in the context of barring the day care.
Was the club deliberately behaving in a racst manner? I have no idea.
Are too many people associated with the club demonstrating stupidity? Clearly.
They took money from a day care when they were already about to turn away other groups?
They took money and granted permission to a day care without anyone noticing that the day care was located in a part of town from which the children would “change the complexion” of the attendees at the pool?
Members openly complained about the color of the visitors?
It will be nice if some mediator comes forth that will arrange for a private resolution of the matter without turning this into one more cause célèbre for either side in the racial divide.
On the other hand, while cries of “racism” are easily turned into such causes célèbre, I don’t think that we are loking at an epedimic of false claims. More likely, we are simply working through the results of 390 years of divisiveness where stupid and poorly worded comments are likely to raise hackles and bad decisions are always suspect as to motive when ethnicity is involved.
Such conflicts have been going on since the 1960s, (using the changes in law as the point at which the nature of such claims would change), and they are neither new nor increasing.
There are some people who will find racism whenever possible. And there are some people who will deny racism whenever possible. Both groups are wrong.
It’s also wrong to think that it’s a yes/no issue. An issue can have a lot of different reasons. In this particular incident, in my personal opinion, racism was an issue. It wasn’t the only issue and this isn’t just about racism. But racism was a factor here.
Which group will get more media coverage, and has more power in public discourse?
At any rate, based on the Larry Summers and James Watson incidents, it certainly seems clear that reiterating the accepted scientific literature on race and sex differences will still get you in deep trouble.
(bolding mine)
If you’re accused of theft people can think “he needed the money” or “it was a lapse of jugement”.
Racism is seem as deeply ingrained so that even a single incident is suposed to reveal your “real” character.
Being accused of racism is not the new rape or molestation.
Being accused of racism is the new McCarthyism. One accusation of racism, and it’s equivalent to being accused of communism during the 1950s. It has the power to sink peoples’ careers and completely tar their reputations.
I would almost agree, except that one does not automatically lose one’s job if accused of racism, nor does one immediatley begin collecting a police dossier from multiple agencies when the accusation is made, and people have successfully defended themselves against the charge while the “taint” of communism tended to last far longer even when disproven. (To say nothing of the locations or situations where accusations of racism will open more opportunities, something that could happen with the “communist” charge, but far less frequently.)
If you’re accused of something, people are supposed to think “that guy is accused of something.” They’re not supposed to assume you did it. But, they do. And they do this with accusations of everything from murder to embezzlement. I fail to see how being accused of racism ruins someone’s life in a way being accused of murder does not.
Can you give us a few examples of false cries of racism that have sunk peoples’ careers and completely tarred their reputations? I can think of maybe a handful. But I can also think of many examples of people’s reputations being harmed by rumors, so racism isn’t unique in that regard. For racism to be the new McCarthyism, I would think the examples would need to be abundant.
Despite the attempted canonization by favoured political groups and the ever lurking “race realists” Larry Summers and James Watson did not reiterate the accepted scientific literature on race and sex differences. For one, James Watson, made clear racially disparaging remarks about his employees to the press; in any other place he should have been outright fired instead of coddled with kid-gloves.
It’s not racism but poltical correctness. We have come to the point now where, any minority is untouchable, save overweight people.
There was an old school of thought that in order to be racist, you had to hold power. Thus a black man who hates white, cannot be racist, no matter what he says or feels. Why? Because he had no power to enforce this.
A second belief is that you can’t be “a little racist.” This is so wrong on so many levels.
And white people are the worst. I know a lot of black people and if you point out that Obama is just as much black as he is white, they don’t care. But say that to a white person and you’re labled a racist.
Look every minority group has issues, you can’t run away from them. Whether they are serious issues like barebacking in the gay community or minor things, like hair in the female African American community, you many not be respresntative of that community, but if a vocal or visual minority are doing it, you’ll be associated with it. As the biblical phrase says “Bad associations spoil useful habbits”
As I a gay male, I was commenting on my own community when my friend, Janet, who’s black said, “Mark I know how you feel. Just when I think we’re finally making progress, I see a brother, tap dancin’ down the street with watermellon in one hand and fried chicken in another.”