I’m afraid that wouldn’t proliferate your genes too well. (Anyone else remember that “Mr Show” episode with the last two pure whites in the universe?)
I guess you’ll have to wait until your brother has a daughter and marry her. verybdog paints a most interesting possible future but dare we dream it possible? Never again having to go on dates? And black people no cheating! It can’t be a “brother” or “sister” it must be a brother or sister.
Yes indeed, verybdog is one big time “paradigm-shifter” as the big brains would say.
First, what is an appropriate definition of racism.
Second, whether certain kinds of racism are right or wrong.
Third, the extent to which parents should influence or control their children’s decisions.
Preferring that one’s children not marry blacks seems pretty racist to me, by any reasonable definition of racism.
However, I don’t really have a problem with racism in the context of very personal decisions, such as marriage. And yeah, I hope that my daughters don’t marry black guys (or hispanic guys, or oriental guys or gentiles). I hope that they both grow up and find Jewish boys and give me Jewish grand-kids.
I gather this thread has a longer history elsewhere. If anyone cares for comments from someone not aware of that history, just taking things as they appear here–
The OP’s question was misstated, but the question-behind-the-wording seems pretty obvious. “Does expressing a preference as to one’s daughter’s future course of action constitute something reprehensible in case B, but acceptable in case A–why or why not?” Sounds like a reasonable question to me.
One must distinguish between two senses of the term “racism” (distinguish logically, that is). “Racism” can mean a for-whatever-reason preference for one race over another in certain contexts, having nothing to do with the making of judgments beyond the scope of personal taste. (Eg, a black person might never vote for a beauty contest competitor “with one of those skinny, pointy noses.” Yes, it’s a form of racism–racial preference, even racial prejudice–logically: but not the typical use of the term.) The other, typical use entails the denigration of a person based upon the use of visual cues suggesting ancestral origins in a disfavored part of the world, allowing this to override the actual qualities of the person as an individual. So we have Racism-1 and Racism-2.
It seems hard to argue that Racism-1 is morally wrong in and of itself. People have tastes–end of story. The moral element may come into play if this sort of sentiment is expressed in such a way that it becomes confused with Racism-2, or is used to give “aid and comfort” to Racist-2 types. In other words, sometimes, for the good of society in general, it is best to hold one’s tongue even about personal tastes.
Racism-2 is wrong, in the sense that it does harm. It’s bad for everyone, and deserves to be discouraged.
No slippery-slope sophistries here, please. (“What if my daughter wanted to marry a drug pusher? Another woman? A four-year-old? A cow?”) Differences of degree really do become recognizable differences of kind, and no slope connects marrying outside one’s (socially defined) RACE with marrying outside one’s (chromosomally and anatomically definite) SPECIES.
If one were to look at this thread in and of itself, one might ask why so many respondees allowed themselves to “lose it.” Xenophobic prejudice is, to some degree, part of our biological/evolutionary heritage. Don’t look now, but you–and I–may have a bit of the bug ourselves.
Ok, so maybe I didn’t offer the best example. (There’s no need to get into the whole debate over whether Judaism is a religion, a culture, a race, or some combination thereof.)
In any event, I don’t have a problem with a white person who wants only to marry another white person. (Or a black person who wants only to marry another black person.)
That father is case A probably wants his daughter to have a good living and to help poor people and in case B he probably just wants her to be safe. With all of the racism in this country why would we intrude on a father giving his daughter some sound advice.
Actually, in this thread, it was discussed whether a personal attraction/lack thereof for a particular physical “type” was “being racist”, and verybdog introduced the question whether it’s racist to tell your children to choose only a particular race as mates.
The majority opinion in that thread was that such a harmless personal preference is not, repeat is NOT “racism”, just a matter of taste, as long as it’s not informed by a denigration of the other person’s ethnoracial group and you do not seek to spread it and force it upon others. IOW in that thread it was, in debating terms, “resolved” that the (extremely) loaded word “racism” only apply to “Racism-2” ; that since “racism-1” (instinctive preference for the familiar + non-rational arbitrary preferences due to taste) pretty much can’t be helped it should not be given a descriptor to which a condemnatory connotation has been firmly attached. That is carrying over here, apparently.
The way I see it, verybdog’s expounding of the father’s motivations and thought processes, to portray him as so damn hung up about the purity of the bloodline, and so scheming to pass on his ideas in a manipulative manner, as described in the latter posts in this hypothetical, is what put the case beyond the pale. THAT led me to change my evaluation of the character in question from “maybe not racist, but sadly shallow” to outright bigoted. “Daddy” still may not be an “ideological” racist (you can be bigoted w/o a philosophically elaborate justification for it) but now we “know” he’s got one bent set of priorities…
First off: But Progressive_left, what is informing this decision? If the father feels that all black men are predatory lunatics, and therefore by preventing his daughter from marrying one he is keeping her safe, I am going to go out on a limb and call him a racist.
Second, to verybdog: The logic of your OP analogy is rather silly, on a couple of levels:
(1) The term “racist” cannot possibly apply to someone who is “discriminating against hookers”, hookers not being a race. Everyone else has already said this, so I won’t belabour it.
(2) Even the term “discriminating” when used to apply to hookers is rather disingenuous. First, the father is not saying that being a hooker makes someone a bad person; if he were, then you’re right, he would be discriminating against hookers. What he’s saying, though, is probably that being a hooker is likely not the greatest, safest, and most rewarding profession her daughter could engage in. I think that this is a fair statement, since it’s factual. Thus putting this and racism in the same breath through use of the word “discriminating” is fairly silly.
A racist believes that people of other races are inferior people. If a white grandfather doesn’t want black grandchildren because he wants grandkids who look like him, this is scarily reminiscent of a desire not to pollute one’s genes with “impurities”.
Someone who doesn’t want their daughter to be a hooker doesn’t necessarily believe that hookers are inferior people, but does probably believe that her daughter should not be selling her body to men on the street.
I disagree with the majority of our readers here - The father forbids his daughter from marrying a black man is not an instance of racism, even he is scheming and manipulative.
As one of the readers pointed out, A racist believes that people of other races are inferior people, or he based on that belief to discriminate. But the father doesn’t believe that. He thinks people are born equal in every way and he doesn’t believe in the theory of “Bell Curves”. And you know what, he is also a good friend of many blacks, famous blacks, smart blacks, and many more wonderful blacks. No, he does not attach social opprobrium to association with blacks.
The father didn’t tell his daughter that blacks are evils in the first place. He didn’t even mention the word ‘black’ to his daughter.
He’s got one bent set of priorities, odd, strange, bizarre, but that doesn’t qualify him as one. You just can’t prove that.
The thinking that anyone who doesn’t want to marry his daughter to blacks is racist is as false as this one - any valid criticism of Israel is anti-semiticism, automatically.
If someone who criticizes Israel doesn’t want their daughter to marry a Jew, I’d call it racist.
Most of us here criticize Israel because of its policies, which are governmental, not the individual Jews living in Israel, who are probably very much like anyone else I know.
Discriminating on the basis of race is racism. Discriminating on the basis of employment is…jobism?
verybdog, what is your first language? You may not be asking what you think you’re asking.
Species and race are two different things. If you believe there is a concrete difference in races (which I don’t believe), then “race” would constitute a difference inside of a species.
(Anyone else remember that “Mr Show” episode with the last two pure whites in the universe?)