Bippy: That’s the rub. What you posted crossed my mind about half-way through this thread. And, yes, in retrospect I should have prefaced my statement with “in my experience,” but in context, it was my experience we were talking about (wait-staff jobs).
The weasel-word that should’ve appeared was “a lotta.” Or, “Seems like all the black folk I’ve met,” or, “Why do you think so many black people” or something like that.
When you make it clear that you’re discussing a tendency and not a characteristic, then you absolve yourself of any accusation of racism, IMO. Again, I think that if your statement was racist, it’s proof that benign racism exists; but I still think it’s better to avoid categorical statements like that.
Daniel
Why it gotta be FRIED chicken, Bippy? Huh? Huh? You already know my people got problems with hypertension and cholestoral. What, a black man can’t enjoy rotissierie? We can’t enjoy shish-kabob? We can’t eat chicken salad with the good mayonaisse? OH, HELL NAH, YOU DID NOT TELL ME I CAN’T EAT CHICKEN WITH THE GOOD MAYONAISSE AND ROSA PARKS AIN’T BEEN BURIED TWO DAYS YET. Matter of fact – get that fried shit out my face! I want the opposite of fried chicken. Bring me some flavorless soggy unsalted chicken that’s been stewed in its own fat in a crock pot with all the skin with the chickenbumps on it for the last fifteen hours. Make sure it’s dark meat. Don’t forget my hot sauce!
See? Any innocuous statement about perceived cultural differences can be made to sound racist flying from the mouth of the overly sensitive.
White people like Jell-O! Jews like lox and bagels! Lesbians like eating pussy!
Now I’m the bigot. Yeesh.
Birdmonster: did ya pick up the check? 
It’s racist in that you presume to know things about people you don’t know based on a generalization regarding people who share nothing with them but a skin pigmentation.
A generalization doesn’t have to be negative to be racist: it’s racist to say “black people are good basketball players.” All that’s required to make it a racist statement is that you are linking universal generalizations about behavior to an utterly irrelevant marker like skin pigment.
It’s not violently egregiously racist, but it is racist. If you said it at dinner with me, I might not throw down my fork and call you a racist, but I would probably say to myself, “Ah. Makes ignorant generalizations” and award you a point or two on my private jerkometer.
Once when I was in college one of my classes was having a discussion about racism. One of the issues was whether any statement about a racial group was inherently racist. Some people were arguing that it was - they said if you assigned any characteristic to a racial group it was racist. So I asked if that included “black people have different color skin than white people”? And if so, wasn’t it impossible to acknowlege the existence of black people without being racist?
Awww, the jerkometer! Drat & curses. I would take offense with the fact you called the generalization “ignorant,” especially in the context of the conversation I was having, which was based on experience. I think you’re imagining me shouting it loud at an Outback when I was actually on a couch having some tea with a friend.
lissener. It is *prejudicial * and stereotypical to presume things about people on the basis of skin color but I can’t see where something as vague as an assumed food preference based on one’s experiences dealing with a specific group is actually *racist. *
“Let’s not devalue the term racist too much.” --* jrfranchi*
Not at all. It was ignorant because you were assuming facts not in evidence: that all the black people you haven’t served would behave in the same way as the black people you have served. You are ignorant of those strangers’ preferences, but you assume to know them. Therefore, it’s an ignorant assumption. Knowing fact A does not PROVE fact B. The fact that most of the black people you had served liked their meat well done would be an adequate basis for the HYPOTHESIS that black people tend to like their beef well done, but not the CONCLUSION that they do. You stated it as a conclusion, not a hypothesis.
If it’s a stereotype based on skin color, it’s racist. Pretty simple. If it’s based on gender it’s sexist. Etc. Degree of heinousness is not the question here. It’s not a particularly heinous example. But that doesn’t make it NOT racist.
Maybe I’m just not comfortable using a term with such a charged connotation in an instance like this. I mean, if we’re going to say something like “Women are usually shorter than men” is sexist, you basically risk de-fanging those words. They become forceless.
I used to work as a cashier in a grocery store in a predominantly black neighborhood of Chicago. Very soon after starting it became apparent that we were selling a LOT of watermelon. (I’d also worked as a bagger at a predominantly white grocery store, so I had something to compare it to.) Pork products were also very popular – the more mainstream ones, as well as pigs feet, chitlins, and stuff like that. (We did not sell fried chicken.) For some reason it really embarassed me at first, but I guess when you think about it rationally, who cares what people eat? Still, it was a bit uncomfortable to see a stereotype like that being confirmed over and over again every time I worked. (Yet, again, what a stupid stereotype for people to find offensive. It’s not offensive to say that lots of Jews like knishes, is it?)
I’ve never mentioned the above to anyone, precisely because I know how racist it would sound (also because the subject has never come up before).
I pretty much equate racism with white supremacy. Suppose you tell me what your definition of racism is and we can discuss things from there.
Black people tend to enjoy being sprayed by fire hoses, and told what to do. They also hate money.
Therefore, I am justified when I spray them with firehoses, and keep them as slaves. They enjoy it.
Is that argument racist?
Is it being a Jerk, talking about hot sauce ? 
Mmmm reminds me of fantastic roast Porc Jerk sandwich I had near Toronto in a very ‘African Canadian’ area.
A bit O.T. but did you know that French people use “Jelly Eater” as an insult against the English ?
Ah, but there are some problems.
- You used a weasel word: you said “usually.” Those weasel words are lifesavers in matters like these.
- Those traits responsible for gender differentiation (different chromosomes) are also those traits responsible for height.
Let’s change your example to “Women usually like to go clothes-shopping more than men.” I don’t consider this to be a sexist example: we’ve changed it so that we’re talking about a non-sex-based trait in relation to the two sexes, but we’re using that weasel-word, that makes it clear that we’re talking in broad generalities and that we recognize exceptions.
But let’s change it once more: “Women like to go clothes-shopping more than men.” Now it’s a sexist statement: it lacks a weasel-word.
Let me know if I don’t need to keep emphasizing this, but I consider the racism/sexism we’re discussing to be very innocuous.
Daniel
I have to disagree with Left Hand.
I think racism, as a negative term applied to the behavior of certain people, should have a definition based on the intention of the speaker.
I think for a statement to be racist it has to either be intentionally malicious or so misinformed or “ignorant” that it is harmful. Basically, if it’s a malicious generalization about a given race it’s a racist comment. We still need to have a more expanded definition than that, though. Because then my definition would excuse those people who may not be “consciously” malicious but are so ignorant that every word that comes out of their mouth about race is stupid, ignorant, and indeed harmful.
That’s how I like to think of racism, otherwise you basically devalue the meaning of the word by making any meaningless statement racist just because it fits with some pretentious and ill-conceived formula.
Anyways, that’s the difference between your situation with white frat boys and the OPs comment. The situation with the white frat boys had clearly malicious intent.
Obviously the “weakness” of my definition is there isn’t a “formula” you can use to clearly classify racist comments. However, I actually view this as an advantage because it forces you to take things into context and actually examine the “meaning behind the words” instead of relying on a strict formula that just assigns the word racist out without any qualification.
Basically, I don’t think it’s a good idea to try and create a formula to define racism.
In 1964 the Supreme Court was reviewing issues of obscenity as it relates to free speech. And Justice Potter Stewart tried to explain “hard-core” pornography, or what is obscene, by saying, "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced . . . **ut I know it when I see it . . .
I think racism is pretty much the same. It can be quite difficult to come to a working definition of racism, but it’s certainly obvious when you see it out in the real world.
Okay. I have a higher degree of actual harmfulness, as well as a red-flag indicator of certain offensive (often, coded) words one chooses to express one’s beliefs before I consider certain stereotypical attitudes/statements to be actually racist. Racism is extreme behavior. Everyone who adheres to a particular ethnos is ethnocentristic. That’s not the same thing as racism at all.
Stereotypes and prejudices are too common to too many other socioeconomic, religious, patriotic, educational, technological, etc. beliefs to be regulated to just the narrow category of racism when expressed.
Left Hand of Dorkness. Again, a little male chauvanism is not quite the same thing as sexism, especially with something as mind-bogglingly true in MY experience as ‘women like to go clothes shopping more than men.’
Bippy. I did not know that, specifically. I’ve heard the ones against the French coupled with frogs, horses and snails. But jelly? I’m not even sure I get that one. (It’s a white thing, I don’t understand.)
Martin Hyde. Mostly agreed, but there are situations when the words used by a person are so inherently negative that their use may (I stress may) betray racist beliefs of which they may (or may not) be consciously aware. Deliberation is important, I agree, but some unintended and unacknowleged racism speaks volumes of a person’s ignorance or willful disregard when one person hears it. (Translation: Don’t use the “niggardly” in an angry exchange with a black woman. Don’t be offered a bowlful of Saltines with your soup and comment about how you ‘Can’t stand crackers’ in restuarant full of white people. Don’t joke how “all you people look alike.” I mean sarcasm is sometimes just a matter of tone, and if you haven;t clearly communicated that, people think you’re serious.)
Is shortness behavior?
Is it racist to say black people usually have darker skin than white people?
Are all generalizations inaccurate?
All generalizations based on skin color aren’t racist nor inaccurate, either.
If I worked at the beach and saw daily a bunch of pale-skinned people using sunblock and dark skinned black people using none, and conclude from that experience, “Dark skinned people don’t like sunblock” or “Light-skinned people like sunblock” – is that racist?
A stereotype, sure. Prejudiced, maybe. But racist?
Please pay attention. I’ve made a very clear distinction between generalizations that are not racist–tautological statements about physical facts–and those that are racist–predictions of behavior based on the unrelated trait of skin pigmentation.
You didn’t ASK in your OP if “black people have darker skin” was a racist statement. If you had, I’d’ve said No. You asked if “black people all like their steak the same way” is racist, and it is, because it’s not about an objective physical fact, it’s about behavior and choices.
By continuing to use examples of non-racist generalizations as “proof” that your ignorant (as in lacking knowledge) assumption couldn’t be racist, you’re suggesting that there’s NO SUCH THING as a racist statement. “It can’t be racist to make sweeping pronouncements about how all black people eat their meat because most women are shorter than most men” is a ludicrous non sequitur. They’re two utterly different kinds of generalizations.