This post, I thought, was shocking in its blatant racism and attacking posters for no other reason than their race:
From this thread, post #202.
Yes, I did report it, but even though a mod came in after this post to admonish two other posters for going at each other, not a word about that post. I’m dumbfounded, but maybe it’s OK to say this about “white people” when saying the same about "black people’ would likely get someone banned post haste.
Guessed who the poster was in 1.
Not really surprising though.
This white male poster doesn’t have a problem with the post referenced in the OP. Occasional bracing posts like this don’t do much harm and they may do some good. As I see it, the harm they do is that vitriolic language is habit forming and tends to place the poster aboard the ban train. It’s challenging to use such a tone sparingly. I would therefore advise Honesty to ease up.
Yeah, I’m saying speaking generally vitriolic language isn’t symmetrical across races and genders and to pretend otherwise tends to put butthurt white guys in a bad light. On the substance of the post, I myself would only add modest qualifications. But that’s not for this thread.
So, you’re saying we should have a different standard depending on the race of the poster and/or race of the poster’s target? Not buying it.
Er, are we discussing personal attacks? Because I didn’t read the referenced passage that way.
I can’t honestly recall: didn’t we discuss this during sexism month? Calling somebody a c— is worse than calling another person a dick. Using the N-word is worse than honky. On a pseudo-anonymous message board, the race of the poster shouldn’t matter. It’s a pretty straightforward social observation that attacks on females and racial minorities in the US tend to have greater import than broad characterizations of the US electoral majority or Caucasian collective, taken as a whole.
My take is that US adults have to be pretty dim or majorly butthurt if they don’t recognize that straight white males play the game at the lowest difficulty setting. Also, water is wet.
I disagree. Racism is racism and the post John Mace quoted is blatantly racist.
If Honesty had said something like “Crimes with white victims usually get more severe punishment and provoke more public outrage than crimes with black victims” then he would have been making a debatable point. But going off on a rant about how all white people want to exterminate black people is racist.
Agreed. Honesty makes these kinds of posts frequently.
What took you so long?
But neither of those things are differently offensive depending on the race of the poster. Not to mention the fact that we don’t know the race of the poster-- only what they claim to be.
It should not matter whether someone says “white people are murderous assholes” or “black people are murderous assholes”. Neither of those should be allowed in GD.
As long as we all agree about the Belgians.
I agree. More than racism, it’s the easy attacks of group dynamics I’d like to see eliminated in Great Debates (and a pony. I’d really like a pony.). Such contribute nothing to debate and can be considered a form of bullying and an attempt to cut off debate when a debater thinks positions are indefensible.
OK, I can see that JC moderated that post. I would have given a warning, but I’m not going to argue about the level of moderation. It’s his call.
I agree that it was racist, but it brings up a question in my mind. How do we distinguish posts like it from posts by the so-called “race realists”, who spit out the same basic bullshit but make the tone either faux-analytical or even “sympathetic” the the poor race that just doesn’t have the right stuff to keep up?
Does it just boil down to the chosen adjectives being perceived as more or less inflammatory?
It’s the ‘all _______ are _______’ part that tips this one too far.
Yeah, while I wouldn’t commit to a hard and fast rule (good luck getting me to do so) and I don’t want to speak for other mods, I’d say the emotional weight of language, combined with the blanket statements (which are patently false) and the invective are enough to cross a line for me.
This particular post was directed at posters on this MB, so when “race realists” start saying “the black peanut gallery here will never understand because they are genetically predisposed to being stupid”, then they get moderated.
Anyone can post that: “The latest poll shows white Americans are less sensitive to issues of justice when the person accused is black”. But no one should accuse white posters on this MB of being so.
If someone says, “all blacks are X”, then it certainly includes all blacks on this message board.
In fact, if someone claims that “all blacks on this message board are X”, then they are not making what I could call a racist claim. They are making a claim about a set of black individuals based on their board membership, not against all blacks because of their race.
All blacks on this message board are lazy and stupid and all they want to do is sit around and eat watermelon and fried chicken.
Not racist???
Worse than racist. It’s too easy to falsify.