# "It's not racist (or sexist, or homophobic, etc.) if it's true." **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 9, 2015, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-not-racist-or-sexist-or-homophobic-etc-if-its-true/714625 "2015-03-09T19:31:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![stillownedbysetters](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/41988e/32.png) [@stillownedbysetters](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stillownedbysetters)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-not-racist-or-sexist-or-homophobic-etc-if-its-true/714625/41 "2015-03-10T21:32:07Z")
Stereotypes become stereotypes for a reason. Many times they accurately reflect reality for the majority of the group being considered. But any time you have a stereotype, it tends to bleed into racism at some point. So like the example of growing rice in East Asia because the topography makes it a smart decision, a stereotype has led to racism when used in such terms as ‘rice-eater’. Of course, as a Bears fan, I reserve the right to categorize any Packers fan as a cheesehead regardless of whether or not they live in dairy country or are lactose intolerant and especially no matter how offensive it may be to them. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-not-racist-or-sexist-or-homophobic-etc-if-its-true/714625/42 "2015-03-10T21:32:41Z")
Stating a fact can be racist if the attempt is to wound with your words, IMO. But a good faith debate where unpleasant facts come up, or even not very well supported facts, shouldn’t involve accusations of racism. And nothing should be off limits. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-not-racist-or-sexist-or-homophobic-etc-if-its-true/714625/43 "2015-03-10T21:42:08Z")
> [@stillownedbysetters](#): > > Of course, as a Bears fan, I reserve the right to categorize any Packers fan as a cheesehead regardless of whether or not they live in dairy country or are lactose intolerant and especially no matter how offensive it may be to them. 😃 As a Cowboys fan, I reserve the right to call Packers fans cheeseheads for the same reason 😃 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-not-racist-or-sexist-or-homophobic-etc-if-its-true/714625/44 "2015-03-10T23:48:51Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > The truth is an absolute defense against libel. Fine, but that’s like the second cousin three times removed from this discussion. ---
**Author:** ![HeXen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@HeXen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeXen)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2015, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-not-racist-or-sexist-or-homophobic-etc-if-its-true/714625/45 "2015-03-11T00:44:22Z")
Here’s a fact. I hate people that are lazy. Now what is the most common stereotype of laziness? Usually it’s obesity, untied shoelaces perhaps? Pajama pants? Let’s try another fact. I hate people that improperly speak words such as “axe” instead of “ask”. What’s the first image? It’s probably based on a stereotype and remember I didn’t mention it belonged to any particular religion, race or other. So based on that immediate image in your head…does that make you racist or a bigot? I don’t believe so, but it shows how ingrained our natural ability to categorize everything we come across in our daily lives which was once and still is used as a survival trait. We have to protect our families and to do that, we need a way to see through potential lies, to see who is footing near our personal territory…maybe a new neighbor looks like a gangster, mob boss or pedophile even…we assimilate our experiences and discussions into a category. Stereotyping appears to be the most common characteristic in regards to racism. Often people think racism **after** the immediate thought of a stereotype which lead them to believe it had to be something negative against their race. If I said something about the idea, notion…etc of sitting on a porch eating a watermelon, someone is going to paint me as racist and/or at least be offended despite a fact that I did not mention anything about any particular race. All this also appears to be similar for religion, homosexuality…etc. You don’t really have to read in-between the lines, but sensitive people do, even “drama queens” do. Sometimes things are very literal or misspoken. Sometimes actions caused an illogical reaction and if the reaction was against or for a particular tone of skin and other features associated with a particular race, then the facts quickly get overlooked. A person may have prominent feature of an asian but not actually be fully asian or even partial…yet we still categorize them as an asian. Another fact. Truth hurts. People really and honestly hate the truth about themselves, their family or their culture. Dishing out a negative rarely yields a positive result. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2015, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-not-racist-or-sexist-or-homophobic-etc-if-its-true/714625/46 "2015-03-11T01:02:23Z")
> [@HeXen](#): > > Let’s try another fact. I hate people that improperly speak words such as “axe” instead of “ask”. That’s only a fact in the same way it’d be a fact if you said you hated people that improperly speak English instead of French. Here’s a fact: you misunderstand how language works on a very fundamental level. And if your example of “improper” speaking is a word from AAVE, there’s a mighty good chance that what you really hate is black culture. ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2015, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-not-racist-or-sexist-or-homophobic-etc-if-its-true/714625/47 "2015-03-11T02:02:25Z")
> [@74westy](#): > > Who is it racist against? I don’t know, but I’m stating that it’s racist, and therefore it is. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2015, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-not-racist-or-sexist-or-homophobic-etc-if-its-true/714625/48 "2015-03-11T02:13:55Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > I don’t know, but I’m stating that it’s racist, and therefore it is. I am reminded of new agers who talk about quantum mechanics; they, too, have no idea what the word means, but think that if they simply declare something to be quantum, so it is. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2015, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-not-racist-or-sexist-or-homophobic-etc-if-its-true/714625/49 "2015-03-11T04:59:43Z")
I had a young relative that was going to come to the US to attend high school for a year. Now the thing he said that in Denmark people are free and open to discuss things and people wont take offense if none is intended. I told him it was different in the US. That people DO take offense if you point out things that make others uncomfortable and I told him to keep all opinions to himself. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2015, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-not-racist-or-sexist-or-homophobic-etc-if-its-true/714625/50 "2015-03-11T07:25:39Z")
> [@Recusant](#): > > The statement “black people have more melanin in their skin than members of other ethnic groups” is a fact. No, it isn’t. Unless your definition of “Black people” is “people who have more melanin in their skin than anyone else” - but you mentioned ethnic groups, and that’s just not true. ---
**Author:** ![Hayden](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/91b2a8/32.png) [@Hayden](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hayden)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2015, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-not-racist-or-sexist-or-homophobic-etc-if-its-true/714625/51 "2015-03-11T08:06:19Z")
> [@stillownedbysetters](#): > > Stereotypes become stereotypes for a reason. Many times they accurately reflect reality for the majority of the group being considered. This, precisely. To answer the OP, facts are not racist. However, one could certainly appear to be a racist depending on the context or way in which he/she presents the facts. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2015, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-not-racist-or-sexist-or-homophobic-etc-if-its-true/714625/52 "2015-03-11T13:29:20Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > On reading the name plate of a bank teller, a person might say, “Oh, look at that. What a surprise, yet another Jew is working for a bank.” Except usually they mean some sort of Wall Street investment banker, not a teller at your local bank branch.😉 ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2015, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-not-racist-or-sexist-or-homophobic-etc-if-its-true/714625/53 "2015-03-11T14:52:01Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Except usually they mean some sort of Wall Street investment banker, not a teller at your local bank branch.😉 Sure–I was being a bit silly with my example. The idea, of course, is that if someone points out something objectively true, there may nonetheless be a racist implication. A more common example might be someone who tells a story, mentioning only the race of the people who are different from them. “And then this big black dude walked up to us and started yelling!” they might say, which is objectively true, but if that dude’s race is the first one mentioned in the story, I’m gonna be :dubious:. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-not-racist-or-sexist-or-homophobic-etc-if-its-true/714625/54 "2015-03-12T00:08:52Z")
Also, “aks” is nearly as old as “ask” and was used by bona fide Anglo-Saxons long before there was any AAVE. ---
**Author:** ![Taber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ac91a4/32.png) [@Taber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taber)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-not-racist-or-sexist-or-homophobic-etc-if-its-true/714625/55 "2015-03-12T00:47:51Z")
Another way that people are commonly racist with facts is by being misleading with them. If .001% of white people were murderers, and .002% of black people were murderers, saying that black people were twice as likely to be murderers compared to white people would be both accurate and dishonest. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-not-racist-or-sexist-or-homophobic-etc-if-its-true/714625/56 "2015-03-12T02:40:09Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Also, “aks” is nearly as old as “ask” and was used by bona fide Anglo-Saxons long before there was any AAVE. And it’s standard Earthican by the 31st century. People who say aks are trend setters! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-not-racist-or-sexist-or-homophobic-etc-if-its-true/714625.md?page=2)