Absolutely right. The best cure for the ills of society is covering them up. Fuck sunshine.
Here’s what you don’t get: the shunning was immensely eloquent, inasmuch as silence can sometimes express thoughts far more powerfully than any amount of words. She was confronted. The point of shunning her wasn’t to kill her ideas, but rather to expose them so that, standing alone and forlorn, they’d wither.
The point of bringing the story here was to demonstrate that not all Southerners are bigots.
The reason for your disconnect seems to be a trouble you have with walking and chewing gum. The two events–responding to the comment at the time, and discussing the comment and its context afterward–have wholly unrelated purposes.
No, I got all that. I meant the disconnect that resulted from stating that the comment died in the room right after posting the comment on one of the net’s most popular messageboards. In addition, I’m saying that he didn’t need to give that woman more of an audience just so that he can congradulate himself.
Reread the OPs: I’m not congratulating myself. The pride is that a room filled with Southerners ranging in age from teenagers to 70s were all incensed at a racially bigoted comment; it totally defies the stereotype and shows that progress has been made in our history. (The 73 year old man present grew up in a small town in the swamps of south Georgia, was fully grown when Rosa Parks kept her seat and had school age children when MLK was shot, and by his own admission came from a family of KKK members, and yet he was if anything more irritated than the others.) When southerners are so often portrayed as one dimensional drawling julep sippers with no concept of the late twentieth century having happened or the world beyond the veranda, this was a nice affirmation.
Yes, congratulating. That’s what I meant. In my defense, I was responding on a PDA, using the handwriting thing.
Uh, because it’s spreading racism around, which the OP admits is a bad thing. How do you think people get ideas like hers, they just pop up in a whole bunch of people’s brains spontaneously? No, its from people spreading these ideas around. Look, it’s not like this is some isolated thing I decided to get mad about - this happens all the time on this board. A person presents a completely innocuous thread title, presents an anecdote where he shares verbatim a statement that holds a common bigoted sentiment that of course never refers to him, and then offers no refutation of it since the aim of his OP is soley to glorify his disdain for the sentiment - all the while creating more future bigots by becoming an ironic mouthpiece for their ideas. It’s a
[QUOTE=http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=266939]
SDMB classic, and it’s annoying.
Th… just lo… you kn… aw fuck it, if somebody honestly believe that even one person read the OP and said “You know what, they do look like monkeys! In fact, I think evolution is a farce and black people are lower life forms! And you know who else I hate? The Jews, with their little Jew hats and Jew songs an… oh, oh, oh… what do you call them… those people with the feathers… INDIANS! I FUCKING HATE 'EM! BURY THIS AT WOUNDED KNEE FUCKERS! YYYYYYEEEEEEEEEE-HHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! AND ABORIGONES AND MAORIS AND ESKIMOES, FUCCCCCKKK Y’ALL TOOOOOOO!” then headed down the information highway with a new “I’d rather be committing a Hate Crime” bumper sticker on their digital El Camino then I’m not going to try to convince you otherwise (though I would like to hear sometime how particle physics work in your universe).
Dude- it’s in THE PIT! How fucking innocuous did you expect it to be? If if WERE innocuous, it would be one of the threads that is not THE PIT.
Look under “find all posts” under my name, and you’ll find quite a few posts where I’ve made comments critical of myself in several threads icluding but not limited to this one and this one just from the past couple of weeks. Now run along and start a slow clap for yourself in another thread- we’ll join you, honest.
Actually, it’s a great point. Sampiro, what evidence do you offer that she’s wrong? Any fool reading it will realize that you didn’t offer any contrary evidence, and be totally confused as to what to think.
I do mean any fool. Pizzabrat, that possibly qualifies as the stupidest argument I’ve ever read on these boards. Do you have an iota of evidence that anyone has read the OP and become more racist because of it?
It’s a completely asinine idea, and you’d do well to shut up now before you dig your hole deeper.
The only “SDMB Classic” aspect of it is that it’s a Pit thread written by an imbecile; and
By linking to it, you’re doing exactly what you’re complaining about people doing–that is, you’re widely publicizing the acts of someone that you find offensive, and
Did I mention the imbecile part? Shut the hell up!
Pizzabrat is saying that we shouldn’t quote repeat racists statements even when we discuss how racist they were because they seem to take on a life of their own.
Yet Pizzabrat has posted a link to an old thread which revives for a second time still another thread which caused some trouble at the time.
There’s a little irony there.
Also, Pizzabrat, racial prejudice is not the only prejudice that comes up on this message board frequently. Lots of Dopers and apparently some Mods feel that while racial discrimination and religious intolerance are jerkish behavior, cultural discrimination and Southerner bashing is somehow fair game (and probably has some truth to it.)
SDMB is about fighting ignorance. In this particular thread, we were fighting a particular ignorance that stereotypes Southerners.
Look, that woman was expecting some sort of positive response to her comment, or else she wouldn’t have said it. She obviously thought she had a reasonable chance of finding an appreciative audience for her joke. Now do you think that her expectation was insane, that there was no way another person could ever share her sentiment? Or do you think that if she tries around enough, she’d probably recieve quite a few chuckles while giving people comfort that, thank God, there are still other people that think like them? If so, why is it so hard to believe that the same would happen on this messageboard?
I think she was insane to think it was likely she’d get a good response. Or at the very least extremely stupid.
The question isn’t whether someone will agree with the sentiment. The question is “how people get ideas like hers,” (your words) and specifically whether there’s any chance whatsoever anyone would “get ideas like hers” from Sampiro’s post. I say you’re extremely stupid if you think such a chance exists, but invite you to prove me wrong with an iota of evidence to support your case.
How about it’s not an all at once thing - that just hearing something like that once doesn’t suddenly make a person a convert. But stuff like that casually sprinkled about as reminder eventually makes an impact on people. Of course, the only evidence I can present is the fact that plenty of people have those ideas, and they don’t just come from nowhere.
Been away for a few days. Clearly, my posts in this thread were not well thought out. My examples of the sole voice of reason, in particular, were atrocious. I did not mean to imply, in any way, that education was not valued in the South. I suspect it’s quite the opposite, actually, but that’s irrelevant.
I was simply trying to present an example of a sole voice of reason being shunned as being a bad thing. I’ll try again with the teaching of evolution as science, and keeping creationism out of science class. In particular, imagining a person holding that ideal against overwhelming opposition. What would be the ideal scenario? That the person be allowed to present her case to the mob in hopes of convincing them. The worst case scenario? That the mob would shut out this person and make them a social pariah until she “came to her senses” and realized that humans didn’t come from no apes. Does my point make any sense?
In regards to which is the most beautiful area, yes that was petty and silly. Agreed. But c’mon, I’ve lived in the south, and the midwest, and there are vast stretches of mind-numbingly bare and desolate land in both areas. I was simply pointing out that there are no such desolate areas in New England. Does that make sense? (Also, the condescension was pissing me off.)
Hopefully this clears up what I was trying to say earlier.
How about it’s when sentiments like that are casually sprinkled about without being condemned? How about the entire freakin’ point of this story is how the sentiment was condemned in the harshest Southern fashion? How about the fact that your evidence sucks, inasmuch as it’s saying, “These sentiments come from somewhere, therefore they come from posts like the OP,” which is bullshit logic?
How about them apples? Your implication, that the OP is fostering racism, is hideously wrong, and you owe Sampiro an apology for launching it against him.
Do you have evidence of that? It’s not like there’s a report on how people get racist ideas. You’re really demanding of evidence about something more common sense than scientific.
Anyway my original point wasn’t that it fosters racism, but that OP’s like this are just plain rude and insensitive (and a bit patronizing). You asked why giving a woman’s racist comment a larger audience is a bad thing and I gave you the obvious answer.
The institution of slavery, for all of its evils (I’m not denying them), in no way compares to the attempted (and almost successfull) systematic extermination of an entire population based upon their religion.
Slaves were capital; they were vital necessities to work vast tracts of land; they were skilled labor.
Equating the Southern American institution of slavery to the systematic industrialized extermination of 6 million Jews, 1.5 million Roma, and God knows how many homosexuals and political dissidents is asinine.
Slave traders didn’t go to Africa and capture negroes to kill them. There was no grand plot to rid Africa of negroes for “liebensraum.” It was business; it was messy, it was barbaric, but the bottom line was The Bottom Line. Cash, Money, Dollars, Moolah, Dead Presidents.
Excoriate your white guilt if you must, but be honest about it, and check the melodrama.