# Race, Racism and Such **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [April 28, 2016, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-racism-and-such/753346 "2016-04-28T15:58:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2016, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-racism-and-such/753346/101 "2016-05-02T02:37:08Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > If the idea that a poster is being racist should be off-limits, racist ideas about posters should similarly be off-limits. No. The rule against calling a poster a racist derives from the rule prohibiting insults directed at posters that will cause threads to crash and burn. That is why there is no prohibition against pointing out that an idea is racist, but one must still refrain from calling the poster racist. It may be “precise language” to note that a morbidly obese person is fat, but it is still an insult call such a person fat. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2016, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-racism-and-such/753346/102 "2016-05-02T02:40:12Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Would you care to answer the question I asked? Why do you feel it is worth it to belabor this subject at such extraordinary length? Not to answer for LHoD, but the underlying situation is frustrating. Proponents of the existence of racial differences rarely show knowledge or interest in the necessity of comparing larger intra-group dispersion with relatively small (though sometimes statistically significant) differences in inter-group means after adjusting for the usual factors. And since this is a general interest message board, most lack the statistical background or education to grasp the preceding. Heck, even professionals are known to overlook variance at times. So we are left with arguments similar to, “No offense, but people like you on average are butt-ugly. But let’s keep this intellectual. Here’s a cite.” This is on top of the routine slights and situations borne routinely by American minorities. It’s frustrating. ---
**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:** [May 2, 2016, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-racism-and-such/753346/103 "2016-05-02T02:46:36Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > No. > > The rule against calling a poster a racist derives from the rule prohibiting insults directed at posters that will cause threads to crash and burn. > > That is why there is no prohibition against pointing out that an idea is racist, but one must still refrain from calling the poster racist. > > It may be “precise language” to note that a morbidly obese person is fat, but it is still an insult call such a person fat. First, I appreciate your posting without saying I’m pretending to something, without saying I’m refusing to admit something, without saying I’m disconnected from reality. I hope you’ll continue in this vein. Second, are you convinced that saying, “Your post is really racist, because…” is going to lead to fewer threads crashing-and-burning than saying, “You’re being racist, because…”? I suspect that very few people will see the same difference you see. Look at **Magellan** : when you correctly call his ideas racist, that gets him all upset and gets him wanting you to use different, less clear language. Third, in terms of what makes threads crash and burn, what I’ve seen repeatedly lead to crash-and-burn is when racists come into a thread about something else (income inequality, public schools in the US, AIDS in Africa, anything at all in Africa) and start spouting racist rhetoric. If the concern is that something is going to derail a thread, empirically speaking that’s the place to focus attention. ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2016, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-racism-and-such/753346/104 "2016-05-02T02:47:52Z")
Calling someone a racist is a god-damned insult no matter how shrill the holier-than-you liberals otherwise suggest. ---
**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:** [May 2, 2016, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-racism-and-such/753346/105 "2016-05-02T02:51:40Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > Calling someone a racist is a god-damned insult no matter how shrill the holier-than-you liberals otherwise suggest. Question: do you think that the phrase “holier-than-you liberals” is an insult? If so, consider reporting your post for rules violation :). If not, you’re going to have a hard row to hoe explaining why that phrase isn’t an insult, but “racist” is. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2016, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-racism-and-such/753346/106 "2016-05-02T02:54:52Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Second, are you convinced that saying, “Your post is really racist, because…” is going to lead to fewer threads crashing-and-burning than saying, “You’re being racist, because…”? I suspect that very few people will see the same difference you see. Look at **Magellan** : when you correctly call his ideas racist, that gets him all upset and gets him wanting you to use different, less clear language. Well, we could prohibit the claim that a statement was racist, as well, but JC and I would find ourselves spending even more hours policing the fora. Prohibiting a direct insult is a way to limit personal feuds; insisting that the ideas be attacked instead of the poster does provide guidelines that all posters can recognize to keep threads on track. ANYTHING can cause a thread to jump the rails. We are working under one set of rules to reduce trainwrecks. ---
**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:** [May 2, 2016, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-racism-and-such/753346/107 "2016-05-02T02:56:28Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Well, we could prohibit the claim that a statement was racist, as well, but JC and I would find ourselves spending even more hours policing the fora. > > Prohibiting a direct insult is a way to limit personal feuds; insisting that the ideas be attacked instead of the poster does provide guidelines that all posters can recognize to keep threads on track. > ANYTHING can cause a thread to jump the rails. We are working under one set of rules to reduce trainwrecks. Allowing racists to spout racist rhetoric in unrelated threads has caused a buttload of trainwrecks–do you agree? And what possible advantage is there to prohibiting the claim that a statement is racist? Further circumlocutions do no good. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2016, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-racism-and-such/753346/108 "2016-05-02T03:19:40Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Allowing racists to spout racist rhetoric in unrelated threads has caused a buttload of trainwrecks–do you agree? And when they are seen or reported, they are addressed. > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > And what possible advantage is there to prohibiting the claim that a statement is racist? Further circumlocutions do no good. There is no advantage to it–which was my point. The rule prohibits insults. Accusations that a poster is racist is an insult. That is prohibited. Any further discussions are permitted, (subject to the rules against trolling, threadshitting, hijackings, etc.). ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2016, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-racism-and-such/753346/109 "2016-05-02T03:33:57Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Question: do you think that the phrase “holier-than-you liberals” is an insult? If so, consider reporting your post for rules violation :). If not, you’re going to have a hard row to hoe explaining why that phrase isn’t an insult, but “racist” is. Who specifically did I call a “holier-than-you liberal”? And, yes, it’s an insult. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2016, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-racism-and-such/753346/110 "2016-05-02T05:31:36Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > I think there’s another thing at play, and it’s a tactic one can see being used by the left on college campuses. Rather than debate the issue, make the topic unworthy debate. Ridicule it and anyone who dare hold a view the majority left finds odious. That is exactly correct. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2016, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-racism-and-such/753346/111 "2016-05-02T06:30:34Z")
But you and **magellan01** are engaged in exactly the same behavior: you are demonizing others and rejecting anything they have to say. (And, I suppose, I’m doing the same to you.) Isn’t all of this a pathetically thin excuse for a real debate? Mutual name-calling and dismissal contains no actual thesis. ---
**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:** [May 2, 2016, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-racism-and-such/753346/112 "2016-05-02T10:33:38Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > Who specifically did I call a “holier-than-you liberal”? Nobody is confused by this verbal equivalent of “I’m not touching you!” Do you think this sort of tactic should be permitted? ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2016, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-racism-and-such/753346/113 "2016-05-02T10:51:18Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > This seems to be getting into something of a something of a tangent, but wouldn’t this argument be fairly steeped in the present? Wouldn’t you have to make an argument based on top 100 since standardised records began? Or, I guess, a top 100 each year? I’ll give a short answer as to not hijack the discussion… The answer is no. Part of the reason is that speed is largely an innate skill. You are either really fast or you aren’t. Speeds for any individual can of course be improved, but even with the best training in the world, I (pretty darn fast) was never going to make it onto to a good college team, never mind to the Olympics. The other part of the reason is that the sport has a very low bar for entry, so it it really open to all. The fact that it is so dominated by people who have black skin is striking. It’s particularly striking in the U.S. and the NFL. Virtually all the speed positions in football are held by Blacks, even though they make up about 12% of the population. Tom is correct that the correlation is much stronger with those with west African ancestry, but to go further and claim that there is no correlation between speed and black skin is, to use his word, silly. Back to the discussion… ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2016, 11:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-racism-and-such/753346/114 "2016-05-02T11:03:45Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > This is racist because it insists on a racial correlation when there is not a correlation between black skin (or even among Africans who get lumped into a “black race”) and fast sprinters. There are no world class sprinters among the peoples of Eastern Africa or Southern Africa, nor among a number of other populations with skin that would normally be categorized as “black.” Once one attempts to portray the issue as connected to skin color, (to say nothing of making it “racial,”) one has introduced a racist component to the discussion. The populations among whom the world class sprinters are currently found tend to have dark skin, but they are limited populations within a much larger group of multiple populations, making any claim regarding a “race” to be an absurd fiction which raises the question as to why one would want to engage in a discussion that is founded in absurdity. It seems you’re using a different definition for the word “correlation”. But this serves as a perfect example of one of the reasons the term should not be allowed. **iiandiiii** , who is definitely in LHOD’s camp on this, just said that he thought the discussion you just proclaimed to be racist was _not_ racist. So, we have another less-than-clear instance of something racist. And that means that the topic will not get discussed unless one poster submits to being portrayed as arguing a racist position. That is the game the left plays. And it has no place in actual debate. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2016, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-racism-and-such/753346/115 "2016-05-02T11:30:54Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > That is the game the left plays. The right plays the same game, just on different topics. This is a message board, not a university level debate team. Dropping “the left” into the conversation is just more partisan posturing. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2016, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-racism-and-such/753346/116 "2016-05-02T12:50:03Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > I’ll give a short answer as to not hijack the discussion… The answer is no. Part of the reason is that speed is largely an innate skill. You are either really fast or you aren’t. Speeds for any individual can of course be improved, but even with the best training in the world, I (pretty darn fast) was never going to make it onto to a good college team, never mind to the Olympics. The other part of the reason is that the sport has a very low bar for entry, so it it really open to all. The fact that it is so dominated by people who have black skin is striking. It’s particularly striking in the U.S. and the NFL. Virtually all the speed positions in football are held by Blacks, even though they make up about 12% of the population. Tom is correct that the correlation is much stronger with those with west African ancestry, but to go further and claim that there is no correlation between speed and black skin is, to use his word, silly. > > Back to the discussion… I have some issues with that, but I don’t want to hijack any more than I have. Could I pm you? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2016, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-racism-and-such/753346/117 "2016-05-02T13:57:00Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > It seems you’re using a different definition for the word “correlation”. But this serves as a perfect example of one of the reasons the term should not be allowed. **iiandiiii** , who is definitely in LHOD’s camp on this, just said that he thought the discussion you just proclaimed to be racist was _not_ racist. So, we have another less-than-clear instance of something racist. And that means that the topic will not get discussed unless one poster submits to being portrayed as arguing a racist position. That is the game the left plays. And it has no place in actual debate. People often get the number of i’s wrong in my user name, but you’re the only one who consistently forgets the **y**. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2016, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-racism-and-such/753346/118 "2016-05-02T14:07:20Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Mutual name-calling and dismissal contains no actual thesis. Good lord, it’s like you summed things up perfectly. Well done. If we wish to have an actual debate forum - especially one in which long-term posters argue the same topics over the course of many years - then it behooves Tom and I to keep it as civil and non-dismissive as possible. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2016, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-racism-and-such/753346/119 "2016-05-02T14:19:56Z")
While I agree with **LHOD** in principle, since we’re free to call out racist arguments and assertions as racist (as long as we don’t call out the poster), I don’t feel that much is lost in the ability to challenge bigotry. Like **LHOD** , though, I was surprised by the rhetoric from **tomndebb** , which certainly seemed to me like he was challenging **LHOD** ’s sincerity and honesty in his posts on this. You said he was pretending, **tomndebb** – that word certainly implies insincerity and/or dishonesty. Maybe it’s not a huge deal, but I think that you should own what you said. If that’s not what you meant, then maybe you used the wrong word, but I think that’s what the word implies pretty clearly. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2016, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-racism-and-such/753346/120 "2016-05-02T14:20:04Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > The right plays the same game, just on different topics. > This is a message board, not a university level debate team. > Dropping “the left” into the conversation is just more partisan posturing. I don’t think that’s the case. Could you provide some examples in today’s discourse where the right is trying to do what the left is doing on campuses, as well as elsewhere? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-racism-and-such/753346.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-racism-and-such/753346.md?page=7)