It seems to me any time someone says something negative about a person of another race, they are immediately labeled as a racist. Indeed, there are certain stereotypes that need to be avoided, but aren’t there truly differences in our races? What can you say is a truth about a certain race that isn’t just a stereotype?
For example: (this race) is (better/worse) than (that race) at doing (this).
Or maybe broad strokes across a race are always stereotypes? Perhaps there is a need to refine every qualification so that it is no longer a stereotype and becomes a truth? Or are there NO qualifications that would fit into the example? To further extend this ides, are there any “people” and “qualifications” that fit into the example regardless or race?
Maybe: Tall, athletic men are better basketball players than short, clumsy men.
Black people in the U.S. are more likely to have sickle cell anemia than white people (of non-Mediterranean European heritage)…?
I guess it depends on what you mean by race.
Black men apparently have more chances of having prostrate cancer… and should check up more frequently. Black in theory have testicles that just hang there… whilst white men have balls that go up and down to regulate temperature. Racial mixing is so widespread nowadays that its hard to think there is this much difference.
Blacks also seem to have more problems with scar formation and scar tissue.
Beyond physical stuff… I’ve never heard proof of mental inferiority or sexual tendencies being any different in human “races”.
Generalizations, as you can see, can be helpful. For example, if generalizations help you understand people, it can help you with illnesses that are common in ethnic groups, or it might mean that when you are in a cab in India, don’t be surprised if the driver is driving on two wheels (no he isn’t trying to kill YOU, he is accustomed to driving this way).
Stereotypes can be bad, or can put things in a bad light: Italians say “Yo” and talk like Rocky Balboa.
Racism is something different. Racism example: You don’t promote a Black woman who has more education and better work history/success than others that have been promoted.
Generalization is the very basis for western scholarship–without it, scholars wouldn’t be able to offer theories based on a limited number of experiments or observations. One of the reasons we stereotype so much is because we were taught to generalize from the earliest days of our formal education.
The biggest problem with generalizing about issues like race, however, is that the generalizations are often illogical. They may, for instance, be based on far too limited information, be fully applicable to any group, or ignore other facts in evidence, such as obvious exceptions to the rule.
Thus, when someone says that all Germans are cruel, stupid, and stubborn, we should roll our eyes because while there may be some Germans who fit that description, there are cruel, stupid, and stubborn people of any ethnic group. Ignoring those that don’t share these characteristics–and ignoring those in other ethnic groups that do–makes the generalization illogical.
Do you have any kind of proof of this? I tried to Google it, but you can imagine what kind of results I got for “black testicles”. :rolleyes: