I have been meaning to ask this question for a while but kept on forgetting. Are there, or have there ever been any openly racist Dopers?
I would assume with a board of this calibre it wouldn’t be tolerated, but what if a Doper was to say “I don’t like blacks/asians/whites/kyptonians.” but never in any way said anything nasty about them after making said statement?
We’ve had a few louts wander in.
But we tend to mock their silly beliefs, & bombard them ruthlessly with the facts, until they go running home to Hitler.
Or whatever.
<geek>We’re almost as tolerant as the United Federation of Planets.</geek>
If you do a search for ‘stormfront’, you’ll find plenty of threads dealing with people from that board…which isn’t an outright racist board, but an insidious one.
I doubt it. But I’m posting to say that one of my college teachers admitted to being racist.
He told the 20%ish minority (loosely clasified in britain as ‘asian’) classmembers to take their baseball caps off and stop chewing gum, going on to admit (with seeming pride) that he is racist.
Lobsang, are you following me?
Eh? Am I reading you correctly, that it’s a stereotype in the UK that Asians are baseball-cap-wearing gum-chewers? Or am I completely misconstruing and you mean something else entirely?
[/rather excessively OT]
Welcome back form your mini banning La. 
Not at all. The baseball cap wearing and gum chewing were what the lecturer didn’t like (no hats indoors, no chewy sounds). He told those doing it to stop (it happened to be the asians doing it) and went on to admit to being racist.
We have rules against hate-filled postings. So, racists who openly promote an agenda of bigotry and hatred are essentially volunteering to be kicked off our boards.
We might, of course, have people who harbor secret racist thoughts but don’t express them. Or who do not express their racist ideas in terms of hatred (I’m not sure if that’s possible, but I’ll allow for it.) And, I guess, such people would continue to participate on the boards.
In the Stormfront days there were a few of them who were more eloquent and able to debate a bit. They would be openly racist, but nonconfrontational. Eventually though they would all burn out. Usually it was not pretty.
It is indeed possible; e.g., “Black people dance/run/box much better than white people”.
More posters are called racist than really are. Someone was called a "racist’ for saying that Black men tended to be taller than Asian men or something like that.
Sometimes, if you do not 100% support all of the agenda of a group, you’ll also be called a racist. One time I said that “although I’d vote for a pro-gay marriage law in CA, I don’t think I’d donate a dollar or spend any time trying to get out the vote”- and was called a homophobe for that by one poster :rolleyes: (although two other openly gay posters both diagreed and said the vote was all the support that was expected).
It would be interesting to see an how long an avowed member of a white supremist group would last here- even if they posted nothing more racist than admiting they were a racist.
I agree with Dex in that those who would come here and admit such would almost certainly allow their hate and racism to be obvious in their postings.
If your “racism” is aimed at a majority, you’ll perhaps have a much easier chance of getting away with racist postings- to an extent. Try a hate-filled diatribe agianst blacks or muslims, and you’ll last 10 seconds- while some have gotten clean away directing their bias against “white trash” or “fundies”. Of course- there are some who would claim that you can’t be a “bigot”’ against a majority. :dubious:
But in general, the Staff here does a pretty good job.
So common-or-garden hatred and bigotry will not get you kicked off the boards? That’s interesting.
One of those online tests said I was fairly racist, towards blacks at least 
It isn’t immediately clear to me why such a statement would be racist. Can you expand on that idea?
Not wanting to put words in Liberal’s mouth, but, to my mind at least, racism is the making of value judgments (good or bad) based on a person’s skin colour or racial/ethnic origin.
There is a school of thought that says that unless there is oppression of some kind along with the prejudice, then it isn’t really racism (somebody called it “tribalism”), but I don’t have much time for this, as it is a short step from there to say (as I have heard it said) “Black people (or insert whichever oppressed minority you choose) cannot be racist because they don’t have the power in society, and therefore cannot be oppressive”
Grim
Fucking dirty lazy Kryptonians, always leaping tall buildings in a single bound, taking all the superhero jobs away from native earthlings!
I don’t think I understand this comment/question.
Unexpressed hatred and bigotry will not get you kicked off the boards, true enough. We’re not trying to read minds or become some sort of thought-police. You’re judged by what you post, not by what you might think privately but not express.
I don’t know what you mean by “common-or-garden.” For instance, hatred of spinach, or bigotry against people who budge in lines, no, those things won’t get you kicked off the boards. Hatred of an ex-spouse won’t do it, either.
I suspect we’d sort of be guided by U.S. laws, that hatred against race, religion, ethnicity, or gender would be bannable offenses (that is slightly larger than mere “racism”, agreed, but I think the term “racism” can be used to cover all of it except gender.)
You’re skatin on thin ice with me, when you say such things, me lad. :dubious: :mad: 
I don’t see anything in **Liberal’**s post that would qualify as a value judgement. It’s a statement of fact, although somewhat loosely worded, that is open to affirmation or rebuttal. Wherein lies the judgement?