In a 1988 TV interview, Jimmy “the Greek” Snyder claimed that black athletes were bred to be superior to whites. During the Civil War “the slave owner would breed his big black with his big woman so that he would have a big black kid,” Mr. Snyder said. “That’s where it all started.” Mr. Snyder also said that if blacks “take over coaching jobs like everybody wants them to, there’s not to be anything left for the white people.” Later, Mr. Snyder said a black athlete was better that a white one because “he’s been bred to be that way because of his thigh size and big size.” CBS Sports fired Snyder the next day.
Lib’s example, although not as extreme, is along the same lines.
I don’t think so. Liberal’s example says nothing about why blacks might be better at a certain thing, which was the thrust of Snyder’s remarks. Lib’s example is either true or false, although loosely worded, as I have pointed out.
Are any of these statements racist?
The best heavyweight boxers are black.
Blacks are the best basketball players.
The NBA is 80% black, while the general male population in the U.S. is 12% black.
The best sprinters are black.
Blacks are faster than whites.
Certainly not the 80%/12%. The rest depends on who is saying it, likewise with Lib’s example. If the remark is made by a known racist, the “why” is implied.
Well Liberal said it. Is he a racist? If not, are the remarks then not racist?
Got it. A remark is racist if a known racist makes it, and of course we know he is a racist because he is making all those racist remarks. Seems a bit circular to me.
But then, Jimmy the Greek’s comment is also either true or false. As is a statement that a particular group is less intelligent, or that they have poor hygeine, or that they’re more aggressive.
The logical problem with racism is commonly a hasty generalization. There’s nothing racist in pointing out that of the best basketball players in the world, most of them are black. The problem comes when you generalize that to say that blacks, taken as an entire population, are better at basketball than are whites, or if you take it even further and claim that every black person is better at basketball than every white person.
I completely agree that generalization is the logical problem with racism. It does not follow, however, that all hasty generalizations are racist, even if they are about race. To equate Jimmy the Greek’s comments with Liberal’s example is, in my opinion, an extreme position. It would be very difficult to make the case that Snyder’s comments were anything but racist, but if I were to comment in a conversation that blacks were better sprinters than whites, and point to the last 12 Olympiads as evidence, one need not necessarily assume that I mean that every black person is faster than any white person. In fact, it would be a ludicrous assumption. (I tend not to say things like that because I prefer to be more precise in my speech; it just seems to me that to categorize such speech as racist by definition is going overboard.)
Just to be clear, here, Liberal did not himself make any of those claims. He just cited them as examples of racist claims which might be made without being hateful. We don’t have any context for those claims, and in fact, Jimmy the Greek’s infamous remarks fall into the same category which Liberal was describing. To say that blacks are better athletes because they were bred that way is certainly ignorant and probably racist, but it is not necessarily hateful. If a person made such claims here, that person would probably not be banned for it, but would be educated as to why it’s not true. In fact, I’ve seen the question raised a few times here on the boards, and I don’t recall any bannings coming out of any of those discussions.
Well, the statement about 80% and 20% is a verifiable statistics, that is either true or false. The other statements are certainly stereotyping – categorizing an entire group by the traits of some members (even if a majority of members) – but not necessarily racist, at least, not in my mind. “Racism” involves bigotry, hatred and inferiority/superiority, in addition to simple stereotyping. Adjectives like “faster” and “better” are stereotypes, but not necessarily indicative of racism – except perhaps the reverse-racism of implying that whites are “slower” and “inferior.”
Racism isn’t an on/off thing, like being pregnant. There are varying degrees. There are rabid, drooling hate-mongers and there are nice, ordinary, normal people who have tiny (perhaps unconscious) bits of racism hidden in their psyche. There’s a difference between (a0 the jackass who thinks a different race is “inferior” and (b) the normally very tolerant person who feels uneasy when his sibling dates someone of a different race. Both are showing racist traits, but there’s a massive difference in degree.
On a tangent, hasn’t some modern research on fast twitch muscles and such shown that there is a genetic basis for those of west african descent being faster than others?
This is no longer “About this Message Board” but about the definition of “race.” Consequently, I can either move it or shut it. I opt to shut it, the question has been asked and answered: posts expressing racist hatred or bigotry are not permitted here. And we’ve (vaguely) defined what that means, without trying to impinge on freedom of inquiry into topics like whether a certain race has certain genetic predispositions.
I would be glad to reopen and move it to Great Debates if members feels strongly enough to email me.
