If you put in “on average”, then that’s certainly correct.
There’s no doubt that CP accepts that there is enormous overlap between the ethnic groups (both because he’s said so explicitly, and because it’s so blindingly obvious).
OK. But he was warned for the specific paragraph that I quoted.
Moderator Note
Posts in ATMB are supposed to be polite and civil. Not only is this not polite, it’s justifiably warnable for personal insults. I’ll be kind and just give you a mod note here.
This is also not your first post in this thread that goes beyond the ATMB limits of politeness and civility.
When I look at the dictionary definition for “racist,” I’m having trouble seeing any way not to apply the term to someone making that claim; I’m also not seeing another, less offensive, term for someone who makes that claim.
As I said earlier, if he wasn’t warned specifically for calling CP a racist, I’m not going to object to the warning. If that’s specifically what he was warned for, however, I don’t think it’s worth quibbling over the fact that the paragraph in which he made that claim contained insufficient evidence to support it, when sufficient evidence was abundant in that thread.
Moderator Note
I understand the point you are trying to make here, but again, this is not exactly what I would call a polite or civil post. Try to make your point in a more polite and less mocking way, please.
Moderator Note
This is to all the participants in this thread. I’ve singled out a couple of posts, but there are many others that I am not going to take the time to quote and list individually that are either over the line for what is acceptable in this forum or are at least pushing towards the line.
I understand that this is a hot button issue for a lot of you, so I’m going to cut you all some slack, but please try to keep the discussion civil.
So if someone says, for instance, “I believe there is evidence that those who self-identify as black in the US score lower on tests of intellectual achievement than those who self-identify as Asian, even when SES and family factors are held constant”, and you respond, “You are a racist”, how does that further the debate? I understand that typing “racist” is easier than typing “someone who believes there is evidence that those who self-identify as black in the US score lower on tests of intellectual achievement than those who self-identify as Asian, even when SES and family factors are held constant”, but why is it necessary to type either? Wouldn’t the typing be better spent proving that an SIRE of black doesn’t correlate with lower IQ, when SES and parental education levels are held constant?
None of them, because none of them are generally regarded as insults.
Then it would seem that you recognize on some level that calling “racist” is more akin to shouting at people. And I agree - “racist” is, and is usually meant to be, an insult. IOW it doesn’t further debate. Or at least it has drawbacks that outweigh any alleged time spent typing.
Regards,
Shodan
You asked if it was an accurate paraphrase of his words so I responded. The distinction is very important, whether or not it changes whether you would apply the term “racist” to the statement.
The problem here is that the term “racist” has many connotations, which range from KKK members to much milder forms, and while the distinction may be unimportant to some people it can be important to others, most notably including the ones being accused of it.
The specific racism he was accusing CP of in that post (that he had some “political” opposition to black people which drove his scientific arguments) was not something which CP had acknowledged anywhere, in that thread or elsewhere (and he would undoubtedly deny it). So the connotation of “racist” in the context of that specific post was not supported by being CP’s acknowledged position.
Can you at least state whether, in your Mod opinion, tomndebb was one of those “many others”, in his snarky response to Robert a few of us have quoted? Just so us civilians are clear on where these lines are.
Emphasis added. In that case, it would seem that the Pit is where you want to be, not GD.
To say that “racist” is not perforative in the U.S. in 2015 is disingenuous, at best.
But this really is the crux of the issue. You and others want to be able to use it—with all the weight it has, close to that of "pedophile’—and you attempt to defend this by pointing to a benign dictionary definition that no one uses. So your claim that it’s meaning is accurate, in the more benign sense, is flatly wrong.
You go on to say it is “useful”. I say it’s not, for two reason. One, it is used as a strong insult, a cudgel, to shut down debate. And two, its utility is diminished by the word’s meaning being, as your rationale suggests, Unclear. Even if you intent is honestly the more benign meaning, do you really think that the word won’t be read with all it’s insulting power attached?
Not to poke a bunch of holes in your description of the word “racist,” but it’s the charm of the Straight Dope, that you can get warned for using the word “racist” to describe someone who thinks black people are genetically, intellectually inferior; but saying that someone is acting “disingenuous, at best” is business as usual.
“That no one uses”? Are you kidding me? That’s the most straightforward definition of “racist” I can imagine.
And frankly, if someone says they are sexually attracted to children, I have no problem with calling them “pedophile.” It would be absurd to ban the word’s use to describe such a person.
FFS reading this thread is really pissing me off! The crux of the issue really is quite simple, there’s no need for everyone to be retreading old ground. The word racist is not allowed to be used as a descriptor here because, the main group it tends to generally apply to (white people) make up the majority of America and in turn this board. They don’t like to hear a word that could accurately describe them so they pretty much ban its usage, whilst allowing other words and phrases like holocaust denier to be thrown around willy nilly. That is why most hate speech is swept under the rug here and, the mods like tomndebb bend over backwards to try and defend the racist and xenophobic scum that tend to infest this board. See folks now that wasn’t so hard to work out, was it?
Long time lurker, first time poster?
I agree, as there is no confusion as to what you’d be describing. That’s not true for “racist”. It has a much wider spectrum of meaning. Would you at least grant that?
What debate would that be? This is the same silly argument that let Caesario post about how three year old girls were coming onto him and how he should be able to fuck them. “O noes! We can’t censor him! Because it’ll have a ‘chilling’ effect on debate. Also free speech!” He lasted months spewing this crap and what he was spewing wasn’t debatable because some ideas are too stupid to be debatable.
If someone wants to exterminate Jews to protect the ‘superior races’, there’s no debate possible because the idea is retarded.
And if someone wants to allow 3 year old girls to give “informed consent” to have sex, there’s no debate possible because the idea is retarded.
And when someone says
there’s no debate possible because the idea is retarded in exactly the same way as the prior two examples.
What the folks supporting racists will not admit there’s a big, super-wide gap between “Since you said “Illegal immigration is wrong”, you’re a racist” and “Since you said ‘All the blacks are teh dumb because SCIENCE!’, you’re a racist”.
Mods make those judgement calls every! single! time! they moderate on just about any post or topic. It’s not that hard of a call for them to make.
So seriously–you gonna address that huge chasm between people using “racist” as a cudgel and people using racist to define people who say “But at any given opportunity tier, the same rank order in academics always remains [with blacks at the bottom because black people are dumb]”
I’m not perfectly clear on what you’re asking. Can you rephrase it? And if you’d like me to comment on what someone said, it would be helpful to not have the quote include bracketed information. I’m not trying to put you off, I’m genuinely unclear on what you’re getting at.
It has no wider spectrum of meaning than “mountain.” The spectrum of meaning for “mountain” means we might debate the status of Mount Wycheproof, that shouldn’t stop us from accurately calling Everest by the correct geographic nomenclature.
it seems clear enough.
Fenris is simply saying that he sees a great effective gap that can be practically identified between the use of the word racist to apply to differences in ideas about a policy like immigration and someone who is saying all blacks are dumb because of “science.”
It is not hard to understand.
in any case it is clear we will continue to have the strange political correctness on this, so that using that the english language noun for a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority when the person makes such direct argument is just simply an insult and not a descriptive noun. It is like other strange faux politesses the current oversight prefers.
the door of reasoning was closed and the baroque will go forward. C’est la vie.
I was out of line making this post and I a apologize.
Im n to sure that anyone on this board believes that race is the primary determinant for human traits and capacities. As I’ve stated elsewhere, even if it is the case that broadly speaking, different races have different average intelligences, I think that those differences are so small that an individual’s environment and culture are much more important.
But I guess if you look at elite sprinters, someone’s personal ceiling may be set by genetics aligned with race, more specifically, West Africa. Meaning that if someone doesn’t share the “magical” gene set from West Africa, he/she will not be winning Olympic medals for sprinting.