Yep, that was The Mighty Injustice Fighter himself. I guess little injustices like completely misrepresenting what another poster says or beneath his pay grade. Not “Mighty” enough.
Perhaps, magellan, if you want to know why labels are useful, you could ask yourself why you wrote the above sentence the way you did.
Of course, the ad hominem mockery you’re engaging in above isn’t the only use of labels; they’re also useful as precise descriptors and as shorthand. But if you’re willing to allow labels for the purposes of mockery, as you used them above, surely you’re willing to allow them for precise description and for shorthand.
Pretty much all of this is straw-man stuff that I haven’t argued for and have even explicitly rejected (like that any statement about melanin is “racist” – it’s obviously not). And, for some reason, you seem to still insist that I routinely call people racist – do you even have a single example of this? Have I ever called any other poster on the Straight Dope racist? I may have, but I can’t recall doing so.
So it’s a lot of straw men that I’ve mostly addressed before. If you have any specific questions, I’d be happy to answer them (as I have many times before), but I think I’ll mostly ignore this ‘big wall of straw-text’.
He can and does argue his own points better than I could, but AFAICT he argues that those who self-identify as black in the US roughly correlate (about 80%) with descent from the geographic group of sub-Saharan Africans, and that there are average genetic differences between geographic groups and their descendents. And that average academic performace between blacks in the US and other groups with different geographic backgounds differs even when other factors are corrected for - SES, parental education, and some others.
It’s debating an unpopular and extremely politically incorrect opinion.
In addition to this, by my (very large, in this case) recollection, he argues that all nurturing elements and opportunity have been accounted for and normalized between black and white students, and therefore we can state definitively and with certainty that black people are inherently intellectually inferior, on average, due to genetics.
I strongly disagree with the last two assertions (and I think most of the others are irrelevant), and I have no problem with calling the last assertion a racist one.
I’m sure you recognize that I don’t believe I’ve been unfair in any way in labeling certain assertions as racist, so I don’t believe this applies to me at all.
I certainly would never call “racist” merely a benign descriptor – people may well find it insulting. I just don’t care, if I believe an assertion is racist. Further, the golden rule and all – I definitely want people to call me out if they think I’ve said something racist, so I want to do that for other people as well (in addition to just being fully accurate).
Digging out of the stupid-ass digression about the root meanings of the word racist in the 1920s, the homophobic paranoia about the word “cisgender” and other off-topic issues lemme ask the mods who support keeping the term “racist” off-limits:
Is it ok for the “people who are obviously racist, despite the fact that we can’t use the term” folks to insult posters by proxy? So if one of our "people who are obviously racist, despite the fact that we can’t use the term"s does their “Blacks are dumb 'cause SCIENCE!” posts, and there’s a black SDMB’er in the thread, the “people who are obviously racist, despite the fact that we can’t use the term” have just called the black SDMB’er dumb.
Insults by proxy (“All Catholics are scum” to Bricker or “All Liberals are douchebags” said to Diogenes) have been causes for warnings in the past*
The point is, if you’re not going to let “people who are obviously racist, despite the fact that we can’t use the term” be called racists, then the “people who are obviously racist, despite the fact that we can’t use the term” people shouldn’t be allowed to call black dopers dumb.
So why aren’t the GD mods warning the “people who are obviously racist, despite the fact that we can’t use the term” for insulting black dopers. Does a black doper have to pop into the thread and say “I’m a black doper” to invoke that rule or what?
*irregularly. We’ve never gotten a firm allowed/not allowed policy on it, but the point is notes and/or warnings have been given. Also, those were examples. I don’t think Catholics are scum or liberals are douchbags.
Frankly, I find little consolation toward those who get offended because a group was insulted. Personal insults shouldn’t be allowed, but saying you can’t ever insult a particular group is moronic.
Such as someone saying cops are profiling racists. Should that sort of comment be banned because it hurt the feelings of a Doper who happens to work in law enforcement?
I’m more on your side than his in this area, but I don’t think his side is racist for thinking so. I think this is something that reasonable people can disagree on.
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In addition to this, by my (very large, in this case) recollection, he argues that all nurturing elements and opportunity have been accounted for and normalized between black and white students, and therefore we can state definitively and with certainty that black people are inherently intellectually inferior, on average, due to genetics.
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I’m not really worried about what he thinks… just what he says. And I don’t know if he’s a racist person. But I don’t see how it’s possible to not consider such a statement as a racist one.
Just to be clear, as I’ve mentioned before, I don’t hold that it is true, only that that there is evidence for his opinion. Which he has shared repeatedly. You offered the SCARR study as evidence to support your position, and that’s great. But it does not erase the fact that he, too has evidence.
I really think that inserting some idea about the existence of evidence into the definition of “racism” is a bad idea. Rather, let the word label the position, and then debate whether the position is accurate.