I’m not racist or prejudiced.
For god’s sake, some of my relatives are American.
First explain how I made a false equivalency and maybe I’ll get a little bit closer to understanding the point that you are trying really really hard to make.
Greed does not equal stealing. Self-interest does not equal ruthlessness. No equivalency.
Furthermore, greed and self-interest are not necessarily negative qualities.
You are not going to answer my questions, I take it?
When I took black history, the professor told the class that fingersnails were supposedly a “dead giveaway” for negroes passing as white back in the day. The sign of “pure” white heritage was supposedly the presence of half-moons. Whites tend to have half-moons on their fingernails, while blacks do not.
I can’t imagine having nailbeds that are the same color as your skin.
While I don’t think the OP’s dad was being a racist (more like socially inept), I disagree with the sentiment expressed in this thread that racial assumptions are inconsequential, or that hatred is necessary for a thought or action to be racist. As you with the face mentioned, as an undergrad I had a major advisor who–when I asked for advice about classes to take–he asked if I was an athlete. It was the very first thing he said to me. The question made me feel strange and sad, especially because he asked it with a sneer and a haughty tone. There’s nothing inherently wrong with being an athlete, but let’s face it. Athletes aren’t known for their intelligence or academic promise. By asking me that irrelevant question, he exposed how low his expectations were for me and in that way, he exposed his racial prejudice. And future interactions with him would confirm this.
I don’t think the OPer’s dad deserves an individual pitting, as the OPer already gave him a stern talking-to, but the behavior in general does deserve a good rant.
People often steal out of greed. Because they think to themselves “I want to have that material possession”. The action is greedy. The thought that led to the action is greedy. Both are greedy. But not everyone who has this thought acts on it by stealing. It is reasonable to say that they are greedy “on the inside” even though they are able they control their impulses to steal.
People often behave ruthlessly because they are looking out for their self-interests. Because they think to themselves “I’m looking out for numero uno, to hell with everyone else.” The action is selfish. The thought that led to the action is selfish. Both are selfish. But not everyone who has this selfish thought acts on it by being ruthless. It is reasonable to say that they are selfish “on the inside”, even though they are able to control their impulse to put their wants/needs above others.
People often discriminate because they are racist. Because they think to themselves “Something is wrong with Group X therefore I don’t want to associate with people who are a part of Group X”. The action is racist. The thought that led to the action is racist. Both are racist. But not everyone who has this racist thought acts on it by being discriminatory. It is reasonable to say that they are racist “on the inside” even though they are able to control their impulse to discriminate.
What does it matter? The issue is not whether you’re suffering or not (suffer = harbor), the issue is that you have racism “in your heart”.
I’m trying to think of a racial prejudice that would also be considered racist, and I can’t think of one. But from a semantic point of view, they are not the same thing. You can be prejudiced towards fat people, gay people, and short people. Racism is specifically about race.
I don’t see why you wouldn’t be. We apply terms to each other all the time, irrespective of our actual behavior. You can be a pedophile without ever having touched a kid inappropriately. You can be a sadistic psychopath without ever having killed someone. You can be homophobic even if you’ve never called anyone a fag or treated them disrespectfully. I don’t see why racists should be exempt from the same rules that apply to every other group.
Who determines what is derogatory or not? Where does the line get drawn? At what point does it become obvious that focusing on the line causes us to ignore more important questions, like “What’s effect do these assumptions have on the subject of these assumptions?” and “What can I do to make sure I don’t alienate people because of these stupid assumptions?”
I meant to say “wouldn’t also be considered”.
In all honesty, it is incomprehensible to me that a person who never commits a greedy act could be considered greedy. You might as well say that, technically, every human has the potential for all sorts of bad behavior. That does not make us all bank robbers on the inside.
Really. Choosing not to associate with a particular racial group is racist? How are they being harmed by my absence, exactly?
We are worlds apart on this. No harm, no foul. All the “racist thoughts” in the world have exactly zero effect on anyone’s life.
You want to make it not the issue, but I have said over and over that it is the issue to me, and I am the one you responded to (Per the OP, suffer = pain.)
Pedophilia and sociopathology are clinical descriptions concerning a person’s psychological nature. I doubt very strongly that one can be argued out of a sexual desire for children. However, a pedophile who never acts on his desires is no threat to anyone.
Feel free to do so yourself.
As long as the assumptions remain assumptions, zero effect. Same with alienating people, although I am not sure what that has to do with the topic at hand.
Let me give you an example. I live in a little neighborhood that is damn near the definition of a melting pot. In one small block we have white, black, Latino, gay, straight, lesbian, you name it. I guess the common thread would be that none of us have much money. I am a very private person, and beyond smiling and saying hello, and returning the occasional escaped dog, have little interaction with my neighbors. What possible difference couldn it make to the gay guys acroos the street if I choose not to hang out with them because I prefer my own company, or because I don’t like gay guys?
Okay! Okay! I didn’t really really mean physical pain. I find it to be actually, physically painful, but by suffer in a broader sense I mean ‘be affected negatively by’.
Also, as for six-month-old children, I don’t think they formulate thoughts of ‘shiftless niggers’, but I do suspect they would react differently in some way to the different sensory input provided by people of different colours than their mothers/the ones who raised them.
But also: That has very little to do with the post itself! Contrapuntal: You are capable of arguing an oncoming train to a stop!
I was just sayin’. I think you had a point in regard to that specific paragraph; it’s just a minor irritation to me when people couch their disagreement with someone’s rhetorical style in linguistic terms. I think I came off a bit snarky; nothing personal intended by it.
Here’s the thing. If you are going to define racism so broadly as to include reactions to sensory input, then you have effectively defined it out of existence. A charge of racism is a terrible thing, and not one to be made lightly, or suffered 
lightly when one finds oneself on the receiving end of such a charge. To say that everyone is racist on the inside is personal to me. I’m not racist on the inside. You have insufficient life experience to make such an extrapolation, unless you define racism so broadly so as to be meaningless. It is a dangerous assumption as well, as it tends to be the default explanation for behavior that may not be racist, as Dr.Deth pointed out. It is entirely possible for a middle-aged man to fall back on sports as a safe topic of conversation with a high shool aged male, with their respective races being irrelevant.
If you go looking for racism, you are likely to find it.
Racism doesn’t have to be a completely terrible charge. If you need to, change everytime I said racism to “assumptions or prejudices based on race.”
I don’t really think six month old children are racist!
Moreover, this isn’t about every middle-aged man talking to a high-school aged male, or about the definitions of the word racism and suffer! I made a fairly mild post about a specific action by a specific person towards a specific person! Done! Please! Enough!
The whole OP smacks of a girl bringing home a black boyfriend solely to get a reaction from daddy, getting some clumsy attempts at trying to “relate,” and then rising up in righteous indignation so everyone else can see how clear-eyed, socially aware and passionate she is.
If you think a few ham-handed attempts to talk about basketball is “racism” then I have to believe your exposure to the real stuff must be pretty limited. I’m from Louisiana. My parents aren’t racist but a lot of my relatives were. I once had a black friend over while I was staying at my grandmother’s house. She ordered him to “get your black ass out of my house,” and then told me that she did not “allow niggers in her home.” THAT was a racist reaction. To me it sounds like your dad was trying to be nice but just really didn’t know how to go about it.
Going around with picks sticking out of the hair looks really stupid, by the way
And in so doing, made it harder to address the very real racism that still does exist.
Askia put it very well: [
Tho I prefer “prejudiced” to “bigoted”…
Well said, furt, and I’ll try to use more nuance in word selection in the future.
Although you can also look for nuance in context and other text in the post, which makes it clear that I don’t revile my dad, this was a small thing, and I’m not trying to demonstrate my moral superiority.
I don’t think he said anything bigoted either. Bigotry is defined by intolerance, not assumptions based on stereotypes.
And that’s the problem. You don’t get how the dad in the OP making and acting upon assumptions about a black kid based on his race could make that kid feel alienated. monstro explained how a similar incident that happened to her made her feel and you still don’t get it. I could try to explain it to you until I’m blue in the face, but if you don’t get it by now, I doubt anything I can say will change your mind.
With all due respect to Askia, his definitions are not supported by dictionary references, but rather his own ideas about what these words mean. Any of us can conjure up our own interpretations of what a word means; doesn’t mean they’re valid or right. And also, calling something by the wrong word doesn’t make it hard to address “very real racism”. You know what does, though? Choosing not to address problematic tendencies until we reach a group concensus on whether these tendencies constitute “very real racism”. That’s the problem. Just because something isn’t racism doesn’t mean it should be ignored, dismissed, or belittled.
And by the way, I don’t think the behavior in the OP is racism. I think the OP’s dad was a victim of racial stereotyping, nothing more and nothing less. I don’t even think he’s being prejudiced because prejudice would suggest that he’s judging someone and that doesn’t appear to be the case. He was simply making the mistake of assuming something about a kid because he’s black and “black people like basketball!” I can appreciate this and still say that he was making a faux pas that needed to be pointed out.
I don’t get why we need to steer the discussion away from a perfectly valid gripe so that we can have another True Scottsman-style debate about “true racism”.
It’s not that it isn’t valid to point out that the dad made a faux pas, but it doesn’t seem to that there was anything malicious in it. We don’t even really know that it was racial. Sports is a subject that comes up fairly often when guys who don’t know each other are trying to find something to talk about. Between guys, it’s a conversational default akin to talking about the weather (“so…how about those Timberwolves?”). It’s at least no a slam dunk (excuse the pun) that the dad was only making a racial assumption. To me it sounds like he just had no idea what to talk about and took a wild guess that black, teenage boy might be into basketball (which is really not that outrageous of a guess. A lot of them are). Maybe it came off sounding oafish, but it doesn’t sound like he meant any harm, and he was trying to be accepting and friendly. That should count for something.
Stereotypes are absolutely necessary to humans. Without them, we would have to judge every situation on exactly what we know about it at the moment. It is the fact that we can classify that constitutes one element of sentience. Sometimes it goes overboard, as does just about everything, but I’m tired of stereotypes getting a bad rap - we couldn’t function without them!
Silver, I don’t want to pile on here, but I just can’t see what your dad did as particularly bad. He was awkwardly trying to make conversation with a teenaged boy (difficult for many of us adults as it is) who happened to be black. It sounds as if he hasn’t known many black folks, which, if true, probably made it even more awkward for him. But what was he supposed to talk about - ask him his opinion of one of Noel Coward’s plays? Unless you specifically informed your dad that this kid liked Noel Coward, the likelihood of that falling flat on its face would be far greater than asking a teenaged boy about basketball.
He wasn’t being intolerant; he was being awkward. The fact that you Pitted him suggests where the intolerance lies.
There’s a difference between being racist and holding unwarranted beliefs about groups of people of whom you know little or nothing. The latter is almost universal in competent adults who are aware of the existence of cultural groups with whom they are unfamiliar (and yes, I know that there is no single cultural group of African Americans any more than there is a single cultural group of Caucasians, but that knowledge sure as hell isn’t based on pop-media such as TV, which is the only exposure a lot of folks have), and if it makes you feel righteous calling that internal racism, go ahead. What’s really pissing you off is that you were embarrassed. But that’s your parents’ job by the time you’re a teenager - embarrassing their kids. I’ve yet to meet a teenager who, at least in a social situation with their peers, didn’t wish s/he had been hatched.
you with the face, I’m sure you don’t enjoy getting this kind of thing, but to call it racist is going overboard. So someone believes you have tastes that you don’t. Well, boo-hoo. I’m sure red-heads get tired of being assumed to have hot tempers, and I promise you from personal experience that blonde women don’t especially enjoy being considered bimbos (which is a hell of a lot worse than being assumed to like basketball when you’re a teenaged boy). Someday even you may make an assumption about someone that is unwarranted. Unless it is used to disparage or in a malicious manner, it’s silly to blame someone for their ignorance in an area in which they’ve had little or no experience, and which is put forth in an effort to be welcoming and friendly. Good heavens, girl, pick your battles!
And this is an important distinction (well-meant stereotyping vs. racism) despite your dismissal. Anytime a word is habitually used in an overly broad way, the real meaning becomes diluted, and thus more subject to being dismissed as meaningless or unimportant. Witness what has happened to the term ‘special’ when applied to a child. If everyone is special, then no one is special. And if you attribute to racism that which virtually everyone shares to some degree about some group of people somewhere (i.e. unwarranted assumptions based on limited information), racism becomes that much less of a problem in many people’s eyes.
At least your Dad didn’t comment on your friend’s gigantic cock! :eek: