I think everyone who bashed me for daring to suggest that we can’t judge the peanut incident based on the limited information we have, and even hinted that I might be racist, should do one of two things:
Contact Jack Hitt and tell him there’s no possible way that it wasn’t simply a bunch of rabid Republicans who hate Latinas and tried to shout down a Latina Republican party operative delivering a routine report, simply because she’s Latina. There’s no better explanation, such as the possibility that, as actual witnesses on the floor explained, the chants were about a previous controversial decision that had just happened on the floor that had nothing to do with the speaker. No, Republicans are so evil and nasty and racist that they will shout down their own people, just because they speak with a Spanish accent. That has to be it! And Hitt might be a racist too for even suggesting it’s something else.
Well, yeah, I said we couldn’t conclude that it definitely was. For that, I was pilloried, and some even implied that I was racist.
“Probably” isn’t exactly a rousing judgement. It leaves lots of room for doubt. And that’s all I was offering - reasonable doubt (to borrow another legal term). Yet even that was considered outrageous by many posters.
You said it well earlier:
I was tarred and feathered for raising the merest scintilla of doubt. The Latina incident is a good demonstration of why doubt is a good thing.
The two cases are hardly comparable. While it is nice to know that a majority of the RNC delegates are probably not frothing anti-Latina bigots (although they apparently are still rude and disrespectful to their own speakers regardless of race or gender), this demonstrates absolutely nothing about the peanut throwers. I will grant you a tiny percentage chance that those worthies’ actions had absolutely nothing to do with the race of their target, in the same way that I’ll admit the possibility of the sun not coming up tomorrow or of spotting a flock of winged porcines from my office window. But if I were a betting man, I’d be keeping my money in my pocket.
People have been known to chant U.S.A at political conventions for non-racist reasons. So I can give them the benefit of the doubt that this was a case of bad timing.
The peanut throwers don’t have this type of coverage for their actions, so probably racist.
No, actually, I wouldn’t have lost a penny. Because, despite your insistence, the cases really are not at all similar except in the most broadly brushed possible sense. I for one didn’t condemn the floor incident as racist, and you have no legitimate reason to tar me with that brush. The actions of a mob (or a group) are hardly equivalent to those of two individuals in isolation. Mutual reinforcement of behavior and dilution of individual guilt are typical of ‘mob mentality’, which is why I made the reference above. The fact that a bunch of emotionally involved people can make public asses of themselves on national television only demonstrates that they are collectively not above boorish behavior. If some on my supposed “side” took that farther, and saw it as a demonstration of widespread racism, they were foolish. I myself offered no such judgment.
However, two persons acting in relative privacy (you do recognize that one’s actions and words can be completely unapparent to others even in the presence of a crowd, do you not?) and whose actions and words are directed toward another specifically chosen individual, have no such group behavior explanation. What they did, they did themselves, apparently seeking and receiving the approbation only of each other. There was no emotional floor fight. Their target wasn’t a random person having the misfortune to reach the lectern before the ire of the crowd had died away. These two singled out a black woman and called her and treated her like an animal. They did it, not before a crowd which might praise or (we would hope) condemn them. They did it with themselves as the only likely witnesses and probably poked each other in the ribs and traded “good one!” smiles. These are the cowardly actions of a bigot.
The fact that I admit to there being a scintilla of a gnat’s hair’s chance of them not being bigots is simply my admission of what “possibility” means. It by no means demonstrates my agreement with you. As **Hentor **said, your point is pedantry.
Well, yeah, in that they both happened at the RNC. Beyond that, not so much.
See Post 245. You quoted me, debated me, then claimed my agreement with you. How is that “the statements of others”?
Funny, I thought a description of mob behavior was spot on for the floor incident.
Again, see Post 245. I never made the accusation. Yet you continue to debate me on that issue.
Gosh, thanks for helping me out! And here I thought that knowing exactly what they did gave us some powerful and persuasive evidence of why they did it. Throwing peanuts at a black woman and referring to her as an animal was clearly just a random act. They could as easily have been snapping their ball point pens and saying “Here’s how we play the violin!!” Totally random actions. Not directed at her at all. Nothing to see here, move along…
WE have plenty of evidence to declare it anything that WE want. WE are a message board, not a court of law. And what the overwhelming majority of WE see is two closet bigots coming out and being exposed to the clear light of day. Sucks to be them.
I said no such thing. Mob behavior is no excuse for anything. And history is quite instructive of the fact that angry mobs can be racially motivated. Or not. In this case I saw no reason to believe that the floor scene was racist, but plenty of reason to see it as simply boorish behavior. What is intriguing is that you either cannot or will not understand the difference.
Read every word. And what I see is you being a pedant. Pity. There are far better things to discuss than the sharpness of the point that can be ground onto a ‘possibility’.
If you can’t see that they are identical, you need to think more.
The statements of others who don’t agree with me.
Yet not relevant here.
Straw man.
There is nothing inherently racist about throwing peanuts and calling someone an animal.
And I say you’re wrong.
But that’s not the point.
The point is that OTHERS thought it was racist, and then it turned out it wasn’t. They were wrong, based on a hasty judgement. Hence it is possible that you are also wrong about the peanut incident because you are making a hasty judgement.
Then why are you discussing it?
I have already explained - as you would know if you read the thread - that accusations of racism are very serious, and avoiding false ones is good for the cause against racism by preserving credibiilty.
You seem to place an unusual amount of daylight between ‘probably’ and ‘not giving the benefit of the doubt’. Anyway, we both agree that this was probably racist and we also agree that it cannot be 100% determined to be racist. Maybe you’re at 51% and the rest of us are at 99%?
Lance, when normal humans say things, like “The sun will rise tomorrow” or “That guy is angry” or “I’ll see you next week,” there are a host of implicit assumptions that do not need to be stated.
I would wager there is precious little that anyone feels or knows with 100% certainty. It would be inconvenient if we had to state the qualifications, provisos, caveats and limitations every time.
So we allow for rounding in most conversations. You haven’t hit upon a key and useful debate point. You’ve harped on a regular facet of communication that everyone else takes as a given.