Read the thread. People were absolutely sure. No question, no debate, no room for error. They didn’t just not state the qualifications, provisos, caveats and limitations, they vigorously DENIED them.
Sorry, but peanuts and animal = racist is FAR from the sun rising in the morning.
It’s very clear from this thread that several posters insisted vehemently that there was absolutely no - zero - room for doubt that this was a racist act.
Is your style of debate really to keep ascribing things people haven’t said/done to them so that your weak arguments will look better in comparison? I’ve seen you do it to other people and now me.
Apparently so. Along with other particulars, the continued accusation that other posters (at least three of us just in his last few posts) haven’t read the thread is beyond tiresome.
You realize your counter to the post from Hentor, who explained that the ~1% doubt is implicit, is basically disagreeing because no one was explicit about their ~1% doubt, right?
I agree with all that you say… The problem is that, when lance strongarm first popped up and said what he said, you or someone else should have said this – and then the goddam highjack should have ended. Of course it’s implicit. We’re all actually pretty much in agreement. Nothing in this world is “100% certain” other than, maybe, mathematical proofs.
The tragedy of this thread is you have two groups of people, vigorously disagreeing, and yet neither side is actually wrong!
(And, FWIW, I certainly have seen people throw peanuts at other people in a non-racial context. Ever been in a snack-food fight at a movie theater? Popcorn, Crackerjacks, Gummi Bears, the air is alive with empty calories! Damn stupid waste of time, but the movie was Saturn III, which was such a stinker, we pretty much had to make up our own entertainment.)
Perhaps Trinopus, except until the “end” of the thread I had no idea that he agreed it was probably racist. There was nothing in his argumentation to indicate that his position was that it was not 100% certainly racist, but very likely was. In fact, I took him to be arguing from a position that it was probably not.
It was incumbent upon him to make clear what the parameters around the narrow sliver of turf he wanted to stake out were.
And do you honestly yourself believe that anyone here was really of the mind that we could know with complete certainty, beyond hyperbole, that this was a racist act? I don’t.
In other news, Romney has endorsed Ultra Conservative Congressman Steve King, who likens immigrants to dogs. Steve has also been endorsed by the KKK. Not that we’re saying he’s racist, it’s just that he makes them very happy.
Reread what I wrote. What you wrote is not responsive.
No, you saw that incident, and for some ungodly reason decided to reopen this embarrassing debacle after already agreeing with everyone else that it was probably racist.
My dispute was with those who insisted it couldn’t be racist. Those comments were real. On top of it, some people implied that I was racist for daring to believe it wasn’t 100%. (Which means they would include you in that group too).
No information about the first incident was discovered, but that’s the whole point. Without it, we cannot presume racism 100% - as the experience with the second incident demonstrated!
Let me explain this to you carefully.
Incident 1:
Incident happens that appears to be racist/
2: I point out that further information is needed to show it’s racist.
Many posters freak out and say it’s not possible that it’s not racist.
Incident 2:
Incident happens that appears to be racist.
Before I can even warn, again, that further information is needed to show it’s racist, further information appears showing that it’s not racist.
Incident 2 demonstrates the following:
Sometimes incidents that appear to be racist are shown not to be when further information comes along. We should not make hasty judgments.
Absence of evidence of not evidence of absence. In the second example, a plausible explanation was forwarded which contextualised comments which’d otherwise have racist connotations (second order signifiers). In the first, you merely posited that such a plausible explanation could exist without forwarding one. That’s the one salient difference and it is sufficient to make your objection pretty much meaningless.
Yes, I did offer a plausible alternative in the first example. The idea that calling someone an animal has no plausible alternative to racism is absurd.
And NOBODY OFFERED a plausible on in the second example, yet it turned out not to be racism.
As for absence of evidence, that’s my argument, not yours. Hands off.
Now this thread involves people who can’t admit they were wrong, or won’t come near the thread to admit it.
You didn’t read the article I posted on Steve King, the IOWA congressman that Romeny Warmly endorses. So does the KKK. He calls immigrants dogs. I wonder when it’s going to start being racist to you.