No,no. You cannot rule out Tourette’s, until there’s been expert witness testimony and a finding of fact.
(bolding mine)
Baloney. Maybe you feel like you don’t have enough evidence to do that, but leave me out of your fantasy world. After watching the GOP play on racist fears and imagery over the last four years, I’d honestly be shocked if the motive were anything else.
Do you deny that they threw the peanuts too? It’s pretty reasonable to think that the type of cro-magnon that throws food at someone while shouting that the recipient is less than human, is in fact, a racist. Much more reasonable than you defending the decency of such persons.
It’s funny because it’s true! I have a long-time friend who has tourettes. He’s said some pretty atrocious things. After about a year, his greeting for me was downgraded to a publicly acceptable “Nudist! How can you live with yourself!?!?!”. God help you if you are stuck for a word in front of him. The suggestions that pour forth will make almost anyone’s ears turn red. Actually, he’s pretty controlled these days, but when we were younger, it would surprise you.
But even that disorder wouldn’t explain this behavior. I’ve done some pretty idiotic things that probably alienated everyone in the room (hey, I was young, and in a rock band). But, if I were being publicly accused of being a racist for any of the stupid things I’ve done, I would at least be calling folks in the media to explain how I wasn’t. As has been noted before, we haven’t heard a peep out of these folks.
On the other hand, if they just want the whole thing to blow over, this would be the best way to do that. I’m still in the “probably racist” camp, but getting kicked out of the convention is probably the worst that could (and should) happen to them for this particular incident, unless the camera woman wants to sue. She appears to want the whole thing to blow over, too. So I don’t think that this is really going anywhere.
The most charitable interpretation is that they were only guilty of being complete douchebags to a woman they didn’t know who was just there doing her job. I’m willing to afford them all the respect I usually offer to douchebags.
Well, I lean much more towards the ‘probable racism’ side of things in this instance, but I have to defend **Lance **a bit, here. He makes, I think, a pefectly valid point that we should be aware to not confuse our interpretations with fact in the face of insufficient evidence.
We may all vary in our conclusions of where the ‘sufficient evidence’ line falls…
Barring compelling evidence otherwise, I’d assume they were racists.
Similarly, if they were throwing bagels at a Jewish reporter I’d assume they were motivated by anti-Semitism.
If you don’t want to acknowledge the specific historical references of why calling a black person an animal is racist, I can’t help you. So care all you want, I don’t care if you agree. And BTW Tampa is merely the gathering place of said racism, I was not referencing it as the core of it.
Dude, I love Nine Inch Nails!
Unfortunately for this argument, what they said and did was not a non sequitur, like your example. A more apt parallel would be if you slapped a child on the ass and said, “hey, hot stuff”. You could argue that you were giving a friendly greeting and remarking on the weather, but most people would rightly jump to the child molester conclusion.
Two guys in a convention hall are not the entire GOP. We don’t even know if they were delegates.
I don’t deny any facts.
I deny that the facts are conclusive enough to make a judgement. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if these two losers were racially motivated. But there isn’t enough evidence.
I have not defended their decency.
Throwing food at someone and saying they are an animal is hardly exclusively the province of racism. That’s loony. You and everyone else here is heavily biased against Republicans and trigger-happy to make accusations of racism at every opportunity. It takes alot of experience and wisdom to resist that urge and be fair, even when it doesn’t feel good.
And I’d say that’s not quite an apt parallel.
I refer you to my test above - if you heard that someone threw peanuts at someone and called them an animal, and you didn’t know the victim was black or the place was the Republican convention, would you say for sure that it had to be a racist attack? That it couldn’t possibly happen in any other context but racism?
I haven’t denied any of that.
I deny that racism is the ONLY POSSIBLE reason for calling someone an animal.
“Animal” is not just a racial slur. It can be used in other ways.
Others have though, including the victim, that’s why I mentioned it. It sure seemed like you were too.
Bad analogy.
“Animal” is simply not a definitive racial slur or symbol, like a bagel would be. It is possible for a white person to call another white person an animal, without any racial connection. It’s just not enough.
Thanks, Truman. You’re about to be pelted with proverbial peanuts for daring not to make hasty judgments. I wish more people would realize that crying racism at every turn only hurts the cause against racism. It makes people take even clear, undeniable charges of racism less seriously. It’s crying wolf.
I don’t think it’s fair to assume things out of lack of evidence. I don’t think we can assume they are racist simply because they haven’t denied it.
I’m in the “probably racist” camp too. Just not the “absolutely, positively, no way it couldn’t be, racist” camp.
You said that, not me. Don’t put words in my mouth like you put thoughts in those people’s heads. I don’t accept it.
Where did I ever say those were your words?
Hey, I’m just following your line of “reasoning” to it’s conclusion. We shouldn’t believe a person has racist motivations until we rule out any other possibilities in a court of law.