I struck the word “true” because it was superfluous. 1) A statement is true because it is supported by evidence; 2) it was (hypothetically) given that evidence supported a racial theory of intelligence whereby blacks are less intelligent than asians; therefore, 3) the statement “blacks are less intelligent than asians” is (hypothetically) true.
Shodan wasn’t so careful to remind you that statement 2 was written into the hypothetical. Or maybe Shodan really believes there is evidence that blacks are less intelligent than asians. It’s hard to say since he quit the thread when you called him out the first time. I think it is clear from his posts in this thread that he spent at least a few minutes wondering why African Americans, on average, have low test scores in school.
Personally, I think it is a problem of character, and character is developed by culture, and I think certain prevalent strains of “black culture” don’t put an emphasis on education. I use scare quotes around “black culture” because it is a nebulous term to begin with, and bum culture (“school doesn’t matter”) transcends racial lines. It just happens to be that in my experience African American slang, music, identification with stereotypes, etc. was disproportionately popular among lower performing students, who were disproportionately black, who would point to their culture when asked why they don’t care about school: my parents don’t care about my grades, they just want me away from gangs/drugs/jail; I don’t feel smart/confident or I don’t care; my idols don’t care about school, and the one that did turned out to be a horrible person (Bill Cosby); even if I did care about school, I wouldn’t get anywhere because I can’t afford college; even if I could afford college, I wouldn’t get in because of discrimination; even if I did get through college, I wouldn’t get hired/payed well because of discrimination; even if I got through all of that, I would probably end up getting shot by some cop for no reason at all.
I really don’t care whether my opinion on low African American test scores constitutes racism or classism or neither, because I don’t approach the question on whether my opinion is moral based on whether
Whereas I have no issue compartmentalizing my thoughts to address an abstract question. If the Nazis were (morally) “right about the Jews”, which they weren’t, it does not necessarily follow that every Jew should die. It would depend on what specifically they were right about.
For me, racism is wrong because it is an unjustified and harmful overgeneralization - it is generally wrong to discriminate against somebody on the basis of involuntary affiliation such as race; because the affiliation is involuntary, the person has done nothing to deserve discrimination; therefore, except the rare case where race is relevant, racism is both unjustified and harmful and therefore wrong.
This line of hypotheticals, “what if blacks really are dumber” or “what if Nazis were right about Jews?” can be used as a lead-in to apartheid or Nazi sympathism, I will grant that. It can be used to develop the above definition or morality of racism. Since you can call out the sympathism when it surfaces, I don’t see the need to ascribe bad faith based solely on a want to discuss the morality of racism.
I’m not above defending Nazis in hypotheticals, by the way. It’s happened before on these forums. Your example with child molestation isn’t beyond the pale, especially if we were talking about say statutory rape with respect to teenagers. Even though I am against Nazis and in favor of statutory rape laws, I think it’s a good thing to help someone else understand my thinking, and for me to understand theirs. I have no issue contemplating these questions in good faith, although at your suggestion I can acknowledge that… perhaps you do.
~Max