Seriously? I mean, you’re seriously arguing that the statement “Blacks are subhuman” is devoid of any moral weight in-and-of-itself?
You’re more than just a liar. You’re straight-up crazy. I mean, you also are still a liar, but I now think I understand it’s faintly possible that you’re not defending racists because you’re racist - you’re just nuts.
Do you not understand that statements about human beings and human classifications are a separate category from physics questions?
What if the statement is true? Would that mean the truth is racist?
If the truth is racist, then what is to be done about it?
There’s certainly some kind of moral judgement going on to posit the notion that a certain group, identified primarily by skin color, is not just non-human, but specifically less than human, despite being otherwise physically and behaviorally identical to “real” humans.
I’m not arguing anything, I’m making an observation about how language works.
It’s interesting how you didn’t bother to quote the whole of my post, in which I quite clearly condemn, not defend, racists.
No, I do not. They are the same sort of questions, with a true or false, testable answer. “Blacks are subhuman” is easily falsified with genetic testing, for example, which shows that they are, in fact, human.
So, anyone who says that is wrong, it’s that simple. If, however, they say that, but also treat black people the same as anyone else, and do not in any way urge others to treat them differently, there’s no meaningful way in which they’re racist.
Of course, that’s a pure hypothetical. as it’s almost certainly never happened in the real world. Anyone who actually says that is almost certainly racist, but you need more than just that statement to be sure.
Of course, we all know that you have an absurdly broad definition of racism, which would make everyone in the entire world - very much not excluding yourself, as you’ve admitted - a racist.
nm
Define “subhuman” in a neutral and objective manner.
I have to say that as far as I am concerned, the first sentence obviates the second. I’m pretty much going to consider anyone who uses that phrase seriously in a conversation as a prima facie racist and not wait for any other confirming evidence.
The real world is the real world.
I was all set to challenge MrDibble that Steophan hadn’t actually used the word “subhuman”… but nope, he did. He really thinks it’s not racist to assert that “blacks are subhuman”.
magellan01 – do you agree with Steophan? Is it not racist (looking at nothing else but the statement) to assert that blacks are subhuman?
Isn’t this kind of like saying, “The Earth is either a cube, or it is not?” (The Earth, of course, is not a cube.)
I don’t get the controversy. The statement presents two options; a clearly false option and a clearly true option. and everyone selects the true option - that black people are *not *subhuman. So what’s the issue?
I don’t see how the statement “blacks are subhuman” could be true. Black people are human. It makes no sense to say that a certain group is lesser (or more) as compared to what they are.
“Post #10 is a stupid post” is a debatable point. “Post #10 is a stupider post than Post #10” doesn’t even work as a logical statement.
The only way to make “blacks are subhuman” work as a statement that makes sense would be to assume that blacks are not human.
The issue is that some people seem to be so frightened or horrified (or something – I still don’t fully understand it) that someone might be falsely accused of racism that they set the bar for actual racism so high as to nearly never be reached.
If “blacks are inherently less intelligence”, “Jews are inherently greedy and untrustworthy”, “blacks are not morally capable of being good citizens”, and the like aren’t racist statements, then virtually nothing is.
No, I think the assertion itself is not racist. That act of asserting it almost certainly is. You may think that’s a distinction without a difference, I asked you that in the previous thread and you didn’t answer. I think the distinction matters, if only for the sake of ensuring that honest enquiry can’t be derailed by presumptions of racism.
Basically, if someone is being racist, odds are they are doing so because of some false beliefs. Actually showing that those beliefs are false, without judgement, is gonna be a hell of a lot more effective at changing someone’s mind than simply screaming “RACIST!!!” at them.
If you’re asking me if I think the assertion is racist, then yes, it is. Asserting it is too. I don’t think the distinction matters.
I’m not interested in screaming “RACIST” at anyone. I think it’s most effective to point out the falseness of false claims, while at the same time pointing out (calmly and reasonably) that they (the claims, not the person) are bigoted, if the claims are, indeed, bigoted.
Very few people who say and do racist things know that they’re racist (or know that they have said or done something racist). If I say or do something that might be racist, please point it out to me. I want to do better and be better. I want to know when I might be expressing unconscious bigotry and bias. So I do it because I want others to do it for me (and everyone else).
“Blacks are subhuman” is clearly a moral statement because “subhuman” is both an ill-defined and an emotionally-loaded term.
But I think there’s a glimmer of sense to what Steophan is saying. Here’s a thought experiment: Some scientist comes up with a revolutionary new process which is going to put to rest the question of whether blacks are less intelligent than other people for once and for all. He explains and publishes his methodology, and there’s universal scientific agreement that yes, once he gathers the necessary data, it really WILL decisively answer the question, and his clever new methods of analysis are absolutely positive above reproach, and why did we never think of them before?
So he spends a few years gathering data, and meanwhile various teams of learned people are double checking all of his algorithms and so forth. Finally he has gathered all the data, he puts it into a big computer, the computer whirs and buzzes and clicks, and a piece of paper pops out of the printer, face down, containing The Answer. And the scientist has enough faith in his work that, when he turns it over and looks at it, he will believe that answer to be true.
At this point, let’s discuss the scientist’s character and motivation. He might be a committed anti-racist liberal, himself black, who strongly believes, and is fervently hoping, that the answer will be that there is no discernible difference in intelligence. He may be a massively prejudiced white supremacist who strongly believes, and is fervently hoping, that the answer will be a HUGE difference. He may be hugely autistic and not really be able to understand the implications either way, but just be interested in the numbers. He may be a self-promoting ambitious publicity hound who just wants to get his face on the cover of Time.
So… he flips the piece of paper over, and reads it. If it says that blacks are in fact slightly less intelligent than other people, perhaps constrained to certain very specific subject matters, and he believes it, is that belief racist? No matter what his initial character or belief system was?
No, you’re asserting how you think language works in CrazyTown. Two different things.
I quoted the relevant crazy bits. You’re aware that the entire quote links back to your original post, right? Anyone with half a brain could work out that they could follow it back. You… well, I’m sure someone could explain how to do it for you.
No. One is a statement of fact. One is a judgement on a subjective quality.
Subhuman isn’t a pure scientific term. Suffice to say it’s pretty loaded.
But hey, it’s the specific term you chose to repeat several times. Did it feel goooood?:dubious:
Fuck that noise. If someone has racist beliefs and never, ever acts on them, he’s still a racist.
Once again you think everyone agrees with your special snowflake version of what racism is. Well, maybe your headvoices do (and the other crazies like AuthoritahBoy up there) but most people don’t need the lynchings to start before we can call people racists.
No, just the act of using people’s supposed race as a starting point for any kind of subjective judgement about them as a group is racist in-and-of-itself. No need for it to go anywhere beyond statements like “Blacks are subhuman”
You have to be a special kind of crazy to say that “Blacks are subhuman” is not an outright racist thing to say.
Nope. I call racists racists. You don’t like that, but then, as we’ve seen, you don’t think as racist a poster as Chief Pedant is racist, so what the fuck do you know about what is and isn’t a racist?
Naah. Just the racists. And their useful idiots.
So, still no link where I admit I hate White people, huh? Liar.
Here’s an example:
A rural white dad looks out his window and sees his 4 year old child playing in the street with some black children. He runs out, grabs his kid, and hauls him inside. When the kid cries, the dad says “you can’t play with those spook kids – spooks are dangerous and stupid”.
Do we have to know anything else about that situation to reasonably conclude that the dad just taught and said something racist to his kid? It seems like enough to me – both the statement and the act of stating it are racist.
No, that’s not it. Accuse people of racism based on whether or not they treat people as they find them, or pre-judge them because of their race. Or whether they encourage others to do the same.
It’s entirely possible that, centuries ago, someone could have genuinely believed that blacks were subhuman, and yet also treated everyone no matter their race fairly - because no matter what their beliefs about the group, they were capable of judging on what they actually saw. That person would not, in any meaningful sense, be racist.
It’s much harder to say that anyone educated could sincerely believe that now, given that there’s enough scientific and sociological proof that it’s wrong.
But, again, it’s not the idea or the belief that’s racist, it’s the action.
Bullshit. And I mean that in the technical sense, liar.
If they were capable of judging on what they actually saw, and not on their beliefs, why wouldn’t they go “Huh, you know what, I don’t see any kind of difference between blacks and whites. They must not be subhuman as I thought.”, and thereby change their mind?
This hypothetical is taking a rather unscientific sort of hypothesis (huge group X is more or less intelligent than huge group Y) and assuming that science could resolve it.
How is “intelligent” defined, here? Is it scores on a test? Is it something broader? Is the assertion about every member of the group, or group averages? Is it about unscientific groupings like “blacks” or “whites” (which, of course, have many overlapping and shared clinal relationships and are not two distinct groups – some black populations are more closely related to some white populations than to other far-flung black populations, genetically speaking) or is it about some actual distinct genetic groupings (like “those with Yoruba ancestry compared to those with Japanese ancestry”)? Is it attempting to find the cause (for example “genetics” or “disparate treatment” or something else) for whatever disparity it is, or does it just identify a disparity?
Here’s how I think of it: it’s not racist to say “on average, members of group X score 10 points lower on this test then members of group Y”. It’s not racist to say “on average, members of group X are less likely to have gene ABC123 than members of group Y”. It’s not racist to say “within each group, those who have gene ABC123 score 15 points higher on average than those who do not have the gene”.
But none of these assertions are about “intelligence”, unless you define intelligence strictly as the ability to score highly on that test (and I don’t). So I see your hypothetical as problematic and confusing as it would be were you to replace “blacks” with “Jews” and “intelligence” with “greediness and untrustworthiness”.