Again, I would pick apart your categorizations and ask for more precise language. If you are attempting to make statistical arguments, the term “homosexuals” or “heterosexuals” is not really effective. Those terms have meaning in layman’s language, as would “blacks” or “jews”, etc., but are not precise enough to be used in a logical statistical formula. Your OP suggests logical arguments (the use of “100%”, and “true”).
If you are not attempting to make a sound logical argument, then I would pivot to the intent discussion, as others have pointed out. Why would one even be TRYING to find a line between supposed “fact-telling” and bigotry? Why even go down that road?
I’ll just point out that I’ve seen plenty of discussions, even here on the SDMB, where people have been accused of bigotry for believing that there are biological differences between ethnically and geographically differentiated groups.
It’s a question of magnitude. If you believe there are significant biological differences, then you have gone beyond what the science and evidence has to say and gone into bigotry.
I’ll agree that dark skin is more common in Africa than pale skin. So there’s definitely a “biological difference” between, say, Norwegians and Congolese when it comes to skin pigmentation. If, however, you claim that a dubious group like “whites” has some distinct genetic advantage over an equally dubious group like “blacks” for some non-superficial trait, I’ll demand significant evidence and be highly suspicious of your motives.
yes, because virtually all of them are bigoted. Few people start such threads without the unstated but tolerably obvious intent of proving that some minority is inferior to them, because race.
I’m trying to imagine a reason why one might be trying “hard enough” to assemble an unsavory list of facts about a category of people that isn’t bigoted. Why would a non-bigot be doing that?
If a person’s just trying to figure out what characteristics actually do apply to most members of a group, or in which ways that group can be considered statistically distinguishable from other groups, they’re not going to wind up only with “unsavory” differences. Most of any such differences that they find are going to be neutral – people of X culture are more likely to eat hot peppers than people of Y culture, for instance; people whose ancestors are all from X group are on average shorter than people whose ancestors are from Y group – that sort of thing. Some of them are going to indicate a greater frequency of given medical problems, which is not something I’d call unsavory; plus it may be balanced by a lesser frequency of other medical problems. Some of them are going to be favorable, at least as generally perceived – people who are members of X group have higher graduation rates from modern colleges, for instance. Some of them are going to be favorable from some perspectives and not from others – members of x are more likely to be doing essential jobs, say.
So a non-bigoted researcher isn’t going to come up with only “unsavory” facts, even if they are facts.
– I also don’t see how you can simultaneously say “100% truthful facts” at the same time as you’re saying that they won’t apply to all members of the group. That’s at best highly misleading. While the statement ‘members of x group are convicted of crimes in y country at a higher percentage rate than members of z group’ may be accurate, not only does it not consider the reasons for it, but if it’s also true that, say, ‘80% of members of x group are not convicted of any crime in y country’ then it’s certainly not 100% true that members of x are likely to be convicts.
In logic, they talk about enthymemes, of which one form is a syllogism where one or more premise is unstated. Bigots do something like this, except often a premise and the claim are implied. So it goes like this:
Of course, there is plausible deniability in all this, but generally that’s what is happening.
You’ve even complicated and diffused it more than it needs to be. Consider the following:
Hypothetical Obama statement: African-Americans have a statistically high rate of pregnancy out of wedlock
Hypothetical Klansman statement: African-Americans have a statistically high rate of pregnancy out of wedlock
Even with identical words, the Klansman’s statement is likely to be bigoted. Or maybe more accurately, the Klansman’s intent is likely bigoted.
Manda JO has got it right just above.
It’s not about getting the right “non-biggoted” magic words, it’s about intent, context, and implied conclusions.
To add to this, facts are binary in choice, true or false. Bigotry can only properly be identified as true by the person you are trying to label a bigot, due to the subjective nature of context. As pointed to above bigotry cannot be factual. Obama says “black people have a higher than average out of wedlock birth rate” PERIOD
A klansman say the same thing, yet you attribute malice to one statement over the other.
Now I know the why, many others would probably know the why but how about if someone (me for example) says it on the internet.
There are folks who would argue that I am a bigot, without any knowledge whatsoever what “race” I am
The implied premise is because YOU attributed malice and an implication to the statement though. Nowhere did they imply, any such thing in your quoted statement.
Facts are facts, facts can’t be bigoted. Bigots practice bigotry and may state facts in doing so. It doesn’t matter if they do because they are still bigots.
If the detail of a fact is pinned down enough, then true or false is applicable. “Jenny has never held down a job for which she was paid in money.” That, for a specific Jenny, and given enough information, can be classed as true or false.
“Jenny is six years old.” Add that information to the first statement, and it gives rather a different picture of Jenny.
“Jenny’s 53. She’s spent all of her life since she was old enough to wash dishes working to care for other family members. She usually works about 14 hours a day. She’s never gotten a paycheck for her labor.” There’s a different picture, also.
“Jenny works sixteen hours a day making clothing and tries to keep a garden alive on the side because she’s half starved. She doesn’t get paid because she is enslaved.” There’s yet another.
“Jenny’s family is rich and she doesn’t see why she should have to do anything she doesn’t want to do. What she wants to do is to go out on her yacht, go shopping, and go to parties. So she doesn’t do anything else.”
“Jenny’s family is rich and she doesn’t see why she should have to hold down the kind of job that gets a paycheck. She studied to get medical training, and spends her time volunteering in hospitals in war zones.”
– I could go on. But the point is that if what you know about Jenny is the true-or-false statement that “Jenny has never held down a job in her life”, that “binary fact” doesn’t tell you a damn thing about Jenny.
I’m guessing that to a fact-teller, race (or comparable characteristic) is incidental and unimportant. It could be left out of the statement.
To a bigot, race is the *only *important element. They wouldn’t be making the statement if they couldn’t reference race in it. It would be pointless to them.
“Police treatment of African-Americans is unjustified.”
“The FBI says that X% of all violent crime is committed by black men.”
“Ah, I see, you’re racist.”
“I was just talking about facts! Facts are racist now?!”
The issue I have with that conversation is the “Ah, I see, you’re racist” part. That poster injected a poison into the well of the discussion for really no reason.
The other poster may have been attempting to link higher rates of poor interactions with the police by blacks because blacks commit more crimes, for whatever reason, and the unjustified treatment, when examined critically, was justified.
Or the other poster might have been supporting racial profiling which, while a bad thing for society, is still not racist because it is a public policing policy, not an inherent belief of the inferiority of another race.
Or the other poster, after fleshing it out a bit, might be getting to his overall point that blacks are running wild and need to be re-enslaved. Then the second poster has justification for making the accusation of racism.
The problem is that the personal insult is first and foremost in too many discussions which do not allow them to flourish or be discussed, and is an attack which assumes the worst motives of the first poster. The next four pages of discussion now becomes a debate on whether or not the first poster made a racist remark and we are no longer talking about police practices.
I’ve seen people stating as a fact that there are no biological differences, so any magnitude above zero will do.
If I had the time I could go back to any of the “Race and IQ” threads and fish out an assortment… and then things would get meta in a hurry.
Factual statements are not bigoted. But when you say “so what?” that’s where you can tell.
The out of wedlock birth rate is higher for African American girls - so we need to make birth control and birth control information more available. Not bigoted.
So they are all whores. Bigoted.
And with skin color, it is interesting that people really concerned about this don’t tall about variations based on hair color or eye color or all sorts of other characteristics. Skin color is all that counts. Wonder why that is? And I wonder “so what?”