# Very Annoying Racial Myths. Discuss it. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 19, 2012, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-annoying-racial-myths-discuss-it/625629 "2012-06-19T10:47:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Gezmo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Gezmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gezmo)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2012, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-annoying-racial-myths-discuss-it/625629/61 "2012-06-20T19:43:11Z")
Another one involves **Asians, and driving skills.** The stereotype that Asians are bad drivers is not completely false. What people don’t understand is that in countries of East Asia, there are less drivers, and much of the immigrants that come here to America don’t have any driving experience. They might try to learn how to drive at a late age. Then, their kids will have to be taught by their not-so-skilled at driving parents. So, they are not genetically prone to be bad drivers. This is also true for immigrants from other places where people don’t drive much. ---
**Author:** ![the\_apples\_fell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@the\_apples\_fell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_apples_fell)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2012, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-annoying-racial-myths-discuss-it/625629/62 "2012-06-20T19:44:17Z")
Also when people think Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans are the only Asians out there and everyone who looks East Asian must be one of the three. ---
**Author:** ![Gezmo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Gezmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gezmo)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2012, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-annoying-racial-myths-discuss-it/625629/63 "2012-06-20T19:51:27Z")
> [@the\_apples\_fell](#): > > Also when people think Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans are the only Asians out there and everyone who looks East Asian must be one of the three. Yes, they forget about Thai, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Filipinos, Tibetans, and Mongolians. They also don’t realize that South East Asians are differnent from the Northern Asian. They also don’t know any thing about Malaysians and Indonesians. SE Asians are usually darker with larger, less squinty eyes. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2012, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-annoying-racial-myths-discuss-it/625629/64 "2012-06-20T19:53:22Z")
> [@Dingbang](#): > > You’re offended when people say “Mexicans.” No, he isn’t. He said people are wrong when they assume people from Mexico have the same background and all look alike. He’s right about that, and it’s also true that some Hispanic people get offended when people call them Mexicans as if there were no other countries in South and Central America. ---
**Author:** ![Gezmo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Gezmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gezmo)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2012, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-annoying-racial-myths-discuss-it/625629/65 "2012-06-20T19:54:49Z")
> [@the\_apples\_fell](#): > > Another one is people assuming all Africans are black. You have white European descendants in South Africa, Arabs and Berbers in North Africa, mixed-race people in Cape Verde, etc. Yeah, thats why when someone says “he looks hella African” it makes them look like a moron. ---
**Author:** ![Dingbang](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ac8455/32.png) [@Dingbang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dingbang)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2012, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-annoying-racial-myths-discuss-it/625629/66 "2012-06-20T20:05:12Z")
> [@Gezmo](#): > > What are some racial stereotypes and myths that bother you? > Well here are some of mine. For one I hate it when people associate a country with a race. Like when people say MEXICANS. . Ummm, the OP says he’s bothered when people say MEXICANS. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2012, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-annoying-racial-myths-discuss-it/625629/67 "2012-06-20T20:06:08Z")
> [@Dingbang](#): > > Ummm, the OP says he’s bothered when people say MEXICANS. **Gemzo** _is_ the OP, and no, that’s not even close to what he said. You can repeat this over and over and it’ll still be complete misreading of the post. ---
**Author:** ![Blackberry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecd19e/32.png) [@Blackberry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blackberry)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2012, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-annoying-racial-myths-discuss-it/625629/68 "2012-06-20T20:11:52Z")
> [@Gezmo](#): > > Yeah, thats why when someone says “he looks hella African” it makes them look like a moron. Saying someone looks African doesn’t mean they look like everyone in Africa (obviously, since that would be impossible). How else would you describe it in normal conversation if a person does look African but you don’t know specifically what part of Africa they look like they’re from? ---
**Author:** ![Gezmo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Gezmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gezmo)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2012, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-annoying-racial-myths-discuss-it/625629/69 "2012-06-20T20:43:05Z")
> [@Blackberry](#): > > Saying someone looks African doesn’t mean they look like everyone in Africa (obviously, since that would be impossible). How else would you describe it in normal conversation if a person does look African but you don’t know specifically what part of Africa they look like they’re from? If you don’t know, then don’t say they’re African. ---
**Author:** ![Grestarian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grestarian/32/3227_2.png) [@Grestarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grestarian)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2012, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-annoying-racial-myths-discuss-it/625629/70 "2012-06-20T20:43:22Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > The other one that bothers me constantly is the anti-Chinese/Japanese sentiments, like the stupid “eating cats” jokes …or southeast Asians eating dogs… The fact of the matter is that many cultures eat things that other cultures wouldn’t dream of touching – snakes, pork, rabbit, hamster (or was that Guinea Pig?), cow, various insects and worms… Throw on top of that a long list of fermented or bacterialized “delicacies” and it makes the world quite interesting, to say the least. The reality is that people will learn to make do with what is available and the modern variants may be considerably different from their early or original usage. Making fun of someone else’s food simply demonstrates a lack of worldly knowledge and an unwillingness to learn. > [@Anaamika](#): > > or the language jokes. Especially when directed towards an American that happens to be of Chinese descent. :mad: Well, language is one of the easy targets for demarking one group from another; separating in-group from outsider, as it were. The simple fact of the matter is that the Chinese language does not include the |r| sound in its native word forms and, conversely, the Japanese language doesn’t include the |l| sound in its syllabary.\* But since English includes both, native Chinese (or Japanese) speakers often have to struggle and retrain their tongues to be able to pronounce the sound they didn’t encounter in their own language. The struggle becomes so habitual and unconscious that a habit called _overcompensation_ occurs, where the person will reverse the intended sound in all (or most) encounters, fripping the rettels around even when he/she knows he/she doesn’t need to do that. The discrimination comes in not when this habit is ridiculed but when this habit is ridiculed while ignoring similar overcompensations like the |w| and |v| interchanges amongst Teutonic descendants (Germans, Dutch, etc.) or the lack of |b| and |v| distinction amongst many speakers of Spanish derivatives. And ridicule, for that matter, doesn’t belittle the victim so much as it reflects poorly on the perpetrator; it’s a lack of sympathy for those who grew up with different tongue-training and are trying to improve their ability in the local language. –G! No one was ever certain What it is that he was saying But they loved it when he told them They were better than the rest . --Don Henley . _Little Tin God_ . Building the Perfect Beast \*Both, are considered glides, sounds produced by curling the tip of the tongue upward and letting the air/sound glide around the sides of the tongue. Touch the tip of the tongue to your lips and exhale with voicing, and you have an |l| sound. Keep doing that as you curl your tongue more and more, sliding the tip across your teeth, across the ridge behind it, and then pointing it into the cave under your hard palate. You’ll notice your |l| sound becomes more familiar, then shifts into an |r| sound. ---
**Author:** ![Blackberry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecd19e/32.png) [@Blackberry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blackberry)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2012, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-annoying-racial-myths-discuss-it/625629/71 "2012-06-20T21:00:51Z")
> [@Gezmo](#): > > If you don’t know, then don’t say they’re African. Your original statement and my reply were both about saying someone \*looked \*African. But anyway, to either scenario, why not? ---
**Author:** ![Grestarian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grestarian/32/3227_2.png) [@Grestarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grestarian)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2012, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-annoying-racial-myths-discuss-it/625629/72 "2012-06-20T21:12:53Z")
> [@Ambivalid](#): > > Ok, you are totally wrong here. Black women (African-American) have asses unlike any other race/ethnicity of women anywhere. They are quite something to behold. Personally, I don’t even how some of the more extreme ones are even possible-but they are. Actually, when my colleague was working on the Encyclopedia of Ethics, she shared a glossary term with us (which I can’t recall at the moment). It was something about a fetish for particularly large and round rear-ends. The corollary was that the fetish fostered the continuation of the genetic trait (much in the way Chinese and Japanese feet tend to be petite) amongst certain ethnic groups. —G Oh! Oh! They do respect her butt! They love to watch her strut! . --Bob Seger . _Her Strut_ . Against the Wind ---
**Author:** ![Dingbang](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ac8455/32.png) [@Dingbang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dingbang)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2012, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-annoying-racial-myths-discuss-it/625629/73 "2012-06-20T21:57:18Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > **Gemzo** _is_ the OP, and no, that’s not even close to what he said. You can repeat this over and over and it’ll still be complete misreading of the post. [OP]Well here are some of mine. For one I hate it when people associate a country with a race. Like when people say MEXICANS.[OP] I think that’s exactly what he said. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2012, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-annoying-racial-myths-discuss-it/625629/74 "2012-06-20T21:59:20Z")
> [@Dingbang](#): > > I think that’s exactly what he said. I’m not sure why you stopped reading after that sentence, because he explained exactly what he meant and rendered your complaints unnecessary. > [@Gezmo](#): > > For one I hate it when people associate a country with a race. Like when people say MEXICANS. Mexico is a diverse country, and it even gets immigrants from Asia, and the Middle East. There are mixed Mestizos, as well as pure Europeans, and pure Native Central Americans, even black people. I once had an argument with somebody that actually thought Mexican was a race. My emphasis. ---
**Author:** ![the\_apples\_fell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@the\_apples\_fell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_apples_fell)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2012, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-annoying-racial-myths-discuss-it/625629/75 "2012-06-20T22:02:19Z")
It also annoys me when people think Southern Europeans are mixed race, simply for the fact that modern genetic studies show this to not be the case. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2012, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-annoying-racial-myths-discuss-it/625629/76 "2012-06-20T22:52:27Z")
> [@the\_apples\_fell](#): > > It also annoys me when people think Southern Europeans are mixed race, simply for the fact that modern genetic studies show this to not be the case. What does that even mean? Southern Europeans aren’t a mixture of different population groups, they’re entirely… Southern European, whatever that is supposed to mean on a genetic basis? ---
**Author:** ![the\_apples\_fell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@the\_apples\_fell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_apples_fell)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2012, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-annoying-racial-myths-discuss-it/625629/77 "2012-06-20T23:02:16Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > What does that even mean? Southern Europeans aren’t a mixture of different population groups, they’re entirely… Southern European, whatever that is supposed to mean on a genetic basis? People who say “Portuguese people are part black”, “Sicilians are part black” etc as if these Southern Europeans are significantly of non-European ancestry. ---
**Author:** ![Gezmo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Gezmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gezmo)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2012, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-annoying-racial-myths-discuss-it/625629/78 "2012-06-20T23:11:55Z")
Actually some southern Europeans are mixed with the moors ( who were also Caucasian). There was a time in which the moors occupied parts of southern Europe, and they even built a mosque over one of the Cathedrals in in Spain, but I forgot the name of the Cathedral. So, they are still not part black, but some do have North African admixture. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2012, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-annoying-racial-myths-discuss-it/625629/79 "2012-06-21T00:12:29Z")
Since I live here, then I run into this a lot. Not surprisingly, I also run into this a lot of here on the Dope. The one which irritates me the most is the supposed suicides for honor in Japan. I know _Shogun_ was an entertaining book, but it was a novel, for chrissakes. People can never get the Chinese and Japanese straight. > [@Grestarian](#): > > The simple fact of the matter is that the Chinese language does not include the |r| sound in its native word forms and, conversely, the Japanese language doesn’t include the |l| sound in its syllabary.\* The simple fact of the matter is that you are factually incorrect. The Chinese has both the “r” and “l” sounds. I’m not normally snarky, and usually gently correct people; but good god, I really cannot fathom why one would presume to wade into a thread on misconceptions in order to repeat something one was told in junior high school without give it a second thought. This is the age of google. It takes less time the confirm a zillion Chinese words with an “r” sound than it did to write your post. The “simple fact of the matter” is that the Japanese “r” sounds are in between the English “r,” “l” and “d” sounds, depending on the following vowel. There are no “l” sounds and the “d” sounds are harder than in English. The later doesn’t generally bother people, but most Japanese adults are unable to hear the difference between the English “r” and “l” without extensive practice. Fair enough, I can’t pick up Chinese tones, either. And no one get me started on samurai. ::mutter, mutter, mutter. Stomps of in a huff:: ---
**Author:** ![HazelNutCoffee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@HazelNutCoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HazelNutCoffee)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2012, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-annoying-racial-myths-discuss-it/625629/80 "2012-06-21T00:15:06Z")
> [@Gezmo](#): > > What people don’t understand is that in countries of East Asia, there are less drivers, and much of the immigrants that come here to America don’t have any driving experience. You are kidding me, right? Have you ever BEEN to a major city in China or Korea? Everyone drives like maniacs. It has nothing to do with “less drivers.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-annoying-racial-myths-discuss-it/625629.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-annoying-racial-myths-discuss-it/625629.md?page=5)