This discussion derives from a hijack in thisthread, in which Hamlet characterized my comments on Korean male behavior as stereotyping. I’m opening this thread for my own edification and correction as to lay the smackdown on the Offenderati in a polite way
Is he right?
Are all descriptions of group behavior stereotypes and therefore false?
Let’s look at some sentences.
A. Racism is a problem in American society.
B. All Americans are racist.
A. Korean culture inherited male supremacist attitudes from the predominant philosophy of the Choson dynasty, Neo-Confucianism. Consequently, in Korean society child care is usually relegated to the mothers, who tend to coddle male children well into adulthood.
B. All Korean men are mama’s boys.
A. Kylie Minogue’s CDs are commonly heard in gay bars.
B. All gay men own Kylie Minogue CDs.
Now if you ask Hamlet or any of the other members of the SDMB Offenderati, they will tell you that each pair’s sentences have identical meanings, that is, to say that racism is a problem in American society is saying that every American is a racist.
Is this so?
Certainly we can agree that categorical statements based on bigotry and misinformation are wrong and hurtful, but does that mean that every categorical statment is racist or misinformed? To me, that attitude shuts down any meaningful discussion about cultures or societies at large. For example, the idea that all Asian-Americans excel in math is clearly false, but at the same time it is not wrong to say that in general, Asian-American immigrants urge their children to achieve academic success.
I think where the Offenderati get it wrong is that, although they are correct in saying that one’s behavior and personality are not functions of race, sexuality, or national origin, they err in thinking that no behaviors correlate to them. Do all gya men like anal sex? No, but a given number of gay men will more than likely have more anal sex than an equal number of hetero men will.
Absolutely agree with the entire OP, and also agree that the comment in the other thread was OK (assuming it is true - I have no idea). But in the interest of rounding out the subject a bit, I would point out that the A & B in the OP left out a C.
“You are an American, so the chances are pretty good that you are a racist”
“You are a Korean man, so the chances are pretty good that you are a momma’s boy”
“You are a gay man, so the chances are pretty good that you are a Kylie Minogue CD owner”
Statements such as these occupy a middle ground between generalizations about a group (A) and definitive statements about every single member of a group (B). This, because though these statements are merely logical applications of A and are technically as valid as A is, there is an idea afoot that it is improper to apply these generalizations to an individual- no matter how valid they may be. IOW, that even if it is in fact a statistical fact that so-and-so is more likely to be a such-and-such based on his group membership, you should try to look at the guy as an individual and not base your judgment on his membership in some group or other.
But it’s an ambiguous ground. Most people would probably agree that if you were alone at night in some empty street, that you would be justified in acting differently in walking past some urban looking black teen-agers than you would in going past some middle aged middle class looking white guys. And most people would agree that you would be wrong in treating the new hire at your office based on some stereotype about his ethnic group or dress or whatever. But there’s a large gray area as well in between.
In general, I would think it depends on how much opportunity you have to acquire information about the specific individual, as well as the consequences of making the wrong judgment.
Well, golly, Hamlet if you are going to have the vapors over having the term “Offenderati” pinned to you, then I suggest you resign from their ranks.
And, honey, whatever gave you the idea that I had “class,” whatever that might be? In addition, you seem to be under the illusion that your respect means something to me. Sorry, dude, but I’m only interested in the idea and not the anonymous person who spawned it.
Can you refute my argument or not? Can you teach me my error? If I am wrong, I’ll admit it. If my views require alteration, I’ll alter them.
Hint: Stamping your foot in a fit of pique and calling me “classless” might be satisfying, but they do not an argument make.
Agreed, Izzy. But my statement was not applying generalizations to an individual–“He acts this way becasue he’s Korean,” but instead I included an individual with other people who exhibit the same characteristics. “His behavior is similar to the behavior of other Korean men.”
Are all descriptions of group behavior stereotypes and therefore false?
My 2 cents? You are not incorrect. I work in customer service and do a lot of financial negotiation with customers. MUCH of the time, I can predict what course the negotiation will take based on the last name of the customer. Sometimes I am wrong, and in those cases it is because the ethnicity of the individual does not match the apparent national origin of the name. For instance, I am working a deal with Mr. Igor Badinov. Given a sizeable Russian population in my area, I can reasonably expect this person to have an accent, and to want to handle the negotiation and closing procedure in a certain way that I have come to expect from Russian immigrants. Occasionally, he may turn out to be a 2nd or 3rd generation American with few or none of those characteristics. Similarly I can expect characteristic styles from Vietnamese, Chinese, Mexicans, etc. By anticipating these various styles, I can determine what is important to the customer and can deliver a response that will be fair and inoffensive. Stereotypes can be useful, but there is a danger that the user may fail to recognize when a person does not fall into the pre-judged mold. At that point, in my opinion, you have become an insensitive bigot.
Personally, I have enjoyed many gobear posts, and Hamlet doesn’t stand out in my memory as a freak of particular magnitude. Could be a communication issue between you two.
Outside the box now: “Offenderatti” is a useful stereotype in that it alerts the user to the increased need for care when wording a phrase regarding “sensitive” tpoics. I have some pet issues that will get me down someone’s throat in a heartbeat, but I certainly would not want to be considered an Offenderatti because the term implies an indiscriminant compulsion to enforce the nebulous laws of political correctness. Ya might have pissed him off in spite of his dropping down on you like a WWII Japanese Zero.
“At that point, in my opinion, you have become an insensitive bigot.” is to be read as “At that point, in my opinion, one has become an insensitive bigot.”
I think where the Offenderati get it wrong is that…
Beats me. <Sinister>They know who they are</sinister
Actually, I quite like Hamlet, and I generally enjoy his posts. It’s just that when he gets on his “how dare you generalize” pedestal that he annoys me.
I have been labelled by some as a member of the SDMB “Offenderati.” I don’t think that any of the pairs of sentences have the same meanings at all! To the contrary, provided that the information in each of the “A” statements is accurate, I encourage substitution of that kind of explanation and specificity to the inaccurate generalizations of the “B” statements.
Do I believe that all generalizations are wrong? You know I’m not going to say that.
I really think that you may have misperceived many or most of the viewpoints of those that have been labelled “Offenderatti.”
I agree with you. And there is such an irony in that concept of “political correctness.” Very often those people who are labelled “Offenderatti” at SDMB are of the “liberal persuasion” and are probably opposed to enforcement of any laws regarding censorship of word choice.
They are no laws of word choice at SDMB except by Mods and Administrators. There is no “political correctness.”
Speaking for myself, I tend to speak up when I find someone’s words offensive to me or insensitive or racist. Gobear, you also tend to speak up when you find someone’s words offensive. If you are offended by the “Offenderatti,” what does that make you?
I don’t follow this distinction. But as I said in my post, I think your statement was fine. This, because you were not saying “he is Korean therefore he is most likely going to turn out to be a momma’s boy”. In that case the behavior of that particular guy was already apparent - the only question was what had caused him to become like that. Others had suggested that he was a “frat boy”. You suggested that it was more likely the result of his Korean upbringing. Nothing wrong with that. (The gray area would be if he had not yet exhibited any such behavior but you were predicting that he would based on his ethnicity. But that is not what happened.)
Exactly. What gravels me is the purposeful dishonesty of people who deliberately twist an explanation of behavior derived from another culture into a blanket statement. Hamlet betrays his intentions by inserting words like “all” and “every” when he quotes my posts to distort my words to his purposes. I find that to be absolutely infuriating.
I am generally with you on this issue. I Have tried to catch up on both the thread in question and this one. I tend to try to ignore generalizations, but when someone, such as you, who has not appeared intentionally racist, but rather is just sharing the benefit of his experience, I feel they can be valuable. (I would have added a few more clauses to my last sentece, but it started getting ridiculous)
But what I really would like to know is did Hamlet alter your statements and post them as quotes? If so, then I will never read his posts and I do not think anyone should. That is the most dishonest thing I can imagine doing on the net. Did Hamlet really alter your statements?
No, he didn’t post it as an exact quote. Here’s my original comment and what he wrote from the linked thread; Me
Hamlet
[quote]
And gobear, thanks for the generalization about all Korean men, James included, being spoiled. You were right, it’s as good a generalization as all Koreans eat kimchi and go to the noraebang.
[/quote
Just to be clear, this thread is not about me or Hamlet, but about the question of generalizations
Can I say that Americans like hamburgers? Clearly, that’s not true about every American, but does the existence of the minority of Americans that don’t like hamburgers falsify my statement? Is it a bigoted statement? Is making any categorical statement about a group an automatic insult based on racism?
You are venturing into murky water. I accepted your statement about MANY Koreans because you claimed to have had experience that I have not. But saying americans like hamburgers is not the same as saying americans are lazy racist pigs. One is bigoted, the other is simply hyperbole. I am sure I don’t need to point out which is which.
Although I am loathe to revive this thread from its quick demise, I think gobear deserves some answers to the issues he’s raised. Although I’ll repeat much of what I said in the other thread, maybe this time it will sink in.
First, these two things are not mutually exclusive as you would like to believe. The definition of stereotype does not require that the stereotype be untrue. As I said repeatedly in the other thread, I have no information to contest the validity of your stereotype. My experience in Korean culture is severely limited to Margaret Cho, MAS*H, and about 5 friends I’ve had in my life. I’ve never heard the stereotype is wrong. I’ve never witnessed it to be correct. However, as I said before, I wasn’t complaining about your lack of experience. I was complaining about you willingness to encourage and spread stereotypes.
I’m amazed you have the audicity to bitch about my allegedly misquoting you (I will get an apology for that won’t I?), when you come out shooting with a gross misstatement of what I said and create an imaginary strawman of what I would say.
Again, my complaint is not that your opinion is misinformed, it is that you so willingly perpetuate a stereotype. Is it bigoted to say: James M isn’t so much a frat boy as he is a spoiled Korean man. The Korean culture turns out guys like this by the truckload: their mothers baby them into adulthood, then their girlfriends and wives continue the process so that the average Korean guy is always dependent on someone else to take care of him? I think that is the heart of the issue. You took a generality of a culture, and placed it on a guy who was on television for a whopping hour, and determined that he was a spoiled Korean man. You then decided to say that the average Korean man is is dependant on someone else to take care of him. To me, and your mileage will, of course, vary, being called dependent is not a kind thing to say about someone. It’s not a positive stereotype you are perpetuating.
No. There very may well be some behaviors that correlate to cultural upbringing. Judging a guy on television by what you perceive is a correlation, and stating that the average person of that upbringing has that behavior is, in my opinion, rude and boorish. Not that you aren’t correct, I don’t know that. And not that I am offended. But I think it’s rude, boorish, and indicative of a small mind.
Benefit of the doubt. I don’t have that doubt now, though.
What is your argument? That Korean men are dependent on others? That James is dependant because he’s Korean? That the average Korean man is dependent on others?
Or do you just want to sit here and I’ll say you’re rude and boorish and you can say you’re not. Quite the debate we’ll have.
Let’s review. Because I think it may help us reach an understanding.
You said: James M isn’t so much a frat boy as he is a spoiled Korean man. The Korean culture turns out guys like this by the truckload: their mothers baby them into adulthood, then their girlfriends and wives continue the process so that the average Korean guy is always dependent on someone else to take care of him.
Here’s what I took you to say, and correct me if I’m wrong:
James M is spoiled. James M is spoiled because he is a Korean man. Why in heavens name would you feel the need to call him a spoiled Korean man, unless you were positing that James’ “Koreanness” somehow led to him being spoiled. You applied a generalization you’ve made about a race, that Korean men are spoiled, and applied it to James M. Now I saw the episode, I wasn’t so sure that James was necessarily spoiled, just completely clueless. His girlfriend certainly didn’t seem to be the type to do things for him. Quite the opposite. Your willingness to take your stereotype and to apply it to some guy you never met who you see on television put my teeth on edge.
You followed up with: The average Korean guy is always dependent on someone else to take care of him. Now, true or not, this too set my teeth on edge. I think it’s small minded to engage in, and to take the time to post, generalities based on race. Again, I’m not saying your wrong in your assessment, I’m saying I think it’s boorish.
Ahhh, the thread is about generalizations. But you can find time to repeatedly insult me, intimate I’m dishonest, and take cheap shots. Riiiiiigghht it’s not about you and me.
Finally, just let me reitterate what I said before:
It is a generalization. As a generalization, it is entirely accurate. There are lots of cases where it is incorrect if changed from general to specific.
Triskadecamus is an American.
Triskadecamus is fat.
Guess what? It isn’t incorrect.
It is not logical thinking, though. It just happens to be true.
Assuming the generalization to be fact without evidence is intellectually slothful. Further assuming character elements inferred from the generalization, and implying that those elements define any member of the class is worse than intellectual sloth. It’s plain old ordinary bigotry.
But of course bigotry survives on ignorance, and intellectual sloth. It’s so easy to just deal with the generalizations, and assumptions. Doesn’t take any effort.
Actually developing human relationships with diverse and dissimilar people, and limiting our habitual desire to judge to observed behavior and personal contacts is much harder. Of course, then you find out that Triskadecamus really is fat, and it isn’t because he is an American, it’s because he likes eating, and his favorite form of exercise typing or talking.
Actually I would suggest that you are wrong here. Because the very fact that so many Americans are fat is likely because so many of them like eating and their favorite form of exercise is typing or walking. So the assumption that Triskadecamus is fat because he is an American and the fact that Triskadecaus is fat because is eats to much and doesn’t do enough exercise are not inconsistent - in fact they pretty much refer to the same thing.
Which is analogous to Gobear’s remarks. Gobear did not say that James is the way he is because he is Korean and leave it at that, with the understanding that there is some magical and mysterious aspect of being Korean which turns out people like James. Rather he identified specific aspects of Korean culture which cause people to turn out this way. It was as if people in another culture with relatively few fat people were speculating about why Triskadecamus was so fat, and one speculated that he most likely has some glandular disorder. And someone else, more familiar with Americans, said “no its because he is an American. There are fat Americans by the truckload - they eat too much and don’t do enough exercise”. Both logical and correct.