Why do these racist comments warrant a warning while others don't?

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1

On the one hand, I applaud Marley’s decision to issue a warning for this post by Delon, the bolded portion being the part that caused Delon to receive the warning and think the warning was well-deserved.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=15666872&postcount=392
Delon was spouting racist claptrap and I think he fully warranted a warning.

However, I honestly don’t see why Delon’s post is considered more “racist” or “offensive” then countless posts by the various scientific racists who love to claim that “blacks” or “negroes” are stupid, violent, untrustworthy or something equally awful.

I’m not black and perhaps many of the other SDMB members who are black, such as Mr.Dibble, Monstro or others would disagree and say they find Delon’s complaints vastly more offensive than posts by the various scientific racists who like to spew out their asinine theories discredited nearly a century ago, but to me, Delon is, at worst, simply more honest and blunter about his beliefs.

So, Delon is getting warned if not banned(since Marley mused he should ban him for such a statement) does that mean the next time one of our resident scientific racists starts claiming blacks are mentally inferior to whites that they can expect to receive a warning for doing so.

If not, perhaps someone can explain why Delon’s claims are more noxious because I don’t see it and I doubt most blacks would either.

YMMV.

One last thing, some may feel that this post is meant to be accusatory towards Marley. It’s not. Obviously, I feel that if we’re going to hand out warnings to Delon for his clearly racist statements then we should also issue warnings to the Dope’s scientific racists, however, while there are many adjectives that can be ascribed to me, “infallible” is not one. Moreover, holding contradictory or intellectually incompatible views doesn’t make one stupid or awful, but human. We also have such views if we dig far enough.

2

If we didn’t have a thread on this last week, I’m sure we had one the week before that or the week before that. Simple racism - like Delon’s stupid comment or the post bigbluefin made last night or this morning - is going to result in warnings or bans. The idea of genetic differences between people is an actual topic for debate. The arguments our scientific racists trot out are basically bunk and the implications are often offensive, but the proposition is one that can be argued for or against using facts and logic. ‘Those people have one foot in the jungle’ is not; it’s just an expression of one person’s dislike of a group of people.

3

Ok, fair enough. I disagree, but reasonable people can disagree.

I’ll be honest and trust you won’t take it the wrong way when I say I think you’re being naive if you think when scientific racists claim “blacks” are mentally inferior to “whites” that they’re not doing it to their “dislike of a group of people.”

In fact, I think if you examined it you’d honestly agree that, at best, when it comes to the question of whether or not they’re expressing dislike of a particular group, they’re being like the kid who waves his fist an inch from someone’s face and says “I’m not touching you! I’m not touching you!”

Perhaps I’m wrong, but I suspect most of the blacks on this site agree.

I also recognize that you, Tom and the other mods can have a tough job and it’s easy for people like myself to Monday morning quarterback.

4

To echo, if we didn’t do this same dance in the last month, then we did it the month before.
Go back and search for it.

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You’re not required to do it every Monday, though.:wink:

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I don’t understand the bolded comment in the OP. What does it mean?

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That may very well be their motivation and what they are thinking, and I understand it often comes across that way. But as a rule, it’s not what they are saying. When they do say those things outright, they get moderated for it.

8

Fair enough.

FWIW, were I a moderator who needed to be seen as scrupuously fair, I might very well have made the same call.

Point taken in both cases.

I can see where he, and you, are coming from but respectfully disagree while recognizing that being a mod means having to split hairs that members like myself don’t have to split.

9

I’m with Princhester. I find it difficult to see any racism in the bolded comment.

10

Ibn,

Those of us who are constantly accused of being racists (sometimes, “scientific racists”) also tire of the same discussions.

The dilemma as I see it is a tacit assumption that anything which can be labeled “racist” is factually incorrect. So the game becomes getting something labeled as racist, and because the position in question is labeled “racist,” the argument is over.

Over the years, on this board and others, in dozens of books and hundreds of articles on both sides of the fence, I haven’t found anything that convinces me all SIRE groups have access to the same genetic pools. I haven’t found anything that convinces me that genes which evolved separately have identical phenotypic outcomes. I haven’t seen any outcomes that convince me that like nurturing creates like outcomes at the level of individuals, families or SIRE groups.

So I either have to set aside what I consider an obvious truth–human groups differ, and they differ at the SIRE level as well as at the individual level–or else I have to accept that fact as fact and decide whether or not to bury it or promote it.

So what? At a personal level, I’d be much more comfortable burying it. I don’t give a rat’s ass about who is smarter, whose family is smarter or whose SIRE group is smarter. I couldn’t give a crap, and as a more or less average guy I wouldn’t leap to the idiotic assumption that I or my group am either superior or inferior. The skillsets which vary favor any given group for a given skillset.

The problem is that our society is structured around a false pretext: that all SIRE groups are indistinguishable in potential for every skillset. Therefore there is a charge constantly leveled: where a given group has a disparate outcome, the reason is racism, and the remedy should be based on that assumption.

It’s my personal belief that this is a dangerous road with dangerously negative consequences. Fisher v UTexas Austin is a prime example, but so are the day to day struggles of the average american.

We’re not going to be able to get rid of ill feelings and societal tension by blaming the wrong things. We’re not going to be able to stamp out real racism–an a priori assumption of incompetence at an individual level–until we accept that group averages can and do differ. If men and women perform differently, I can’t find ways to get them as equally represented until I accept that some differences are biological, in favor of both sides for any particular skillset.

The real racism that is so impossible to stamp out in this country–and all over the world–is festered by false charges of racism which result from a refusal to accept inherent SIRE group average differences and move on from there.

As an individual on this board whom you have repeatedly accused of racism, I have a simple suggestion: stop making a knee-jerk reaction that a label is an argument. Present the counter-arguments instead.

11

It’s something like saying “You can’t function well in a civilized government because you and all the other Blacks prefer to have one foot back in the jungle” to a Black in New York City or Chicago. That’s what the bolded comment is akin to saying. “The Bush” is a term used in South Africa.

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Presumably those would be the counter arguments you acknowledged and dismissed earlier in this same post. You’ve seen those arguments dozens of times and probably hundreds. I haven’t detected any changes in your arguments as a result. That’s not against the rules but it makes it hard to take this kind of commentary seriously.

He was the saying black people in South Africa are half in the jungle.

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And?

“Half the voters in Washington DC would vote for a known crook, as long as he was a black crook.”

“The reason Saudi Arabia is such a repressive nation is that half its members are Bedoins who prefer to keep one leg in the desert.”

Regards,
Shodan

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And that’s racist. I am not sure what point you are trying to make, Shodan.

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No it isn’t. If he’d said they had one leg in the jungle because they were black, it would have been racist. He didn’t, though, so it isn’t. Not all racial statements are racist.

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So why do you think he suggested they were half in the jungle? Is that kind of commentary typically used against non-black governments that are supposedly incompetent? He said South African blacks “prefer to keep one leg in the bush” instead of supporting a government that will do a good job running the country. It’s a description of black people as uncivilized jungle animals.

17

Perhaps I made the point poorly.

In my experience, Ibn rushes readily to use the term “racist” as if applying the label alone is sufficient to discredit an alternate position, or as if anyone who is a racist (by his definition) should not have his factual position considered.

I have no problem with advancing the same arguments over and over when the same thread themes come up over and over. It becomes a matter of personal choice to post them all again or to just refer to previous posts, or to ignore the thread altogether.

I’m complaining that applying the term “racist” as if it carried any factual weight, is pointless. It doesn’t, any more than an ad hominem attack.

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I’m not black.

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I’ve heard very similar comments, in a non-racist sense, about politicians from the southern US, or northern England.

Plenty of black South Africans still live in tribal groups in the bush. They are not “uncivilized jungle animals”, any more than people from Alabama are cousin marrying pig fuckers. Doesn’t stop the perception of either group being somewhat backwards, or make it racist.

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If your view is that I should have moderated him for posting ignorant stereotypes instead of for racist commentary, I will take it up with Delon if he complains about the warning (he hasn’t).