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First off, thanks for giving a detailed answer... Isaac Send a noteboard - 16/01/2010 03:53:32 PM
It always bugs me when I right up a detailed response and someone ignores all the points and carries on with their own, so I appreciate you're taking the time to respond point for point.

I define racism, sexism, etc as an irrational and strong bias against a given group, I do not believe individual issues can be defined that way, even if it many of the people who might be advantaged or disadvantaged by the result happen to be members of a specific group, and many of the people who hate them happen to be on one side of the issue.

It seems as though you see racism or non-racism as a binary category: you're either 100% racist, or you aren't at all. Like being married or not, alive or dead, male or female*. I think, however, that what racism really is consists of views. If you say someone is racist, what that actually means is that they hold racist views.


Like a light bulb, on or off? Well, yes mostly, let me put in a caveat though, that most light bulbs, if you just ran a little current through them, would be on, but we wouldn't see it because it wouldn't be enough for a light bulb of that size to produce visible light, just IR. So the device is on but not producing the quantity that defines it's nature. I think a certain level of bias is necessary to merit the title of bigot, whichever particular type. Then of course, you've got the little christmas lisht one watt bigot, and the full blown 100 Watt bigot. And unsurprisingly I just got down screwing with a lamp fixture ;)

Now, I think one of the main problems with the media today, especially in the US, is that they don't like to admit nuanced viewpoints. You're either a conservative, through-and-through, or you're a liberal, through-and-through. They have trouble with people who are fiscally conservative and socially liberal, even though they are quite a lot of those. It's as though anyone who is against big government must also be against abortion and gay marriage.


To a degree, this is correct, but while lib/con are fairly broad terms like prejudiced, something like racism or sexism is more akin to a specific issue, like abortion or gay marriage.

So, if a person holds one racist view and four non-racist views, it's fair to say that their view on that issue is a racist view without it meaning that the person is good recruiting material for the KKK. In my earlier posts, all I was doing was claiming that "AAE is bad English and people shouldn't speak it" is a racist view. I wasn't claiming that all who hold such a view are 100% racist, or trying to slap a label saying "This person is a racist" on such people. However, to someone who thinks of racism in all-or-nothing terms, it would appear that I was making that far more radical claim.


I think it's certainly possible to be a racist and not be KKK, but usually there's going to be a reason for that 'I don't want people to know' or 'I think you guys go too far' or even 'I'm asian, I despise blacks and whites'. But I still don't see how an issue can automatically be racist, unless it's specifically loaded 'Do you, yes or no, think blacks are inferior?'. No segregation, that's close enough to being a purely racial issue that I feel you could say 'this is a racist issue' but even on that I'm leery of specifically labeling someone, because I know how easy it would be to take someone who was reasonably well-intentioned but unversed on the history of it and get them to say 'By God, you're right! School integration is just another attempt to destroy what little remains of black culture, bad enough we dragged them over here, now we're going to force them all to be white in school' or flip that and convince them segregation is so wrong that we need to convert to unisex bathrooms. So even on something as apparently clear cut as 'sepereate but equal' you have a chance that someone got on one side for entirely non-racist reasons, just, well stupidity. While racism maybe be stupid, stupid is not necessarily racist.

*Yes, there are a very few hermaphrodites, XY females etc, but you know what I'm getting at :P.


Exceptions to the rule always spoil decent analogies, yes I catch you're meaning. :)

By your logic, many people having decided that abortion is a women's issue, all pro-lifers are sexist on that issue, which is likely to really surprise a lot of women who are pro-life. Ditto, anyone who thinks we need to really lock down our borders against illegal immigrants is not automatically a racist, just because most people who dislike hispanics happen to agree with them. To raise an absurd case, because I always feel they clarify things so well, I think it's hard to accuse people of sexism for not thinking the NFL should let women on to teams. You're not a bigot if you're view is not irrational. You have to be totally living in Fantasia to think there are an equal number of women as men who can compete at pro football.

To pick holes in your particular examples:

1. There's nothing necessarily sexist about being pro-life. The fact that abortion affects women and not men isn't our fault – it's biology's fault. I think most pro-lifers (and definitely the pro-life women you mention) would agree that the issue isn't really about women, nor indeed men – it's about babies.


I'm not sure that's a hole, since that is my opinion (I'm firmly pro-life), we're not the one's claiming it's about sexism. Many pro-choice groups and feminists groups reguarly use that line of logic, sometimes going so far as to say if we did vote on the issue, only women should get a vote. I'd also argue that it does affect men, but that's a whole different subject.

2. It's not racist to be in favour of stricter immigration policies, unless you think people of certain races should be able to get in more easily than others. A "tighten our borders" view could arise from valid concerns about overpopulation. A "keep those dirty Hispanics out" view is very different.


Agreed of course, but I don't see how that fails to translate back into the case I was raising them as examples for.

Your either racist, sexist, etc or you aren't. If Hitler said 'well, I think jews and germans tend to be equally good carpenters' I can't see there being any logic to saying 'Hitler isn't racist on that issue' nor would I think someone was racist on that issue if it turned out that pieces of woodworking from germany typically went for higher prices than Israel.

If Hitler honestly said that, then he wouldn't be racist on that issue. The reason your example is absurd is not because racism is an all-or-nothing status like being married or not – it's because ability at carpentry isn't a very important issue in comparison with the many other issues on which Hitler was racist.


I'm not sure someone being a massive mega-racist makes their lesser racist views off the hook or examinaiton table. Let something like 'poor at carpentry' stand unchallenged and next thing you know you got 'study shows jews inferior carpenters, experts say they lack ubermenschen's superior hand-eye coordination'

I think long before you label people who dislike AAE as racist, even if 'just on that issue', you might want to consider that they might be dumb, snobbish, or wrong - especially since being labeled 'racist' the days is about as bad as being labeled 'rapist', dumb, snobbish, or incorrect are basically socially acceptable foibles. I know a lot of black people in my own area, the rural midwest, who sneer at AAE, and I'm sure their reason is the obvious one, us rural midwesterners know our version of english is simply the superior one. I'm pretty sure blacks in rural ohio who dislike ebonics probably deserve to be titled as snobbish, regiocentric (if that's a word?), or maybe dumb before we call them racist, even if it's just 'racist on that issue'

As I said above, what you suggest is exactly what I intended. I think such people hold one racist view due to their ignorance about language in general and AAE in particular, even though all their other views may be non-racist. I apologise if I wasn't clear enough – I hope, however, that this discussion has cleared up any misunderstanding based on different underlying assumptions which I didn't realise we were making.


I think it has, we clearly just have a difference in definition.

I hope we see a bit more eye-to-eye now.


Yes, thank you for explaining your point in detail.
The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.
- Albert Einstein

King of Cairhien 20-7-2
Chancellor of the Landsraad, Archduke of Is'Mod
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So what EXACTLY is the problem with Reid's comments? - 12/01/2010 04:11:56 AM 880 Views
it wasn't just that he commented on the lack of "dialect" - 12/01/2010 04:16:27 AM 595 Views
Regardless of that, I don't see the ability to use dialect as a racist statement. - 12/01/2010 04:32:07 AM 545 Views
I agree - 12/01/2010 04:36:23 AM 563 Views
That's what I was thinking... - 12/01/2010 08:52:32 AM 571 Views
when was the last time you heard a white person speaking ebonics? - 12/01/2010 01:41:24 PM 555 Views
A week or so ago. - 12/01/2010 08:09:09 PM 491 Views
About a day for me. - 12/01/2010 10:33:40 PM 567 Views
Yeah, I'm back in Boston now, so... - 13/01/2010 03:33:38 AM 459 Views
Isn't that the definition of a wigger? A white person who speaks/acts like a black person? - 12/01/2010 09:49:34 PM 524 Views
So black person = N****r? Reid's looking better and better. *NM* - 12/01/2010 10:34:37 PM 250 Views
You know Tim isn't saying that. - 12/01/2010 10:43:43 PM 516 Views
Um, what? - 13/01/2010 06:55:21 AM 514 Views
And the fact that Wigger = White N****r isn't racist at all! *NM* - 12/01/2010 10:33:04 PM 284 Views
I wasn't using the term seriously 9_9 - 13/01/2010 04:26:20 AM 487 Views
The problem is he's a politician - 12/01/2010 04:35:51 AM 584 Views
because that would solve our problems. *NM* - 12/01/2010 04:37:18 AM 243 Views
You know, what IS a good term for black people these days? - 12/01/2010 04:36:33 AM 592 Views
technically... - 12/01/2010 04:39:51 AM 563 Views
i know, right? *NM* - 12/01/2010 06:11:33 AM 257 Views
I just use "black" - 12/01/2010 02:27:16 PM 491 Views
yah, that's what i typically do... - 12/01/2010 02:28:39 PM 565 Views
I agree. Say what you mean. - 12/01/2010 10:03:37 PM 535 Views
How many "black" people do you know that are truely black? - 13/01/2010 05:10:44 AM 510 Views
how many white people do you know are WHITE? *NM* - 13/01/2010 05:26:36 AM 231 Views
Why is it OK to discriminate on the grounds of language but not race? - 12/01/2010 08:23:21 AM 646 Views
Please tell me you were joking... *NM* - 12/01/2010 01:29:37 PM 221 Views
Not in the least. I thought you knew me better than that. - 12/01/2010 09:44:59 PM 486 Views
Ah! You were looking for an active rebuttal - 13/01/2010 01:48:20 PM 456 Views
It is okay to discriminate based on language... - 12/01/2010 01:40:18 PM 563 Views
Your AAE is a language the way that Pig Latin is a language. - 12/01/2010 06:38:35 PM 524 Views
I don't even know where to begin. - 12/01/2010 09:43:21 PM 595 Views
That third point is going a bit far. - 12/01/2010 10:06:08 PM 554 Views
You're right, I was conflating two separate points. - 12/01/2010 10:14:48 PM 497 Views
Well, it still only applies... - 12/01/2010 10:24:08 PM 639 Views
You ascribe too much intelligence to the average American racist . - 12/01/2010 10:30:39 PM 716 Views
You're guessing at people's motives and making what appear to be broad, unsupported assertions - 12/01/2010 11:04:47 PM 546 Views
I don't mean they're racist in all respects. - 13/01/2010 06:52:20 AM 460 Views
Your defintion of racism and sexism seems to massively differ from mine - 13/01/2010 03:37:46 PM 603 Views
I had to think about this for a few days, but I've now worked out my answer. - 16/01/2010 01:59:25 PM 564 Views
First off, thanks for giving a detailed answer... - 16/01/2010 03:53:32 PM 677 Views
That it was a stupid thing to say? - 12/01/2010 09:49:05 AM 580 Views
this. *NM* - 12/01/2010 01:07:46 PM 253 Views
Who seriously uses the term "Negro dialect" anymore? - 13/01/2010 02:00:15 AM 485 Views
the subject is race. and party lines. - 13/01/2010 05:27:39 AM 476 Views
Powell, Rice and Steele. Just food for thought. *NM* - 13/01/2010 08:12:18 PM 307 Views

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