I am done with you. I dont give a **** what you think.

I guess I'll quote myself:

Pretty careless to cherry pick too.

But we get it, ya'll need people to abuse and don't really care about being careful about it. Probably under the illusion that popular appeal makes it justifiable and universally morally acceptable. Ya'll are about as worthy as racists behaving that way. Not as bad, but in the spirit of your lazy judgments, I'll dabble.

Oh, and the hypocrisy of constantly whining and then berating other people for whining has reach it's peak too. LOL once again at whiny whiners complaining about whining. You ain't special.

BTW everyone who called Crash a racist due to his unknowingness about hip hop are themselves quite racist. Hip Hop is not about skin color. But hey, if you actually read that thread like decent people would do instead of cherry picking and lecturing, well...

Well, so much for civility ITT. Even Duker is tilting fools!

Hahahahahahahaha. No, he won't be. That's the point. This isn't the first episode.

Hahahahahahahaha. This is what bahbah actually believes.

You were way better off not posting in this thread, stop embarrassing yourself. Please.

Sorry I interrupted your Socratic interrogation of JohnyCrash. Please continue if you can.

But that particular false dichotomy is pervasive and insidious. It perpetuates the notion of the "inner city" as a monolithic hellhole of depravity, violence, and hopelessness. A place beyond hope or salvation.

Past ~20 posts are a good lesson for the themes of your thread. The easiest way to be mistaken for a racist is to say something racist. The idea that I should have to go explore somebody's posting history to figure out what he really means with his shorthand-that-just-happens-to-be-racist is silly.

My actual quote was: "I actually read this article first on another site a couple of days ago." The actually article I read was NOT the same as the racist one that I linked. I don't disagree that this carelessness can easily lead to a misunderstanding, but it doesn't not automatically mean I am racist.

Being direct is quite civilized. I made some direct points. We have ignorance about hip hop being equated with racism and we have cherry picking posts to say look- racist.

Johnny Crash has concerns about several factors that may lead to teenager into trouble that are not racial. He maybe wrong on some of those assumptions and some of them the jury is still out.

Hell, he is not even American. He may have no clue that inner-city is a racial codeword in American politics. He did think JayZ and Beyoncé are linked with gangsta rap. That does not equal racism, but not having the correct information on the topic. How does labeling a person a racist solve that information gap?

Is it honest or correct to cherry pick a conversation just to prove a popular and repeated assumption? Is cherry-picking a pattern of behavior related to incorrectly applying the racist label? It seems that way to me.

No it's cool.

Johnny might be racist. Hell, his posts sure do paint an ugly picture. But I stand by the belief that the approach I'm gunning for ITT is a superior way to manage suspected prejudice when compared to the typical (lazy) responses we get ITF: assumptions, vitriol, label, repeat.

A single misunderstanding doesn't automatically mean you are racist. Repeated similar incidents would make it reasonable for other people to believe you a racist and to point this out in future incidents. I am unfamiliar with your posting history so have no opinion on whether past incidents exist.

What does it look like when someone analyzes a pattern of behavior to correctly apply the racist label without cherry-picking?

My responses over time to SM2 are a good example. He did not get away with one inference, or implication that passed before my awareness without a response. The highly educational examples SM2 offered have been totally overlooked. Instead we have lazy gotchas and swiping at low-hanging fruit like BahBah; that are just as likely partisans who have been fooled by party rhetoric as they are bona fide racists.

Here is the key: Racism, like stupidity can be described. One can explain why a post is racist, how the content connects to racist politics or philosophy. One can also describe how a topic that doesn't seem racist at face value to some folks like voter ID, has a result and some measure of intent that is racist. How people are tricked into unintentionally supporting racism can be described.

It's not easy in some cases and it takes work to determine at times. Knowing this is makes the lazy ways of labeling racism stand out when the case is not so clear.

This just seems way too nit picky to me, like just looking for a reason to cry racist instead of arguing the points. Does anyone discussing this topic need to spell out they don't mean stable inner-city families, but instead single-parent families with no money or hope where kids are more likely to drop out of school, join gangs, get locked up or killed before their 21st birthday when referring to problems they believe are exacerbated by the messages in "gangsta" rap? Well, they shouldn't. "Inner city" has become synonymous with such problems for a very long time, since before Marvin Gaye wrote "Inner City Blues," and movies like Friday and hip-hop culture embraced it.

In that thread we were able to argue just fine against the notion hip hop was the problem without worrying just how racists anyone was, by simply arguing the points as they were made. Chicken vs egg. Symptom vs Illness. Music has been an outlet for sorrow and frustration for ages. Read the thread. I thought Johnny ceded quite a few points and softened his stance somewhat. Those calling him racist were a distraction.

Count me out of your thread. The duker pretty much called me racist and now you say I might be. I thought according to this thread, you said that there would be no accusations of being racist and it was going to be a civil discussion.

Dib you have turned into one of them.

Also Spank thanks but dont bother, these guys will never change their bad behavior. They think they are doing a public service.

Nope, sorry, this is wrong and gets straight to the heart of the matter. I don't care about the "points" of the stupid rap music argument. That's not what this thread is about.

The words that people write into their posts are literally the only things we have to go on in making a assessment of their positions and values. So yes, when discussing any topic, everybody needs to "spell out" what they mean and not just count on everybody else guessing correctly.

What he wrote was indisputably racist. It was an implicit assertion that all poor "inner-city" black families are inherently unstable. This is an ignorant stereotype that does a lot of damage. After reading his post, I made a reasonable assessment of his position. The only assumption involved in that assessment was that people mean what they say. What you're suggesting is that instead I should be assuming that people don't necessarily mean what they say. That I should be reading his mind and deciding that when he says "X" he must really mean "Y". That's ridiculous, and a sure way to increase confusion and misunderstandings.

All we do here -- all we can possibly do -- is observe what people say and incorporate those observations into constantly evolving models of their characters. His initial statement was the seed for my assessment. His reaction to my reaction was then factored in. His "defense" was factored in, etc. This process is completely natural and unavoidable.

JohnyCrash, please return to the thread and continue your dialogue with DIB. I will gladly retire from the thread, as I'm sure he would rather chat with you than with me.

Duker, you're just reminding me of Ben Afleck here, focusing in too much on specific key words or phrases, getting offended and completely ignoring the point. It becomes impossible to even have a conversation regarding race no matter how carefully one treads when people care more about flushing out the racist than arguing the points on their merit. Few problems are solved this way.

I doubt anyone reasonable thinks he meant all inner-city black families are unstable. But yes it's a stereotype. One backed by census data. Here's an article discussing single-parent families. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...rica/?page=all. There is an interactive map showing where the most single-parent households live, and they tend to live in inner cities. In case you prefer a more liberal rag: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...e-as-it-seems/. They aren't disputing the census data either, though they have some different takes on causes and solutions.

It's really not a stretch to think poverty stricken areas will contain more single-parent families and that they will form more unstable households, so I don't see why it's clearly racist to think that. I'm fine with debating the issue though, as long as my ignorance of the subject is not confused with racism.

I'm really okay with labeling people who come to adopt racist beliefs through ignorance as bona fide racists. Maybe not labeling them as racists will make them more likely to stop being racist, but they are still racists. They are not old-fashioned, Jim Crow racists. Instead, they are more modern racists whose beliefs take the form of symbolic racism.

There are those who I think intuitively understand that this is a form of racism, but are not sophisticated enough to explain why it is racism or to understand how it is different from old-fashioned racism. So, they are generally accurate about labeling something as racism, but are not good at explaining why it is racist. Because they grasp racism intuitively, they act as if racism is obvious and easily recognizable.

poor johny

I understand and like the thoughtfulness of this post. I value intuition, but I am also wary.

I reserve some skepticism about unpracticed intuition, as it is very easy for a person to fool themselves, out of pride or fear, and justify it by saying intuition.

Plus, hunches can go both ways. I have assumed at first glance that a person was racist based on something they wrote, but had an intuitive hunch that there maybe more to it than meets the eye. After further review, my hunch turned out to be correct.

I like my intuitions to be balanced by reason whenever applicable. Trust, but verify. Surely, it is important when making a cause to interfere with a person socially to have the most accurate and complete information available in doing so. Well it is to me and my lofty standards. :O

You just have to move on. For some you are guilty and that is the end of it, there's no defense and never will be. Most reasonable people will just accept your defense without making a judgement.

Take more care in future especially if you care what they think in P because any mistake is enough to condemn you. Remember how low the wookie bar is for being called a racist and don't take it personally.

So, if you don't understand what I said, that's my fault, and if I don't understand what you said, that's my fault. Okay, Fly, sure thing.

lol Alex.