I associate the word "Mexican" with ethnicity, culture and national heritage and specifically not about race. Is their a difference between ethnicity and race? I think there is. Can one be a bigot in regards to an ethnic group but not a racist? Of course. Calling BruceZ a racist for his comments about Mexicans is actually incorrect. If we're going to be politically correct let's label statements such as his accurately, it is a bigoted statement directed at an ethnic group. If someone is prejudiced towards Mexicans but has no problems with Puerto Ricans are they racist? Nope.

I understand being offended by such comments and I think that is fine, perhaps even admirable. But there is a huge difference between someone being prejudiced towards an ethnic group and someone believing one race is superior to another. Labeling someone a racist implies a certain level of hate. When used capriciously and carelessly in reality it cheapens the word racist in my view. Put another way, I think one stands a much better chance of convincing someone to see things differently if they hold a prejudice towards an ethnic group than if they're a true racist. When one makes erroneous racist accusations you've pretty much ended any kind of meaningful dialogue. Isn't the desired outcome to convince people to see the error of their ways?

Go **** yourself.

lol you're a racist ****ing clown adios, enjoy never voting for a winning presidential candidate again

Maybe call them sub-racists?

I want to talk about this more generally. Not about Bruce or Adios or Mexicans, but prejudice and racism.

I think most everyone agrees there is a difference. But it does seem that anyone who posts something prejudicial, is quickly (unfairly?) branded a racist by somebody else.

Do I have that right?

Sometimes.

But other times we can also check if there is any other information available that might help us get a better and more thorough understanding of that persons thought process. And sometimes that information can help us conclude without any shadow of a doubt that the person is indeed racist.

Hypothetically speaking, of course.

No, it mostly seems like some posters are concocting weird semantic rules that will allow them to call Mexicans cockroaches without being called an r-word. Like, the real important discussion we should all be having here is apparently what the fine distinction between "racism" and "prejudice" is, and not, you know, the guy spewing out a wall of racist bile.

The people who are being accused of being racist aren't leaving much ambiguity as to their feelings, no matter what they claim.

We can dig up examples of racism pretty easily. I've yet to see somebody point out a good example of somebody being unfairly accused.

It seems to me that racial prejudice is nearly universal. I have it. I notice when I'm in a situation where I am a racial minority. And until a little time passes, being in that situation makes me uncomfortable.

I can't explain why, exactly. I don't like feeling that way. And I am pleased that the discomfort passes in a matter of minutes or seconds. Nonetheless, that initial feeling of discomfort is what? Is it racism?

Then why care about being called racist? If you believe that other races are inferior, shouldn't one be proud of the label? That's a real question I have and why I'm not sure if the term isn't overused.

It takes less keyboard presses to call someone or something someone says "racist" than "prejudiced."

Also, shockingly, most of the time, people who go to Internet forums to spout prejudiced points of view over and over tend to show that they're racist at some point or another.

If dids said something prejudiced I doubt any non-trolls would seriously call him racist. But it'd be pointed out that what he said was inappropriate.

If some brand new poster starts posting prejudiced crap within hours of joining the board, as it stands, they are nearly universally shown to be racists.

I agree that to some extent everyone has some amount of prejudiced feelings or whatnot. They probably come from a combination of evolution, upbringing, and genetics. Like, it was a good skill, as we emerged from the primordial ooze, to notice that other jellyfish/monkies/Australopithecus/**** erectus/whatever looked different than we did and to avoid them or at least feel uncomfortable or heightened awareness in this situations.

That doesn't serve much purpose in the year 2014, but it's still there. And we won't get rid of it, if ever, without doing what you do - being aware of it and understanding there's no logical reason for it.

Is there a difference if someone maintains their "prejudiced" views over many posts, in many different contexts and shows no willingness to remove that prejudice? As you say, you don't like feeling that way, but if these people sit on the internet and day after day allude to their prejudice without any inclination to change, or become less ignorant... what then?

Pretty close. People's prejudices do become entangled with each other so treating some who has prejudice based on nationality the same as some who has prejudice based on race is not suprising.

A real problem is a lack of precision in making accusations combined with emotional responses that go out of the bounds of being reasonable.

If someone reasonably objects to a post or a poster being called racist, it can cause very unreasonable responses. Sometimes everyone involved is unreasonable.

No one is perfect and we all have our biases. It's a question of how we confront and examine our snap judgements that makes people not racist.

OK, this is getting somewhere. I would agree that almost everyone has these feelings.

Now, let's go to phase two. where would you put "mexicans are cockroaches" on a scale from "I get weird feels" to "full on crossburning and wearing hoods"?

It looks like I get a pass. So why don't people want to be called racists if they are racist?

Do they just not like the term? Is it a matter of evasiveness? Are they in denial about their own beliefs?

I would really love to see comments from people who feel they have been unfairly branded racists on these forums. I'm assuming adios is in this category?

Keep in mind that BruceZ is not, as far as I know, beta testing some advanced 2+2 interface where his thoughts are instantly and perfectly transmitted into posts. He spent time actually thinking and typing that post up.

People don't like being branded with socially unacceptable labels while in public. Also some people just haven't thought about how their thoughts and actions can be damaging and people in general don't the self-reflection involved in changing those thought patterns. Also, some people don't realize how racist they are, because to them it's perfectly normal to compare Mexicans to cockroaches.

There's more high minded sociological stuff that can be offered up in response to this, but honestly I think in a lot of cases it's simply people thinking

"The rules say don't be racist or I'll get banned, I don't want to be banned, so I'll try and find a way to share my point of view that don't sound racist"

And then being really dumb, because that kind of racist, the person who doesn't just harbor the biases that you describe and we all have, but the person motivated by actual hate*, is by definition stupid, and doesn't realize they can't get away with that gambit.

So rather than changing their racist behavior, they think that if they can dodge the label it will be enough.

*- and I think this is big part of it. These are hateful, scared people who see a world changing and taking away the advantages they used to have over others, and suddenly are facing consequences for the language they use. Their goal is spreading hate, it's trying to get people to share their beliefs (but again, they're real stupid, so they're bad at it) and you can do that more effectively if you're not banned the first time you show up and drop and n-bomb. If you instead try to mask your hate with ****ty logic and bull**** numbers (which maybe you believe, because again, stupid), you can get away with it for longer (and maybe you think you're going to get away with it all together, because you have for a while, because people are weirdly gunshy about pointing out racism).

I don't want to talk about Bruce, specifically, in this thread unless he chooses to participate. He's been a tremendously valuable member of this community even before I came along. I'm discussing things with him privately for now.

A general umbrella term, that you have used before, is 'intolerance'. That includes racism, homophobia, anti-semitism, misogyny, etc. I wouldn't agree there is a substantive difference, only a difference in details.

What seems to set racism apart is the white-hot anger a certain subset of posters have with the r-word (but not generally with racism itself). On the flip side, misogyny, both the m-word and the action, doesn't get that response at all... even though misogyny is orders of magnitude more common here on 2+2.

Other than that, I agree with my doppelganger, we have an ongoing effort by that certain subset of posters to 'define away' racism as a thing. Generally this falls into one or more of these categories...

1. Racism is a thing-you-are... not things-you-do, namely actions an/or speech. As I've poster here, in general, the last five years... the whole thing-you-are philosophy is idiotic.
2. A close relation to #1 is that calling someone the r-word is saying they are an unredeemable evil person. But unredeemable evil people don't help others with their homework... ergo, homework helpers can't be racist.
3. Racism is simple personal animus. Short of someone saying "I'm a racist" we can never know who's a 'real racist' without groking their secret-inner-heart.
4. A close relation to #3 is the outright denial of systemic institutionalized racism. Apart from a few 'bad apples' with evil secret-inner-hearts, racism doesn't exist.
5. We get a lotta proponents of Colorblind Racism. Typical give away of these racists is prating derp like Jesse Jackson, or anyone else, is the 'real racist' because they bring race into everything.
6. A certain subset think that the r-word isn't fit for polite conversation, and think it should be added to the profanity filter, or those who use it should be banned.
7. A close relation to #6 are those who think using the r-word 'drives racists away', which is bad variously, because (a) they can't be 'cured' by 'therapy' and/or (b) the 'real racists' will instead hang out together at stormfront.nazi or some such nonsense. This is just LOLtastically wrong all around.
8. This board used to be dominated by, and still has a whole lotta, Libertarian-types (LT). Since LTism is inherently intolerant at it's core, and the history of LTism is simply full of racists... we get a lotta mindless tribal butthurt from the LTers.

To review:

Intolerant isn't something a person "is"... intolerance is something a person does. Saying someone is a racist isn't claiming they are an unredeemably evil person in their secret-inner-heart, it's saying they act or speak in a racist manner. If those who act or speak in an intolerant manner don't wanna be called 'intolerant', all they gotta do is renounced their previous intolerant acts and/or speech, and stop doing that shiz going forward. Like this...

Just that simple.

those seem like reasonable answers. hopefully adios and others will have more to say.

i always hold on to the silly fantasy that real things can be accomplished during these discussions. i know i should probably know better.

I think a lot of it is an eye of the beholder thing. What a lot of people label "racist" I would view as more "stereotyping"

I think too many people throw the word "racist" around extremely loosely. For me, when I hear the term "racist" I look at it as a term that means someone HATES another group solely upon their ethnicity.

Lots of people have opinions of specific races/cultures/ethnicities that may be stereotypical or somewhat prejudiced in their viewpoints on those people (what do you mean by THOSE people?!?!) but that aren't "racist" as how I would define the term, yet could be labeled as such by someone with a vastly different viewpoint of the situation than myself.

For example:

Black People Like Fried Chicken
White People Can't Dance (or jump)


I've seen plenty of people willing to label someone as "racist" because a person has a viewpoint or jokes along the lines of things like the above.

But just because someone says something like that jokingly (or seriously) does not mean that person is a racist. To me, for them to be racist they would need to hate an entire group of people based on their ethnicity, not just point out a stereotype (seriously or jokingly) regarding that ethnicity.

EDIT: I make jokes all the time amongst friends that are "racially charged". I poke fun at all colors, religions, etc. That doesn't mean I won't interact with people of different ethnic or religious groups. I just do so with the ones who, you know, have a sense of humor and realize that my comments are meant in jest, rather than in a hurtful manner. People who are not so easily butthurt. In my experience, the people who are most often "offended" by my jokes on race are white people, must be a guilt complex or something.

How about:

- Black people are easily riled up to protest and loot because they're gullible
- White people are smart and can easily see through that, except for the dumbarses in politards forum


Still just an innocent stereotype?