How are these not equivalent?

LUClEN
LUClEN Members Posts: 20,559 ✭✭✭✭✭
If I saw that all Mexican people are lazy, I have attributed a characteristic to an entire group of people and passed judgment about them based on their race. I do not think there are many people who would say this is not racist. They may say that Mexicans are not a race. I would say alright, replace Mexican with Black or White or Mongoloid or whatever group name you think is applicable and it is still the act of applying one feature to an entire group.

Likewise if I were to say that all White people have pale skin, straight hair and long thin noses I would still be applying features to an entire group of people and categorizing them based on this.

So how isn't the latter racist?

The first one is 'worse' but the second one is principally the same as far as I can see.

Comments

  • playmaker88
    playmaker88 Members Posts: 67,905 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Because it's just a categorization based on observation its a stereotyping... smh

    Calling mexicans this or that is an indictment
  • jono
    jono Members Posts: 30,280 ✭✭✭✭✭
    A physical description isn't inherently positive or negative. Saying white people have thin noses isn't offensive but that doesn't mean that it can't be used in an offensive fashion.

    "Jew nose", "? eyes" or "? lips" are descriptions but it's cloaked in offensive language.
  • LUClEN
    LUClEN Members Posts: 20,559 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Lazy, hard working, good at math, bad at driving, athletic, musical, cheap etc are not inherently positive or negative either. Any claim that they are would be relative to the individual.
  • janklow
    janklow Members, Moderators Posts: 8,613 Regulator
    Elrawd wrote: »
    Lazy ... are not inherently positive or negative either.
    uh... i am pretty sure "lazy" is inherently negative

    recommendation: use "consistently well-rested" instead

  • LUClEN
    LUClEN Members Posts: 20,559 ✭✭✭✭✭
    You may be right on that one. But I still do not see how the two concepts are not principally identical.
  • BiblicalAtheist
    BiblicalAtheist Members Posts: 15,668 ✭✭✭✭✭
    lol consistently well rested
  • whar
    whar Members Posts: 347 ✭✭✭
    There is not really a judgement inherent in 'pale skin, straight hair, and long thin noses'. However if I were to say,"White people are the epitome of beauty with pale skin, straight hair, and long thin noses." this would be racist. It is the assignment of a preference or good or bad traits which constitute racism.
  • LUClEN
    LUClEN Members Posts: 20,559 ✭✭✭✭✭
    So am I racist because I prioritize ? features of ? features, and the ? features I value most highly are not as present in European women as they are in Black and Asian women?

    I would not say white women are inherently less attractive. However if I think epicanthic folds, large lips, and small nose bridges are infinitely more appealing than small lips, large nasal bridges and less asian-esque (desert adaptive) eyes am I a racist for thinking features more prevalent in certain groups are more appealing?

    When does my preference become racism. Furthermore, when does attributing characteristics to an entire group become racist if it is not racist in my initial example?
  • playmaker88
    playmaker88 Members Posts: 67,905 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Do you not know what racism is
    There is preference and there is racism

    Racism involves disparaging,demeaning,subjecting,hating, controlling, vilifying,ostracizing

    If your displeasure doesnt bare the weight of racist ideology how can it be...


  • LUClEN
    LUClEN Members Posts: 20,559 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Racism as a word to me is like love. It has a lot of different definitions and there are numerous explanations for it.

    As I showed in the first post I consider applying any feature to an entire group of people racist.

    This was refuted by whar but I will appeal to sociology in this explanation and reference the concept of a racialized minority. Race as a concept is entirely man made and is defined by societies. To even create racial categories is racist and would result in someone racializing a group of people.

    I'm not sure how one could even have a concept of race and not be racist.
  • playmaker88
    playmaker88 Members Posts: 67,905 ✭✭✭✭✭
    You can call our classifications whatever you want.. scientifically there is no race...right
    But for lack of a better term thats what we call our categories

    If we called them black group white group so on and so forth it fillsnthe same purpose as the word race
  • LUClEN
    LUClEN Members Posts: 20,559 ✭✭✭✭✭
    But we are creating it based on observable differences which are contradicted by differences that are deeper than that

    If I am a Scottish man and you are a Chinese man we have far more similarities than we do differences

    Why create categorizations, which are based only on observable differences, when they can be shattered by gene analysis?

    I like Morgan Freeman's take on the idea of racism because it makes sense

    "I'm going to stop calling you a white man. And I'm going to ask you to stop calling me a black man. I know you as Mike Wallace. You know me as Morgan Freeman."

    We are creating these categories. And the fact we do so is racist as far as i can see
  • playmaker88
    playmaker88 Members Posts: 67,905 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Because we have different upbringings,cultures experiences and views as a result..thats non sensical morgan Freeman is an idiot you cant just say hey lets start of fresh blank slate...this isnt an idealistic existence.. the world happened already and is still happening


    Why because it is the easiest thing to do as we dont

    Differences and pointing out differences is not racist unless the commentary and actions are they are just differences
  • LUClEN
    LUClEN Members Posts: 20,559 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Flawed argument but here

    I am probably a lot luckier than you in that I live in a country that supports 'multiculturalism' and I likely didn't face the same racist bigotry you did

    but I remember a time when I didn't have a concept of race. I had friends who looked different from me: cantonese, mandarin, philippino, jamaican, hungarian. But I had no concept of race and saw them as identical to me outside out maybe their family, the food they ate and other small things.

    If you can recall ever having such an experience then you can at least somewhat see how I would argue that racism is a learned thing, based on a system of categorization and simply adhering to it is racist in a way.

    a google definition for racism is:

    the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races

    I think both are racist, the first part and second. The latter is just more antisocial. (neanderthal anyone?)
  • Sour-Cream
    Sour-Cream Members Posts: 6,474 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Who gives a ? .