Transracial?

[Jason Harvestdancer]

I meant it to be racist. That was the point. The post was my sarcastic attempt to mock racism and prejudice and bigotry all around.

But you can't be racist! You're not white!

I'm Asian. That means I'm kept a minority if compared to white people, but considered white if compared to black people. This gets rather complicated, doesn't it?

What would a light skinned Hispanic know about that? Gee, it is tough.

 

[laughing dog]

No, I don't yet know what you mean by "In the context of this thread, "racism" does not commonly mean referring to race.". Do you mean that "racism" does not mean "referring to race", or something else? ....

Since you replied "Obviously "racism" does not mean "referring to race" " - you clearly did. I literally have no idea what you are going on about in the rest of that response. I suspect you don't know either, but that is not relevant.

Of course, a stereotype, in an of itself, is not racism.

But yet you are going to argue.

The stereotype might even be true, and warranted. On the other hand, asserting a disparaging stereotype while not having evidence that warrants believing it, and on top of that doing so in a derogatory tone, surely would be an instance of racism (but see my reply to Jason above).

You are the one concluding that the stereotype is disparaging and in a derogatory tone. That is evident in the actual statement. So, as the actual statement is written, your conclusion is literally wrong.

 

[steve_bank]

As a person of color I have to say that you, a white male, just can't understand our lived experience so you don't understand our issues. We all think, act, and believe the same. This isn't racism at all.

And as an asian, I'll do the math for you while driving.

I spentn the lastb 2 years easting meals with a blck man in his 70s who grew up in JimCrow Lousiana. I have listend to his life story.

Th3ere was e=racism in my famikly in the 50s-60s. I saw Jim Crow first hand in the military in the Memphis area during the VN War.

I understand it and can empathize. We most of us have experienced alienation and abuse in some ways. Can I Know exactly what it feels like to be black? No. Doesn't mean I can't understand it and feel it to a degree.

At times it seems people cling to being a victim as a crutch. From my friends stories blacks and other minorities today have no clue how bad it was, and on that my friend agrees.

Racism has become a comfort zone emotionally for some. We are not in the Jim Crow south era.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Racism has become a comfort zone emotionally for some. We are not in the Jim Crow south era.

There is still real racism out and about. I have experienced it personally more than once. But yes, I agree, many do cling to victimhood and lean on it as a crutch or use it to try to get ahead. Victimhood culture and crybullying are real phenomenons.

 

[Bomb#20]

Um, maybe because leftists don't have time to talk about it, they're so busy practicing it? It isn't right-wingers who are getting people fired for not letting somebody into a bakery after it's closed because of which identity group the would-be customer was from.

https://talkfreethought.org/showthr...employees-for-refusing-service-to-black-woman

...and in obsessing with "identity politics" bring up isolated incidents to try and make them seem more common.

Wrongly Imprisoned Man Won't Shut Up About It

... Buell, 46, an Elmhurst, IL electrician, was convicted of raping and burglarizing his elderly neighbor in 1994, despite the fact that he was at work when the crime occurred. He was mistakenly sentenced to a prison term of 20 years to life. Since then, his imprisonment has been a source of nonstop bellyaching. ...

 

[poster]

A couple of months ago while gassing up my work van, I was sort of gazing off in the distance (something I think I often do) still waking up perhaps. Suddenly I hear a rough and loud voice say, "hey, put a smile on your face!" Startled, looking for the person and then seeing him, I excused myself and asked him to repeat what he said not certain I heard him correctly, which he did.

I said, "why should I?" To which he replied, "because it's a beautiful day and it's worth being happy about." "Great! maybe it is." I said, "but why do you need me to smile for you to appreciate the weather?", "enjoy the weather and quit telling other people how they should be!"

He then became a bit aggressive, puffing his chest out and raising his chin. Then the female with him said, "you're racist!" (he was black, I and the female are white). To be sure, he was a rough looking dude who would have probably gotten the better of me in a fight. I answered the female by saying, "because I am disagreeing with a black man, I'm racist?". She shrugged and mumbled something. The guy became angry because I addressed "his woman". Then she began phone-recording and narrating the encounter.

I got into my van and the two of us stared at one another. I got back out and walked toward them. He walked toward me ready to fight and again warned me about addressing the female. I put out my hand to shake his and he refused. He asked why he should shake my hand and I told him it was because we were both men and that's what men do in the end. He sill refused, and I left.

I understand that coming up as a minority in the US has got to be one challenging day after another in most cases, and looking for and learning to take pleasure in the small things people such as myself might take for granted like the weather is a practice one would be taught by their elders.

I'm reminded of the Bruce Springsteen song "American Skin (41 Shots)".

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

A couple of months ago while gassing up my work van, I was sort of gazing off in the distance (something I think I often do) still waking up perhaps. Suddenly I hear a rough and loud voice say, "hey, put a smile on your face!" Startled, looking for the person and then seeing him, I excused myself and asked him to repeat what he said not certain I heard him correctly, which he did.

I said, "why should I?" To which he replied, "because it's a beautiful day and it's worth being happy about." "Great! maybe it is." I said, "but why do you need me to smile for you to appreciate the weather?", "enjoy the weather and quit telling other people how they should be!"

He then became a bit aggressive...

People usually do when someone is being a dick to them. A simple chuckle, head nod would have sufficed and you could continue on without a smile.

 

[poster]

A couple of months ago while gassing up my work van, I was sort of gazing off in the distance (something I think I often do) still waking up perhaps. Suddenly I hear a rough and loud voice say, "hey, put a smile on your face!" Startled, looking for the person and then seeing him, I excused myself and asked him to repeat what he said not certain I heard him correctly, which he did.

I said, "why should I?" To which he replied, "because it's a beautiful day and it's worth being happy about." "Great! maybe it is." I said, "but why do you need me to smile for you to appreciate the weather?", "enjoy the weather and quit telling other people how they should be!"

He then became a bit aggressive...

People usually do when someone is being a dick to them. A simple chuckle, head nod would have sufficed and you could continue on without a smile.

Ironic.

Perhaps, like you, I enjoy confrontation.

 

[ZiprHead]

A couple of months ago while gassing up my work van, I was sort of gazing off in the distance (something I think I often do) still waking up perhaps. Suddenly I hear a rough and loud voice say, "hey, put a smile on your face!" Startled, looking for the person and then seeing him, I excused myself and asked him to repeat what he said not certain I heard him correctly, which he did.

I said, "why should I?" To which he replied, "because it's a beautiful day and it's worth being happy about." "Great! maybe it is." I said, "but why do you need me to smile for you to appreciate the weather?", "enjoy the weather and quit telling other people how they should be!"

He then became a bit aggressive...

People usually do when someone is being a dick to them. A simple chuckle, head nod would have sufficed and you could continue on without a smile.

Ironic.

Perhaps, like you, I enjoy confrontation.

I always come up with great answers after the situation has passed.

"My mother just died. I'm on my way to the funeral home to accept her body and make arrangements."

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

A couple of months ago while gassing up my work van, I was sort of gazing off in the distance (something I think I often do) still waking up perhaps. Suddenly I hear a rough and loud voice say, "hey, put a smile on your face!" Startled, looking for the person and then seeing him, I excused myself and asked him to repeat what he said not certain I heard him correctly, which he did.

I said, "why should I?" To which he replied, "because it's a beautiful day and it's worth being happy about." "Great! maybe it is." I said, "but why do you need me to smile for you to appreciate the weather?", "enjoy the weather and quit telling other people how they should be!"

He then became a bit aggressive...

People usually do when someone is being a dick to them. A simple chuckle, head nod would have sufficed and you could continue on without a smile.

Ironic.

That isn't ironic.

Perhaps, like you, I enjoy confrontation.

Ah, that is what you call it. Sounds nicer than "being a dick".

 

[James Brown]

Context is everything.

"I enjoy punching people in the face," means one thing when said by one professional boxer to another, but it means something else when said to a random stranger at a gas station.

 

[poster]

Ironic.

That isn't ironic.

Perhaps, like you, I enjoy confrontation.

Ah, that is what you call it. Sounds nicer than "being a dick".

Okay, have it your way, I'm a dick for telling someone else he was being a dick. But that's not the question.

Dicks aside, were any of the three of us behaving in a racist manner?

 

[poster]

Context is everything.

"I enjoy punching people in the face," means one thing when said by one professional boxer to another, but it means something else when said to a random stranger at a gas station.

And so what does it mean since we were both gas-pumpers.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

It could also be a comment on Asian driving skills as well as on Asian math skills. There's more than one stereotype about Asians that could be described.

It does not look to me like JP meant it that way, but if so, then whether it would be racist may depend on what JP meant. I would say it would be racist if he meant what I think he did.

I meant it to be racist. That was the point. The post was my sarcastic attempt to mock racism and prejudice and bigotry all around.

Yes, that is how I interpreted. It was racism against White people, or at least against While males (though Whites are not a race but a color, but then neither are Jews, and "racism" can be used on a broad sense, referring to biological differences other than race).

 

[Politesse]

There's no such thing as a biological race; human biological differences present as clines, not natural categories. Race profiles begin their life as political entities, and are then legitimized post-facto by folk taxonomies of physical and cultural features.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

There's no such thing as a biological race; human biological differences present as clines, not natural categories. Race profiles begin their life as political entities, and are then legitimized post-facto by folk taxonomies of physical and cultural features.

Your claim that there is no such thing as a biological race is mistaken. I would recommend the old posts by ApostateAbe and particularly the relevant posts by Bomb#20 in the relevant threads. It's not a matter I'm going to debate, though: that has been done to death in this forum, and they have made the points far better than I could. As to whether they are "natural categories", I'm not sure what you mean, so I take no stance.

 

[RavenSky]

There's no such thing as a biological race; human biological differences present as clines, not natural categories. Race profiles begin their life as political entities, and are then legitimized post-facto by folk taxonomies of physical and cultural features.

Your claim that there is no such thing as a biological race is mistaken. I would recommend the old posts by ApostateAbe and particularly the relevant posts by Bomb#20 in the relevant threads. It's not a matter I'm going to debate, though: that has been done to death in this forum, and they have made the points far better than I could. As to whether they are "natural categories", I'm not sure what you mean, so I take no stance.

Politesse is correct.

 

[Politesse]

There's no such thing as a biological race; human biological differences present as clines, not natural categories. Race profiles begin their life as political entities, and are then legitimized post-facto by folk taxonomies of physical and cultural features.

Your claim that there is no such thing as a biological race is mistaken. I would recommend the old posts by ApostateAbe and particularly the relevant posts by Bomb#20 in the relevant threads. It's not a matter I'm going to debate, though: that has been done to death in this forum, and they have made the points far better than I could. As to whether they are "natural categories", I'm not sure what you mean, so I take no stance.

While I was not present for these discussions, I do not find them difficult to imagine. I am an anthropologist; this is my field. I assure you that popular perversions of misunderstood haplogroup data do not stand up against the real science of human biological and social diversity.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Politesse,

I've been trying to find the relevant posts, but I think they're mostly in the archives. But here's a link to an open thread, if you're interesting in debating that. I don't know whether ApostateAbe would still reply, but Bomb#20 is an active poster.

https://talkfreethought.org/showthread.php?7667-Richard-Dawkins-vs-Bill-Nye-on-race

 

[Angra Mainyu]

There's no such thing as a biological race; human biological differences present as clines, not natural categories. Race profiles begin their life as political entities, and are then legitimized post-facto by folk taxonomies of physical and cultural features.

Your claim that there is no such thing as a biological race is mistaken. I would recommend the old posts by ApostateAbe and particularly the relevant posts by Bomb#20 in the relevant threads. It's not a matter I'm going to debate, though: that has been done to death in this forum, and they have made the points far better than I could. As to whether they are "natural categories", I'm not sure what you mean, so I take no stance.

While I was not present for these discussions, I do not find them difficult to imagine. I am an anthropologist; this is my field. I assure you that popular perversions of misunderstood haplogroup data do not stand up against the real science of human biological and social diversity.

No, what I mean is that the science does support that there are races, and the people I cited had science on their side. But I already posted a link to an open thread. If you'd like to discuss the matter, that's an opportunity. I don't think that you have a counter case because I've seen so many people try and lose the arguments, and because the evidence seems just decisive, but still, if you choose to reply, I will be interested in reading the discussion.

ETA: I found more links to relevant open threads. You can take a look at all of the discussions. The position of denying the existence of biological races was soundly and repeatedly defeated here. But if you want to make a new argument, I'd like to see it.

https://talkfreethought.org/showthr...es-do-not-exist-But-all-for-the-wrong-reasons
https://talkfreethought.org/showthr...llacy-and-the-fallacy-of-convergent-evolution
https://talkfreethought.org/showthr...stopped-evolving-and-races-biologically-exist