Should the same descriptive standards be used for white and blacks?

[bryant69]

Poll question: Should the same descriptive standards be used for white and blacks?

Or to broaden it a bit, should the same standards be used for all races, creeds, genders, and gender orientations? Or is there value in allowing the standards for the majority to be a bit more flexible than those used for minorities?

Or is saying "White people are stupid" as offensive or somewhat less offensive than saying "Black people are stupid."

Let me be clear, I am not talking about board policy - I am asking what standards people should choose to adhere to, not standards they should be required to adhere to.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

1. Racism Is Racism. Hate Is Hate. Bigotry Is Bigotry. Ignorance Is Ignorance. It Matters Not From

which race it spews.

[jeff30997]

2. I totally agree with you.

Intolerance can come from every human group,association(religious or not) no mather the ethnicity.

And the roots of intolerance are fear and ignorance.

[lumberjack_jeff]

3. Arguably, "white people are stupid" is at least as harmful.

The backlash it creates may do a greater disservice to those doing the stereotyping.

This observation is lost on many.

[Winterblues]

4. Are you referring to Albinos? I know of no "white people"

Every person is a different hue and shade of color. Some are lighter and some are darker but none are "white" nor are any "black" Let's just call them all "Flesh Colored" You must know what color that is...:shrug: as far as race goes, I believe we all belong to the "Human Race" Is there another?

[bryant69]

7. I'm afraid you must have missed thousands of years of history

Wether sensible or not - humans have divided themselves into tribes and countries and races since, well, since as far as I know anyway. You know what I mean when I saw white people and if you don't, well, that's pretty unusual.

Bryant

[TahitiNut]

5. Is calling someone a "prick" the same as calling them a "c_nt"??

Is it equally bigoted to say "testosterone-poisoned" as saying "on the rag"?

[bryant69]

8. Good questions

and yeah pretty much what I was getting at, although from a different angle.

Bryant

[TahitiNut]

9. It's a funny thing.

I regard such objectification of human beings (by "type," each a commodity sharing attributes which supposedly merit demeaning) as a basic moral and rational failing. The moral teachings are as old as humanity, even articulated in the Categorical Imperative of Kant and the moral teachings of Christ, Buddha, and Mohammed. Yet so many (even here on DU!) are willing if not eager to indulge in THEIR 'flavor' of objectification claiming some INDIVIDUAL right to do so by 'virtue' of being a (so-called) member of a GROUP (there's that objectification, again) that's in the minority (or the oppressed majority in one case)! Exfuckingcuse me? The circularity of that reasoning puts Oroboros to shame.

[bryant69]

10. I agree

This goes to my religion I have to admit, but reducing anybody to an object, whether in a positive or a negative way is just a bad thing - and race, religion, gender is often just another way to reduce someone to an object. We are individuals and when we trade our individuality for something else, or, worse, we steal someone else's individuality and give them a label, well it's not good.

Bryant

[SmokingJacket]

6. I think history has to be taken into account.

A white person insulting/oppressing a black person has the additional weight of slavery behind it. "White Power" means something VERY different from "Black Power."

I happen to be Welsh-American. There are some anti-Welsh songs and rhymes that I find somewhat insulting. However, anti-Semitic songs are much, much worse, because of the Holocaust and the long, long history of anti-Semitism.

So while ANYONE insulting/oppressing ANYONE is wrong or cruel, history has made it so that some kinds of actions or statements have extra meanings.

[dorkulon]

11. There are anti-Welsh songs? /nt

[SmokingJacket]

12. Believe it or not.

When I was in elementary school, we had to sing a song that went: "Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief..." Taffy being the nickname for Welsh people. You couldn't sing a song about black people or Jews like that, but it's acceptable about Welsh people because there's no long history of violence against them. (There IS some history of Welsh-oppression, but I'd be a fool to compare it to what other groups have been through.)

[rebel with a cause]

13. You are exactly right.

Generalizing (stereotyping) people into groups is in itself problematic. Everyone is not alike, even when they share ethnicity or gender, and to put them all in one category does everyone a disservice.

I don't like being put in the same category as a KKK member, but it still does not hold the same demoralizing effect as minorities being placed in the same category with all of them being thought of as lazy, thieves, drug dealers, and many other stereotypes that are given to them. You can call me 'cracker' all day and all it does to me is make me think of crackers. 'Honky' is for me the same thing, it does nothing to my own self-worth. There is no history there to make me feel insulted.

Growing up in a European immigrant neighborhood, our big insult was 'hunkie'. As a non-member of the recent immigrants, I was taught not to use this term but then I was called it one day. Did it disturb me? No but it made me mad and I returned the insult to my accuser, who quickly went home to tell her mother of my offensive language. What came of this was my mother standing up for me, but then telling me that I was wrong to use the word even in this instance because it had a totally different meaning for me and the girl who's grandparents had came here from Europe. There is no getting around it, history matters.