Trump: Racist Firestorm
- Thread starter Ktoyou
- Start date
Alate_One
Well-known member
Can you agree this is not at all the argument I was making? You're beating an imaginary dead horse.
5 of the seven countries would be considered by the average person with racist ideas as middle eastern. The other two you listed are still majority people of color.
Not included was any majority Muslim nation with a majority white population, say Azerbaijan.
Alate_One
Well-known member
By race I mean a group of people defined primarily by skin tone, hair color and texture which may or may not include a precise country of origin, but usually doesn't.
Race doesn't have a biological definition, as there are no consistent characters within a race. Ethnicity and ancestral populations can be detected, but that's different from race.
White usually just refers to people with lighter skin tone, eyes (sometimes) and lighter hair, usually with origins somewhere in Europe. It used to be defined specifically as only northern Europe (specifically English and French ancestry primarly) and not eastern Europe (Poles and Irish weren't white originally).
As a race "middle eastern" would include most of the countries of the middle east, but probably more to the average white person since determinations are often based on a person's appearance. I would argue that this particular racial definition is also relatively new, many of these people might formerly have been considered white.
ok doser
lifeguard at the cement pond
your statement that I responded to was:
as I've showed with the travel ban, it did not target race, it targeted national origin
again, i'll defer to your greater experience reading the minds of average people with racist ideas
i try to avoid them
which color?
and were the minority who were not "people of color" excluded from the ban?
or "brown" countries with the largest muslim populations, say Indonesia, Pakistan, India
ok doser
lifeguard at the cement pond
so to you race is defined primarily by appearance?
if someone "looks" a certain way, then you categorize them as a certain race?
obama's mother was of Irish heritage, i believe
his father was Kenyan
which "race" would you categorize obama as?
racist people tend to identify him as "black" because of his appearance - skin tone, hair color and texture, etc
non-racist people will note that he is mixed race, 50/50
ok doser
lifeguard at the cement pond
the same is true of the travel restrictions implemented by obama, the restrictions that were widened into a ban by trump
was it racist of obama to exclude majority Muslim nations with a majority white population, say Azerbaijan?
Alate_One
Well-known member
These are not my categories, they are a societies' categories. Race is defined by society, in this case usually the dominant mostly white society. I see what society classes as race and try not to define people by race but by their individual experiences.
Someone has not heard of the one drop rule.
Also nearly all African Americans have some element of racial admixture from Europeans. Do you class all black people you see as "mixed race"? People from Africa also have a mixture of skin tones depending on where their ancestors lived on the continent. Some are lighter than others despite having 100% African ancestry. Would you assume those people were "mixed race" just by looking at them?
There are no non-racist people, only racist and anti-racist. Racism doesn't have to define a person either. A person can be racist or anti-racist in any given moment. I endeavor to be anti-racist but western society is a powerful messenger when it comes to race. It says that people with lighter skin are superior to those with darker skin. To pretend society is not racist is to be in denial.
Alate_One
Well-known member
A ban over an entire country is racist since it paints everyone in said country with the same brush. It's grouping people with racial stereotypes that is problematic. Restrictions based on actions would not be problematic so long as they were applied equally.
Alate_One
Well-known member
Recognizing that society will typically class someone as "black" does not make one racist. However, Obama self identified as black.
ok doser
lifeguard at the cement pond
was it racist to ban Germans in the first half of the 1940s?
ok doser
lifeguard at the cement pond
I'm in and out at the moment but wanted to complete this thought - of course, it was not racist for us to ban German nationals in the first half of the 1940's
but those who are racist at heart, who see everything in terms of race, will argue that it was racist of us to ban Japanese nationals during the first half of the 1940's
in a similar manner, they are unreasonable in their belief that trump is racist in banning certain nationalities, even though his ban included all ethnicities and religions from those countries
ok doser
lifeguard at the cement pond
Alate_One
Well-known member
Probably. I'm sure it prevented the escape of a lot of German Jews who then died in the gas chambers. Everyone can be racist, and you can be racist against segments of your own race. Anytime we class groups of people as inherently inferior or superior in some way based on skin color or where they are from that's racism. We should evaluate the value and behavior of the individual, not the group.
You, I assume are a white male. How would you feel if the rest of the nation classed you and other white men as dangerous because a few white men have been going on shooting rampages? Would that be racist?
ok doser
lifeguard at the cement pond
doser asked:
ala responded:
that's not an answer to my question
which "race" would you categorize obama as?
ala responded:
that's not an answer to my question
which "race" would you categorize obama as?
ok doser
lifeguard at the cement pond
is it racist of me to note that asians tend to score significantly higher than whites on IQ tests?
was it racist (or agist or genderist) for insurance companies to charge me significantly more for car insurance when I was young?
ok doser
lifeguard at the cement pond
is it racist of me, as a health care professional, to note potential disease states that are linked to skin color or country of origin?
Alate_One
Well-known member
No. Though country of origin not really the question is ethnicity/ancestry not necessarily the country. Certain genetic diseases do run in Ashkenazi Jewish groups, others in certain parts of Africa.
Skin tone does make a difference as far as skin cancer rates and vitamin D deficiency but that's really the only biological difference as far as melanin goes.
Alate_One
Well-known member
No, but it is racist to assign inherent value to IQ tests or to assume they reflect a genetic difference in intelligence. So you know what the strongest correlation is with SAT exam scores? Income level.
Young males do tend to engage in risky behavior more than other groups. There are biological differences between genders and Insurance is currently permitted to use that to discriminate between people. Now we might decide as a society at some future time that charging people based on risk, some of which isn't within their control, isn't fair and design a new system.