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9th December 2020, 10:08 AM | #41 |
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Dave Chappell had a great skit on his show where white people are trying to pick the only black guy out of a crowd without referring to the colour of his skin. The lengths they go to to remain politically correct remind me of this thread.
If the roles were reversed and the ref had of said " the white guy" everyone would be happy he was so clear and concise. ETA: But it is football/soccer so the only real surprising thing is they all weren't rolling around on the pitch looking for a penalty for their hurt feeling. |
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9th December 2020, 10:38 AM | #42 |
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9th December 2020, 10:51 AM | #43 |
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I think a lot of people, even some in here, seem to have lost the meaning of what racism actually is. Merely noticing that people look different is not it. Apparently there is so little of the real thing about these days that we have to overreact to this sort of nonsense.
That's assuming the story is as it's currently presented, of course. |
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9th December 2020, 10:55 AM | #44 |
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False dichotomy. There is no such thing as a 'white skin gene'. Colour of skin is caused by at least six different alleles, probably as many as ten or more. What you perceive as 'white' is simply a mutation in which there is a lack of melanin. The only people who have a complete or near complete lack of melanin are albinos. It could be said that Europeans are simply people who migrated from the Indian subcontinent many thousands of years ago and are just merely melanin-deficient Indians.
So, in which way is it 'politically correct' to deny there is such a thing as a 'race' based on skin colour? The most ethnically diverse populations in the world are in Africa with at least 3,000 different ethnicities. So anyone claiming a simple classification for race as being 'white' versus 'black' are the ones who are politically, biologically and factually incorrect. |
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9th December 2020, 11:01 AM | #45 |
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9th December 2020, 11:02 AM | #46 |
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I think you're really stretching the dfinition of 'racist' to breaking point here.
There's nothing wrong with using a persons features or characteristics to identify them in a crowd. I think it's quite a contortion to consider that racist. Noticing and referring to colour or race is not, in itself, racist. I think that's a bit mad, to be honest. |
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9th December 2020, 11:14 AM | #48 |
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I avoid references to race in my day to day life as much as possible. But I may be overly sensitive.
I would certainly avoid it in my professional capacity and would be shocked if others didn't. If I walk into a room with a black colleague and someone in the room refers to them as "the black one" I would be ready to leave. Maybe it is a recent thing, but I do not ever refer to professionals I work with or around by such identifiers. I don't refer to them by the race, their gender, their physical characteristics, or anything else that may be taken in context or out of context as a slight. That's just being a professional. But this is just soccer, not a professional sport, so maybe I'm overreacting. |
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9th December 2020, 11:19 AM | #49 |
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9th December 2020, 11:21 AM | #50 |
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Why? It's a defining characteristic like being tall or short or blonde. It's not offensive to notice someone's race. I find that really odd. I would guess - and it is a guess - that most of the people who you are so desperate not to refer to as black, or 'black', if you prefer, would happily refer to themselves as black either in private or in public. In professional circles, sadly, that reference may be 'I was the only black guy in the room'.
In what way do you see it as offensive to recognise someones skin colour? Perhaps this is a US thing I just don't get.
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Edit: Is it sexist to refer to the only woman in a conference room as a woman? Is there any paralell there? |
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9th December 2020, 11:32 AM | #51 |
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Depends.
Here is an analogy. Suppose you are playing monopoly and it becomes clear that the banker has been cheating against the pieces resembling inanimate objects. But all the pieces are just arbitrary shapes denoting difference in the game. Half way through the banker says, "you caught me. I was classifying you as different pieces. We will play by the rules for here on out." A) I would be pissed that the banker just wants to act like playing by the rules from here is a solution. B) I would be double pissed if in the process of communicating what happened, I called my group the inanimate objects and the banker said, "but all pieces are the same." |
9th December 2020, 11:52 AM | #52 |
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Seems a bit OTT on the finding everything racist scale IMO.
I'm guessing the same people who find pointing out a visual difference of someone to identify them in a group racist would also not say "The woman" if the coach in question happened to be the only woman in the group, just in case their "gender identity" was a bloke. I am pretty sure there would have been occasions in the NBA where people have said the white dude. |
9th December 2020, 11:54 AM | #53 |
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If there was only one black person in a group of colleagues and someone came up to me and asked me to point out “Mike” and Mike was black I would say “He’s the black guy in that group”, If they asked about “Neil” and he was a red head and was the only one I would say “He’s the red head in that group”. (Now knowing me and my problem with faces and names I would probably have the people labelled internally as “the one with red glasses” so wouldn’t have a clue who Mike or Neil was!)
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9th December 2020, 12:01 PM | #54 |
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9th December 2020, 12:09 PM | #55 |
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9th December 2020, 12:16 PM | #56 |
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9th December 2020, 12:17 PM | #57 |
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Agreed. Taken a step further, people who are 'one of the guys' on my jobsites will playfully refer to each other by racial epithets and expressions all day long, and by sexual comments and all manner of crudity. But never, ever to a stranger or acquaintance who might not be so casual, because you don't want to hurt anyone with words.
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9th December 2020, 12:23 PM | #58 |
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A particular HVAC tech on my site (yes, a black guy) always refers to me or any other buddy as 'my n-ah'. Being older than him, I'm not comfortable responding in kind, bc it wasn't cool to do so when I was growing up and it feels hard-wired wrong. He has no qualms about making uptight white boy jokes at my expense about it.
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9th December 2020, 12:27 PM | #59 |
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9th December 2020, 12:34 PM | #60 |
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Because I don't think it is professional to refer to other professionals by their physical characteristics in a professional setting. Might I refer to them in such terms at the bar after work, maybe. But in a conference room when I have forgotten someone's name I don't say "Let's hear what the cute guy with the nicely pressed suit has to say about this topic" even if I think it is a compliment.
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Suffering is not a punishment not a fruit of sin, it is a gift of God. He allows us to share in His suffering and to make up for the sins of the world. -Mother Teresa If I had a pet panda I would name it Snowflake. |
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9th December 2020, 12:36 PM | #61 |
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9th December 2020, 12:40 PM | #62 |
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9th December 2020, 12:44 PM | #63 |
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That's hardly a paralell though. You've escalated to include a compliment and a judgement call. That's ot the same thing at all.
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"I've read this paper by Doctor Smith, now we're at the conference, I don't know which one is Doctor Smith" "Oh, she's the lady." If there's one lady at the conference, and this, I would hope, doesn't happen as much as it did, that's a perfectly acceptable way of doing it. Edit: And I think this is important, it's not 'defining'. I agree that to define someone by their physical characteristics, in almost any environment, is likely to be unacceptable. But to refer to someone by the same is fine. |
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9th December 2020, 12:46 PM | #64 | |||
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9th December 2020, 12:49 PM | #65 |
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We are talking here about a professional situation (a commercial football match) not a circle of friends. IMV it would be quite rude to refer to someone's personal characteristics in such a setting. My former firm had an annual marketing event in which they'd invite all our clients and us professional staff were expected to 'mingle' with them. If any of these clients had asked me to point out, 'Steve' or 'Mark' they would be horrified were I to say, 'He's the fat fair-haired guy over there', or 'He's the Chinese/Indian/Jewish guy'. (How do you know? He might be Korean or Japanese or even American or Pakistani or Mauritian or not Jewish at all.) What about Sue? "Oh she's that short fat lady over there", or Jim? "Oh, he's the elderly silver-haired guy'. No, I would simply take you over and introduce you properly so you can ask them for yourself how they wish you to identify them.
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9th December 2020, 12:52 PM | #66 |
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9th December 2020, 12:54 PM | #67 |
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I think you're being a little unrealistic. Introducing them just isn't viable or desirable in every situation. At some point you're going to come across a situation where you're going to have to describe them. In an environment where everyone's dressed the same, you're going to find that really difficult to do and not reference something physical.
It happens all the time at work. New colleagues ask me about the name on the bottom of an email they've received and who that is. I can't imagine contorting language to do that without saying what they looked like. What people look like is how we know who they are. There's a whole section of the brain dedicated to the 'what people look like' thing. Go to a hospital, where the vast majority of people are in either white coats or scrubs and try sending someone up to the nurses station to find a person they've never met and don't tell them what they look like. That's not likely to go well. |
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9th December 2020, 01:04 PM | #68 |
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9th December 2020, 01:11 PM | #69 |
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I'd like to hear what the fat person from finance has to say? Could we hear something from the tall person from accounting? Has the bald guy from legal approved this yet?
I have a hard time seeing where you are going.
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But, as I mentioned, this was soccer, not a professional sport. So my position is pretty off topic. |
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Suffering is not a punishment not a fruit of sin, it is a gift of God. He allows us to share in His suffering and to make up for the sins of the world. -Mother Teresa If I had a pet panda I would name it Snowflake. |
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9th December 2020, 01:19 PM | #70 |
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9th December 2020, 01:20 PM | #71 |
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Again, you've changed it from 'which one's Bob?'. 'Oh, he's the tall one'.
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"Oh, he's the dilligent one"?
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Again, I'm not talking about defining someone, I'm not talking about it becoming their moniker, just the whole 'which one's x' thing. As I say, what people look like is how we know who they are. Hell, you've probably worked with a Mr Little, or a Miss Short. Names derived direclty from the physical appearance of whoever their ancestor was when surnames became required. |
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9th December 2020, 01:22 PM | #72 |
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I think that this one's a misunderstanding: ‘Monster Hunter’ Movie Pulled From Chinese Cinemas After ‘Knees’ Joke Falls Flat (HuffPost, Dec. 5, 2020)
But without the racist chant, the misunderstanding wouldn't have occurred. |
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9th December 2020, 01:29 PM | #73 |
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9th December 2020, 01:45 PM | #74 |
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9th December 2020, 01:55 PM | #75 |
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9th December 2020, 01:57 PM | #76 |
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If you think calling her a girl was just a simple physical description, you likely missed her point entirely. Unless she finished university at a very young age, she certainly wasn’t a “girl”. Any adult woman is likely to be insulted by being called a girl, or even treated like a your girl even if you don't call her one.
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9th December 2020, 02:00 PM | #77 |
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9th December 2020, 02:02 PM | #78 |
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9th December 2020, 02:05 PM | #79 |
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9th December 2020, 02:06 PM | #80 |
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