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Can Racists be Good People?

Are racists good people?


  • Total voters
    44
No they do not.
"All" (aka 100%) is High School Strawman debate Dishonestly trying to get out of a True generalization that may be just higher ON AVERAGE, In GENERAL, May even be 90% or even 99%.
All just gives the person wishing to Mislead an 'out'.


Then before I deal with the rest of your paragraph, you are admitting True generalizations CAN Be made about Racial groups.
That is 'Racist' if not mean-spirited.
Yes of course (GIANT DUH), not "ALL" East Africans are better distance runners than "all" ie, Eskimos, but the Racism of the statement is true nonetheless.


Yes, I just explained that.
Nonetheless East Africans are overwhelmingly better distance runners is true, but of course not "ALL" are.
Jesus, how pathetic this is!

If someone claims one race has a higher IQ than another, they mean ON AVERAGE, they OF COURSE don't mean ALL BILLION of one race are smarter than ALL BILLION of another.
They mean the Average of one or more is significantly higher.

Illustration:
images


Those show Race hierarchy in IQ and they OVERLAP. They do NOT mean ALL of one race is smarter than ALL of another, but they DO mean generalizations about average IQ of the group CAN be made.



Of course, you would want to time every runner first, but the Racial statement East Africans are better distance runners remains TRUE, if not [duh] "ALL".

As I always say, you Never know who you're shaking hands with regardless of appearance.
He Could be an Ethiopean Astrophysicist, or an Japanese champion Marathoner. It's just NOT nearly as likely as the opposite for Genetic/RACE reasons.

Juvenilely using the superlative/strawman (never claimed) "all" makes a mockery of the debate of truisms.
One in which you admitted Racial tendency/Racism nonetheless.

You seem to be agreeing with the first part of what I said except that you have a more favorable view of racists. Also, I don't assume that (for example) East Africans are better runners becaused of their race, it may be due to other factors such as their environment, culture or nutrition.

The difference between a racist and a non-racist is what you do with those statistics (assuming that they are accurate), which in my opinion, are rarely useful. A racist will use them to discriminate, a non-racist will judge people as individuals.

Also, I don't believe that intellegence is measurable without a cultural bias, largely because there are many too many types of intelligence. Human brain's are too complex to evaluate people with a hierarchal label. I especially question the uncredited graph that you used.
 
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Why does religious morals trump everything?

not what i am saying,

i said that i know from a religious moral prospective to treat anyone different just because of their skin color is wrong or bad.

however i know you are not going to use that prospective, so what are you using to assert someone is bad.......are you using society?
 
I relate to his post. I have told some people in my personal life that their views are racist, but I don't constantly tell them so. Constantly telling somebody what they said is racist will not lead to them changing their views, and they will keep on saying things racist. After a while, you just learn to deal with it and put up with it.



Do you think accusations of racism should be made lightly? I'm sincerely asking for your opinion on that (not at all suggesting it's something you do). And the reason I ask is that it's occurring to me that, for some, it may be no big deal to say that about someone because to them, it's not the same as saying they're a bad person. By the same token, it's difficult to not take extreme exception at being accused of it.
 
not what i am saying,

i said that i know from a religious moral prospective to treat anyone different just because of their skin color is wrong or bad.

however i know you are not going to use that prospective, so what are you using to assert someone is bad.......are you using society?

As I stated earlier I am using common sense.
 
I would like to see some examples that include the post being responded to. I have seen far more bigoted remarks about Obama than claims that a criticism of him is racist.

I don't save posts, so you're out of luck there. But I do agree with your last sentence. There are racist and then there are those whom are accused of being racist through policy differences.
 
I think that's reasonable. It would be like somebody telling me, "he fights dogs for a hobby but he's a good guy." For me, that act alone would define that person entirely for me.

Actions are different than personal views. If somebody in my family committed hate crimes and was a neo-nazi or member of the KKK, I would feel entirely different.

In fact, when my sister found a notebook her son brought back from his babysitters full of neo nazi propaganda, she didn't let that person watch her son anymore. Her neighbor who says bigoted things but is not a dangerous person, she views differently than a neo nazi.
 
As I stated earlier I am using common sense.

no.... you not able you tell me where you are getting your moral code at of what you think is bad.

since i am a christian, i get it from a that prospective........i am asking where you get yours.
 
no.... you not able you tell me where you are getting your moral code at of what you think is bad.

since i am a christian, i get it from a that prospective........i am asking where you get yours.

I just told you. From common sense. One persons melanin is not superior to others.
 
I advised my children to stay in their own race because we are so few and some of us feel the need to make more of us. Is that racist to you?

Yes, since you value preservation of your race over your child's freedom of choice. It is more understandable if you are genuinely from a group of people that are of a very small number. I have heard racists from highly populous groups use that same justification so I don't have a lot of respect for it. There is also the fact that much of your DNA will still be carried into the future, it just won't be as "pure."

I support preserving positive aspects of all cultures, but preserving racial purity is ridiculous since everyone is already mixed race to a certain degree and race is not clearly associated with any significant positive or negative attributes. Imagine a world in which everyone is mixed race and skin color and other racial indicators are considered inconsequential. If you think that is a bad outcome you are a racist.
 
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I just told you. From common sense. One persons melanin is not superior to others.

no..... you are not answering, how do you determine a person is bad......what moral code are you using to make that determination..........since i use the bible, what are you using...that tells you a person is bad.

this is what fascinates me is about people, how people who do not have a religious code, believe they can create their own code, which is full of pitfalls.
 
no..... you are not answering, how do you determine a person is bad......what moral code are you using to make that determination..........since i use the bible, what are you using...that tells you a person is bad.
Again, I told you, I am using common sense.

this is what fascinates me is about people, how people who do not have a religious code, believe they can create their own code, which is full of pitfalls.
Uhhhhhhhhhh
 
Sometimes people can't help to be influenced by their environment and surroundings. My sister works in law enforcement and has seen people involved in the KKK, Aryan Brotherhood, and neo nazi groups. They actually target youth, try to suck them in, and it's difficult to get out and leave. In some of those cases, I feel they are young, stupid, impressionable, and may end up getting trapped.

Other people are taught to be racist by their racist parents involved in groups like the KKK.

I think racism comes from a place of ignorance. Research suggests the more people are exposed to others and realize they are not very different, the less racist they become.

With that being said, there is a big difference between being an ignorant racist, and being a person capable of kicking somebody to death because of skin color.

The people I know with racist tendencies, aren't capable of that. That's the difference between hate and ignorance.



I struggle with this question a lot. I live in an undeniable racist area. I have talked on this forum before about my hometown so I wont go into it again, but it is white, I am talking very white to this day. Growing up here I never seen a minority of any kind until we started going to church in the big city. I get racist email from my Mother and other family members on a regular basis. Sitting around having a beer Friday evening with my friends down at the legion the Furegson riots came on and the discussion turned to the N****** exhibiting normal n***** behavior said it proudly pointing out he aint racist. I was raised here and really did not know any better until I moved away in the Marine Corps and for years after I got out I lived in Philly returning to my home town in late 80's. It was culture shock. I really could not vote because I dont know if they can be good people or not. I guess at best they are very ignorant. But I dont know about good. Others are just haters.
 
On the heels of reading how it's just totally ok and no big deal to accuse people of racism because, hey, it doesn't mean you're a bad person if you are, I'm wondering if most people agree. Are racists good people?

Need a minute to get the poll up.



I need to draw a distinction between racism and discrimination, the latter being more about telling Polack jokes etc.

In that regard I have found that racism is usually accompanied by blind ignorance; I find being around them disturbing and mentally and emotionally taxing. In try to avoid them and certainly don't socialize with them, especially when my wife was alive, being of Chinese dissent is hard to wear and still can be for my daughters who are neither but both.

My Dad, a very liberal thinker for a blue collar worker was a bigot, and very discriminatory in his words, stereotyping everyone from "Polacks" to "Krauts" and often "Frogs", but there wasn't a mean bone in his body, if someone needed help it mattered not their race or nationality, although he might have something to say about that "negro" and how "they" never look after their cars after he helped them get started.

My grandmother, a Polish immigrant, was also a bigot, she would always refer to the people down the street as "those Jews", but always when she was instructing us kids to go along the railroad tracks and collect loose coal, and give one bucket to "those Jews". She didn't like the Amish, nor the French for some reason, but it was all words.

So, a bigot can be a good person, yes, and discriminate. But while any racist is capable of a good anything, no one can be "good" while carrying hate in one's heart
 
no..... you are not answering, how do you determine a person is bad......what moral code are you using to make that determination..........since i use the bible, what are you using...that tells you a person is bad.

this is what fascinates me is about people, how people who do not have a religious code, believe they can create their own code, which is full of pitfalls.
Religious codes are subject to flaws in human interpretation and bias as well.
 
no..... you are not answering, how do you determine a person is bad......what moral code are you using to make that determination..........since i use the bible, what are you using...that tells you a person is bad.

this is what fascinates me is about people, how people who do not have a religious code, believe they can create their own code, which is full of pitfalls.

I can't answer for him, but I believe most of us who have moral views that are not directly based on religion make our determinations based on observation as to whether a behavior or philosophy causes harm to others. In ambiguous situations, one has to make an educated guess to determine which action will create the least harm. In some situations upholding a principal that is important for maintaining peace and stability is more important than some harm that may be the result. The belief that all people should be treated equally and fairly unless one has a very good reason not to do so is one of those principals.
 
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I can't answer for him, but I believe most of us who have moral views that are not directly based on religion make our determinations based on observation as to whether a behavior or philosophy causes harm to others. In ambiguous situations, one has to make an educated guess to determine which action will create the least harm. In some situations upholding a principal that is important for maintaining peace and stability is more important than some harm that may be the result. Treating all people equally and fairly unless one has a very good reason not to do so is one of those principals.

OK, i understand that...however i stated to him, if a person is racist but uses disassociation as the means of exercising it....causing no physical or emotional pain, is that person bad...he stated yes.
 
Interesting post. I don't know many people my own age who I would consider racist.


Yes, but I think the decent racist is getting less and less common.

Almost all decent racists, it seems to me, are people who are racist because that's the culture they grew up with. They're mostly elderly, although there are still a few here and there who just had a very isolated cultural experience growing up.

They tend to be racist to a degree that is roughly 20% less than whatever they grew up with culturally, and it's typically a somewhat impotent belief. They mostly know the times have changed and some of them don't even resent that -- they just grew up how they did, that's what they got used to, and they haven't really let go of it. Some are worse than others.

A lot of us have a grandparent who is racist in this manner, myself included. Yeah, my grandmother is kind of racist. She also believes in separation, because that's how things were in her day. She still treats a black person fine if they come over though. And like most people of her type, she's a good person in all the ways that count. She doesn't hate anyone -- she just grew up however she did, and she's too old to change now.

It can be a little embarrassing to hear them, especially those who are so old that they don't always remember to limit saying such things to close company, but most of us get it's just a product of their time, it's not going to change, it's not going to hurt anyone, and they lived through WWII damn it, so don't argue things with them. Their blood pressure is bad enough as it is, and they should just be left alone to enjoy the twilight of their lives without people fighting with them.

But those people are dying. Not just from age, but also because the insular communities that held on to that are getting less and less insulated.

Most younger racists are not particularly decent people. They didn't get that way passively, by community osmosis, the way our grandparents did (or a limited number of people who came from the remaining insular communities in this country). They got that way by active distaste or even hatred which they then chose to aim in the particular direction of race.

They cultivated that within themselves, they are more likely to spend time going on about it unprovoked, they are more confrontational to people around them -- including of races they don't like -- and it just generally makes up a bigger part of their personality.

It isn't just that they're racist. It's what kind of internal reality it took for someone growing up in a society that disavows hating people based on superficiality to wind up that way anyway. And if you can bare to be around them for long enough to find out, there usually is some kind of point in time where they decided to be that way.

People who harbor those kinds of feelings usually aren't particularly good people.
 
Interesting post. I don't know many people my own age who I would consider racist.

Well, "younger" is relative. I'd say the majority of "cultural" racists are over the age of 70, at this point. Anyone below that was a kid when desegregation happened, and have little cultural excuse, apart from very small towns where "natural" segregation continued for much longer (and in a few cases, still does).
 
Damn... that's really messed up. Did she ever say anything to your wife, and did your wife have any clue your mom was racist towards her... or was your mom that good at hiding it?

My mother was a very, very good person. I never saw her act mean towards anyone at all. But she was racist. When I brought my Asian wife home to meet her (at our family home in the Mississippi Delta), she pulled me off to one side and said, "I wish you'd married a black girl!" But 'black' wasn't the word she used.

My mother was what I call a "good racist"...meaning that they would never hurt the person of that other race (and the same thing goes for any prejudice, whether ethnic, religious, whatever...it's all works the same way)...but as soon as the person of that other race was out of earshot, out would come all the old racist assumptions and generalizations.

It's so sad - I love the MS Delta, the land, the weather, the food (oh, man, the food!), and my whole family's all in a small cemetery there all the way back to the 1870's...but I will never live there again. And the one reason I will never live there again is that I can't stand the racism I see and hear there every day from my fellow whites. And they're almost all 'good racists', meaning that they'd risk their lives in a heartbeat to save a black man in danger...but again, once that black man's out of earshot...you get the idea.
 
I don't know what you are talking about... is it a southern thing?

Here's where I have to acknowledge that my question is vague by not defining "racist" given that using the term "black cloud" and "black hole" in a talking graduation card is blatant racism (because after all, it might be saying "black ho", you know how Hallmark is).
 
And one more observation - most racists really don't realize that they are racist. My whole family was racist...but we would all have denied being racist at all.

Funny... I would agree. I think one of the first things a racist/prejudice person does and says when confronted is declare, "I am NOT a racist!" especially when it's a black person questioning, "what do you mean by...."
 
What if they don't stay in their race? What would you do? Just curious...

I advised my children to stay in their own race because we are so few and some of us feel the need to make more of us. Is that racist to you?
 
Damn... that's really messed up. Did she ever say anything to your wife, and did your wife have any clue your mom was racist towards her... or was your mom that good at hiding it?

I'm sure my wife knew. To her credit, my mother did try to be nice to my wife...but my grandmother wasn't nice to her at all. Instead of staying for two weeks, we left the house the very next morning and spent the rest of the time in a no-tell motel in the closest town until we could take the train back to Washington state.
 
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