Is this offensive, or are they just over compensation-reactions?
 

Here's the scenario;

I'm out with a group of friends and the subject of race/prejudice comes up. Someone begins by talking about how bad the racism is that still exists in this country.

I make a point about racism being something that's existed from the dawn of time, and that it will likely never go away, because it's human nature for a lot of people to have prejudices against a certain race or ethnicity, but race is often just the common denominator in their diatribes against a certain group of people, and that racism is making a predetermined judgement (prejudice) based on previous experiences with people of the same ethnicity- which, is also human nature, and not doing so is counter-intuitive, i.e., if I see a white man in a mercedes who's wearing a suit and tie, I can make some fairly accurate assesments about him, same goes for if I see a white guy with a shaved head and tattoo sleeves up and down his arms. It doesn't mean I'm racist, it just means I have a selective memory of common characteristics among a group of people.

i.e.,

In the South, and in my experience, black people speak much differently than say, (x) person from (x). And it differs with age, e.g., I've met a lot of elderly black people who speak with a southern drawl, but also use poor grammar, as opposed to young black people who talk more along the lines of ebonics/ghetto.

Stay with me here, and please understand that these are just observations, and I hold no prejudice against a person because of race or background.

Let's assume the above to be true about language. Suppose one of my pet peeves (which isn't really) is when people dont use the english language correctly, and in my time and experience in the South I've noticed that a large portion of Black people don't speak English the way I like it to be spoken. Now, here's the point- It's nearly impossible for me to vocalize that point of view without someone throwing the scarlet letter of racism upon me. Granted, there are some people who would disagree with that, but for the most part that opinion will make others assume I've some racial prejudices, etc.

I don't like poor customer service representatives who work for big corporations. I dont care if they're white, black, whatever, I get really peeved at people who likely hate their job and don't give a [censored], etc.

Enter Microsoft, and many other big corporations (US Airways) who have outsourced their customer service to India, or the Phillipines, etc. There have been several times when I've had someone who spoke very poor English attempt to fix my problem, and it was very frustrating.

Keep the above in mind for one second, then consider this; when someone is disgusted, annoyed, or upset with another person, dating all the way back to sibling rivalries, one or both people often mock the dialogue of the other by exaggerating their own voice to imitate that of the other person. You weren't being racist when your sister made fun of you and you made fun of the way she made fun of you, but suppose I put my tongue on the roof of my mouth and immitated the way the Customer Service rep handled my situation in broken English- again, someone will inevitably think that I'm being racist, derogatory to a class of people, when in reality I'm expressing my frustrations in the same manner I would (actually I wouldn't, but you get the point) in any other situation with any other person.

I could elaborate on this further, but I can sum it up by saying:

Sometimes when you make an observation or complaint about a habit or tendency that is often specific to a race or group of people, you are automatically labeled prejudice or racist by a large part of society.

I could give some better examples where making an observation about a persons character is considered racist, when, in fact, you're making your judgement based on the only thing all people have in common despite race, ethnicity, or origin- the quality of their character.

Thoughts?

My general idea regarding these types of reactions (knee jerk type reactions to comments about a group of people) is that the person giving the reaction is over compensating because of definite racism and abuse that has, at one point, been directed to a group of people- which is sort of narrow minded, because throughout the course of history nearly every race and group of people has experienced tremendous predjudice and racism i.e., Christian, Jews, Blacks, Asians, etc.


-Tex

edited to add; I dont think I did a great job explaining this situation, but it's closely related to our society becoming so [censored] pc-sensitive.

Re: Is this offensive, or are they just over compensation-reactions?
 

in before "ban for racism"

Re: Is this offensive, or are they just over compensation-reactions?
 

I know what you're saying and partially agree. But you should just generally follow cultural norms with what is offensive and what is not offensive. Current culture deems what is offensive and what is not offensive to say. There's no reason to make random people upset at you and hurt their feelings.

If you make fun of your sister because of the way she talks it's still offensive, just not racist. There's no "correct" way to speak a language, just a correct way to speak it in certain contexts. There's nothing inherently wrong with people speaking ebonics.

My view is that people are going to be continually less and less racist with the widespread use of the internet. It's harder to be racist when you know more about the other race (which is accomplished on the internet).

The way we are now is pretty much ridiculous. Everyone has to claim they are racially blind when virtually nobody is. If you admit that you have racial bias (by being honest) you are looked down upon.

Re: Is this offensive, or are they just over compensation-reactions?
 

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My view is that people are going to be continually less and less racist with the widespread use of the internet. It's harder to be racist when you know more about the other race (which is accomplished on the internet).

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That's funny, because I just see more and more people saying retarded and racist things and making jokes they would never make in public, because they aren't accountable for what they say on the internet.

Re: Is this offensive, or are they just over compensation-reactions?
 

I think it's petty funny you think that Indians have poor English, they actually usually have very good English just with an Indian accent, though if they outsourced MS support service to Scotland and you couldn't understand their accent you'd probably assume they had poor English.

I disagree with most of what you have to say and I wouldn't bother to reply to the rest of it.

Re: Is this offensive, or are they just over compensation-reactions?
 

Speaking of using the English language, you should know that most of the people in the North don't like how people from the South speak English and have a prejudice against them as being dumb.

Re: Is this offensive, or are they just over compensation-reactions?
 

Complaining that you cannot properly communicate with someone is not a big deal. Blame it on that person (who probably feels equally frustrated) and you're then trying to unnecessarily pin blame. Bringing race/nationality into your complaint (as in, "I couldn't understand that idiot Indian guy") is clearly racist. Noting that the communication is due to some kind of racial/ethnic barrier is absolutely not.

Re: Is this offensive, or are they just over compensation-reactions?
 

I hear black ppl have huge dicks

Re: Is this offensive, or are they just over compensation-reactions?
 

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I hear black ppl have huge dicks

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Def true, but too lazy to use them.

Re: Is this offensive, or are they just over compensation-reactions?
 

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Complaining that you cannot properly communicate with someone is not a big deal. Blame it on that person (who probably feels equally frustrated) and you're then trying to unnecessarily pin blame. Bringing race/nationality into your complaint (as in, "I couldn't understand that idiot Indian guy") is clearly racist. Noting that the communication is due to some kind of racial/ethnic barrier is absolutely not.

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It's a language barrier, not an ethnic/racial barrier. However, calling someone an idiot because you can't understand them is definitely a clear species of dumb.

Re: Is this offensive, or are they just over compensation-reactions?
 

I understand your points.

However, you should appreciate that as you use your past experience in evaluating other people, other people do that to you.

People will apply a racial Turing Test on your behavior. If what you say is not different than what racist people would say, they are going to judge you as racist.

Re: Is this offensive, or are they just over compensation-reactions?
 

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Complaining that you cannot properly communicate with someone is not a big deal. Blame it on that person (who probably feels equally frustrated) and you're then trying to unnecessarily pin blame. Bringing race/nationality into your complaint (as in, "I couldn't understand that idiot Indian guy") is clearly racist. Noting that the communication is due to some kind of racial/ethnic barrier is absolutely not.

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It's a language barrier, not an ethnic/racial barrier. However, calling someone an idiot because you can't understand them is definitely a clear species of dumb.

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The language barrier is a result of other barriers, though, wouldn't you say? I guess it's simplistic and sometimes incorrect to call a language barrier a racial or ethnic barrier, but it's certainly correlated.

Re: Is this offensive, or are they just over compensation-reactions?
 

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...and in my time and experience in the South I've noticed that a large portion of Black people don't speak English the way I like it to be spoken...

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The question is simply why have you noticed this about blacks when a moment's reflection would tell you that there are poor English speakers (no matter your definition) of every race, creed, class, etc. If you already recognize that many non-blacks fail to measure up to your standards then why does skin color come up at all?

Re: Is this offensive, or are they just over compensation-reactions?
 

also, "The way I like English to be spoken." WTF, did you invent it? They probably don't like the way you talk either.

Re: Is this offensive, or are they just over compensation-reactions?
 

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...and in my time and experience in the South I've noticed that a large portion of Black people don't speak English the way I like it to be spoken...

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The question is simply why have you noticed this about blacks when a moment's reflection would tell you that there are poor English speakers (no matter your definition) of every race, creed, class, etc.

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This is the type of narrow minded point of view I'm talking about. You infer that i'm being biased towards black people? Why? Because I used this as an example?

The point is it's increasingly difficult to point out a cultural difference that you consider to be a fault of a person from a different race or group of people without someone drawing a conclusion that you're being derogatory to them because of their ethnicity/association.

Re: Is this offensive, or are they just over compensation-reactions?
 

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also, "The way I like English to be spoken." WTF, did you invent it? They probably don't like the way you talk either.

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That's really annoying. Look at it in it's complete context, because you forgot this part:


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suppose one of my pet peeves (which isn't really)

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It was an example nt.

Re: Is this offensive, or are they just over compensation-reactions?
 

tx,

ok, i am responding by saying the person in the example is kind of a douche then.

Re: Is this offensive, or are they just over compensation-reactions?
 

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I think it's petty funny you think that Indians have poor English, they actually usually have very good English just with an Indian accent, though if they outsourced MS support service to Scotland and you couldn't understand their accent you'd probably assume they had poor English.

I disagree with most of what you have to say and I wouldn't bother to reply to the rest of it.

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Case and point.

Re: Is this offensive, or are they just over compensation-reactions?
 

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tx,

ok, i am responding by saying the person in the example is kind of a douche then.

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I think something about having double standards would be more appropriate than 'douche', but I thought I needed to clarify the above.

Re: Is this offensive, or are they just over compensation-reactions?
 

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Suppose one of my pet peeves (which isn't really) is when people dont use the english language correctly

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define correct

Re: Is this offensive, or are they just over compensation-reactions?
 

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because it's human nature for a lot of people to have prejudices against a certain race or ethnicity,

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uh, no.

and it looks like this might be your thesis statement? so, no to the rest too. (i didn't read it though.)

Re: Is this offensive, or are they just over compensation-reactions?
 

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because it's human nature for a lot of people to have prejudices against a certain race or ethnicity,

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uh, no.

and it looks like this might be your thesis statement? so, no to the rest too. (i didn't read it though.)

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So from your statement I can accurately extrapolate that you don't feel that there is much racism in the world today, and that as a species human beings haven't shown themselves to be predisposed to prejudice in the last 2000 years.

Um, no.

Re: Is this offensive, or are they just over compensation-reactions?
 

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Someone begins by talking about how bad the racism is that still exists in this country.

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These people really give me a case of the ass. Disrespecting a person because of their race is racism. Treating them unfairly, making them live differently, denying their rights, etc. because of their race is racism.
Sorry, calling a person by their race is not. Even if it is calling someone an idiot. One may be wrong, but it is not racist.
I grew up in the 50's and I saw what racism was. These people don't have a clue.
The whiny pc people with their "racism" and their "offensive" this and that make me want to just slap some sense into them.

Re: Is this offensive, or are they just over compensation-reactions?
 

dude ure racist to some extent - just like everyone else in this country... hell - i'm probably one of the most racist people out there... just come to terms with it and know that other people are in the same boat as you. Someone that tells you they are not racist at all is probably lying.

Re: Is this offensive, or are they just over compensation-reactions?
 

I have grown to be really racist against white people (I'm white [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]).

Then again, maybe I'm just a misanthrope.

Re: Is this offensive, or are they just over compensation-reactions?
 

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dude ure racist to some extent - just like everyone else in this country... hell - i'm probably one of the most racist people out there... just come to terms with it and know that other people are in the same boat as you. Someone that tells you they are not racist at all is probably lying.

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Just a genius, well thought-out post there.

Re: Is this offensive, or are they just over compensation-reactions?
 

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also, "The way I like English to be spoken." WTF, did you invent it? They probably don't like the way you talk either.

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I take issue with this. Tx didn't invent the English language, but there are rules to speaking it. Most/all people deviate from correct grammar and syntax to varying degrees. That does not mean there is not a correct way.

Is it your opinion, NT!, that the speech you would expect to hear from a high school English teacher should be regarded as no better than what you would hear listening to an illiterate redneck? Apologies if I'm putting words in your mouth, but you seem to be indicating that one doesn't have the right to judge others' use or misuse of the English language.

Edit: And I'm not trying to suggest that everyone must conform and begin speaking perfect English. I know I don't. But there is a point when people's speech deviates so far from "correct" that they become difficult to understand, and reveal themselves to be generally pretty dumb. I don't think that kind of speech should be regarded as no less correct than what we might define as traditionally proper speech.

Edit 2: Deleted reference to Zeebo's post.

Re: Is this offensive, or are they just over compensation-reactions?
 

I agree with the OP pretty much completely. There are definately built-in qualities in us humans that dispose us to racism. While I think we can learn to get rid of it (the only way is if the globe or parts of it truly become multi-cultural and that'll take a long time) it's definately something that's closely related to our nature.

Some people are too PC, there's no denying that. One of the signs of a truly multi-cultural enviroment would be that you would be allowed to make fun of everybody on the same terms. Unfortunately some people are over-sensitive because they have experienced/heard real racists use language that's kind of similar. Of course there's a difference whether you criticize person for their skin color or by their personal attributes but sometimes people have difficulties separating the difference from your words. And that's also a human attribute and a process that we have go through before racism really becomes marginalized in whatever society you live in.

Re: Is this offensive, or are they just over compensation-reactions?
 

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Case and point.

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hahah

Re: Is this offensive, or are they just over compensation-reactions?
 

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I think it's petty funny you think that Indians have poor English, they actually usually have very good English just with an Indian accent, though if they outsourced MS support service to Scotland and you couldn't understand their accent you'd probably assume they had poor English.

I disagree with most of what you have to say and I wouldn't bother to reply to the rest of it.

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I agree with this (because shottish people cant speak english properly), but if they were in scotland I could call them a scottish [censored] and noone would say squat but if you said the same about an indian then you'd be racist because they have different skin colour. PC [censored] annoys me a lot.

Re: Is this offensive, or are they just over compensation-reactions?
 

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also, "The way I like English to be spoken." WTF, did you invent it? They probably don't like the way you talk either.

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I take issue with this. Tx didn't invent the English language, but there are rules to speaking it. Most/all people deviate from correct grammar and syntax to varying degrees. That does not mean there is not a correct way.

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You are American and therefor spell colour and neighbourhood incorrectly.

If you cant spell many of the more basic words correctly, then what hope do you all have for pronunciation?

Language is really dynamic, i may make jokes about how you spell stuff (and ive once had someone hear questioning my intelligence because i spelt a few words like they are correctly spelt) but language nazi'ism is really pathetic.

Speak how you want, write how you want. Whatever. The future of English is 'texting', and im dissapointed at that, but thats how language develops.

CU 2morrow lolz

Wont touch on the other stuff, yes, everyone has prejudices and sometimes these are classed as racism. Shock.

Re: Is this offensive, or are they just over compensation-reactions?
 

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I think it's petty funny you think that Indians have poor English, they actually usually have very good English just with an Indian accent, though if they outsourced MS support service to Scotland and you couldn't understand their accent you'd probably assume they had poor English.

I disagree with most of what you have to say and I wouldn't bother to reply to the rest of it.

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I agree with this (because shottish people cant speak english properly), but if they were in scotland I could call them a scottish [censored] and noone would say squat but if you said the same about an indian then you'd be racist because they have different skin colour. PC [censored] annoys me a lot.

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DING!


and THAT is why the whole thing is BS.

Re: Is this offensive, or are they just over compensation-reactions?
 

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Suppose one of my pet peeves (which isn't really) is when people dont use the english language correctly, and in my time and experience in the South I've noticed that a large portion of Black people don't speak English the way I like it to be spoken.

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Case and point.

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Re: Is this offensive, or are they just over compensation-reactions?
 

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You are American and therefor spell colour and neighbourhood incorrectly.

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Color and neighborhood are the correct official spellings in American English. We have dictionaries that tell us so. I know you're making a joke, but it doesn't really work IMO.

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Language is really dynamic, i may make jokes about how you spell stuff (and ive once had someone hear questioning my intelligence because i spelt a few words like they are correctly spelt) but language nazi'ism is really pathetic.

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Not sure who you think is being a language nazi. I just don't agree with the general idea that one way of speaking English is just as good as another. If that's the case, why did my teachers tell us this stuff was important? Why did they try to make us learn grammar?

To be clear, I'm not talking about accents. Bill Clinton and Tony Blair both pronounce their words very differently, but both speak the English language very well. I'm not really talking about slang so much, either. I'm talking about this kind of stuff:

"I seen your ex-girlfriend at the bar the other night."

"We was all having a good time."

"Why can't they do it theirself?"

Tons of people in my neck of the woods talk just like this, even a couple of my friends I grew up with. I dare say my speech is better than theirs, because I do not make these errors.

Re: Is this offensive, or are they just over compensation-reactions?
 

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Case and point.

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hahah

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game, set, match.

Re: Is this offensive, or are they just over compensation-reactions?
 

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Case and point.

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hahah

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game, set, match.

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Suppose one of my pet peeves (which isn't really) is when people dont use the english language correctly

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He was using it as an example to make a larger point. He already made this clear earlier in the thread.