What's the relevance of pointing out race/ethnicity?

[Bostaevski]

[ QUOTE ]
Didn't read the post referred to, but saying a guy is black or white just adds detail quick and easy. It doesn't have to mean anything. Most people like to brighten up a story by describing the people involved. Color/race is probably the quickest way to start painting a visual picture.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's the way I see it too. I tend to be highly visual in the mind's eye when someone is telling a story so I like these details.

On a side note I think it's hilarious that the announcers will be talking about boxers and it will be like "Smith is the guy in the red shorts with white trim and Johnston is wearing white shorts with gold trim" and I'm watching on TV going "dude... it's a white guy and a black guy"

[pergesu]

[ QUOTE ]
On a side note I think it's hilarious that the announcers will be talking about boxers and it will be like "Smith is the guy in the red shorts with white trim and Johnston is wearing white shorts with gold trim" and I'm watching on TV going "dude... it's a white guy and a black guy"

[/ QUOTE ]
I can see if your friend did that, but that's the way announcers have always identified boxers.

[aislephive]

[ QUOTE ]
in the original thread :Standard Blockbuster procedure wtf?!

when the poster threw in "some black guy" and then later mentioned his shock that the game was back on the shelf...

i figured he said the guy was 'black' to imply either

-some incompetence (this guy put it back on the shelf when i told him it was defective)

-some dishonesty (this guy is just going to try to rip someone else off

[/ QUOTE ]

Maybe I mentioned the guy was black and that I was "shocked" because I wouldn't expect this behaviour from a black guy? I mean, if I wrote that I "wasn't surprised" instead, now THAT comes off extremely racist. My intentions with describing that he was black were non-existant, it's just a detail. It all comes back to the illogical assumption that details should always be relevant to the big picture, or worse; assuming that they are.

[ QUOTE ]
clearly only a few people are getting my point.

some of you believe my point is, "don't mention race, if you mention someone's race you are racist!!"

of course there is relevance to mentioning race/ethnicity in certain situations.

in the blockbuster thread it had no relevance at all, i'm wondering (as i mention in the thread title), how is this relevant?

TxSteve mentioned this:

[ QUOTE ]
when the poster threw in "some black guy" and then later mentioned his shock that the game was back on the shelf...

i figured he said the guy was 'black' to imply either

-some incompetence (this guy put it back on the shelf when i told him it was defective)

-some dishonesty (this guy is just going to try to rip someone else off

[/ QUOTE ]

This is one possibility

[/ QUOTE ]

I could have posted only the "relevant" parts in a short paragraph and been done with it. But I was trying to set the scene a little and make it halfway interesting to read.

Your argument seems silly to me as it revolves around details needing to have relevance. Details are just that, details .. they're not typically needed to tell the story but they add excitement and imagery. If we left out details of anything that wasn't completely relevant to the situation then most novels would be 5% as long as they are now.

[ QUOTE ]
if OP was consistent in his post i would not hav raised an eyebrow.

example:

[ QUOTE ]
A couple days ago I rented "The Godfather" for Xbox 360. It's a pretty awesome game overall, but after an hour or two a message would pop up telling me the disc is unreadable and I need to clean it. For the first day or two it barely happens, but the third day it becomes pretty much unplayable as the message pops up about every 10 minutes and sometimes shorter. I took some old cd cleansing liquid and used it, which seemed to help a little but still kept having problems and decided enough was enough and decide to take it back the next day.

So, I get up there this afternoon and am stuck behind this white lady who is renting what appears to be over a dozen movies, and on top of that they're having all sorts of issues with their system. Eventually, about 15 minutes later some black guy rings me up. I explain that it kept giving me error messages and wasn't working. He lets me exchange it for another game, so I looked to see if maybe another Godfather copy was available but there wasn't. There isn't a great selection but given my fondness of GTA type games I decide on Saints Row.

I take a look at the disc on Saints Row as I get home and it appears to be in pretty poor shape, several scratches all around. Sure enough, after about an hour or so of playing it freezes completely. At this point it's 10:00 PM and I'm pretty annoyed. I drive down to Blockbuster again and explain my situation to one of the black guys working (not the guy I originally spoke to, he wasn't there) at the front counter. He tells me I can try and pick out another game, so I'm like .. ok? I go over to browse the 360 games again and see that they just got in another Godfather copy for 360, so naturally I'm like "sweet!". I'm a little suspicious though and I bring it up to the white guy and ask him when they got that copy in. He scans the case and then tells me this is the only copy the store has.

At this point it's pretty obvious what's going on. He immediately begins apoligizing and has no idea how why it got put back on the shelf. I end up just getting a refund altogether and leave the store.

Is this something Blockbuster does on a regular basis? It seems like quite a coincidence that I rent two games and they both stop working shortly after I rent then, and after I return one of them I mysteriously see it back on the shelf hours later.

Anybody ever work for blockbuster or have a similar experience? Also, should I complain to management or something or is that just a waste of time?

[/ QUOTE ]

even making those adjustments it looks a little odd lol

[/ QUOTE ]

I think your edited version of my story would have raised many more eyebrows than the original.

[ QUOTE ]
i like how this thread has nothing to do with what the OP asked, which is, why mention that he's a black guy in the first place? nobody has given any real argument to that effect, instead it turned into this cluster [censored] with everyone crying "PC reverse racism"

[/ QUOTE ]

Why wouldn't I mention that he was black? Should I have gone out of my way to either not include any details about anybody's race, religion, gender, etc? Or should I have gone out of my way to include them for everybody as to not seem like I singled somebody out?

Also, the OP in this thread admitted to doing it sometimes himself and said I'm probably not racist. If this were true then I don't see why it's relevant that I included somebody's race in a story unless he thinks I might be racist.

[NT!]

i think the consensus among people not being retarded is that the black thing is fairly irrelevant and doesn't really add anything to the story, but that it's not sinister or anything. to me, it may reflect a mild bias on all of our parts (myself included) that non-white persons merit a racial specifier, whereas if nothing is added, it can be assumed they are white. that speaks mostly to our surroundings. if you lived in Harlem, for instance, you probably wouldn't bother to specify every time a retail employee was black.

i think OP specifically refrained from making an accusation towards you - and he acknowledged that he does the same thing. i don't think there's any need to be so defensive. 'racist' is a word that gets thrown around so much that it's basically meaningless. is it possible that your word choice reflects a subtle bias? yes. is it also possible that it is relatively unconscious, that there is no ill intent in it, that it reflects your surroundings more than anything? definitely.

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The other details are not absolutely essential to grasping the point of the story, but they help to explain his actions. The Mexican guy adds nothing.

[/ QUOTE ]
But is it bad or racist to say that he's Mexican?

[/ QUOTE ]

Even asking that question proves you're a racist.

Honky!

[TxSteve]

[ QUOTE ]
i think the consensus among people not being retarded is that the black thing is fairly irrelevant and doesn't really add anything to the story, but that it's not sinister or anything. to me, it may reflect a mild bias on all of our parts (myself included) that non-white persons merit a racial specifier, whereas if nothing is added, it can be assumed they are white. that speaks mostly to our surroundings. if you lived in Harlem, for instance, you probably wouldn't bother to specify every time a retail employee was black.

i think OP specifically refrained from making an accusation towards you - and he acknowledged that he does the same thing. i don't think there's any need to be so defensive. 'racist' is a word that gets thrown around so much that it's basically meaningless. is it possible that your word choice reflects a subtle bias? yes. is it also possible that it is relatively unconscious, that there is no ill intent in it, that it reflects your surroundings more than anything? definitely.

[/ QUOTE ]

way to end the thread NT! that ain't right being all reasonable and what not.

[aislephive]

[ QUOTE ]
i think the consensus among people not being retarded is that the black thing is fairly irrelevant and doesn't really add anything to the story, but that it's not sinister or anything. to me, it may reflect a mild bias on all of our parts (myself included) that non-white persons merit a racial specifier, whereas if nothing is added, it can be assumed they are white. that speaks mostly to our surroundings. if you lived in Harlem, for instance, you probably wouldn't bother to specify every time a retail employee was black.

i think OP specifically refrained from making an accusation towards you - and he acknowledged that he does the same thing. i don't think there's any need to be so defensive. 'racist' is a word that gets thrown around so much that it's basically meaningless. is it possible that your word choice reflects a subtle bias? yes. is it also possible that it is relatively unconscious, that there is no ill intent in it, that it reflects your surroundings more than anything? definitely.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah good points, I agree with that totally. Like I said in the other thread, when I'm talking to somebody I almost always assume they're reffering to a white heterosexual male until told otherwise. I think that's just the way most people are depending on who you grew up with or who you are talking to.

[Bostaevski]

I think it's fine to note the guy was black. Because otherwise I would have just assumed he was white and the picture in my mind would have been wrong (I live in a predominately white area so I associate the unspoken details of the blockbuster post to the world that I am familiar with). If you had said you went to the blockbuster in Compton, CA I would have assumed the cashier was black and would have expected his race to be called out only if he wasn't. I also would not find it odd if you were talking about your trip to Cabo San Lucas and you went to the front desk of your hotel and talked to a white/black guy. That's because I expect that person to be mexican.

No, the detail of his race is not relevant to the story any more than (3-3) is relevant to the equation 2 + 5 + (3-3) = 7.

I just think it's more interesting when I have some more details. The original post was more interesting than if I had read this:
1) Rented game
2) Scratched
3) Return game
4) Hassle
5) etc etc

[qwnu]

[ QUOTE ]
My intentions with describing that he was black were non-existant, it's just a detail. It all comes back to the illogical assumption that details should always be relevant to the big picture, or worse; assuming that they are.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, but racial identifiers are a special kind of detail. If they are irrelevant, they become provocative and inflammatory, as evidenced by the existence of this thread.

Instead of comparing it to a work of literature, I think the OP (or OQP - originally quoted post) is more like a piece of journalism. Journalistic orgs usually have some kind of policy about this e.g., :

[ QUOTE ]
Avoid casual mentions of race, sex, religion or age except when pertinent. No mention should be made of a person's race, sex, religion, sexual orientation or age unless it is germane to a story. If the police issue a description of a suspect still at large, and the description is detailed enough that someone could make an identification from it, it may be appropriate to include racial identification. Race may also be pertinent in stories about racial conflict.

[/ QUOTE ]

I mean, you just wouldn't see this sort of thing in a straight-up news story. Whether this is a wise and just policy for journalists to follow can be argued. But I think the main conflict in the thread is between those who viewed the post as a form of "story-telling" and those who would hold it to journalistic standards.

[aislephive]

Why would the OP be held to journalistic standards?