Wow, that was racist

[gumpzilla]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Would racism be important if race didn't correlate with socioeconomic status?

[/ QUOTE ]

I think the case of antisemitism makes the answer obvious.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's not necessarily clear to me, though it's certainly sort of the opposite of what I meant. Weren't Jews historically a popular target/scapegoat because they were unusually wealthy? Would that hatred still have existed if it weren't for that, or would it have been as virulent? I'm not sure.

As far as the racism vs. ignorance thing, it seems to me like some of the problem is inherent in how you define racism. I'm assuming that to the extent there is disagreement in this thread, it is because people don't have matching definitions of what racism is. Some people seem to be working with a viewpoint that it's not racism unless there's straight up hate involved. This is a rather cartoonish view, in my opinion, and is probably pretty rarely the case. At the other end of the spectrum, I think you could also make the argument that any kind of racial prejudging is racism, in some sense. I don't think this is a useful definition because at this level everybody would be racist. So the actual definition has to fall somewhere in between, though I'm not sure where.

[mmbt0ne]

CDC,

she probably heard about your involvement in that shooting a few nights ago and was just trying to apologize and show respect.

[disjunction]

[ QUOTE ]
Its more of a pick your battles type thing. There are serious race/religion/discrimination issues in the world today, that I don't care about [censored] like this when its quite likely thats its just a dumb girl doing something stupid without any malicious intent.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is exactly it. The death of racism is when you stop thinking about race as an important way to categorize people. The categories of people in this story are educated versus uneducated. Stories about small incidents of racism remind people that you can categorize by race, and then everyone remembers what team they are supposed to be on.

Then again, it's important that incidents of racism are frowned upon and considered unacceptable. In this case, some lady bowed. Now, the term "racism" generally connotes that you consider another culture inferior. In this case I guess that the OP implies that said lady looks down on him because she thinks that he comes from a culture where people tend to bow. Well that's not really an insult. Or maybe it is irksome that she is implying that a complete stranger may not be in tune with common American courtesies to strangers. Yes, that sounds more like it. Her behavior is irritating. It wreaks of lack of education, she must be one of those uneducated sort.

[Jon1000]

[ QUOTE ]
it's people trying to excuse that behavior in the name of "lol you take things too seriously".

[/ QUOTE ]

I felt pretty much this way about the incident. If it was me in the car, I don't think I would have been that upset. At most, I would have rolled down my window and told the fatty to stop blocking the road w/ her thick and chunky self. But, if I did happen to get a little mad, the last thing I would want to hear is a bunch of white guys telling me that the bowing action isn't racist or ignorant. I feel it's kinda along lines of sexual harassment. If I feel like it's a problem, and it's making me upset, it's a problem.

As an aside, I think a lot of racist undertones are let slide when they're directed at asians.

[daryn]

[ QUOTE ]

As an aside, I think a lot of racist undertones are let slide when they're directed at asians.

[/ QUOTE ]

what about the irish. why don't they get pissed when people make drunk jokes or make light of the potato famine? i think it's because they don't have anyone telling them they should be offended. is it because irish isn't a race? if so, why isn't it? race sucks

[gumpzilla]

[ QUOTE ]
isn't bowing a sign of respect in many asian cultures? if she did this in a sarcastic way after you like honked at her and she was obviously pissed, then thats racist. i dont think this is racist though.

[/ QUOTE ]

Context is a ton, though. In America, meeting random Asians, there is no reason to think that they are culturally Asian as opposed to American. This is (at least to my mind) sort of the point of this entire thread; there's no reason to think that this would be a culturally appropriate response and so nobody interprets it that way.

[tuq]

[ QUOTE ]
Tuq, every time you get close to being a decent poster, you bust out some retardo pop psych that reminds me that you're just kinda stupid or the least funny human alive.

[/ QUOTE ]
LOL, ladies and gentelman, that's the one millionth example of Dids dishing it out not being able to take it.

So maybe the fatty thing isn't the source of your behavior. In which case I stand corrected. It doesn't change the fact that you're too sensitive for your own good, as evidenced by the way you lashed out above.

[adsman]

My brother has a Chinese girlfriend. She was born and raised in Australia. They've been seeing each other for over two years but he's never met her parents. Why? Because they'd go off the deep end if they found out she was dating a white guy. But that's all right I suppose due to it being part of their culture and everything.

[disjunction]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

As an aside, I think a lot of racist undertones are let slide when they're directed at asians.

[/ QUOTE ]

what about the irish. why don't they get pissed when people make drunk jokes or make light of the potato famine? i think it's because they don't have anyone telling them they should be offended. is it because irish isn't a race? if so, why isn't it? race sucks

[/ QUOTE ]

When I was a kid most of my friends were Italian. They used the word "Guido" a lot, now I can't remember if we used it in the right way or wrong way or what. Probably in reference to the way people were dressed. Anyway I dropped the word casually in front of my friend's dad once and he was like "Hey hey don't use that word". It hadn't occurred to me that there possibly could be sterotypes against Italians, since half the world was Italian as far as I knew. Shows how generations change things, I guess.