"With many of them you risk violence, drugs, abuse, sexual abuse, racism, etc."
This modern bugbear of racism is getting ridiculous. Did you really just equate "racism" with sexual abuse? What does racism even mean anymore? Is it only institutional discrimination, e.g. the refusal of the publicly funded government to hire some races? That's where it started. Now, you can be a racist if you have a type you prefer to date that doesn't suit the whims of your accuser.
The ridiculous part was picking one word out of a very thoughtful post (and one written as a first person account, not conjecture) and attacking that rather than the overall point. The first time I read his story I didn't even notice that he had mentioned racism in it, it was largely immaterial.
But quoting only that part makes it sound like he is blaming racism as the cause for poverty, which he clearly isn't.
If I had a penny for every time I heard something to the effect of 'if only poor people stopped complaining/blaming racism and started pulling themselves out of poverty, there would be no more poverty', I'd have enough to help people get out of poverty.
Although I guess there is no point in arguing with throw-away accounts.
It's as ridiculous as if he had casually tossed "overeating" into that list as well. Of course when something sticks out like a sore thumb, that individual part will get attention. Your point is that you can only reply holistically or something?
You're coming off as very confrontational. That's never a good sign. This would be a great time to stop, take a breather, and come back to the conversation with a fresh perspective. Otherwise you risk being downvoted into oblivion due to the tone you're taking.
You can reply any way you want, but it makes a whole lot more sense to respond to the main point of the parent comment.
If the word racism had not been in that post, would you have commented on it at all? Would you have still felt the need to make a throw-away account for the comment?
It's a form of bigotry which is also deeply aligned with hate, often violent hate. It's probably the same thing that sparks sectarian violence.
It can also reside, in a form without overt violent manifestation.
Now, you can be a racist if you have a type you prefer to date that doesn't suit the whims of your accuser.
I would admit that this isn't sufficient to label someone of racism. The question to ask would be: Does the vivid thought of a loved one (a parent or a child) dating a member of a given race cause a strong emotional reaction?
I'm not sure what racism is. I'm not sure academics have a good handle on all of the mechanisms by which it operates, but, in the words of the Penny Arcade guys, it is a thing. Its operation in the real world is undeniable. For many in the context of minority, it is very palpable.
EDIT: It's probably connected to some suite of group organization/defense instincts. It probably operates on the same level that religion operates on.
It's a form of bigotry which is also deeply aligned with hate, often violent hate.
Meh, the vast majority of practical racism isn't really about hate. The most common form of racism is the over-generalization type -- most of the people of race X that you meet or see in the street have characteristic P, so you form in your mind the idea that "Xs have characteristic P". This, even when statistically true, is unfair to the Xs out there who don't have characteristic P, especially when P is negative, so it's a trap we need to avoid.
For every racist who actively hates another race, there's fifty who don't hate 'em but merely have negative beliefs about 'em, the same way I have negative and overgeneralized beliefs about (but don't actually hate) people who wear Ed Hardy t-shirts.
For every racist who actively hates another race, there's fifty who don't hate 'em but merely have negative beliefs about 'em, the same way I have negative and overgeneralized beliefs about (but don't actually hate) people who wear Ed Hardy t-shirts.
I think both kinds you mention are actually part of the same mechanism. I'm beginning to suspect that the mechanisms of tribal organization (human social organization) are paramount for human psychology in the same way that pack organization is paramount for dog psychology.
Many organizations exploit tribal psychology for group cohesion and control. Marketing is clearly dominated by tribal psychology. I think programming language communities are organized on mechanisms for tribal cohesion.
Is it possible to hate someone and not "have negative and overgeneralized beliefs about" them? How common is it to "have negative and overgeneralized beliefs about" someone and not hate them? Interesting questions, I think.
This modern bugbear of racism is getting ridiculous. Did you really just equate "racism" with sexual abuse? What does racism even mean anymore? Is it only institutional discrimination, e.g. the refusal of the publicly funded government to hire some races? That's where it started. Now, you can be a racist if you have a type you prefer to date that doesn't suit the whims of your accuser.
Way to not "risk racism."