When does opinion become racism?

For example
Someone says that they do not feel attracted to a certain race because of their looks. Is that opinion or racism?
(FYI alot of foreign ladies are very fine looking )

There's a few more I'm thinking of that I can't recall.

The big question is

When does opinion-become racism?

[ 12 April 2005: Message edited by: Lukewarm ]

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For example
Someone says that they do not feel attracted to a certain race because of their looks. Is that opinion or racism?
(FYI alot of foreign ladies are very fine looking )

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Originally posted by Lukewarm:
[QB]...For example
Someone says that they do not feel attracted to a certain race because of their looks. Is that opinion or racism? [QUOTE]

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I would say if it was stated in reverse it would be racist: Towhit: If someone says they are not attracted to someone because of their 'race' (a troubling concept in itself, but nevermind).

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Originally posted by Lukewarm:
[QB]...(FYI alot of foreign ladies are very fine looking ) [QUOTE]

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I judge people one by one by knowing them and by how much I like them on a personal level. I don't feel I'm racist so I'm perfectly comfortable talking about it.

It's nice to be able to talk in the open about it unlike alot of issues that get people riled up for no apparent reason.

The comment about opening your mouth I think is a bit ignorant. It's not a good thing to be secretly racist.

I could in my head hate every other race and yes, that does indeed make me racist, just not publically racist.

Racism is either thinking you are the superior race or descriminating or being prejudice against a race.

That's kind of open ended because it can mean anything. Is sexual preference racism? Maybe

here's where it gets tricky. I'll think I'm not attracted to a certain race because of their looks but is that a natural normal, unbiased thought or is it racism?

It's only human to be racist, prejudice. It's just so happend that we've evolved to learn to be as open minded as possible and treat others how we would like to be treated. Just as when you were a kid you might make fun of fat people, disabled people. It's survival of the fittest. When an animal in the pack is wounded they don't comfort or treat him/her but rather disgard of them.

So we're at a point now where we're putting aside natural tenancies and normal prejudices to better human nature (I think). I'm not trying to be fascist it's just common knowledge that the more we get along the better off we'll be.

But seeing how sexual prefference is a natural tenancy, just as maybe not liking someone of a different skin color might be a natural thought are we supposed to get past that too or is that pushing the enveloppe?

Stuck between defending the thought of individualism and prefference as opposed to natural prejudices that most every human incurs in their life.

Please exuse spelling.

[ 12 April 2005: Message edited by: Lukewarm ]

Do the rest of us have to hear just how complicated your dilemas are over physical preferences?

Or will telling you to shut the hell up send you back to your psychologist, where these questions ought properly to be posed?

[ 12 April 2005: Message edited by: Hinterland ]

Does anybody remember the fuss a decade or two ago, when Jimmy the Greek speculated that blacks make better athletes because in the days of slavery they were bred by their owners for greater strength and endurance? He was forced to apologize and recant his opinion, and I don't think his reputation ever recovered. It was certainly an unusual opinion, but is it racism to suggest it? Might it even be true to some extent?

And hinterland please stay out of this thread if you don't have anything productive to say.

I don't have this problem FYI, I'm just speculating.
Is that a crime? If so, guilty as charged.

It's become apparent if you do not share a certain mindsetting around here you are not welcome.

[ 12 April 2005: Message edited by: Lukewarm ]

It's not personal preference to say someone is not attractive to you because of their 'race'. It is a general prejudice against a whole group of people, based on their looks. (quote: "Someone says that they do not feel attracted to a certain race because of their looks.")

Can you confidently say that you will never find someone from a particular ethnic/racial group attractive? If so, then how can you say you judge people one by one?

"(FYI alot of foreign ladies are very fine looking"

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Can you confidently say that you will never find someone from a particular ethnic/racial group attractive? If so, then how can you say you judge people one by one?

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But anyways. It seems this is too complex for the seriously politically correct so I will quit before this gets nasty. I guess I can't discuss serious issues if they involve guns, homosexuals, women or races because that would mean I'm redneck, anti-gay, sexist or racist.

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Sorry, I wasn't supposed to open my mouth. My appologies. Shouldn't talk about things that matter? What can I say to make you happy?
And hinterland please stay out of this thread if you don't have anything productive to say.

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I'm certainly not buying this. Sounds whiny and faux-naif to me.

Look, you don't like certain body types, Lukewarm? Then, don't fuck'em.

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Originally posted by Walker:
It's not personal preference to say someone is not attractive to you because of their 'race'.

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Originally posted by Ron Webb:
Of course it is. What's the difference between a preference for blondes or brunettes, and a preference for fair or dark complexions?

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The difference is we're not just talking about blonde or brunette hair, we're talking about lumping the combined looks of a whole "race" of people and saying (1) I don't like the look of them, and therefore (2) they all look the same.

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No kidding.

Ron Webb and Lukewarm are just looking for excuses to be racist...like I'm sure they're prize physical specimens themselves.

[ 12 April 2005: Message edited by: Hinterland ]

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Originally posted by Hinterland:
Ron Webb and Lukewarm are just looking for excuses to be racist...like I'm sure they're prize physical specimens themselves.

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Do you prefer blonds among Caucasians, tall women among Africans, almond-eyed among Asians...or brunettes among Caucasians, lithe women among Africans, rounder-eyed among Asians...or red-heads among Caucasians, narrow-nosed among Africans, bigger-boobed among Asians...Or curly-haired Caucasians, blue-eyed Africans, tall Asians...

...or curly-haired Amerinidians or straight-haired Australasians or short women among Maoris or narrow-faced Inuit...

...or fat-arsed British, or no-arsed French or big-footed Italians or...

[ 12 April 2005: Message edited by: Hinterland ]

I am suspicious of your motives when you refuse to lay your cards on the table.

Likewise, Lukewarm's "someone says..." sounds a lot like 'I have a friend who...'

I ask a question on someone's thoughts about when your opinion becomes racism and automatically I'm racist. A fine few fellas we have in this thread.

Hinterland made a comment about "don't fuck em" Would "em" refer to the women of whom I speak? Since when did women become objects you sexist pig?

[ 13 April 2005: Message edited by: Lukewarm ]

I have always very much "liked the look" of people with complexions darker than my own (LOL — that's a *lot* of people, as I am from Celtic stock). Whether it is "swarthy skinned" types from the Mediterranean area, First Nations people, Asians, Africans or whatever, I tend to really appreciate people with a "darker hue", even people with a nice tan. Oddly enough, for all my "preference", the only people I have had any kind of a long-term relationship with have been people who were (ho-hum) as pale as me.

So... is this a "bad thing" that I have this preference?

I actually told a gal friend of mine in university that I loved a certain look that Cree people (in general) seemed to share. As opposed to some other First Nations groups, the Cree (both men and women) tend to be tall, with a leaner build, and with higher, more prominent cheekbones. Of course, there are exceptions — no, they don't "all look alike" — but I've found that it seems to be a common physical type among the Cree. Yet my gal pal became quite indignant with me, and said I was being "racist".

I was very taken aback, as I have never thought I was any kind of "racist"; I was not talking about *all* First Nations people, but rather a particular subset — the Cree people — within the First Nations group. Further, I was not even saying "all Cree", but rather was specifying what I percieved to be a common physical type within the Cree. So I ended up asking a friend of mine who was Cree what he thought.

"To most Americans race is as plain as the color of the nose on your face. Sure, some light-skinned blacks, in some neighborhoods, are taken for Italians, and some Turks are confused with Argentines. But even in the children of biracial couples, racial ancestry is writ large--in the hue of the skin and the shape of the lips, the size of the brow and the bridge of the nose. It is no harder to trace than it is to judge which basic colors in a box of Crayolas were combined to make tangerine or burnt umber. Even with racial mixing, the existence of primary races is as obvious as the existence of primary colors.

Or is it? C. Loring Brace has his own ideas about where race resides, and it isn't in skin color. if our eyes could perceive more than the superficial, we might find race in chromosome 11: there lies the gene for hemoglobin. If you divide humankind by which of two forms of the gene each person has, then equatorial Africans, Italians and Greeks fall into the "sickle-cell race"; Swedes and South Africa's Xhosas (Nelson Mandela's ethnic group) are in the healthy-hemoglobin race. Or do you prefer to group people by whether they have epicanthic eye folds, which produce the "Asian" eye? Then the !Kung San (Bushmen) belong with the Japanese and Chinese. Depending on which trait you choose to demarcate races, "you won't get anything that remotely tracks conventional [race] categories," says anthropologist Alan Goodman, dean of natural science at Hampshire College."

race

and from another

"It has been known for decades that racial typology fails to explain human variation, that is, our species does not fit into a small number of fixed, ideal types. We know, for example, that:

Human variation is generally continuous, with no clear points of demarcation. (It is impossible to reliably say where one race ends and another begins. Groups living close to each other tend to be biologically alike, and so race has an appearance of reality, but this is only geographic similarity.)

Human variation is highly nonconcordant. One trait infrequently predicts for another. (One can not read deeper meanings into physical cues.)

There is greater variation within than among purported races. (Knowing an individual's purported race tells us little about the individual."

race pit

"Human biological variability is real. But race is a biological sham: it is theoretically passé, does not fit the facts, holds back science and causes harm."

[ 13 April 2005: Message edited by: angrymonkey ]

[ 13 April 2005: Message edited by: angrymonkey ]

opinions are opinions. Opinions become racist when they refer to the superiority or inferiority of "racial" groups.

So, thinking a certain look, attributed to a certain "race" is personally attractive, or not attractive, but not thinking that their attractiveness or unattractiveness makes them overall inferior, isn't racist.

That having been said, saying that "I would only have sex with ___________ people/men/women" or "_______, people/men/women are ugly" is awfully close to actual, bona-fide racism. It's like saying that it's just your "opinion" that all of a certain type of people steal, or are less intelligent, (or smarter).

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Originally posted by Anchoress:
An opinion becomes racism when you open your mouth about it.

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I doubt it.

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Originally posted by Lukewarm:
See, I told you.

I ask a question on someone's thoughts about when your opinion becomes racism and automatically I'm racist.
[ 13 April 2005: Message edited by: Lukewarm ]

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Hinterland made a comment about "don't fuck em" Would "em" refer to the women of whom I speak? Since when did women become objects you sexist pig?

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It looks a lot like your looking for help from some of the grrls around here with this bit of twisted reading of Hinterland's post but I wouldn't count on help arriving soon.

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Originally posted by Hinterland:
Well, Ron Webb, this is a discussion, and I'm participating in it.

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I think you're a horrible racist.

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Look, at the very least it is distasteful and offensive to blithely state that you have a preference for any particular grouping in society, call it race if you like (noting the helpful notations from angrymonkey and thwap above).

Personally, I don't see a difference between saying you have an attraction to (eg) 'blacks' and saying you have a preference for 'blacks'. And after all, the inevitable other side of that coin is that you are repulsed by other groupings in society.

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Originally posted by Walker:
Ron Webb, you're not helping yourself by using the 'I can't be racist, my wife is black' defence. Sorry, but it doesn't give you an automatic 'nonracist' entitlement.

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Back to the topic:
Are you saying that people ought not to have preferences in the physical attributes of others, or merely that they ought not to express them? When I choose a partner to marry, is physical appearance not a legitimate criterion? Because if it is, then surely race is a major determinant of physical appearance.

Edited to add: I can't differentiate between a preference for blondes and a preference for caucasians, because there is no difference. A preference for blondes IS a preference for caucasians.

[ 14 April 2005: Message edited by: Ron Webb ]

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Edited to add: I can't differentiate between a preference for blondes and a preference for caucasians, because there is no difference. A preference for blondes IS a preference for caucasians.

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How about Asians who dye or bleach their hair so they become blondes or redheads?

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Because if it is, then surely race is a major determinant of physical appearance.

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OK, back to the articles again-

"Human variation is very, very real," says Goodman. "But race, as a way of organizing [what we know about that variation], is incredibly simplified and bastardized."

and

When biologist Jared Diamond of UCLA surveyed half a dozen traits for a recent issue of Discover magazine, he found that, depending on which traits you pick, you can form very surprising "races." Take the scoopedout shape of the back of the front teeth, a standard "Asian" trait. Native Americans and Swedes have these shovel-shaped incisors, too, and so would fall in the same race. Is biochemistry better? Norwegians, Arabians, north Indians and the Fulani of northern Nigeria, notes Diamond, fall into the "lactase race" (the lactase enzyme digests milk sugar). Everyone else--other Africans, Japanese, Native Americans--forms the "lactase-deprived race" (their ancestors did not drink milk from cows or goats and hence never evolved the lactase gene). How about blood types, the familiar A, B and O groups? Then Germans and New Guineans, populations that have the same percentages of each type, are in one race; Estonians and Japanese comprise a separate one for the same reason, notes anthropologist Jonathan Marks of Yale University. Depending on which traits are chosen, "we could place Swedes in the same race as either Xhosas, Fulani, the Ainu of Japan or Italians," writes Diamond.

also

If race is a valid biological concept, anyone in any culture should be able to look at any individual and say, Aha, you are a ... It should not be the case, as French tennis star Yannick Noah said a few years ago, that "in Africa I am white, and in France I am black" (his mother is French and his father is from Cameroon). "While biological traits give the impression that race is a biological unit of nature," says anthropologist George Armelagos of Emory University, "it remains a cultural construct. The boundaries between races depends on the classifier's own cultural norms."

so,

Grouping people by geographic origins--better known as ethnicity--" is more correct both in a statistical sense and in understanding the history of human variation," says Hampshire's Goodman.

because

Human variation is generally continuous, with no clear points of demarcation. (It is impossible to reliably say where one race ends and another begins. Groups living close to each other tend to be biologically alike, and so race has an appearance of reality, but this is only geographic similarity.)

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A preference for blondes IS a preference for caucasians.

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Ron Webb

"Are you saying that people ought not to have preferences in the physical attributes of others, or merely that they ought not to express them? When I choose a partner to marry, is physical appearance not a legitimate criterion? Because if it is, then surely race is a major determinant of physical appearance."

You're obviously not getting this. I and others have tried to make to you and Lukewarm understand. I'll try to put it in to simpler words:

"Race" doesn't exist (enter angrymonkey), so to it is offensive to say you have a preference for a particular "race", because by doing so you are effectively saying 'all black people look the same' etc. If you insist, to say all causcasians have blonde hair is not only stupid but also offensive, because it's not actually true and it is assuming that all caucasians look the same.

Of course it's fine to say you are attracted to your wife. I am attracted to my partner, who is from an Italian background, but I wouldn't say I have a preference for Italians, because I know that Italians are as varied in looks, personality etc. as any other grouping in society. It's just a stupid and simplistic thing to say.

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Originally posted by Walker:"Race" doesn't exist...

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By the way: If race doesn't exist, and preferential treatment on the basis of physical attributes is offensive, then I presume you're opposed to affirmative action programs? Or does race only exist when it is politically convenient?

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... so to it is offensive to say you have a preference for a particular "race", because by doing so you are effectively saying 'all black people look the same' etc.

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Originally posted by angrymonkey:But hair can be dyed and not all caucasians have blonde hair.

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Originally posted by Ron Webb:
... If my wife dyed her hair blonde she'd look like a circus clown.

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So I'm giving up on this climb.

I actually feel really sad when I come to the occasional realisation that there are people whose mindsets are so deeply embedded that they will NEVER understand why others find their views offensive. Their every comment reeks of prejudice, ignorance and sheer inability to understand the nature of racism.

Whether this is only a thought in your head, or you say so in a public meeting makes no difference in terms of the idea's racism.

Some racists are not attracted to people with different heritages, to be sure. Most of us are simply attracted to people we are attracted to, based on a million characteristices, mostly internal.

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I know that race does not exist in biology, but if you seriously believe that race does not exist culturally or socially, if you seriously don't recognize the major influence that race has on the lives of people like my wife, then I have to wonder what planet you're living on.

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Yes, the whole idea of seperating people into races has been historically harmful and not useful in any scientific way and is why a lot of people want to eliminate it from discussions. To go back to the very first post that started this- "feel attracted to a certain race because of their looks" , only has meaning because of our cultural history of inacurrate catagorizing of people. It's been long overdue for change.

and to quote in closing,

"In a 1942 book, anthropologist Ashley Montagu called race "Man's Most Dangerous Myth." If it is, then our most ingenuous myth must be that we sort humankind into groups in order to understand the meaning and origin of humankind's diversity. That isn't the reason at all; a greater number of smaller groupings, like ethnicities, does a better job. The obsession with broad categories is so powerful as to seem a neurological imperative. Changing our thinking about race will require a revolution in thought as profound, and profoundly unsettling, as anything science has ever demanded. What these researchers are talking about is changing the way in which we see the world--and each other. But before that can happen, we must do more than understand the biologist's suspicions about race. We must ask science, also, why it is that we are so intent on sorting humanity into so few groups--us and Other--in the first place. "

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By the way: If race doesn't exist, and preferential treatment on the basis of physical attributes is offensive, then I presume you're opposed to affirmative action programs? Or does race only exist when it is politically convenient?

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Boy, I can tell you read those articles I posted.
So, back again I go

" A common sleight of hand of the political right is to conflate the myth of biological race with the cultural experience of race, e.g., "If race is a (biological) myth, let's get rid of affirmative action." But the truth is just the opposite. Showing that race is a biological myth leads us to clarify the sociopolitical salience of race and racism. Race as biology does not explain the persistent and shameful rate at which black babies suffer low birth weight and infant mortality. It doesn't explain why the death rate from breast cancer recently fell for all women but did not budge for black women, who already had a higher rate of death. Nor does race as biology explain why black male life expectancy in Harlem is less than the life expectancy of men in Bangladesh. But the suffering is still there.

There is no half way between seeing race as biologically valid or not. Any reformation of race as biology will simply be interpreted as race in the older typological paradigm. What do we lose by giving up race as a biological concept? We lost some instant recognition of what we do. It takes a bit longer to explain human variation.

I find black women attractive-but have seen some that I have no attraction to whatsoever

I find asian or east indian women unattractive-but have seen some that make me drool uncontrollably.

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Ron Webb and Lukewarm are just looking for excuses to be racist...like I'm sure they're prize physical specimens themselves.

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yeah that is how it works here at babble, people misrepresent others posts and create a strawman... I am surprised you have not been called a murderer yet, or one that condones murder. Just give it time. It must be progressive to label people with such dichotomous terms.

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So when he gets the response he doesn't like, he cries foul.

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Hinterland did not objectify women, no matter how badly you want out of the limelight by trying a bit of misdirection. It's insulting that you thought this might work with any of us feminists and that we'd take some of the heat off of you. Dishonest and tacky. Boo!

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Originally posted by Bacchus:
I find asian or east indian women unattractive-but have seen some that make me drool uncontrollably.

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"...drool uncontrollably"?

I have always considered myself an equal opportunity dater - I will date whomever I find attractive, regardless of hair colour, or skin colour and even gender. I prefer men who are dark skinned over blondes with really white skin. Or women with dark hair. Am I racist? I don't think so, it is my personal preference, even if I do end up with the blondes.

Sometimes I don't quite get the anger of some people. The question was legitimate as posed I think. It is an important question. I know people who will only date a specific type. I know people who refuse to date dark-skinned people. In my head I do attribute this to social conditioning, as well as a complete lack of knowledge about other people, and yes, in cases where it is clear that the decision to not date say, asians, is based upon some warped culturally and socially enforced idea of asians, I attribute it to racism not yet 'out'.

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"...drool uncontrollably"?

This is real serious sexism. You are treating these women, who you obviously don't even know, but are just leering at sadistically, as though they were objects placed in this woirld for your personal viewing pleasure. You are so completley disgusting it's unbelievable. I hope the Moderators find out about you, but I am not prepared to rat you out myself.

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The drool cup helps keep it in check, especially for those women that trigger it.

I find those with racist tendencies have a habit of qualifying their remarks with things like, "I have several friends who are X ethnicity, and they agree with me about...", something really stupid anyway. Or, so and so laughs at my [pathetic] jokes, and he or she is my [insert skin colour or ethnic] friend. Their opinions can be had at any pool hall or seedy tavern in Northern Ontario for the price of a round.

[ 22 April 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

[shee-ism]: A branch of Islam comprising about 10% of the total Muslim population. In Shi’i Islam, Ali ibn Abi Talib is believed to have been the rightful successor to Prophet Muhammad. Moreover, Shi’ahs believe that Ali was granted a unique spiritual authority, which was passed on to certain of his descendants given the title of Imam (leader). The largest group in Shi’ism believes that Ali was the first of twelve Imams, and that the last one continues to exist, albeit miraculously and in a state of occultation (concealment from human view). The teachings of these spiritual leaders are an additional source of Shari’ah (Islamic Law), used by Shi’i religious scholars to derive legislation and issue religious opinions.

This segment below describes what Ali ibn Abi Talib did.

Who were the Sahabah? These individuals, who embraced Islam and who were close companions of Prophet Muhammad, are known as Sahabah. Accounts from the lives of the sahabah (companions) are important as additional sources for proper behavior and practice. Many of the characteristics exhibited by various companions of the Prophet serve as inspiration to Muslims the world over. For example, the courage of Ali ibn Abi Talib sleeping in the Prophet’s stead on the night the Quraysh planned to assassinate him reminds Muslims to challenge hostility or ill-will head-on, and the ingenuity of Salman al-Farsi, who recommended that the Muslims dig a deep trench around Madinah to thwart the forces of the Quraysh during one particular battle encourages Muslims to constantly seek novel solutions to seemingly insurmountable obstacles. And the selfless dedication and piety of Sumayyah bint Khubbat, who was killed by a Qurayshi notable for her newly adopted belief in Islam, thereby becoming the first martyr, is also well-remembered.

Draw your own conclusions.

[ 26 April 2005: Message edited by: Left Wing Zealot ]

[ 26 April 2005: Message edited by: Left Wing Zealot ]