So, if someone were to say black people are stupid and then come up with some fatuous data point to support that, that wouldn't be racist either? That's not the way it works, frank. I mean you're welcome to your own idiosyncratic definitions of whatever you like but this is racism:

"prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism by an individual, community, or institution against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized."

https://www.google.com/search?q=racism&oq=racism&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l4.1608j0j7&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&cs=0

And the characterization of blacks as a "hate group", whites should "get the hell away from" is clearly antagonistic at least.

You are just plain wrong here.

No, at face value describing black people as a "hate group" that whites should "get the hell away from" is racist. He made racist statements. Period. — Baden

So what are we left with? Do you think some people are just born racist? Are we theorising Adams grew up in a little known community of Klan remnants? Because absent either of those, it strikes me as dangerously indifferent to just ignore the causes of such attitudes.

It's not like the 50s, people are not growing up in racist households and a racist culture anymore. They're growing up in a culture where racism is largely abhorred with virtually every mainstream source of culture studiously avoiding even the hint of it. If people are repeating racist tropes these days, its something worth working out the cause of... Assuming there's any genuine interest in remedying the problem.

The OP was about people making excuses for Adam's comments. If you want to expand the conversation, feel free.

I was responding directly to your comment.

But if you want to constrain the conversation, feel free.

No, at face value describing black people as a "hate group" that whites should "get the hell away from" is racist. He made racist statements. Period. His excuse, that a quarter of black people dared disagree with a slogan associated with white supremacists, is stupid, which is why I choose to disbelieve it. — Baden

:up:

It's not like the 50s, people are not growing up in racist households and a racist culture anymore. — Isaac

If only that were true.

Your questions appeared rhetorical. His statements were racist. I don't know why he's a racist or what you're driving at. Just spit it out if you want to.

And the characterization of blacks as a "hate group", whites should "get the hell away from" is clearly antagonistic at least. — Baden

I guess. It's not racism, though. Being that I am black, it's fairly important to me to keep the word meaningful.

I know you're black. That's not relevant to the argument about the definition.

Your definition doesn't mean anything to me. If it helps you in some way, great.

If only that were true. — RogueAI

I think he means that it’s gone out of style. It used to be all the rage back in the 50s. You know, back when America was great. :wink:

:yawn: It's a standard dictionary definition, not mine. You, on the other hand, are just making things up. If that helps you in some way, great. Reality is not on your side.

I think he means that it’s gone out of style. — praxis

It's not as accepted in polite society, but there are still plenty of kids being raised in racist households. The culture itself is still very racist.
https://www.kff.org/racial-equity-and-health-policy/press-release/poll-7-in-10-black-americans-say-they-have-experienced-incidents-of-discrimination-or-police-mistreatment-in-lifetime-including-nearly-half-who-felt-lives-were-in-danger/

And tolerant of racism, which is why the likes of Adams ought to be called out instead of being painted as some kind of a misunderstood victim. He's not. Read his Twitter, look at some of his past statements. He has plenty of confidence in his bad behaviour.

If that helps you in some way, great. — Baden

It actually does, thanks. You didn't answer if you'd heard of Adams before this incident. Had you?

You didn't answer if you'd heard of Adams before this incident. — frank

I didn't answer that because I don't see the relevance.

It actually does, thanks. — frank

You're welcome. :up:

didn't answer that because I don't see the relevance. — Baden

I take it you hadn't then.

I can't remember if I had. I read the comic years ago, so maybe. What's the relevance of whether I had heard of him to whether what he said was racist?

I am against what they say. I would call them “social impositions” because they were born of pseudoscience and imposed upon entire peoples. Besides, the pseudo-scientific justifications for applying these labels have long been discredited.

If only that were true. — RogueAI

It's not as accepted in polite society, but there are still plenty of kids being raised in racist households. The culture itself is still very racist. — RogueAI

Yeah, that's right. Some self reported feelings of fear are just like not even being allowed in the same fucking building. Things are basically the same, I don't know why MLK even bothered.

Of all the grossly offensive things reported on this thread I think Adams's stupid comments pail into insignificance behind you attempting to belittle the horrors of Jim Crow era to score a fucking brownie point with your chattering class gang.

From my point of view, you're a voice from the outside. It's both outside and with no context in this case.

The story here is what extremists said in response to Adams. Now that is racism.

Of all the grossly offensive things reported on this thread I think Adams's stupid comments pail into insignificance behind you attempting to belittle the horrors of Jim Crow era to score a fucking brownie point with your chattering class gang. — Isaac

Get a grip. He did nothing of the sort. You're embarrassing yourself.

Oh, I just realized you're the Isaac from the Ukraine thread.

Same old from you, frank. You lose the argument and then come up with some weird personal comment of no relevance whatsoever. You have no special status re defining words or understanding concepts. You're just going to have to get your ego under control and get used to that. You're wrong on the facts. The comments were racist. If you have no rational arguments on substance, you have nothing, period.

It is a fact that people identify themselves and others with this nomenclature, and no one is saying otherwise. I’m only saying people ought not to. Race is not only the root word of racism, it is the conceptual and logical grounds for it. This isn't really novel or radical thinking, either, according to a brief look.

Stereotyping and prejudice begin from social categorization—the natural cognitive process by which we place individuals into social groups.

Principles of Social Psychology 1st International Edition

There have been a number of studies, all showing that the mere perception of belonging to two distinct groups—that is, social categorization per se—is sufficient to trigger intergroup discrimination favoring the in-group. In other words, the mere awareness of the presence of an out-group is sufficient to provoke intergroup competitive or discriminatory responses on the part of the in-group.

An integrative Theory of Intergroup Conflict

Therefore, ridding ourselves of these concepts is necessary, and relatively simple.

Previous studies have established that people encode the race of each individual they encounter, and do so via computational processes that appear to be both automatic and mandatory. If true, this conclusion would be important, because categorizing others by their race is a precondition for treating them differently according to race. Here we report experiments, using unobtrusive measures, showing that categorizing individuals by race is not inevitable, and supporting an alternative hypothesis: that encoding by race is instead a reversible byproduct of cognitive machinery that evolved to detect coalitional alliances. The results show that subjects encode coalitional affiliations as a normal part of person representation. More importantly, when cues of coalitional affiliation no longer track or correspond to race, subjects markedly reduce the extent to which they categorize others by race, and indeed may cease doing so entirely. Despite a lifetime's experience of race as a predictor of social alliance, less than 4 min of exposure to an alternate social world was enough to deflate the tendency to categorize by race. These results suggest that racism may be a volatile and eradicable construct that persists only so long as it is actively maintained through being linked to parallel systems of social alliance.

Can race be erased? Coalitional computation and social categorization | JSTOR

None of this entails that we need to ignore racism, its history, and the atrocities committed in its name.

Did you think his comments (at face value) were racist?

“It’s okay to be white” isn’t racist (at face value) by design.

Get a grip. He did nothing of the sort. You're embarrassing yourself. — Baden

My mistake then. So we can assume things have massively improved since then, society is, in fact, no longer as overtly racist as it was in those times, thanks, largely to the Herculean efforts of the civil rights campaign.

So we can assume that Adams's exposure in childhood was not to segregation, abusive language, no role-models and a poor public image...

So why's he a racist? Nothing whatsoever to do with anything we could do anything about? Completely wash our hands of it? Perhaps he had a bump on the head eh? Nothing for us to worry about.

Back to business as usual.

OK, thanks for the clarification on that.

So we can assume that Adams's exposure in childhood was not to segregation, abusive language, no role-models and z poor public image...

So why's he a racist? Nothing whatsoever to do with anything we could do anything about? Completely wash our hands of it? Perhaps he had a bump on the head eh? Nothing for us to worry about.

Back to business as usual. — Isaac

No one's saying we can't talk about that. I don't understand the defensiveness here. Obviously, establishing he is racist comes before talking about why he is, right? We're only just getting there.