Am I racist? What do Tenerife Forum members think?

[Synchronicity]

I've been called a racist on other forums, so I thought I'd write this article:
Am I really a racist? More like culturist…

What do you think?

[Janet]

I think it can begin to slip into racism when the terms culture and race are confused, and a cultural label (sloppy time keeping, mechanistic obedience to orders, foreigner-hating, whatever) is applied to a race. Some races are very diverse geographically, and cultures within them can therefore vary widely over distance. This conflation of culture and race is something you very clearly don't do, and in fact, go out of your way to differentiate between the two.

For me, though, a simple application of a cultural label to a race wouldn't be intrinsically racist anyway. It would be an anthropological confusion, of course, but a mistake on that level means little. For me, the problem lies in making moral judgements on the basis of difference, and this difference could be in culture or race. Again, you haven't done this remotely.

So not racist, in my book, but certainly insightful!

[Daverock]

Not to me you don't sound racist. I think a lot of it boils down to all the PC rubbish. Making comments about differences in culture whether negative or positive are opinions on differences pure and simple. Quite clearly if someone expresses those comments in a way that is meant to be demeaning or attacking then that is a different matter.

[Synchronicity]

What do you mean by PC rubbish?
Sorry I don't understand.

[Tinkabel]

Originally Posted by Synchronicity

What do you mean by PC rubbish?
Sorry I don't understand.

Politically Correct

[KirstyJay]

I wouldn't say you were a racist... however I would say that you've missed off a link to the forum on both your blog and the main website...

In fact, while you're at it, you can stick in a link to my sites too.

[JAnot]

After reading your article, I would not classify you as a racist. As Janet says, making a moral judgement on the basis of race is racist, but identifying differences, positive or negative ones, is not racist to me. Would it be racist to state that Japanese are (say) on average 5 cms shorter than English? I don't see why.

Political correctness seems to me to obscure the issue. I remember watching a boxing match on TV where the contestants had similar names and were of similar build. The commentator identified one of them as (say) Smith as 'the one with the slightly lighter blue shorts'. This was to me ludicrous, because one was black, the other white. Would it have been racist to identify them by skin colour, and if so why?

[Synchronicity]

Originally Posted by djkirstyjay

I wouldn't say you were a racist... however I would say that you've missed off a link to the forum on both your blog and the main website...

In fact, while you're at it, you can stick in a link to my sites too.

I already have a banner link to the forum
I can't link to everyone.

[mac]

I did not find the article at all racist but logical. One point though that was only slightly mentioned was religion. We had a video on another thread on the subject of Muslims. That man generalized all Muslims without thinking about how the religion is not confined by national or cultural borders. Therefore I think it is wrong to condemn millions of people all around the world because of the actions of a few militants in a certain troubled area. Likewise those of a Christian persausion would not like to be condemned because Idi Amin or Hitler etc also called themselves Christian

[torrenter]

You have got to treat people as you see them. Skin colour is a rotten guide.