Frizzle said:
They actually do have a history of that, hence why a lot of people with bigger dogs like German Shepherds have trouble finding apartments and communities that will accept their animal. Also, once domesticated, dogs were bread for the very specific purpose of violence, fear mongering, and hatred, among other more useful jobs like herding animals.
But my point is that when you call someone black, or brown, or white, you're just making it easier for the person you're describing them to, to understand. Describing someone by their skin tone is in no way racist. If you are making sweeping generalizations about that person
because of the color of their skin, then yeah that's racist.
We live in a world of vivid and varying color. When someone asks you which car is yours in the parking lot, you don't say "that automobile over there," you say "the black Maserati."
Same idea with people or anything else you're describing: "do you see that human being over there?" is not nearly as helpful as "You see that white/black/brown guy over there?"
Trying to be politically correct only attempts to make people special and different. We are all the same in one giant sweeping generalized group of destructive and apathetic human beings
You completely missed my point. If I tell you to look at that, say, German Shepherd to continue your own example - is that German Shepherd going to care that I'm calling it a German Shepherd? Is it going to care that I call it a dog? Is it going to care if I call it a poodle, or any other type of dog? No. It's not going to care. Because the dog itself has no true understanding of English beyond getting the gist of what
I'm feeling from the way I put inflection on my words... but also because there was never a time when German Shepherds were discriminated against by
other dogs for no reason other than them being German Shepherds.
It's very, very easy to project human feelings and emotions and history onto things that
aren't humans, but that doesn't mean that the analogy always holds up. In fact it typically doesn't.
As for ease of understanding, if I'm looking at a group of people and I'm trying to point one out to you, and I tell you that it's 'the guy with the hat' when he's the only guy in the group with a hat, are you honestly going to tell me you have no idea who I'm talking about? Or if he's not the only one in the group with a hat, if I point out something else distinctive like his blue jacket, or his gloves, or whatever... are you honestly going to tell me that you still have no idea what I'm talking about? Are you telling me that I
have to point out race or else you have
no idea who I'm referring to? Because I very much doubt it.
Like it or not, your black Maserati isn't going to feel bad or be offended if it's made to look different than everyone else for something it has no control over. Because it's not a human, or even alive at all... it's a
thing. It doesn't have thoughts or feelings. Once again, very easy to project human emotion onto objects that aren't human, and once again, it doesn't translate at all.