Here's a tricky one, what if tomorrow a leading scientiest proved that white males generally had higher IQ than women and also of other races?
I can't help but feel if tomorrow a scientist released provable data that women and blacks were smarter than white men, that'd be just fine and dandy front page news.
However the opposite just could never be accepted, even if it was 100% fact.
I was reminded of a conversation where it came up about how its sometimes hard to say that a black athlete is good, because some people read the unsaid into it, as in.
'Damn that guy is an excellent runner!'
We dont mean anything about 'because I expect he had to run away from lions and stuff in his own country' or the other big one 'he'd have to be because he could never be a lawyer or anything, blacks are only good at sport.'
We're not saying any of that, we're saying he's good is all.
From a British POV, anyone noticed our athletes are British when they win medals and then Scottish/Irish/Welsh when they get caught with drugs?
Last one, how racist do people think stereotypes are?
for me, I think the idea that all Scottish people are tight fisted alcoholic psychos and that all Irish people are hard drinking idiot potato munchers, and the Welsh spend all day singing in a mine and all night fucking sheep, all fairly funny stuff. I don't however believe any of it. (ok, I don't believe most of it, but damn the Scots and Irish can sure put away the beer). I remember a bit from a Jerry Sadowitz show where he does an impression of Raj, the comedy indian, and just about hits every indian stereotype there is, and it was funny as hell, partly because racism is so taboo and partly because the stereotypes are so ridiculous.
It was along the lines of him just wrapping a towel around his head and putting on a hugely offensive accent and then saying stuff like 'Hello my name is Raj, and I wear my pyjamas all day and a business suit in bed and my favourite hobby is shortchanging people' etc etc.
Point is, he was doing it just after Harry Enfield had been accused of racism over his greek 'Stavros' character, and I think he showed well, just how ridiculous it was to target Harry Enfield when there's so much worse out there. We need to know when something is meant as a joke, and when it is meant to hurt or oppress or offend.
I can't help but feel if tomorrow a scientist released provable data that women and blacks were smarter than white men, that'd be just fine and dandy front page news.
However the opposite just could never be accepted, even if it was 100% fact.
I was reminded of a conversation where it came up about how its sometimes hard to say that a black athlete is good, because some people read the unsaid into it, as in.
'Damn that guy is an excellent runner!'
We dont mean anything about 'because I expect he had to run away from lions and stuff in his own country' or the other big one 'he'd have to be because he could never be a lawyer or anything, blacks are only good at sport.'
We're not saying any of that, we're saying he's good is all.
From a British POV, anyone noticed our athletes are British when they win medals and then Scottish/Irish/Welsh when they get caught with drugs?
Last one, how racist do people think stereotypes are?
for me, I think the idea that all Scottish people are tight fisted alcoholic psychos and that all Irish people are hard drinking idiot potato munchers, and the Welsh spend all day singing in a mine and all night fucking sheep, all fairly funny stuff. I don't however believe any of it. (ok, I don't believe most of it, but damn the Scots and Irish can sure put away the beer). I remember a bit from a Jerry Sadowitz show where he does an impression of Raj, the comedy indian, and just about hits every indian stereotype there is, and it was funny as hell, partly because racism is so taboo and partly because the stereotypes are so ridiculous.
It was along the lines of him just wrapping a towel around his head and putting on a hugely offensive accent and then saying stuff like 'Hello my name is Raj, and I wear my pyjamas all day and a business suit in bed and my favourite hobby is shortchanging people' etc etc.
Point is, he was doing it just after Harry Enfield had been accused of racism over his greek 'Stavros' character, and I think he showed well, just how ridiculous it was to target Harry Enfield when there's so much worse out there. We need to know when something is meant as a joke, and when it is meant to hurt or oppress or offend.
