Janszoon

I have no idea what the context of this Darren Scully conversation is, but I just wanted to point out that the bolded part is how racists invariably justify their position. Nobody believes they look down on some other group of people completely randomly, they always think they have a good reason. That doesn't mean that they are not racist.

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Rubato

Well I disagree there, I think making assumptions is the root of the problem. What generally tends to happen is people will base their assumptions on the loudest members of each group, not the significant majority. Walk into any country and you'd be hard pressed to find one walking stereotype.

MoonlitSunshine

Jansz, If they have honestly found that to be the case with everyone of that grouping that they have met, then that's fair enough by my book. The amusing thing is that you are doing exactly that with your statement about racists. Are you "racist", or guilty of the same stereotyping as racists by making a statement about all racists? I personally find that people who I would consider racists are much more likely to claim that they have a reason, but in actual fact they don't, or it is based on a very, very small sample space.

I agree that if you meet one asian guy, and then loudly proclaim that all asians are hard-working hikikomori, then that would be being racist (on account of the small sample space), but if I met 100 and they ALL turned out to have one particular thing in common, I'd feel a lot safer about making a statement, disregarding for a second that "asians" are highly unlikely to have one aspect which they all have in common because of the sheer area and population involved :P

Rubato, I wish you luck in your quest to rid the world of assumptions, but it simply aint happening. Stereotypes do exist for a reason, but that said I would not assume a stereotype was true unless I had personal experience to back up that stereotype. We simply have to make assumptions in order to get along. For example, you assume that you can make any kind of non-PC jokes around someone who has made a non-PC joke before. You make assumptions based on everything you know about a person all the time, in order to gauge how you interact with them. If we didn't, we'd have to be so careful about everything that it would simply be ridiculous.

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Rubato

The Irish were assumed to be all thieving drunks, if you were refused entry into a shop because you were Irish would you feel discriminated against? Of course people will still assume, but just because a problem is hard to get rid of doesn't make it is so virtuous in itself. There is simply no excuse for assuming anything about someone before you've met them.

duga

There's no excuse, but I think he is right in saying stereotypes and assumptions will be around forever. There is seriously no getting rid of them. Humans are naturally categorizing creatures. This extends beyond race...in fact, I just had an argument with someone about my assumptions of engineers and hers on biologists. She said something along the lines of "Biologists are just not technical and really don't know what they are doing most of the time." Then I came back with "Engineers all have OCD". We also both consider each other very non-discriminant types of people. These kinds of assumptions are just unavoidable.

The difference, however, is actually acting upon these assumptions. Will I refuse to be friends with an engineer because of what most of them think about me? No, but I will probably think that person has OCD until I get to know them better. The same applies to race.

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MoonlitSunshine

Many Irish were a bunch of thieving drunks :P That attitude has died with the legacy, though - I haven't come across any discrimination against the Irish in the year I've been living in the UK. If anything, I've gained on account of everyone seeming to like the Irish over here. If it were to happen to me then yes, i would feel discriminated against, but does it? When was the last time that happened?

@ Jansz, of course he's going to say that, but my point is that the distinction is that the racist won't actually have enough evidence to be able to make that assumption. he or she will be basing it on one bad experience or on what someone told them. As I was saying before, it might seem like semantics, but the difference between that and a position based on personal experience with a large group is significant.

In the case of the Irish Councillor Darren Scully, he stated that every single time he had dealt with the local black african population (and it was a reasonable number of times), they had acted aggressively towards him when they came to him seeking help. He decided that based on the attitude of the community, he no longer felt comfortable representing them and would instead forward their problems on to someone else who could help them. Are there valid reasons for doing so? In my opinion, yes. It could have been the case that these cases were taking up so much time due to the aggressive attitude of the entire subsection of this group that he had had dealings with that it was taking away from his ability to represent the rest of his constituents, who weren't as aggressive. If you have to make a choice, surely you're going to choose the more helpful, whom you might actually be able to help? The above might not be true, but it is at least one form of justification for such a decision.

I understand that there is a very thin line here. I understand how it is a short step from an assumption based on a large body of experience to assumptions based on less and less, until you are being racist. I will note that I am more than happy to be proven wrong, and I am sure Darren Scully would be happy to be proven wrong, but until such a time as I find an exception to the rule, I am going to assume the rule stands.

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Unknown Soldier

Darren Scully on the left looks a bit like Ian Beale from Eastenders

Janszoon

I think you've got the point I was making backwards. Let me put it a different way: Imagine for a moment that you and I are talking to a person who we'd both agree is racist. Now imagine asking him why he hates X group of people. Do you really think his answer is going to be, "Dunno, just don't like the look of 'em I guess"? Of course not. He's going to tell about how they're all thieves or they're all drunks or whatever and he's going to have reasons why he believes that. The point is simply that, in your previous post, you were trying to define racism in a way that doesn't apply to actual human reality. Again, people will always have some kind of justification for racist beliefs, but that doesn't mean their beliefs aren't racist.

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Unknown Soldier

Racists in the UK tend to feel they have valid reasons, these are some:

-The swamping of our culture by ethnic minorities (they fail to recognize that this has been done countless times before and is an evolutionary process)
-Foreigners are nicking all our jobs (They usually do the jobs the locals don't want to do as they get more from benefits)
-Illegal foreigners are claiming all our benefits (the UK is one of the hardest of all European countries for illegals to enter into)

Both Rubato and Moonlit are touching on the very thin line of what is racist and what is not, its traditional for the English to think the French are snidy bastards and can't be trusted, the Germans arrogant *******s and the Irish a bunch of lazy alcoholics, btw my father's Irish so I'm not ribbing the Irish here Now those three crude comments have always been accepted here. The first two against the French and Germans is still stated in a joking manner and nobody cares as there are hardly any French or Germans here. But with the Irish it is different, there are actually more Irish people in the UK than in Ireland so its unacceptable to say these things and it borders on full blown racism to say so. Point here being, that when a significant number of people are immigrants into the country generalized negative comments towards them is racism. Those ethnic minorities that are far more recent and less numerous have less protection and have a lesser understanding of when they are discriminated against, which is probably why Moonlit doesn't seem to think dicing Romaninians to be racist.

Rubato

That's beside the point, unless you are in fact a thieving drunk nobody has the right to claim otherwise. Why would you judge someone on the actions of someone else? it's just another ugly branch of nationalism that leads to lazy thinking and ignorance.

That's exactly why things like this are being taught in schools (around here anyway) It's a line of reasoning we are trying to get away from, or at least I hope we are.

I'm sure many people would be quite offended by some assumptions, in this case you'd need to be pretty thin skinned, but they'd find it fairly strange nonetheless.