Peter wrote:I don't think there's any real angle to that post.
The pieces of shit in question were or looked mexican so it was "mexican pieces of shit". If it were all white dudes with a fat ass it would have been "fat fuck pieces of shit" or whatever. There's no real meaning to a quick situation-based comment like that.

It's not like she called them "beaners" or "wetbacks" or "spics". I'd say that would be more obviously racist. They happened to be Mexicans who were being pieces of shit at the time.

Also Horuss, as others have said, it's bad form to threaten anyone on this forum.

I don't perceive it that way, and I don't think it was intended that way. If it weren't, why bother with identifying them as "Mexican"?

I just feel that bringing something like race into the argument is placing your own ignorance on display.

Good god people, look at yourselves.

If I had mod powers, I would fix every post in this and the Diablo Cody thread with this:

Marsupialized wrote:Good god people, look at yourselves.

Whaddya want, most of them are americans.

a post by me isn't going to help or solve anything.


so...

fuck the both of you. right in the ears. yeah.

shit, did you hear what she/he said about you?

god...it was pretty incendiary. i'd be pissed about it.

kick their ass. FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT...

Rick Reuben wrote:Mandroid's remark is not racist, in my opinion.

Racism is:

Assigning blame to a group for the actions of individuals, and then expecting every future individual you encounter from that race to act like a clone of some group stereotype.

Racism prevents the individual from defining himself on his own terms, because he has been lumped into a group based on criteria beyond his control, ethnicity or race.

If she had said, "I'm not hiring any Mexicans to paint my property", that's racist, because it presumes things about individuals, based on their ethnicity.

Just pointing out the ethnicity of the shitty painters is not racism, because she is not making assumptions about them without experience. She has experience.

The easy way to sum it up is:

Including ethnicity in the description of someone you know is not racism, as long as the description is accurate. Making predictions about the behavior of those you do not know, based on ethnicity, is racism.

Good post. Very illuminating.

tommydski wrote:

Rick Reuben wrote:Mandroid's remark is not racist, in my opinion.

Racism is:

Assigning blame to a group for the actions of individuals, and then expecting every future individual you encounter from that race to act like a clone of some group stereotype.

Racism prevents the individual from defining himself on his own terms, because he has been lumped into a group based on criteria beyond his control, ethnicity or race.

If she had said, "I'm not hiring any Mexicans to paint my property", that's racist, because it presumes things about individuals, based on their ethnicity.

Just pointing out the ethnicity of the shitty painters is not racism, because she is not making assumptions about them without experience. She has experience.

The easy way to sum it up is:

Including ethnicity in the description of someone you know is not racism, as long as the description is accurate. Making predictions about the behavior of those you do not know, based on ethnicity, is racism.

Good post. Very illuminating.

Agreed.

Rick Reuben, voice of reason. Who would of thought?

Using somebody's race, ethnicity, nationality, sexual preference, etc. in a derogatory way, or in conjunction with an insult like that, would be perceived by most people as a bigoted remark. It's not an unreasonable assumption to make, because it implies that the person is prejudging you in a negative way, based on their own prejudiced opinion of all individuals of your own race, nationality, sexual orientation, etc.

If you were in a foreign country and a native called you an "American piece of shit", you'd feel that it was a slur on your American nationality, wouldn't you? Of course you would, because that's the spirit in which such a remark is intended. You can parse the words, play the semantics game, hell you can even get a piece of paper and diagram the fucking sentence if you want, but that doesn't take away from the fact that the person invoked your race within the same breath as they personally dehumanized you. It was an ignorant, callous, bigoted thing to say.

Now I don't think that Mandroid is necessarily a racist for having said it in a moment of anger, but she ought to understand the way people are going to react when you allow those kinds of things to spew out of your mouth without a second thought.

Sure. But on the significance of the phrasing: Mandroid's comment was "to herself" - not toward the painter. Such angry comments will have negative (as perceived by the speaker) aspects of the target tacked onto the front. Thus, it's possibly telling that "Mexican" was chosen, since she didn't seem to be saying it for him to hear.

In the above situation, it's use isn't just descriptive - it's negative.

Edit: Panic seems to have said it more eloquently.