LogFAQs > #962394117

Well, you can't be racist against food, even if ethnic. Small-minded, maybe, but that's different.

The better hypothetical is: what if every Swedish person you ever met stole your wallet? Would you be racist for disliking Swedish people? The answer is technically, yes, you would be racist. However, that's where there's a disconnect between hypotheticals and reality. Outside of a few extreme examples, you are never going to run into a group of people (or restaurants) who are bad through and through. Most people are decent if you meet them in the right context...and the same is even more true of most groups of people.

Well, let's take a more obvious example here. The N**i's (yea. I'm sick of this example being brought up.) were taught, more or less, that every Jew was a horrible person. Yet a lot of them had never, at least knowingly, met a Jewish person. This then begs the question of if every N**i was actually a racist or not, especially if what few examples they saw were propogandistic. I mean, if you get told in your school, your culture is based heavily around the hatred of, and just everything ELSE, would it be unreasonable for a person to just assume that was the case if only because that's what their culture said it was? Or would they simply be going along with what was the norm? I know an easy way to tell would be to simply look at how they acted/reacted following the war as the people who weren't actually racist would have little, if any, problem with changing their views, but not only can actual racists have their views changed (which would mean you couldn't SOLELY look at if they had changed their viewpoint or not), but it begs the question of if they were racist DURING that time in which they were in the N**i culture.

I guess what I'm questioning here is where does the line between, at least a semi-reasonable prejudice or acceptance of a culture, and and actual racism get drawn? Especially if we can't judge someone based entirely on their external beliefs (since a non-racist could, presumably, be raised in a racist society as well as an actual one have their viewpoints change).

While the best answer would probably be something along the lines of 'we have to judge each case individually' I sort of feel the difference comes about from how a person attempts to defend such a belief if challenged on it. I.E. if a person with constant bad experiences with Mexican restaurants gets presented with an actually decent one, do they continue the assumption that all are bad, or maintain the belief that they are and that one was an 'exception'? Or if someone points out that all Swedes are not pickpockets, if the person takes a reasonable precaution (holding their wallet or not taking it along) or assume automatically that the BEST precaution is to assume that they are pickpockets and avoid them entirely, especially if they were to meet one who wasn't a pickpocket and actively tried to arrest them. Are they 'one of the good ones' or do they accept that their prejudice, while founded in past experience, is discriminatory? Does a former N**i reject the culture once they were defeated and, even if it takes a bit of un-brainwashing, accept that Jewish people are not evil, or do they hold on to the belief despite active evidence to the contrary?

I'm certainly not going to challenge someone if a better answer comes along, cause I sure as HELL don't have a proper answer myself. But I do believe it's important to distinguish between someone who is operating off of past experience and/or 'legitimate' (in quotes as I don't want to sound like I'm validating such an opinion) concerns and someone who outright believes and accepts that they are actively evil/smart/stupid/etc.

Especially since, here's both a modern and actually important distinction. In China the CCP is basically everywhere and controlling everything. This includes Chinese people who come to America. Especially since a lot of them are, at the least, encouraged to spy and steal from the west to support the CCP. So would it be reasonable to assume any Chinese person who came from China was a potential CCP spy and keep a watchful eye on them (and potentially be effectively accusing every Chinese (country, not race... If you can call it a race), or would you avoid doing so but, in doing so, risk letting legit CCP spies potentially steal, say, company programming code which would be both a massive security breach and potentially extremely harmful to your company?

Once again, I want to make this clear to anyone who might attempt to mod and said associated moderator, I'm NOT trying to validate racism! I am trying to question where the line between a reasonable assumption and brainwashing/actual racism is so it could be better defined and legitimate discussion can be had. Racism is disgusting in all forms and needs to be shunned, opposed, and hopefully shut down.

Edit: Here's a personal example. I used to hate tea. The only time I had it was when I was sick and it was always, in my opinion, disgusting. However I recently had trouble sleeping and got suggested chamomile tea as a sleep-aid. As I was desperate to not have a four hour sleep cycle I decided to try it and was extremely pleased to find I actually ENJOYED the taste. What I found out was that mom had always served me LICORICE tea, which I profusely despised. But now I'm an extremely active tea drinker (it having entirely replaced soda and challenging fruit drinks) and have been trying out new teas profusely. But this begs the question of if my earlier experience was a pesudo-equiv of drink-racism. Since everything I had before tasted wretched to me and was medicinal, at best, in nature, was my assumption effectively discrimination, or was it a reasonable assumption based on prior experience? Considering I fully changed my belief once I actually tried a different tea, I would assume the latter, but I can't deny the former is also a possibility.