* Petro (petro@auctionwatch.com) [020314 10:04]: > On Wed, Mar 13, 2002 at 10:05:41PM -0800, Vineet Kumar wrote: > > * Petro (petro@auctionwatch.com) [020313 18:34]: > > > Any racism you perceive in either of those two statements is purely > > > your own ignorance and knee-jerk political correctness. > > Well, after reading the bug report, it looks like the statement in > > question was included in irssi-scripts as a kickreason. Meaning, when > > you kicked someone out of a channel, it might randomly say to the kickee > > and everyone in the channel "I'm kicking you out of the channel because > > 'yo family's so black.'" > > If there's a word in the dictionary that defines that better than > > racist, please enlighten us all. > > Inane, Insipid, Childish and stupid are all much better fits than > "racist". Tasteless is also pretty good. Sure, those are all pretty good. > > If the script had some way of knowing who was black and who wasn't, > and actually was kicking the person for that reason, it would be > racist. Since it can't, and doesn't (I presume) then it is not > racist. Not so. The mere implication that one could be kicked for being black (or, more precisely, having a black family) is racist. This part goes the same as the argument that calling things "gay" is homophobic. If someone doesn't like a movie because it's boring, and they say "that's so gay," it doesn't matter if the movie was sexually attracted to other movies or if it had homosexual content in it. Using "gay" to mean "boring," "stupid," etc. is homophobic. Similarly, someone saying to someone else "don't be such a Jew," no matter the individuals' faiths, exhibits racial prejudice. Kicking someone from an IRC channel and saying it's because they're black, no matter the person's skin color, is racist. > There is a lot of racism left in the world, and it's a truely > horrible thing, but that doesn't mean that everything that mentions > skin color is racist, and by labelling such trivialities as racist, > you lessen it's impact when used to describe much more evil and > destructive packages. You may think this is trivial, and that I'm some bleeding-heart tree-hugger, but the fact is that this is racism, and should not be taken so lightly. There is a lot of racism in the world and we need to see it for what it is and do what we can to put an end to it. Not everything that mentions skin color is racism, but it doesn't have to be as targeted and explicit as your example to qualify. good times, Vineet -- Currently seeking opportunities in the SF Bay Area Please see http://www.doorstop.net/resume/
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