Alright, I'll grant you that racism could also apply to a feeling of superiority of one race over another. I poke fun at all ethnicities as well as my own and don't recall ever making any claims of one race being better or worse than another.
So if I don't hate others based on their ethnicity and don't assign them a superiority or inferiority ranking based on their ethnicity how exactly am I a racist? Should I just start making blanket statements that you are an anti-Semite because all you do is grief me at every opportunity?
the following is more than i wanted to say further on this point (which i know will be hard for some to believe), but i feel compelled to say it.
gnu, you asked me how you are a racist. i didn't originally wish to make such an allegation without the facts at hand to support it. in fact, i didn't make such an allegation until you continued to press me to explain whether you are a racist and, if so, why i thought so. i couldn't honestly say that i don't think you're a racist so i admitted that i had formed the opinion at some point that you are.
i also said i didn't care to go back through the previous thread(s) to find the evidence that led me to that conclusion, but on further consideration, i honestly didn't think that was fair. you are right to ask for justification of such an opinion. even if my statement of my belief concerning your racism came only following your question, like you i think that claiming someone else is a racist is an extremely serious thing. equally serious, in my opinion, is allowing someone to make statements or jokes that are racist and to not call them on their bigotry. i believe that unless there are substantial mitigating concerns, people should be confronted about such comments in order to (1) discourage them and others present from making similar comments in the future and (2) demonstrating to anyone who feels that they are being excluded due to the comment made that this is absolutely not the case and that, in fact, it is the individual who has made the comment whom the group wishes to exclude. that's a long rambling way of saying that i felt obligated to support my stated belief.
as i said earlier, i thought it was an impression that had firmed up during the confederate flag thread, but as i read back through (link
here), i think i was mistaken. my memory was that at some point i had actually said something very explicit along the lines of "i actually believe you are a racist." i would ordinarily remember having made such a statement because i have worked in debating this topic over the last few years - mostly in person - to internalize the concept j. smooth discusses in the video i posted in the immigration thread (video link
here). so i do my best to target my criticism at the statement rather than the person. it's difficult to conclude that a person is racist. it's not nearly so difficult to identify a racist statement. so the fact that i remembered specifically calling you a racist and couldn't find it irked me a bit.
so i thought that it might have occurred sometime on CT. i did find a thread (link
here) that i thought would contain my allegation as it was replete with debate about the "jokes" you told at BBotB and previously on CT, but again i couldn't find my statement. i finally broadened my search as much as possible in a desperate attempt to figure out what the hell i was remembering. i googled "'your are a racist' grandgnu" (
lmgtfy). and it actually returned one single link and i thought for sure i'd found it, but once again, no.
however, the link it returned was a debate that looked pretty fucking similar to the several that you have engaged in here and on CT regarding your "jokes". but it occurred on 2+2 in 2004. the actual link google returned is
here and page one of that long thread is
here.
to those who don't want to wade through the thread (i can't say i've waded that far myself, but i've gotten the gist), just take a look at the first post (which is gnu's as he started the thread) and page 15 (!) which is the google result linked to above. you'll see that very, very little has changed. i'm sure he will have defenders in the thread. every opinion will find support on the good ol' internet (mine included thanks to the blow boys), but it is obvious that he was made aware then that his comments are not kind, certainly not for public consumption, and at worst blatantly racist.
i have read some forum posts i made elsewhere 10-15 years ago and they don't exactly provide an ego boost. some are typo-ridden. some are poorly-reasoned. some are shrill. some might say little has changed. but my point is that i don't wish to throw gnu under the bus because some shit he posted 11 years ago is embarrassing. my point is that all his bullshit about how he's just hearing now about how his "jokes" are out of line and how he will try to take that into account in the future is completely transparent nonsense. he is engaging in the same type of demeaning activity now as he was then.
my original intent in finding the reason for my belief about gnu's racism was to provide a good faith explanation on the slim chance that he really didn't see how making "racial" jokes can actually be racist even if that's not one's conscious intention. the slim chance has been reduced to none in my view.
so, gnu, if you want to see why i think you are a racist, read through the links above. i will not engage any longer with you on this topic.
