From: david buchanan (dmbuchanan@hotmail.com)
Date: Sun Aug 07 2005 - 18:04:09 BST
Hi Sam, Mark and all MOQers:
Sam quoted dmb:
"I mean, its not that I hate christians or theists, I just think they're
wrong. Only crooked toothed, tea drinking, fish and chips eater like you
could suggest that bigotry has anything to do with it. (I'm actually having
trouble coming up
with English sterotypes for this joke, but you get the idea. )"
And Sam asked Mark:
...would you think this equally objectionable? ...The thing is, I do have
crooked teeth, I drink an awful lot of tea, and after two weeks in Asia I
was dying for some fish and chips. And I also thought it was quite funny (I
find DMB funny a lot of the time). Is this also racist? Where do we draw the
boundaries? Is it just a question of taking offence - in other words, if I
had taken offence at DMB, would that in itself have made the remarks racist?
dmb replies:
Huh? Once again its hard to believe that you're being serious. I explicitly
point out that I'm making a joke about sterotypes and its not a bigoted joke
anyway. It makes fun of bigotry. Its a joke ABOUT bigotry. And may I remind
you that this joke was a response to your charge that anti-theism is a form
of bigotry. Just for the record, I love fish and chips. I had a longed for
the real thing for many years, so Ant directed me to a perfect little shop
near my hotel in Liverpool. It was a culinary nostalgia trip. I drink tea
all the time and my teeth aren't that great either. You seem to be implying
that my anti-bigotry joke amounts to racism, Sam, and this is such a stretch
and is so far off the mark that the effort only makes you look like a rather
humorless dude with poor reading comprehension skills. It would be
slanderous if it weren't so ridiculous. Cut it out, will ya?
Sam also asked Mark:
I think the underlying concern I have is that bringing in the assertion of
racism _can_ generate more heat than light. But quite possibly I still have
racist elements in my own thinking. For example, I think a strong argument
can be made for racial profiling when assessing potential bomb threats.
Perhaps we could focus on that?
dmb replies:
Yes, quite possibly. And its courageous of you to admit that. But I have to
say I agree with Paul on this point. The biological factors that are used in
racial profiling simply have nothing to do with the ideology of terrorism.
Those patterns are more difficult to detect, but are far more important in
terms of finding out who is dangerous and who is not. The idea that such
behaviour can be known on the basis of race is pretty much the definition of
racism. Am I saying that a person HAS to be a racist in order to be in favor
of racial profiling? You can bet your ass I am. Otherwise the word has no
meaning.
Thanks,
dmb
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