patterns with people-am i a racist?

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I tend to be blunt and it's gotten me in trouble - even here on Wrong Planet.

In cities like New York or Seattle, one can't help but notice the racial divisions in neighborhoods. Mexicans live here, Asians live there. White folks live here and black folks live there. That's not being racist; that's just a fact. But yeah, depending on who you're talking to, they interpret it as racist observations and suggest you keep quiet about it. They're the ones with the problem, not you.

To some people you are a racist if you even mention or notice what someone else's race is, or that certain groups do certain things more than others. I was once called racist because in the town I live in, we have black churches and white churches. That's a common thing all over the South and nobody is being racist and saying "You can't worship here because you are the wrong color". It's just what people seem to do here. Anyway, I said on here once something about a black church. I didn't say anything mean, just something in passing. Not about the church itself or anything, I don't even remember the context. I got a PM from somebody going on and on about how I'm a racist because of that and "people like me" should be shot, etc. Apparently it's my fault for noticing that particular phenomenon. It's mainly in the protestant churches because the catholic churches go by location and diosces usually. Anyway, because I said "black church" I'm apparently a racist, at least to some people. So, don't take it personally if somebody thinks you are racist because you committed the horrible offense of noticing someone else's skin color.

I'm a grey seal that got called "racist" before for noticing a white-spotted seal.

Start dating black women, then you can literally make people eat the race cards they attempt to hit you with.

If that sounds like too much trouble, you could try and educate people on the difference between bigotry and pattern recognition, as others in this thread have suggested, but "have you met my girlfriend?" is far more direct, and entertaining; holier than thou white people in particular really tend to squirm. Note that while you don't actually have to say the word a**hole, it's clearly audible either way.

When people post photos of missing children on Facebook, I can only shake my head and think, "I would never be able to remember that face and actually notice it somewhere." ...white children all look alike to me, black children all look alike to me, hispanic, asian... sometimes, even, BOTH hispanic and asian children look alike to me. Adults aren't as difficult because they usually have more distinguishable features and styles, but I still probably wouldn't notice them after seeing them on a big "wanted" billboard 30 seconds prior.

Individuals don't usually appear to me until they notice me first. Occasionally, I will recognize someone I knew for a long time, but I usually hide.

When I was in college, a guy I worked with at my on-campus job approached me and started talking to me, and we talked for about 5 minutes... and I still couldn't remember who he was until I saw him at work the next day. I did a good job of pretending I recognized him, though, because he had no idea how freaked out I was trying to remember... sometimes, categorizing is all one has... if I remember that three black kids were kidnapped last night, then I see someone treating three black kids badly the next day, the thought may cross my mind to report on it. it hasn't happened, but I think it's better to just admit that I'm not going to recognize the little white baby who looks like a marshmallow like every other white baby and just stick that info in my brain as "white marshmallow baby is missing in this area..." (I am white, by the way, and a lot of white babies DO look like marshmallows)

The "I have black friends" defence doesn't work very well. I mean, by your logic, nobody who has had a relationship with someone of the opposite sex could ever be sexist.

I have been accused of being racist more than once.

I do think that some groups are in average better than others in specific aspects, no matter we're talking about cultures, countries, NT/AS, men/women or even races. And I'm not saying different. I'm not being politacally correct. I'm saying better. I'm talking about values. I'm even go farther: with regard to culturres, I do think that some ones are clearly better than other ones. Not in specific aspects, but as a whole.

From the NT point of view, I'm a racist. And a xenophobe and a machista and so. Fair enough.

Now let's deep in it. I'm talking about average, that doesn't consider deviation. That means average has no meaning?. Nope, it has. The more people involved, the more important average is, the less deviation counts. The more people, the clearer the patterns. When iit comes to a big group, it follows its patterns as herd. You can see it clearly with ethnic and cultural comunities.

But now we go back until one individual. Here average almost doesn't count and deviation matters. Many people have difficulty with this concept: it's very easy to predict how a specific group behaves, and however, that says nothing about a random individual. It's a counterintuitive statistic concept.

And it becomes even more messy when many people finds in those 'averages' a way to assert themselves. For example:

http://www.cosmopolitan.com/advice/tips ... men-things
http://voices.yahoo.com/ten-things-men- ... 16102.html

(Imagine the same with races, or cultures, and so)

I'm not talking about how reliable those statements are (it's Cosmo, c'mon). But how many people makes the following reasoning, for example:

Women learn better than men in average > We learn better > I learn better.
Men embrace change better than women > We embrace change better > I embrace change better

That is completelly wrong. The average can say nothing about a random person if we have a high deviation. Average only counts if we're talking about communities, but belonging to a group is no guarantee that you will do something better or you will behave in some way.

From my point of view, statistic is clear. This is not politics, but mathematics.

But for many people, there's only two options: either every group is the same and there's no diffeences between them (then you're not racist), or there's differences and, furthermore, belonging to a group means that you someway inherits the average features of this group (then you're racist).

Statistics are not always quite so clear. The methods of gathering the purported statistical data are often not mathematics but politics in drag.
See, for example, complete statistical bulldung in "I.Q. and the Wealth of Nations" --politics masquerading as science.

The problem is in understanding that the numbers are way in which we tell stories about reality, but they not the reality themselves--and the way we choose to claim a connection between the numbers and reality is fully loaded with all of our psychological foibles, however much we might pretend to objective measurements.

But the statistics is right: there's a correlation. The problem appears when you want to assign causality. This is a typical issue.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlatio ... _causation

I'm not talking about imaginary black friends, I'm talking about tangible black wives and girlfriends, and I'm also not so much talking about logic, as logic is not what informs someone to foolishly play the race card. While possible, arguing that someone with an interracial partner is racist requires some serious verbal contortions, and tends to look rather strained at best. Remember, I'm not talking theory here, I'm speaking from my own personal experience of over a decade of interracial couple-dome combined with a lifelong habit of pushing boundaries; the "black significant other racism accusation verbal judo flip" works, and it works exceptionally well.

Also, racism and sexism have very different dynamics, and so the the mechanisms and counters are not directly comparable.

In the case of "IQ and the Wealth of Nations"-- the statistics are rubbish.

The methods of assigning average IQ to nations with no reliable data was absurd.

I knew a guy who drove a van for the disabled, and like a taxi driver, he often converses with his passengers. For the record, this driver was white. One day a woman started ranting about inter-racial marriages, saying that they were wrong, etc. The driver quietly informed her that his wife was black. He told me that the expression on that woman's face was priceless! She at least apologized, but was very uncomfortable with him after that. IMO, she would have been better off discussing the weather.

I have had this experience many, many times. It's depressing. I somehow doubt it's productive, but I am always hopeful that people will reconsider their prejudices. The most uncomfortable version of this is when you run into it at work with colleagues with whom you will be spending a lot of time.

I one had a manager who told me at length about how much his dog hated black people and then said very significantly "I loved that dog!" I remind polite and aloof. He took this for approval, so when I finally couldn't take it any more and said that I would have to shoot his dog if it ever came near my family, things were a little strained. His boss was surprised when I opted not to extend my freelance relationship with that company.

That is so sad, that some people thrive on hating others whom they have not made the slightest effort to really know. What sorry, sad existences they must lead, as well.

I don't know about over there, but in this country people are used to the "my friend/relative is black" defence, so it looks feeble and is a point of mockery. Like when Luis Suarez tried to argue he couldn't have said a racist thing because he had a black grandparent, it didn't hold water because he'd said he disliked someone because he was black. If you're actually being racist, it falls down flat, and if you're not being racist then from experience that defence is such a dead horse that people will assume you are.

No you are not racist and those co workers sound like fools.

A racist first of all would not worry whether they were a racist. They would be proud of it.

A racist believes one race is superior to another race.

You were just sorting people by type as part of your OCD.

Just drop the topic at work and eventually they will forget about it.