1972Murat said:
GSM, the problem with the woman in your example is that she is lumping every single individual black men together . Sure, it is your preference, but if you have a rule that says I am not dating black men, most likely you will not have any close black friends either because something about them is making you uncomfortable, so much so that you would never date one. So, what is it? The answer to that question will determine if this person is a racist or not.
For me, any time you make a blanket statement like that, most likely you are a racist. I mean, who would not date Denzel Washington???? I am a hetero guy and I would consider it...:wow:
Not really...
I understand the difference between "individually evaluating each person" and
"lumping people together" under one umbrella. But, it is not as easy as you think.
Let me make two separate points.
1. Going back to Moxie's example, she would not go out with scandinavian men
as it is not her preference. Isn't that an example of lumping people together
under one umbrella (Moxie, I am not trying to make this argument personal,
I am just trying to understand racism clearly and so am using your example;
did not mean to pick on you).
2. Let us say that the woman in my example is fully capable of going beyond
the "lumping" and look at people as individuals. Let me present you a
scenario. There are two urns. You know that urn A has 80 red M&M's
and 20 Green M&M's. You also know that urn B has 80 Green M&M's
and 20 Red M&M's. You know that you have a distinct tase for Green
M&M's and you would not eat Red M&M's. You are hungry and want to
eat an M&M. With the knowledge you have about your preference and
the contents of the two urns, if you are asked to select one Urn
from whcih to select an M&M, one would obviously select Urn B to
maximize the chance of drawing a green M&M.
OK. What is the analogy here? You should not think of the colors as the
race. Think of the Urns as race. Think of the color as your personal
preference. All you care is about eating a green M&M. You don't care
whether it comes from Urn A or Urn B (this clearly means you are
not a racist, right). But, nonetheless you end up picking Urn B from
which to draw an M&M. It is a rational choice as it maximizes the
chances of quickly drawing a green M&M.
The woman in my example does not want to keep dating for a long
time and wants to find a good prospect fast and get married. She
knows what exactly are her preferences and she also knows that
folks of race B are more likely to meet her preferences than folks
of race A. Then she maximizes her chances of finding a good prospect
fast by going out with people exclusively from race B simply because
of the sheer probabilities.
Under these circumstances, would you agree that she is clearly not
a racist, but is just being rational or am I missing something here?
