People use numerous cues, visual and otherwise, to decide which people are worthy of their trust. I generally fall into that category. Whether it is ID cards or people telling me their life stories after knowing me for 5 minutes, it just happens.

Now I’m not saying that racism doesn’t happen. I’ve spent quite a bit of time in both Alaska (2 years in highschool) and Oklahoma (visiting my parents). In Alaska there weren’t many weeks that went by were there weren’t Native gangs ganking someone because one of the white gangs had scrawled a swastika on the wall of a bathroom, or vise versa with the white gangs. In OK, at this very moment, if you go out and ask someone about Obama, you have a decent chance of being informed that they, “won’t vote for no black man”.

So I’m not under the mistaken impression that racism doesn’t exist. I *am* under the impression that both sides make extensive use of racism as a weapon; in order to keep that weapon powerful, it has to be fully loaded with ammo (new cases of racism). Instead of dealing with the REAL racism in places like Oklahoma, stuff like this “black hole” comment is manufactured. Why? Because this is easy, and dealing with real racism is both hard, and not politically correct.

After all, every time I say that the southern US is racist I get blasted for using stereotypes without knowing what I’m talking about. Buddies, I’ve spent a fair amount of time in the southern states, and I was blown away by the overwhelming level of racism in those places. Those feelings aren’t completely unanimous among the population, but they are nearly ubiquitous in their strength across the slave states. Before I went there it had never occurred to me that people would find skin colour to be such a big deal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc1zGRUPztc

In my case it is because I am simply trying to protect all those people who wish to communicate using a perfectly good language from being restricted in their communication by a small number of other people who want to see that language distorted for no good reason.

My life would be negatively impacted because I would be denied access to some of my vocabulary, which reduces my ability to communicate effectively. Why should I be forced to find convoluted alternative ways of saying things that can be said more concisely using words that were designed for the purpose and are in reality inoffensive? I would object to that.

All I can say is that my wife (caucasian) has never been asked to show ID when using a credit card (at least in the US). We have the exact same credit cards. I mentioned earlier that I’ve never been asked to show ID when I’ve been shopping with a white person, but that’s not quite true. It has happened twice buying groceries with my wife, but while I was paying, she was hanging back looking at magazines and didn’t appear to be with me.

If you want, try doing an informal survey of people (I have) on this. I’m pretty sure you’ll find a correlation between skin color and being ID’d.

I don’t know about your mom. That’s weird. Are you sure she’s not writing checks?

I’m not saying anyone should apologize. All I’m asking is that people be less quick to cry “He’s playing the race card” or “reverse racism”. I don’t know if anybody has explicitly said that in a post here, but it’s certainly implied in many of them.

I don’t know the players involved in this case, but I can think of many scenarios where this could have been racism. When Phil wrote this, he clearly didn’t have enough information to know either way, yet he’s immediately accusing people of “all-too-ready to be offended”. It may be that he’s absolutely spot on in this case, and from the posts of people familiar with these folks, maybe he was. But that’s not the point. The point is that there’s was a definite chance that this post was a knee jerk reaction to some misleading headlines and blurbs.

I know that there is nothing inherently racist about Ba Ba Black Sheep and never suggested such. All I said is that it’s possible to twist something non racist into something that is. Imagine if a school banned it’s singing for the very reasons I’d detailed in my previous post. When the news media and blogosphere got a hold of the story, I guarantee that the headlines would be things like “Political Correctness Gone to Far”, “Black People Will Make Anything a Race Issue” or “White’s Facing Discrimination at one Elementary School”. Very few would dig deep enough to get the correct headline “Little Girl Tortured by Racist Classmates Because of Her Ancestry”.

This is exactly what happened in the case where the woman was awarded a millions of dollars after she spilled coffee on herself. Only then it was headlines decrying frivolous lawsuits. For weeks she was talk show host fodder. Dig a little deeper, and it’s not so clear cut. Here’s a quick summary of the case. McDonald’s had received hundreds of reports of severe burns caused by the fact that they kept their coffee way to hot, and the lids of there coffee had a tendency to pop off. It was a long standing problem with a simple solution (turn down the heat, or get more secure lids), which they chose to ignore. In 1994, The woman in question simply went through a drive through, got her coffee, and while she was securing it, the lid popped off. She was horribly burned on her legs (If you can find the photos, they are quite gruesome). All she asked for was that McDonald’s pay for her medical bills. They refused, so she sued. 12 perfectly sane jurors saw how irresponsible McDonald’s had been, and decided to send a message by awarding the woman $2.9 million dollars (which was later reduced to $480,000 thousand dollars). The facts of the case are out there, yet even today people will cite it as proof of what’s wrong with our legal system.

And if there’s anyone still reading this thread, please answer this part of my comment. How are your lives negatively impacted by refraining from using a phrase or symbol that might be offencive to someone? Why the outrage? Why is political correctness always a negative?

Growing up, I would used the term “jipped” to mean ripped off. When I learned that it was a gypsy slur, I was pretty surprised. Now, I don’t ever think I’ve ever even met a gypsy, but I immediately stopped using the term. And you know what, my life is exactly the same. There’s no sense of loss. No gaping hole that the rest of my vocabulary was unable to fill. The “burden” of being politically correct is minuscule compared to the amount of energy people spend railing against it.

But even if this story was absolutely true, I’d have a problem with news storys and posts like this that boil down to “Silly minorites get upset over nothing”. It falls into the same class as the “I didn’t get the job because I’m a white guy” story. They’re isolated incidents with issues that 99% of white American will never encounter. But these stories aren’t harmless. They foster an unjust feeling of resentment and hostility and towards minorities. Many times throughout my career people have stated or implied that I have a leg up on the competition when it comes to getting a job, when in fact my name makes it dificult for me to even get an interview. Of course, my interview problems went away one day when I thought, “I wonder what would happen if I changed the name on my resume from Jose to Joe”. Thank god my last name isn’t a dead give away like Gomez of Martinez or I might still be unemployed.

I have two little comments.

1) My mom is white. She gets asked for her ID virtually *every time* she makes a purchase. I once saw her not get asked for it, and she was so startled that for a moment she didn’t know whether she was coming or going. Me on the other hand? With the obvious exception of airports, not once, not once in my entire life have I been asked for my ID. Not for CC purchases, not for liquor stores, not for bars or clubs. Nothing. Never. Naughtta. Apparently I normally have a trustworthy expression on my face. Maybe you and my mom don’t walk around with a slight friendly looking smile all the time?

2) I’m white. My parents live in the US and I live in Canada, so I have to fly to see them. I have never, not once in the 7 years I have been flying to the US to see them, failed to have both myself and my bags thoroughly searched. I get picked out of every line, seemingly at random, for no apparent reason. Why is this? I think I know the answer:

The first few times it happened, on my first few flights, it was no big deal. It probably *was* completely random at that time. But after those first few times, I started to feel kind of hunted if you know what I mean;). So every time I stood in one of those airport security lines, I’d unconsciously try to look innocent and unassuming. Yeah. Those people (security guards) spend their entire careers looking for people doing suspicious things. Now I look suspicious every time I step into one of those lines. Of COURSE they’re going to draw me out of line. None of their security tech is worth a damn, so all they have to go by is how nervous people look. And they do a pretty decent job of catching the nervous people too:P.

But if I was anything other than white, I’d probably have jumped to the conclusion that they were racial profiling me. The circumstantial evidence would *appear* to be conclusive. It wouldn’t be true of course, but I’d still think it, and I’d probably go around spouting that mistruth to everyone I knew.

It’s a bit of a stretch but I reckon I can justify the baseball example. To start with, you didn’t say you picked up a ball, just that you pointed to one. Let’s say you were teaching me the rules of baseball by showing me taped game that you’d seen earlier, so you knew what was going to happen next… Hey, I said it was a stretch!

OK, so if I was there and in the context I would understand what you meant. Because I’m not there you have to describe the context, which demonstrates how crucial the context is.

…and now I realise that I am totally missing the point of your disagreement with Philip’s comment. You never said context wasn’t important. In fact, in your earlier post you mentioned the value of seeing the footage to establish context.

See how easily these misinterpretations happen? Easier with written forms (e-mails & blogs) than face-to-face. I reckon that effective communication involves judging how your message is coming across and making adjustments on the fly. It’s so easy to get into a “But I only said… Yeah but you meant…” type of argument.

Not sure if I disagree with you or not anymore. But I do think that “Language is always interpreted by the receiver” is a fair statement.

Either the Judge is lying and should be punished for pushing the racially motivated “White Hole” response or be put under an academic microscope to see if he is really qualified to the hold a judgeship.

Black is not a bad word and every word with black in it is not racially motivated, but stupid is a bad word and should be used on the Judge who thinks that black holes are synonymous with black people.

Ron Paul was right when he said that education should not be controlled by the federal government.

infidel said:
>>“Sometimes words mean just what they are supposed to mean.”

> I dare say that where humans are involved, this is completely untrue. That’s why scientists have mathematics, and computer programmers have context-free grammars.

JediBear said:
> @infidel, no. Actually, the reason we have CFGs in computer science is because it’s fairly easy to teach a computer to understand them. Introduce a little context, and the silly things get all confused.

JediBear, I think you misunderstood infidel. Computers need CFGs in order to understand the programming, but normal human language is context-laden. Ergo, computer programmers developed CFG’s, and even languages like Basic that look like English are specialized.

xav0971 said:
> Don’t we have freedom of speech in this country. If someone wants to make a racist remark that’s their right it doesn’t matter if you offend people or not. Anything you say people can be offended by it. If I hear something I don’t like I ignore it, simple.

No, it’s not that simple. Freedom of speech means the freedom to react to what other people say, including reacting to racist remarks by pointing them out, condemning them, and otherwise demonstrating disapproval for the ideas behind them. When remarks really are racist, then it serves a valid purpose to draw attention to the remarks and the remarker. Sometimes there are phrases in common parlance that do have racist origins and overtones, and it can be useful to point those out when the occur. But many times people react like in this case, a totally benign comment with a non-racial origin and meaning is highlighted by racial oversensitivity.

Also, the situation of the remarks makes a difference. Some wino on the street ranting may be fine to ignore, but a County Commissioner speaking at a County Commission meeting is speaking for the people, and should be held to higher standards. And if one is displaying racism, that should be identified and condemned.

Jose said:
> Some of you sound just like Christians who get mad if they hear someone say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”. Once again, can somebody please explain to me how their lives are negatively impacted by not being able to use a phrase that might be offencive to someone. Just because it sounds silly, doesn’t mean it is.

It is one thing if the remark really is an offensive remark, or is meant to be offensive (used in an offensive manner). It is quite another for a completely innocent remark to be taken and offensive, and an apology demanded. If I didn’t mean to offend you, why should I apologize for you being offended by my innocuous remark? Your oversensitivity is my fault? And how am I to keep from offending you if you take anything I say as an offense? “I like bananas.” “STOP BEING OFFENSIVE!”

> Ba Ba Black Sheep is the perfect example. When I first moved to silly-racist-ville (with it’s 20 to 1 white to black ratio), there was a little black girl in my school who everyone called ba ba, which she hated. They referred to her hair as wool, and made jokes about holding her down and shearing her. I think in that situation, banning Ba Ba Black Sheep would be the least we could do. Racism can take some really unexpected forms.

That is a specific case from a specific geographic region where bigots are using any opportunity to demonstrate their bigotry. While I deplore it, it hardly makes “Baa, baa, black sheep” an inherently racist rhyme. But I could support banning of the rhyme in that context in that locale, if part of a comprehensive approach to addressing the racism of the community. Unfortunately, I doubt banning one rhyme would in itself have much effect.

Jose said:
> My whole point is that some people are more likely to see racism where it isn’t, but nobody walks out the door looking to be a victim of racism.

First off, I haven’t seen anyone claim that. Second, I will state that some people seem to be looking to be the victim of racism by their overreaction. You accept that some people see racism where it isn’t. If those people display a consistent pattern of seeing racism where it isn’t, I state that they get some satisfaction and worth out of identifying all the racists around them, and how victimized they are.

This John Wiley Price is a perfect example. He has a reputation of making everything about race. His career is built on it. Behavior like that is not helpful to the cause of race relations or the status of African Americans and other minorities. It does not reduce bigotry, it does not solve community problems. What it does is inflame people and increase racial tension.

saturn8isgreat said:
> How did this nonsense even get in front of a judge?

That was my first question, but the article clarified for me that the judge was not ruling from a bench about the remarks, he was a participant in the council meeting. His being a judge was just to identify his position and why he was present, not to indicate he was presiding.

It’s shocking, how hurtful people can be, especially as children of a certain age. However, I have to disagree that the solution is to ban the song.

There is no difference between the use of “black sheep” in that rhyme and the use of “black” in “blackboard”. They are both there for sound, non-racist reasons: one is alliterative, the other descriptive. If people chose to pick up the song and misuse it, they are the ones to blame. If I might just paraphrase the gun lobby for a moment, here… Nursery rhymes don’t hurt people. People hurt people.

There is nothing in the article to suggest Price may have been joking. Jones certainly didn’t seem to think so, nor did Mayfield, who felt compelled to explain that “black hole” was both a scientific and a contextually appropriate colloquial term, which is true on both counts. The reporter also noted that the situation needed other county officials to “break it up”.

I will grant, however, some slight benefit of doubt. Urban Dictionary suggests there may be a recognized and particularly ugly interpretation for the term “black hole”, having to do with the unique anatomy of a female with considerable notoriety. This interpretation would best be described, however, as exceptionally sexist. To call it racist appears to be a considerable stretch. It’s clear, however, that this interpretation draws heavily upon the definition of the scientific term.

Sorry for speaking so carefully, but it seems there’s no such thing as being too careful where invented racism is concerned. I’ve no doubt someone will prove me right.

Racism sucks, but forcing racism that is not there, sucks more.

The idealist in me says this is a great opportunity to educate people about black holes, but the cynic says it will instead be ripped out of context to be used for political purposes. Probably a bit of both will happen.

“Could I get an apology from the commissioner, in this day and time, you don’t sit around a table where you have diversity and refer to a black hole.”

” Introduce a little context, and the silly [humans] get all confused.”