it's an ignorant thing to say, i'd agree with that.

i wouldn't want to say it.
but i wouldn't automatically treat it as offensive or derogatory if someone said it to me either.

I'd think they were an idiot if they said it to me.

If they said it about the only Asian in the room surrounded by loads of white people.. I'd think they're an idiot that might be a bit racist

If they directed it at the Asian person, to get laughs from the white people at their expense. Definitely racist. If everyone in the room was laughing but the Asian person wasn't there, I'd think the culture was racist and probably some of them were just going along with it. Which is the crux of it and why it kind of should still be a thing. The actual racists are emboldened by the 'just a joke' comments

Comment deleted by Site Moderator

comment by Bãleș left boot (U22081)
posted 1 minute ago
I'd think they were an idiot if they said it to me.
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And that's what it comes down to.
It gives us a chance to feel superior to them /better educated than them.
Because we've been taught not to make observations about peoples' race and to take offence at any reference to race, and they haven't.
So it puts us on the higher ground to them. It's just a cultural thing. There's nothing actually right or wrong about it, unless it's intended to be hurtful. And if it was intended to be hurtful, it's a lame thing to come up with.

Who's them? It's just not being a caant. I'm sure there's lots of people from all corners of the world who don't think it's funny or clever to make jokes about people's appearance whether it's their skin colour or because they're fat or whatever. And if that's your go to, I'm going to think you're an idiot whether you're from Switzerland or Swaziland. Do better

comment by Bãleș left boot (U22081)
posted 27 seconds ago
Who's them? It's just not being a caant. I'm sure there's lots of people from all corners of the world who don't think it's funny or clever to make jokes about people's appearance whether it's their skin colour or because they're fat or whatever. And if that's your go to, I'm going to think you're an idiot whether you're from Switzerland or Swaziland. Do better
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so someone from swaziland - who we're assuming for the sake of this discussion hasn't had the 'benefit' of living in a society which has made a rule that every reference to race should be taken in a hugely offensive way - makes a playful comment that all white people look the same, and your reaction if to think he/she's an idiot (and likely treat him/her accordingly).

well that's nice of you.

It's not very nice but not offensive right? Can't be. So I'm good

And no I'm not going to feel bad if someone says something stupid to me and I think it's stupid. Granted they've got a reason but it's not an excuse. If I cared about them, I'd correct them. If we're a casual encounter, I'd leave that idiot alone

This isn't transfer news though is it?

Could be if Sonny decides to throw him under the bus. Dang. He could get literally thrown under the bus if he does it in Korea

Someone not been taught the same as me = idiot

Not me though, is it? I'm not alone here

I've met people from all over, I'm good friends with a guy from Rwanda. He's never made a joke like that. We get along great

Fair enough then

Fackin rocket of a right boot on him. 20 years ago he must've been one heck of a player

B'sLB & R'sRB

sounds like a good team!

hasn't had the 'benefit' of living in a society..

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More broadly, yes I think it's objectively worse to live in a country where casual racism is the norm. Diversity and inclusion is great. It enriches our lives. As you pointed out earlier, there's bigger problems.. why spend time mocking each other and making people feel bad for being different when we're all the same basically right?

To be clear I don't think I'm better than anyone. Though I don't think it's my job to educate people who haven't been either. Unless, like I say, I care about them for some reason. And I totally try to appreciate how fortunate I am. I default to saying I'm lucky to have been born in England as opposed to proud .. I mean I could've been born in Scotland FFS.

comment by Bãleș left boot (U22081)
posted 2 minutes ago
hasn't had the 'benefit' of living in a society..

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More broadly, yes I think it's objectively worse to live in a country where casual racism is the norm.
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I'd agree that it's better to live in a country where it isn't acceptable to make comments about race to be hurtful to someone.

Where we seem to be differing is that you automatically assume someone saying that they have difficultly distinguishing between faces of people of a particular ethnicity comes under a category of comment categorised as "causal racism", whereas I might consider that it could merely be an expression of a matter of fact or otherwise intended as friendly and non harmful conversation.

As you said, I think correctly, it depends on the context (and on the intent).

Fair enough. Though I also think my examples were fair. It's never an interesting or clever thing to say. I mean, if someone said that to me genuinely, with all honesty in their heart and I knew for sure they weren't racist.. I'd still think it's a dumb think to say. It's patently not true.

Whether the individual is being racist in that moment, was not my point so much in the above comment. More that if jokes like the one Bentancur made are acceptable, it seems like casual racism is still pretty common there.

Again, going back to Britain when those comments were ok, I'm sure most people weren't horrible racists back then. I know they weren't. But they were laughing at racist comments, jokes on TV etc.

It's patently not true that all white people look the same I agree, but I suspect there is truth in there being a difficulty to distinguish between faces of a different race if you aren't very used to seeing people of that race.

If you were shown photographs of 10 white people and 10 Chinese* people, and then the next day given 100 photographs of white people and 100 photographs of ethnic Chinese people, and told to pick out the 20 people you were shown yesterday, would you be confident you could pick our as many of the 10 ethnic Chinese as you could the 10 white people?


*randomly chosen ethnicity

actually, forget the word ethnic. Just Chinese. It doesn't even need to be all about ethnicity as such.

Right. That's a great point about the words you use being important. An accurate response to your predicted result, would be that 'I'm bad at telling Chinese people apart' not that they all look the same.

If Mr Rwanda walked up to me and told me that all white people look the same, I'd tell him that's a dumb thing to say. I wouldn't go around saying that all people from Rwanda are dumb