You have to say, from your own experience, the Jewish people you know, the majority of them seem to have a good sense of humor, based on your own judgment, own standard of humor, and limited data samples when you were interactive with them.
of course, thats why i made that remark. Some of the best comedians are jewish...like sinbad (thats a joke. personally i dont know too many jewish people but the ones i have known were typically pretty funny dudes.
It's an ignorant remark, but his suspension was overblown to make an example out of him. Good point. It's like when that cow Rosie O'Donnell making offensive jokes about Chinese people, but beforehand she started turning green when she think she hears some anti-gay remarks. It looks like people are only out to get theirs. We've retained the racial hierarchy that made racism so bad in the first place. Divide n conquer...
You're on to something here. The social end-game is that there will never be total racial harmony in our society -- and this is for several reasons, one of which being the selective way we view prejudice or possible "offensive" comments. I'll use caucasians as a quick example. We think nothing of calling a white guy a "white boy", and most of the time it's used in a derisive manner -- not simply identifying a 'young male by his race', or whatever. We also flippantly use the term "white trash" and "rednecks" - not in a lovable, endearing way but to make fun of and to demean. Yet those same people will never utter the phrase "ghetto trash" to my face and many are so sensitive regarding the racial connotations of the word "thug" that you'll never hear them say it. Point being that we've become more selective with who we're not afraid of offending. One of the worst things a person can be labeled in this society is a "racist", and the social axis has tilted to the point that we're not using the same rules for everyone. And that intellectual inconsistency is part of the reason why groups of people will continue to subversively resent other groups of people. I hate the labeling of any group. All it does is limit us as a society. What I hate even more is the hypocrisy we sometimes exhibit when we don't treat the sensitivity of all groups equally. By not doing that we create a slippery slope that'd pretty damn slippery.
I think that his comments reflex extreme insensitivity and a lack of awareness. A high level of ignorance. But the intent to cause harm wasn't there. But then again, is racism about intent or reality? Is saying a black man is a better athlete racist? What about saying Asians are good in math? Saying that Jews have risen to prominent positions - is that an observation or an unreal stereotype - a stereotype based on what? Are positive stereotypes racism? Or is there such a thing? Or is this guy actually trying to insult Jews and disguising it in another way - maybe he's the "crafty" one. I have no idea to be honest. But I don't like the fact that he got banned. Not sure that's the best solution to ignorance or insensitivity.
I think positive stereotypes are also racism. This is because not every one in that race fits the stereotype. There are many unathletic African Americans, unsuccessful Jewish Americans and Asian Americans bad in math. Positive stereotypes are considered offending for these people.
NBA coaches are public figures, ambassadors of the game, everything they say is a potential sports column or local sports talk radio topic: all reasons enough to ostracize him for this comment. Oh, and the league is run by a "Jew lawyer." If Kermit can get ostracized for nearly beheading Rudy T 30 years ago, no problem with this.
But the dirty secret is that stereotypes are based on some level of truth and are in fact useful. If you haven't read blink, i'd recommend it too. Look, are you saying that there is absolutely no consideration to race in any situation??? If you were to place a bet on how well someone would score - two complete strangers, dressed similarly, similar everything but race. Which would you choose - the asian dude or the latin one? I mean, you might not be right any more then 50% of the time, but if you were to put money, which one would you choose? Who'd you pick in a basketball game? Or to go dancing with and pick up chicks? Just saying that if stereotyping is racism, then we are all racists. I am not sure anyone can be free of it or even if that's desireable. We all form stereotypes - I think it's a mattar of how seriously we take them....and if we are aware of the ones we form or not.
Good point. What it also does is pigeonhole people. Growing up I was always presumed to be good at math, bad at sports and quiet and reserved. Well I'm so so at math, decent at sports and anything but quiet and reserved. The probablem with stereotypes, even positive ones, is that they subject members of a group to assumptions that don't fit the individual or to expectations that can't be met by an individual. The other problem with positive stereotypes is that there is a presumption that the group is deficient in another category. The presumption is that if blacks are good at sports they aren't intelligent since all their skills are channeled into physical pursuits. Or that Asians are very intelligent but suck at sports since all their energy is directed towards intellectual pursuits. There is a flipside to positive stereotypes.
I hope you're not telling little kids that stereotyping is ok. And legally, yes, you're not supposed to have consideration in race. If this guy was any joe employee and said the same thing, HR couldn't even think twice in canning him.
Great points. I just posted very similar comments in the NBA section of the forum and used, almost verbatim, the same analogy. I'm going to copy and past my thoughts just because we're so in-line on this: I would agree that we, as a society, are probably somewhat too sensitive in many respects. But this is the world we live in. That being said, most stereotypes - whether "good" or "bad" - really do more harm than good. We are (many times with no malice intended) placing constructs on folks by painting with broad strokes. Let me think of a quick example. Okay, we normally wouldn't think it offensive to stereotype all Asian people as "smart, intellectual academics" would we? But we tend to subconsciously apply what I'll call (for sake of discussion) the Law of Equality in that we think if a group is good at one thing they must struggle at another -- thus always avoiding an inevitable "master race" hypothesis if we were to attribute dominance in various fields to one specific group of people. So, in this example, many times the same speaker may also hold the view that those same Asian people (who he just "complimented") are not generally athletic or good at sports. And what is the harm in this, we may ask? Well, let's fast-forward the tape, shall we? What we've inadvertently fostered is an environment where a young Asian man who is growing up in, say, San Diego, is hearing these statements over and over again. And they are seared into his head. And as he's growing up and going through middle school and high school he never plays or participates in sports that much -- or at least doesn't invest the time nor the effort to figure out if he, just maybe, has a natural athletic gift. Instead he stays within the social constructs, hobbies, and interests that's "expected" from him by society. And, unbeknownst to him, he could have some very special (in this example, athletic) gifts that will never be cultivated. Why? Because of the way we pigeon-hole people without seeing the possible far-reaching effects. So it just seems like that even if we can rationalize certain stereotypes as compliments -- even backhanded compliments -- we're getting into an area where we're not looking at individuals on a personal level, but labeling entire groups. And that's not a productive thing no matter which way we look at it.
Stereotyping is inevitable. You can judge it as positive or negative - but it's a way of human thinking that is ingrained into us as fear or love. It's our nature to form generalizations about anything and everything. But like most things, stereotyping is dangerous - especially when it's racially based. What I am trying to say is that stereotyping is NOT racism. You don't see racism in the definition of stereotype and vice versa. Theres a reason for that.
