The term "Racist" is overused

[k-ossuburb]

It's a pretty easy thing to counter. If they call you a racist, just ask them if they were listening to what you said or if that's really the best response they could come up with. They've essentially proven your point if they can't think of anything positive to say about him themselves.

It's kind of like Godwin's Law. As soon as they say the word "racist" they've lost that argument since it's obvious they have nothing better to say.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

Here's my stance on the thing, if Piers Morgan and Simon Cowell were both black, I'd still call them c***s, I just wouldn't call them n*****s.

As for Obama, he's soo close to white, and that's why he made it. He's a well educated, middle class male.

Something I heard on the Bugle podcast that amused me, now Obama's released his full birth certificate, he should be allowed to demand personal details from Trump.

How about his financial records for the last year? or his internet history for just the last week? They theorised there'd not be any porn, just constant google searches for his own name.

I do believe racism can be too big an issue, I remember when Cheryl Cole (minor UK girl band member and 'celebrity' violently attacked a bathroom attendant in a bar.

Now, celeb punches defenceless woman in the face while drunk... what would be the biggest part of this event, overshadowing everything else?

She called her a 'black *****' while she was assaulting her, and apparently saying 'black *****' is a far greater crime than punching a woman in the face. At least according to the UK media.

 

[googleboy]

Don't care what anyone says the birther issue is only sponsored by racists because we know that no one would ask that to a white president

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and assume that you simply didn't know that every other president, willingly, released a certificate in the states where they were on the ballot. This one is unique because he chose not to. With that said, birthers are idiots.

I agree with the OP, racism gets bandied about far too much these days. Commenting on a persons clothes has gotten me accused several times. Look at the article here on the escapist about the 'black' actor from Thor. He is decrying 'racist' comic book fans.... really? Having seen the movie, he was bloody fantastic! Sorry, running off course. At any rate, I agree, I think many words are used far too freely these days.

 

[thylasos]

Ah... people bitching about unfounded accusations.

I was really hoping that this thread would be about the proper delineation of the terms xenophobia and racism.

 

[Ketsuban]

But we live in a world where RE5, which takes place in Africa, is racist for having mostly black enemies.

No, it's racist because it has black enemies in Africa depicted wearing grass skirts and throwing spears, not to mention the optional costume for the ambiguously-brown female sidekick which features a total lack of protection from the elements, bones as clothing accessories and war paint.

It is true. The various race of people on this planet are different sub-species of Homosapien.

For example, the Negroid race.

All modern humans regardless of ethnicity are of the subspecies Homo sapiens sapiens (as distinguished from H. s. idaltu [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_sapiens_idaltu]).

If RE5 is racist, then why any other game (mainly shooter) is not racist? Crysis for example - you must kill Korean's, then more Koreans, then flying tentacle monsters...

Because those games aren't using any offensive racist stereotypes, or attaching a different reward to killing people of one race versus another.

 

[pulse2]

There are people who automatically pull the race card in the same way some females will pull the sexism card, or religeous people will pull the infidel card etc. Most of the time these cases are unwarranted, but there is the few cases where this is apparent.

While I'm all for people deciding who they want as a political power, there ARE blatantly racist people out there who simply don't like Obama for who he is rather than what he is doing for America, whether or not he is a good or bad president. Its pretty obvious from all the hell he gets and questioning about his personal life, what has his personal life got to do with the job he's doing, we resolved all that before he got into power, why is it all coming back up again? To me that's nitpicking, and it certainly wouldn't have been an issue if it were McCain in power instead. Bush didn't get all that personal pressure and as far as I'm concern he was a pretty crappy president as well, glad he wasn't leading the UK, the last thing we need right now is more disarray by leaders who have no idea what they are doing.

I'm not particularly satisfied with the way Obama has controlled things so far either and I'm not even living out there, but I don't think the mounted personal pressure he gets is justified.

On to the case of RE5, old news though that may be, it wasn't so much the fact that the zombies were all black, its that there has never been a black hero in the game (until Shiva was suddenly introduced which I still beleive was a PR stunt), so to have a white hero going over to Africa of all places and shooting down some blacks, seems a little out of place :/ That's not to say games shouldn't take place in Africa and zombies can't be black, by all means they can, but for a game series made up almost entirely of white heros, it could be deemed offensive. Regardless, what's done is done, and I found I prefered RE4 anyway because RE5 just copied it too much.

Then we have the issue with Thor actor Idris Elba, and yeah, he may not be white as the comics stated, but why does that matter? This is the modern day people, wake up, its perefectly okay to have various races play as gods and superheros, I have yet to see a chinese or indian superhero (That isn't a sub character), why is that so taboo?

Then we have Beyonce who complained that Loreal lightened her skin for no real apparent reason a few years back.

Like I said, in most cases pulling the race card is pretty stupid, but there are situations where it IS justified, and I suppose its difficult to understand that concept unless you are in the driving seat looking at things from a different perspective.

 

[Saelune]

But we live in a world where RE5, which takes place in Africa, is racist for having mostly black enemies.

No, it's racist because it has black enemies in Africa depicted wearing grass skirts and throwing spears, not to mention the optional costume for the ambiguously-brown female sidekick which features a total lack of protection from the elements, bones as clothing accessories and war paint.

It is true. The various race of people on this planet are different sub-species of Homosapien.

For example, the Negroid race.

All modern humans regardless of ethnicity are of the subspecies Homo sapiens sapiens (as distinguished from H. s. idaltu [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_sapiens_idaltu]).

If RE5 is racist, then why any other game (mainly shooter) is not racist? Crysis for example - you must kill Korean's, then more Koreans, then flying tentacle monsters...

Because those games aren't using any offensive racist stereotypes, or attaching a different reward to killing people of one race versus another.

That may be true...but no one who called it racist got to those parts, Im willing to bet.

 

[Gladiateher]

Does it make me racist for noticing the most racist people I've met are non-Caucasians?

I'm with this wise sage.