Bihlbo wrote:The racial stereotype is that they are wealthy, therefore privileged
When you say "the French are more wealthy and privileged than [some African group somewhere]" you are not appealing to a racial stereotype or being racist in anyway. Refusing to admit that is the thing that is racist, because it is completely true and it is a problem we need to solve. Sure, there are white people who are poor. Sure, there are black people who are rich. But what does that have to do with statements like "the U.S. institutionally discriminates against black people?" Does one poor white person mean the U.S. is built to fuck white people? Does one rich black person mean the U.S. isn't built to fuck black people? No and no. Whether or not one group is a victim of institutional and widespread discrimination isn't a racial stereotype. That's stupid.
But also: you and fuchs are trying to frame the issue in terms of protecting individuals of minority groups from having their feelings hurt. Guess what? No one gives a fuck about whether or not people have their feelings hurt! Do you know where the idea that the debate is centered around people's feelings comes from?
It's a conservative strawman, and it exists solely so that conservatives can mock people for suggestions as outlandish as "we shouldn't propagate the idea that black people are all violent thugs, because it causes police to disproportionately target them and juries to disproportionately convict them and judges to disproportionately sentence them." I don't know where you two got the idea, but you should probably stop using it as a source of information because it suckered you into parroting a disgusting bit of conservative propaganda.
Discussions of racism are actually about (make sure you're sitting down for this shocking revelation)
discrimination. And the problem with propagating certain racial stereotypes is that they are
actionable - when you spread the idea that black people are violent thugs, that isn't harmless. That reinforces a plethora of discriminatory institutional practices that are actually happening. Sure, "black people are violent thugs" and "french people are cheese-eating surrender monkeys" are both potentially offensive statements, but that's not the point. The point is that the former validates the systematic abuse of a minority group that is currently happening AND offends some people, while the latter... offends some people. The french are not victims of significant discrimination, and calling them surrender monkeys isn't going to make Germany invade them or something.
tl;dr social harm has always been and always will be the metric by which these things are measured. The topic of offensiveness is a piece of misdirection cooked up because conservatives wanted to keep being racist and "it's okay to say bad things about minorities because we hate them and want bad things to happen to them" sounds much worse than "it's okay to say bad things about minorities because who cares if you offend people stop being thought police you dirty liberals!"
