435
Anon is a philosopher (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/greentext@sh.itjust.works
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[–] 45 points 2 years ago (20 children)

That guy's skin colour really has no relevance to the story. It's like saying "tall woman next to me..."

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  • [–] 76 points 2 years ago (7 children)

    Writing would be extremely boring without ever using adjectives.

    I also find it amusing you find gender has relevance to the story.

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  • [+] -24 points 2 years ago (5 children)

    Writing would be extremely boring without ever using adjectives.

    Correct. Still an extraneous usage of one here. The noun by itself is perfectly descriptive enough for this particular story.

    I also find it amusing you find gender has relevance to the story.

    Strawman. I don't find it relevant. Wouldn't have minded if they'd said "person" or "woman" or "dude" or "gal". The single aforementioned descriptive noun suffices.

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  • [+] -16 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    just take the L and move on sweetie

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  • [–] 38 points 2 years ago (9 children)

    It helps to paint a more complete picture of the situation. The color of the man’s skin says nothing more than the color of his skin. However, now I know that the man that came to him is black. Since people generally don’t mention the color of someone’s skin if they are the same color. I also can assume that OP is not black.

    I was a very successful manager for a retail company at one point. I was so successful that I was flown to the company headquarters with a few other managers from all over the US for 2 weeks. I got a free hotel room, and per diem money. All I had to do was go to a couple of classes everyday.

    The one class that has always stuck in my mind was a race relations class. The teacher was a very tall thin black man, and he started by calling on students and asking “what is one way that you and I are different?”.

    This line of questioning went on for 7 or 8 students. He got answers like “You’re bald, and I have hair”, and “you wear glasses, and I don’t”. Finally someone said “you’re black and I’m white”. The teacher goes “AHHH HAAA! Finally! Now, why is that so hard to say? It shouldn’t be. After all I am black and you are white. We are different in this way, and as long as that difference isn’t being said as a negative then there isn’t a problem with it”.

    Also, as someone who grew up in a city where the population majority is black, and currently lives in a city that is majority black. People have to make that distinction all the time, and it goes both ways.

    TLDR it’s ok to describe someone using their skin color as long as it’s not being used to disparage someone. While I understand the context of where we are. I don’t find anything about OP’s post racist.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I also grew up in a city that was majority black, in Georgia. I never thought anything of it. My family and I ended up moving away when I was in middle school but I visited friends occasionally after that. Many years later, I told my new girlfriend that I thought I might want to retire there. I love the nature there, the endless rolling hills, all kinds of different dirt and clay, oaks and pines for days. And they have amazing food, and some of the best (and sometimes the worst) people I've ever met. She said she had never been there, lived in Florida her whole life, so we visited and she decided that she liked it too but needed to spend more time there to really know if that would be a good long term future for her.

    She told her parents about all this and the first thing her dad said was "did you know it's full of black people?" I lived there for many years and never once thought that there were too many or too few people nearby of any certain skin color, but the first thing this guy thinks about when he hears "Georgia" is lots of black people, and on top of that, that it's a bad thing. Honestly, kinda speechless, there was nothing to say but "yeah, and...?" And we try to avoid spending time with him as much as possible now.

    I think that presenter you had was doing a good job of pointing to what so many people feel so awkward about. Acknowledging differences in race is not inherently bad. People just don't know how to handle it because too often, we remain isolated from each other. More interaction with people who are different than you will lead to greater understanding and normalization.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I feel your comment so much. I grew up in Bessemer, Al. I currently live in Birmingham, Al. I always assumed that the mix of people I grew up around was representative of how it was everywhere in the US. That is until I got older.

    The rolling hills sounds like my home. The Appalachians come down into Georgia and then west and pretty much end at Birmingham. I live in the shadow of red mountain.

    I imagine that you and I had very similar experiences.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago

    I don't think mentioning it is inherently racist(y'know, without the added context that it's fucking 4chan), it's just that it's irrelevant, and therefore kind of weird. As they mentioned, if the person were notably tall, that also wouldn't have any relevance, so unless you're just specifically calling attention to it because it's strange to you, which would be racist if used when describing someone's race, it's very strange to just suddenly say that they are that adjective without it being necessary for the story.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (4 children)
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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago* (1 child)

    Technically for the story in that skit, though, the race of the other party was relevant. The mention of "you know how I like a little asian" provides relevancy to the fact that they're asian(and probably also to the other man being black), because it's a story about a sexual encounter with them. Nothing wrong with having a type.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    Honestly, the only thing that registered for me was that Caleb didn't object to race being in the story until the second guy was brought up.

    I don't think Freckles, the other character, was declaring a type preference though, I think they were just communicating the race of both guys as set dressing for the story ("you know how I like a little x" to me just sounds like a playful double down, but I really dont actually know, you do have a point here, but it seems ambiguous at best to me right now. I would have to ask the writers what they meant for me to be satisfied now haha good call out though!)

    The only reason I posted it was because it seemed that Freckles was saying essentially the same thing as the person I was responding to. Race isn't a bad thing to include, it's only bad when you're being an asshole about it, essentially.

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