IS IT OK TO TALK ABOUT GROUPS OF PEOPLE? A lot of debate going on around Facebook these days following the Maher/Affleck/Harris/Aslan thingy. Lots of accusing people in Racism and Bigotry and so forth. So - is it racist to talk about Islam, or even Muslims as a group, or even - dare I say it - ARABS as a group? Obviously if you say Arabs are violent youre a racist. What if you say Arab culture is more violent than other cultures? Is that racist as well? Case in point: In Israel there is a factual, measurable problem with Arab drivers as a group: more Arabs drive dangerously than other groups, and they get themselves (and others) killed more often. Thats a FACT backed up with numbers. So - are there many safe Arab drivers? YES, probably most of them are fine. So should we just say well then, theres no problem to deal with? NO. There IS a problem to deal with in those areas and those cultures, and saying no there isnt, you cant generalize, they are people like you and me is just going to get people KILLED. YES - you can actually get people KILLED by being too nice and neglecting to face cultural problems at face value. Generalization and grouping people is a valid tool for analyzing cause and effect. Is it dangerous? Yes - like any other powerful tool, it can also create a lot of damage. We have to be very careful with it, but we can and SHOULD use it when its beneficial. If we keep shouting RACIST every time someone is trying to make a point about a trend in a group of people, were not doing good - were doing EVIL. We get people killed. We prevent problem-solving. We make the world a worse place. So now that weve established that you CAN talk about cultural problems without being a racist pig - is there a real Muslim cultural problem to deal with? If you think there isnt, well, see if you can get someone to publish a caricature of Muhammad anywhere in Europe. ***
Posted on: Wed, 15 Oct 2014 08:03:30 +0000
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