Society & Culture Casual Racial Profiling

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Caesar

Caesar

Ex-Huckleberry
Ex-Moderator
Mar 3, 2005
29,432
15,699
Tombstone, AZ
AFL Club
Western Bulldogs
I'm not sure how familiar people are with NSW news, but there is currently a corruption inquiry going on that is uncovering a lot of shonky dealings that went on during the last Labor government, mostly centring around former minister Eddie Obeid:

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/costa-obeid-and-the-water-firm-20121214-2bf8e.html

Now, these dealings happen to involve a lot of people with names ending in vowels. During discussions about this a number of people have started saying things like "it's a cultural thing - the Greek/Italian/Lebanese mindset is to do what is best for your family even if it means bending the rules".

I know we don't really regard ourselves as a racist country but we do sometimes seem to have these sorts of 'cultural assumptions' about people... Asian drivers and so forth. I reckon some people would say that they're just general observations but it strikes me as a bit racist.

So, is there something wrong with that sort of stuff or am I being too PC?
 
Depends what the “generalisation” is. Can be a fine line. In some cases it may have merit – in the case of Italian corruption for example, I think there’s actually been examples of “influence peddling” being “approved” in Italian courts as a somewhat legitimate cultural phenomenon. That almost gives it evidence. If there’s evidence of something, it can be reasonable to cite it.

Others such as “Asians can’t drive”... well I’m not really sure if there’s any hard evidence of this, is there? Then I think it just basically becomes racism, harmful or otherwise.

Still, judging anybody’s actions based on their race is fraught with danger no matter what “evidence” may exist, or how innocent or harmless it may be. Because as we all know, generalisations are exactly that. There’s always exceptions.
 

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Whenever these discussions come up I always think that most people don't understand what stereotyping means. It doesn't mean you think all or even a majority of a sex/race/culture/footy clubs fans/sub-culture/any group have a particular behaviour, merely that if you picked a large number (100 or 1000+) you'd see more who have that then if you picked an equivalent number of random people that aren't tied to whatever culture/race/sub-culture/footy club etc. a person is making a comment on.

Those who gripe about stereotypes, do they think that 'back in the day', 'the man' sat around with two hats - one filled with groups, be it race, sex, culture, etc. and the other with traits and randomly picked one at a time from each?! Ah! Let it be recorded that stereotype #31 shall be 'Old drivers in a hat will always go 20km under the speed limit'. Now for the next two pulled from the hats.
 
Caesar said:
I know we don't really regard ourselves as a racist country but we do sometimes seem to have these sorts of 'cultural assumptions' about people... Asian drivers and so forth. I reckon some people would say that they're just general observations but it strikes me as a bit racist.

Click to expand...
 
It's absolutely racist to suggest the sort of thing the Obeids have gore up to is some intrinsic part of Lebanese culture.

It's also bizarre given the sort of names that are involved with White Energy and Cascade coal.
 
Caesar said:
During discussions about this a number of people have started saying things like "it's a cultural thing - the Greek/Italian/Lebanese mindset is to do what is best for your family even if it means bending the rules".
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Are the people saying this of Mediterranean background themselves?
 

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My wife and I went to see the movie The Castle while we were living in Canberra. The scene where they are discussing the fee for hiring the services of Dennis Denuto and how much each it will be, was, to both of us hilarious.

They work out the figure and Farouk pulls a wad of cash out of his pocket to pay his share. Darryl then says, 'What is it with you wogs and cash'. I burst out laughing, so did my wife. The rest of the packed audience looked at us like we were idiots.

Having grown up in Geelong with heaps of wog mates whose parents owned small businesses, I used to see this all the time. Dad would pull out the wad of 50s and 20s while the kids would pull out wads or 1s and 2s. (the wives must have got the 5s and 10s, lol)

They were all of European decent. Mainly Greek and Italians. And yes, the Greek ones were fish and chip shop owners.
 
Because I'm a scientist and I notice shit, over the past year I've noticed here in the US that black drivers tend to go 5mph under the speed limit. I suspect it's an unspoken rule (or not spoken in public to non blacks) they have due to their perception that they are pulled over by cops in unwarranted situations. This is all just in the theory phase at the moment of course.

I'm wanting to confirm this with an actual black person who won't take offense at my scientific inquiries into the matter, but unfortunately, the only black person I see on a regular basis drives like a maniacal speed demon, so no help from her.
 
Dazb86 said:
I wonder how well "black men can't swim" would have been received.
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I for one would be very keen to see a movie where Wesley Snipes plays a character that enter the world of tough backstreet swimming relays.
 
Australians don't typically regard themselves as racist.

All countries have elements of racism/xenophobia but on the whole I have found it to be far less pervasive in Australian attitudes than elsewhere. France, for example. ;)
 

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