Is it ever helpful to make a generalization such as "all black people" or "white Americans"

[Nye Bevan]

followed by something critcal?

16 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	Yes
	3 (19%)
	No
	13 (81%)
	0 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
Show usernames Disclaimer: This is an Internet poll

[GusBob]

1. Yes because it says more about the person than the groups

Huge red flag

[SouthernProgressive]

2. White Americans benefit from privileges not afforded to black people.

There are so many arguments to be made where generalizations are completely appropriate and necessary. Many people do find my statement here to be critical and wrong, yet it is an undeniable truth.

[Goblinmonger]

8. Just what I was coming in to post.

Using the language of the OP, I don't know anyone on DU that should disagree with the statement, "White Americans benefit from privileges not afforded to all black people."

[el_bryanto]

3. All Black People <> White Americans

So your comparison falls apart right there.

Also you talk differently to people depending on their situation and the challenges they face. Individual White people want to be excused from the problems created by centuries of abuse and exploitation. They want to feel comfortable knowing that whatever other white people have done, they are racially blameless. The problem is that they still reap the benefits in the form of White Privilege, and so forcing them to come to terms with how their privilege is real and needs to be dealt with has positive benefits.

Even if it makes them uncomfortable.

Lumping all black people on the other hand usually goes the other way; it is away to hold down black people by suggesting there is something suspicious about being black, that it's ok for white people to be uncomfortable and suspicious of black people (and other people of color) because some of them are criminals.

Bryant

[cheapdate]

4. No, it's rarely ever helpful.

Broad generalizations may be almost unavoidable in some kinds of conversations, but they must be avoided like the plague, whenever possible.

"All generalizations are false, including this one." - Mark Twain

[Orrex]

5. It tends to weed out the chronically hyper-sensitive types, so yeah, I'd say it's helpful.

[kpete]

9. thanks Orrex

[Starry Messenger]

10. Boom.

[Brickbat]

16. Thread over; shut it down.

[JustAnotherGen]

31. Nailed it n/t

[cyberswede]

39. ^yessiree

[lunasun]

66. if only it did

[randys1]

80. Yep...but if I say one more word, it will be BYE BYE for me.

[whatthehey]

6. Again the ignorance of generalized group references is appalling at DU

Not directed at the OP personally.

Why this isn't just automatically obvious I have no clue but this site, far far more than any I have visited, has a problem with this.

"All black people" means what it says. Every single one. Individually No exceptions. So there are very few things that can logically follow that and be true or even sensible. Even "...have higher melanin levels than albinos" probably isn't true, but I'll defer to physioloigy gurus. Certainly can't think of anything else.

"White Americans" means, or almost always when used in vernacular speech means, white Americans as a collective group. What distinguishes them from other groups or characterizes that group of people in general. So millions of things can follow that, without, to an honest and informed listener, implying in any way that every single white American is like that or does that. So let's see...


...vote Republican

...are at risk of obesity

...murder white Americans more than black Americans

All are absolutely unchallengably true even if you, thousands of you, are ectomorphs who would no more murder anyone than vote Republican, because that's what characterizes white Americans in the collective, general group sense.

The word "all" is important, and absolutely must not be mentally inserted where it is not present.

[kpete]

11. so,

We should not post articles with titles that offend?
Even if it is a thought-provoking article?

Should we NOW censor, edit or simply not post?
Sometimes, DU makes my head explode.
I thought we were OPEN-MINDED liberals?

[whatthehey]

14. Did you mean to reply to me?

Can't imagine how you'd extrapolate that if so. I'm actually saying the opposite; that we should not seek to censor or take umbrage at truthful posts by imagining the word "all" where it is not used.

White Americans vote Republican. Black Americans have lower educational attainment. Southerners experience higher childhood mortality. We certainly should be able to say and discuss such things without outrage-seeking nincompoops trying to invalidate perfectly true aggregate data with irrelevant anecdotal "refutations" of how all their white friends vote Dem or all their black friends have PhDs or none of the kids they know in Charleston have ever died in infancy.

[Goblinmonger]

7. I wonder what your agenda is with this push poll?

From a survey construct perspective, your options aren't equal. Needs to be "all white people" not "white Americans." But, again, this is just bluster to make some ridiculous point, so I know you don't really give a shit about survey construction.

[whatthehey]

13. That raises a corollary

I have no idea about the backstory, but I could imagine the collective generalized group use of "Black Americans" raising hypersensitive hackles here regardless of how scrupulously true and correct the usage.

Black Americans earn less than white Americans = true. Kenneth Frazier, Neil Degrasse Tyson, LeBron James etc earning oodles more than me for example does not make this false. The absence of "all" is the key DU misses so often.

[Starry Messenger]

12. Helpful would be something finally done about your presence here.

[Nye Bevan]

15. Are you familiar with the "Ignore" feature? (nt)

[Starry Messenger]

17. Keep it up.

Not calling out your activites would be to allow others reading it to think we thought your behavior is an acceptable standard here at DU. The best use of my time is letting the Admins and other lurkers know that it isn't.

[Nye Bevan]

19. Ah. A mission.

I see.

[CreekDog]

21. why do you post from the United Kingdom in an attempt to get us to stop trying to fix our problems?

why are you SO INTENT on us not working on making right our racial inequality, born of a long history?

why does someone from abroad actively work to get us to stop working on fixing our problems?

who does that, why? Are you an American living abroad? what gives?

[Nye Bevan]

23. ?????

I'm in Connecticut. Not sure where that came from.

[Starry Messenger]

25. It's my vote on your behavior.

You said abstention was a sign of no opinion or interest in the topic.

I'm letting readers know my position and yours, and which one sucks.

If you hadn't wanted this interaction, you wouldn't have characterized abstaining as being a sign of disinterest. So now you are getting what you asked for. You're welcome.

[Nye Bevan]

27. I will certainly never complain about folks choosing to participate in my threads.

After all, it were not for folks like you my OPs would sink rapidly and nobody would ever see them. So thanks.

[Starry Messenger]

29. They are great. MIRT catches a lot of your buddies that way, so thanks.

[Nye Bevan]

32. MIRT is wonderful.

I love how MIRT along with the jury system keep things civil around here.

[morningfog]

52. Unfortunately, MIRT can't deal with long time bigoted trolls.

[CreekDog]

22. I'm sure you'd like to be ignored by people who have your number

nice try.

[Nye Bevan]

24. The poster said that it would be helpful to him if I was not here.

And if he uses Ignore, I don't have to be (at least, as far as he is concerned).

[CreekDog]

76. No the poster didn't say that

but we could spend all day and all night correcting your posts here.

[romanic]

28. Scared?

Sound like you're intimidated that someone has an opinion you don't like.

[Starry Messenger]

30. That's pretty low grade fuel, romanic.

But I'm not sure there's much better from that source, so here's a gold star for participation.

[romanic]

34. Just making an observation.

And I don't take gold stars, I'm a platinum kind of guy.

[cwydro]

49. You do realize you're just kicking the OP's thread

again and again right?

[Starry Messenger]

62. My last post was over an hour ago.

Check the timestamps.

[cwydro]

63. Not sure what that has to do with it.

Your posts still kick the thread, and at this point your last post was just now.

[Starry Messenger]

64. Bless your heart.

Here's a gold star for you too.

[cwydro]

65. And another kick!

This is funny.

[morningfog]

46. He seems to have reached a tipping point.

Can we vote him off yet?

[La Lioness Priyanka]

59. YES!

[yardwork]

18. Helpful to whom?

Another little poll today from you. You seem angry. And fearful.

[Nye Bevan]

35. My only fear is folks not posting in my threads.

So thanks.

[morningfog]

47. You only fear is that your flame bait will fail? Sad life there, bub.

[Nye Bevan]

48. Thanks for posting.

I welcome any and all contributions to my threads.

[morningfog]

50. Look at ME!!!!!!

[CreekDog]

20. Some background on Nye's poll:

Nye thinks that when it comes to the issue of race in America, that African Americans are of equal power compared to the majority white population and that racism is just a two way street with the same amount of traffic going both ways.

He has posted from the United Kingdom over the years to get us Americans to stop talking about race, to stop attempting to make our society more racially equal.

[Bonx]

26. Thank you for sharing your jaundiced opinion of him

[beam me up scottie]

36. Jury results:

AUTOMATED MESSAGE: Results of your Jury Service
On Wed Sep 9, 2015, 10:08 AM an alert was sent on the following post:

Some background on Nye's poll:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=7153278

REASON FOR ALERT

This post is disruptive, hurtful, rude, insensitive, over-the-top, or otherwise inappropriate.

ALERTER'S COMMENTS

Meta. Stop talking about other DU'ers - makes the site less enjoyable. Please start to clean this behavior up.

You served on a randomly-selected Jury of DU members which reviewed this post. The review was completed at Wed Sep 9, 2015, 10:13 AM, and the Jury voted 0-7 to LEAVE IT.

Juror #1 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #2 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: Seriously? Have you met DU alerter?
Juror #3 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: This isn't insulting or rude. It's an accurate assessment, too.
Juror #4 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: CreekDog is nice ... Bevan is naughty. ... LEAVE IT
Juror #5 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: If that is what OP believes , OP is wrong. But Creekdog's comment -- true or not -- does not need to be hidden. I'm not sure what the truth is, but folks can post clarifications.
Juror #6 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #7 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given

Thank you very much for participating in our Jury system, and we hope you will be able to participate again in the future.

[Nye Bevan]

38. "Creekdog is nice, Bevan is naughty"!

[cwydro]

51. He or she said his or her home is in Connecticut.

Where do you get the UK?

Besides, who cares where someone lives or posts from?

[Nye Bevan]

53. Every so often Creekdog pops up in my threads to claim that I'm in the UK.

Not sure why. I have been in Connecticut during my entire time on DU.

[cwydro]

55. Lol! That's kind of funny

in a weird way, ya know?

Not that it should make any difference anyway.

[CreekDog]

68. I apologize for getting that thing as wrong as you get everything else

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

70. Although I'm sure in your case it was an honest mistake. nt

[jberryhill]

33. Is someone using the wrong bathroom again?

[beam me up scottie]

40. +1

Obvious poster is obvious.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

42. I think the polite term these days is, "Affinity Lavatories"

[Gormy Cuss]

43. Or the wrong water fountain. n/t

[Scootaloo]

56. There it is

[Warren Stupidity]

72. !

[rock]

37. Yes

If it can be backed with good scientific evidence.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

41. I wish we could just stand-up a "White People Suck" group and get it over with.

[Facility Inspector]

44. Generalizations can be helpful with explicit use of qualifiers, sometimes.

But mostly? It's better to use precision in one's speech and to actually know what you're talking about.

[nadinbrzezinski]

45. Not worth even trying to have a discussion on this subject here.

[fishwax]

54. "white americans" doesn't necessarily mean "all white americans," so those two phrases are unequal

[ileus]

57. It helps to show poutrage.

[Skittles]

83. if the message is lost

it is way more than "poutrage"

[La Lioness Priyanka]

58. all white Americans benefit from racism, whether or not they actively endorse it.

That sentence needed the words 'all white Americans', else it would be an inaccurate statement.

[Nye Bevan]

61. What about a white woman married to a black man,

who is wrongly convicted of a crime and sent to prison for life because of the horrible racial bias in our criminal justice system? Net-net, I'm pretty sure that she has not "benefited from racism".

[La Lioness Priyanka]

67. yes, she has in all other areas of her life. her education, the fact that she is not viewed as an

angry black woman and that people understand that her story is deserving of sympathy, the fact that she can easily buy makeup that fits her skin tone, in big ways and small she too has benefited from the system.

[Nye Bevan]

71. I'm not sure that having a wider choice of makeup compensates for her husband being in prison

unjustly.

[CreekDog]

73. Remember when you had a sad because the LA Times stopped using the phrase "illegal immigrant"?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2786146

[Nye Bevan]

74. What does immigration have to do with this?

Did you accidentally post in the wrong thread?

[CreekDog]

75. a thread illustrating your insensitivity? it fits perfectly in a thread about that

do you still find it tiresome that you can't use the word "cripple" anymore?

[Nye Bevan]

77. Very respectfully, I think this subthread is starting to drift off topic.

You're more than welcome to start a new thread about political correctness if you choose.

[CreekDog]

78. your motivations for posting insensitive things are 100% relevant

that's why you posted the poll that was trying to be coy about referencing transgendered use of particular restrooms.

[Zorra]

60. Yes! Something such as, "all bigots...

suck".

This is an important, eternal truth that all parents should teach their children at a very early age.

[LittleBlue]

69. Poll went how I expected

The strategy of collective guilt/responsibility doesn't even work on a place like DU. If it was going to work anywhere, it would be DU.

[uppityperson]

79. Why such an odd comparison? "all black people" or "white Americans"

Not all black people or white people. Not black americans or white americans. But "all black people" or "white Americans"

[gollygee]

81. The post said "White America" and not "White Americans."

And you're not concerned about posts that say "all black people." You think you're concerned about posts that say "all white people," but if you go back and look at those posts you'll see they actually say "white people" without any "all."

[Skittles]

82. NO - IT IS STEREOTYPING

IT SUCKS