daoneandonly wrote:JWizmentality wrote:daoneandonly wrote:
How is calling Baltimore a crime infested city any more racist than tweeting ""It's all about the Benjamins baby" in regards to supporting Israel? She's had interviews at bookstores and others where she's talked rubbish as well.
She was talking about money influencing Politics. Weak sauce, but I knw you subscribe to right wing propaganda. What else do you have? Give me examples of her calling out a specific group. Don't give bookstore nonsense and right wing lies. Show me proof.
Even people in her own party called her out for her non stop talk.
Nevertheless, its an opinion just like calling Baltimore crime infested is, except a key thing, stats prove Baltimore is one of the most dangerous cities in the country. She can't back up her points with any hard evidence such as murder rates, robberies, etc.
Baltimore is disgusting, and I'd venture to say most people on here dont nor wouldn't live there if they had a choice. So there's no talking point.
Look, it's really kind of obvious. When you say "Baltimore has an extremely high crime rate," that's not racism. When you call Baltimore "crime-infested," that's racism.
The denotation may be the same or at least similar. The rest is not. & most of language, what it's for, & people's purposes in using language is aimed at ends that are decidedly other than mere denotation.
Thus, when you borrow the inherently negative, judgmental language commonly used to characterize a situation dominated by insects (or rats or similar pest-predators) & use it instead on a human environment with a clear intent to declare the humans in that environment as unworthy of attention or care or respect, you are using language to turn them into animals. To see them, & make sure others see them, as sub-human.
That's racism. There's nothing complicated about it. & if you defend racism, you promote racism. & if you try to obscure the effect of language, word-choices, on perception in a way whose purpose is to sustain the use of such language, racist language, you're a racist.
Moreover, when your response is to point to someone else & declare
"she said something bad too!" all you're doing is changing the subject. &, sorry, when you're accused of racism & what you want to do is change the subject, that doesn't lessen the fact of, or the significance of, your own words.
I don't know you; I don't know who you are; I don't know how you live, how you behave in the material world. No doubt people say things in an online forum without worrying about how thoroughly they actually agree with their own words -- for the simple reason that in a place like this one's words don't carry any obligations with them. So, I don't mean to call you -- the real "you" -- a racist.
But what you're spouting here? That's racism & no doubt about it.