Coming second in the human race

[j4]

Horrified to discover that on a newsgroup full of apparently-intelligent people, it's apparently deemed quite okay for people to casually say "All Americans are thick" and "the French are all arrogant" -- and not even in the context of a joke, but apparently just stating facts. And it can't be xenophobic, because everybody says it! It's a national tradition!

Next up: "It's racist to call a black person a racist". Argh.

I didn't expect to have to have these debates with adults. Am I just hopelessly naïve?

Comments

[k425.livejournal.com]

Perhaps they casually say things like that because they know it'll wind people up. It's uk.misc.

Well, most of them do it for that reason, anyway. Alex, however, often doesn't think and then he gets pulled up for it by some.

[j4.livejournal.com]

Well, except that when Alex gets "pulled up" for anything by anyone other than Juggs, they get accused of vicious bullying and deliberately attacking the disabled.

[k425.livejournal.com]

That's as may be, but it doesn't necessarily stop me.