and i love the false equivalence of the "racist/socialist" analogy. most people who throw around "socialist" don't even know what socialism means

td11 wrote:i don't think you're a racist, werthless. but what you just said is pretty ignorant. there are numerous examples of veiled racist terms used by the GOP today (sarah palin's "shuck and jive" comment comes to mind). if you can't acknowledge that there really is no point in having this conversation

What did I say is ignorant? I'm happy to engage in argument, but I don't know what you're talking about. I'm trying to figure out what was racist in what Pacino posted. And I have no idea why you mention a random racist thing that Sarah Palin said.

nah i'm good

td11 wrote:and i love the false equivalence of the "racist/socialist" analogy. most people who throw around "socialist" don't even know what socialism means

The incorrect accusations of socialism by conservatives (to any government action you don't like) is comparable to the incorrect accusations of racism (to anything said by a political opponent you deem insensitive). Imperfect analogy, but a good indicator of whether a person is worth engaging in political discourse.

I eagerly await the simple explanation of the racism from pacino's quote.

you're being a devil's advocate for no reason at all here. guess i'm not worth engaging. LATER

pacino wrote:you're being a devil's advocate for no reason at all here. guess i'm not worth engaging. LATER

No, I'm arguing with you since I think you're wrong. Racist.

JK. I'll wait for one of the reasonable liberals on the board to agree with my point -- that what you posted is not actually racist -- in a way that makes td11 and pacino feel like they're justified in their anger toward conservative racists, and me. (Except now that I said that, I suppose it makes it less likely to occur. Hmmmm.)

i'll back up Werthless here. pacino is a racist

i just don't care about arguing semantics with you, werthless. so you can carry on calling it "insensitivity" and i'll go on thinking it's racist.

Werthless, I understand what you are getting at, but the problem is context. Is "anchor baby" a necessarily racist term? No. In theory, it could be applied to any person who enters the country illegally or who stays beyond the legal limit of her stay, then has a baby in order for the baby to be a US citizen and to give herself a foothold into the US. It is, of course, pejorative and insensitive in any case, but it is not in an absolute sense racist.

However, you have to examine the application of the term in practical usage. When you hear it, it's pretty clear in 99% of cases that the person using the term isn't imagining a Canadian, for example, bouncing over here to have a child. It's almost always employed by someone who would also applaud, for example, the "This is America, Order in English" sign at Geno's steaks, who would not be above using the term "wetback," etc... the people who say tend to be pretty clearly in the "brown people who aren't native English speakers aren't welcome here" camp.

All this is to say that the term is not in its absolute denotative sense "racist," but in practical usage, it certainly connotes a set of attitudes that almost always include racial bias.

Werthless, I'll concede the term racist gets thrown around too much but you're being needlessly dense here.

mozartpc27 wrote:Werthless, I understand what you are getting at, but the problem is context. Is "anchor baby" a necessarily racist term? No. In theory, it could be applied to any person who enters the country illegally or who stays beyond the legal limit of her stay, then has a baby in order for the baby to be a US citizen and to give herself a foothold into the US. It is, of course, pejorative and insensitive in any case, but it is not in an absolute sense racist.

However, you have to examine the application of the term in practical usage. When you hear it, it's pretty clear in 99% of cases that the person using the term isn't imagining a Canadian, for example, bouncing over here to have a child. It's almost always employed by someone who would also applaud, for example, the "This is America, Order in English" sign at Geno's steaks, who would not be above using the term "wetback," etc... the people who say tend to be pretty clearly in the "brown people who aren't native English speakers aren't welcome here" camp.

All this is to say that the term is not in its absolute denotative sense "racist," but in practical usage, it certainly connotes a set of attitudes that almost always include racial bias.

This. Context matters a LOT.

Besides, it's not particuarly that enlightening to debate whether the term "racist" or "insensitive" better fits a clearly derogatory, pejorative term such as "anchor baby."

Anchor baby originally referred to Vietnamese. But now, it can be used derogatorily in reference to children of all immigrants. A race of immigrants, one might say.

In my opinion, there's a big difference between poor word choice and racism. To others, there's not.

Soren wrote:Werthless, I'll concede the term racist gets thrown around too much but you're being needlessly dense here.

I understand that many GOP members say racist things. I just didnt think this was one of those times. And I don't think we should just toss around serious accusations with specific meaning, like racist, to describe someone whose word choice you don't like. So even though pacino is gently raping the English language here, I wouldn't call him a rapist.

Barry Jive wrote:i'll back up Werthless here. pacino is a racist

No no. Just a reverse racist, which is completely different.

reverse rapist

Werthless wrote:

Barry Jive wrote:i'll back up Werthless here. pacino is a racist

No no. Just a reverse racist, which is completely different.

there is no such thing as a reverse racist, and that wouldn't even be me if there were one. sorry, i dont hate myself. people are simply racist. anyway,

it means, negatively, the child of a brown person who is undocumented. how that isnt racist is beyond me and frankly you are subverting hte issue at this point.

because it's Europeans, too, and they aren't brown?

Houshphandzadeh wrote:because it's Europeans, too, and they aren't brown?

it's not what people refer to when they say that term, and we all fucking know it. im not even sure how it's conterversial or 'race cardy' of me to say this.

i've said my piece on this. we've all successfully been moved off hte original point of the post, so mission accomplished i guess.

not really. my mom is very proud of her disdain for illegal aliens and Russians are first, second, and third on her list