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Racists Rejoice, Part 14
by Martin Regnen
Racial differences can be discussed in polite society after all, and even featured on a mainstream TV program! They just have to be painfully obvious to the naked eye and have no really unimportant social consequences. Yup, Samoans sure do tend to be large. It's kinda interesting to see where the line for acceptable public discourse lies.
Have there been any condemnations of this as racism since the program was aired? I'm not aware of any, but maybe our American readers can correct me...
Trackback:
http://www.corrupt.org/trackback/2958
Different levels
Any differences acknowledged must be superficial and behavioural differences must be 'concluded' associally constructed - that's the threshold of acceptability for public discussions about race in liberal democracies. All sorts of sophistry can take place in a TV programme about race where for example they might interview racialists (with hostile body language from the interviewer) and cherrypick all except the decent arguments they present - all sorts of strawmen from which a glib conclusion can be drawn. Yet many of those who brag how they are too intelligent and discerning to believe what they hear on the TV will smugly parrot the glib remarks they hear on such programs.
Two more factors
It also helps if the ethnic group in question is small and politically unimportant; you can talk about Samoans making good NFL players, but you probably can't talk about blacks making good NFL cornerbacks.
Another thing I've noticed is that it often acceptable to talk about some peoples being better at long-distance running than others - living at high altitude seems to be something people will readily accept as making a difference in human evolution.