Quote:
Originally Posted by zerospinboson
NOFI, but the same might be said about DG's glib remarks about how "blacks" are "lowering" american educational standards. People venting these generalizing kinds of "truths" about specific ethnic groups make me very uncomfortable.
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Ummmm.... Please decode "NOFI" for me. Thanks.
"truths" about specific ethnic groups often seem overgeneralized (at best). But there are some statements we can make legitimately (I think). For example:
- In the US, children from the Asian immigrant community (that's of Japanese, Chinese, Korean, etc.) have historically averaged somewhat higher grades than their non-immigrant classmates.
- Most hispanics in the US are Roman Catholic.
- In the mid-1800s the Irish were considered the least-desirable of all immigrant groups. Two generations later, the stereotype was the "Irish Policeman." Now, nobody notices whether or not you're Irish except on St. Patrick's Day (when the entire country is "Irish").
- Plenty more where these came from.
What's different about these statements -- assuming I hit the target I was aiming for -- is that they avoid implying that "All X are Y" or "because you're an A you're also smart/stupid/shiftless/hardworking." (And if they don't avoid that, it's because I screwed up the writing!)
If I rewrote DG's statement as "Standards are lowered here so that
inner city students can look smarter" (italicized words mine), does that seem more acceptable? It's no longer quite the same statement, but it often appears to be accurate (from the outside, at least).
Xenophon