* * * This message was from Amy Guskin to rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.m * * *
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{at}REPLY:
> On Sat, 23 Sep 2006 18:43:53 -0400, Joseph DeMartino wrote
(in article ):

> Methuselah Jones wrote:
> 
>> While you didn't use any slang or other loaded terms, you did still make
>> a generalized assertion about the behavior and/or attitudes of a group of
>> people. It would be the same as saying, "African-Americans
are all....."
>> or "Italians are all...."
> 
> No, she didn't.  She suggested that people who didn't see the harm in
> the offensive term that started this discussion were most likely
> members of a group that did not commonly have such terms used about it.
>  She did *not* say that *all* members of said group would believe "a"
> or act "b".  She didn't say "all white males use such
offensive terms,
> therefore you must be white and male."  She said, "White
males are less
> likely to be the targets of racist terms, therefore less likely to take
> such seriously, therefore more likely to think that they can be used
> 'innocently' or without malice."   Therefore the set of people who
> don't think what Phil said was offensive is likely to have a lot of
> members from the larger set of people who are white and male.  But she
> could not have meant that all white, male human beings of European
> descent believe such things, because she knows that I fit all three
> categories and I'm the one who object to Phil's use of the term in the
> first place.   <<

Thanks, Joe -- and Jan, for your support elsewhere in the thread.  I was out 
at a powwow most of today, and I think it was _good_ that I had some time 
away from the newsgroup to cool off.  In any case, this has been a very 
interesting discussion from where I sit.   For _many_ reasons. 


Amy
                                                                           
                            
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