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That may very well be your own bias. If I say "Christian Communities hate gays", you'll probably think of one or two specific communities. When I saw "Jewish Co
by rpmisms 3y ago
That may very well be your own bias. If I say "Christian Communities hate gays", you'll probably think of one or two specific communities. When I saw "Jewish Communities" in gp's headline, I immediately thought "oh, the ADL", because they're bigots and don't really hide it.
- vacuity 3y agoEveryone has biases, and you're not exempt. If you know that your language might be grossly misinterpreted, consider changing it, if only for your own image. > If I say "Christian Communities hate gays", you'll probably think of one or two specific communities. That might be true for me, but I'm thinking of "Protestant Christian evangelicals and co." as one community, so...
- rpmisms 3y ago> If you know that your language might be grossly misinterpreted, consider changing it, if only for your own image. No, if only to make a point. > That might be true for me, but I'm thinking of "Protestant Christian evangelicals and co." as one community, so... Yup. What I expected. I'm positively full of bias, and happy to admit it.
- vacuity 3y agoAnd my point is that "Muslim communities bombed Israel" is not an obviously reasonable statement. If Reuters or AP posted an article with that phrasing, I'd wonder if some party other than Hamas was fighting Israel now. At that point, why not just say "Muslims bombed Israel"? It's technically true but also wildly disingenuous. You'd have to qualify it with a bunch of details in order to make it an honest, good-faith statement.
- rpmisms 3y agoBut it's the literal truth, and using a descriptor on a group of people acting does not attribute the action to all people who fit the descriptor. Not all mammals are dogs, and that shouldn't need to be said.
- Yoric 3y agoYou're confusing semantics and subtext. The clear subtext in your examples is "Jews" (not "some Jews"), "Muslims" (not "some Muslims"), "Christians" (not "some Christians"). A racist (or variant thereof) will not say "all Jews"/"all Muslims"/"all Gays"/... , they'll just casually namedrop "Jews" (or even a single Jewish personality), "Muslims" (or even a single Muslim personality), "Gays" (or even a single Gay personality), and use this as a dogwhistle.
- Yoric 3y agoIf you write "Christian Communities hate gays", I will very much read "all Christian communities". And deduce that you're probably spewing nonsense, just as with "Jewish communities" and "Muslim communities". Also, please do not make assumptions on my biases.
- rpmisms 3y agoSure, how about "dogs bite people", then?
- Yoric 3y agoIt definitely means that, as a general rule, dogs bite people. It might not mean all dogs, but it's definitely a warning against dogs in general. Now, transpose this to human beings. The message we're commenting is a warning against Jewish Communities, i.e. I can't think of any reasonable way to interpret it other than as antisemitism.