Just be happy you learned your lesson here. Just know that you don't want to associate anything with skin color. That kind of stuff can get you into trouble in a workplace. If you get misinterpreted it doesn't matter if you meant it or not. :(

I don't think this is as bad as you think. First, Atrag blows other things out of proportion. Second, if you notice the other comments are just surprised. Third, you didn't get massively downvoted like your stance on gay marriage.

I think your statement was innocent enough to not consider you a racist.

First off just to be clear, Srom apologized. Heck I am even the guy who +1'd his apology. I do not think he was malicious, he was mistaken. Like I said about intent, it just shows if he was intentionally being difficult or not. Someone who just slipped up shouldn't be burned at the stake. I just want to make this clear that that issue is over and this one we are discussing is separate.

He made a broad blanket assumption based on race and intelligence or race and ability of some sort... how is that not racist?

All he said was that he assumed DrawFour was white and that he bases that assumption off of some observation he made.

So you restate what I said but leave out the criteria for what the observation and the assumption (race, intelligence and debate ability)...great. It is the criteria you left off that determines if something is racist or not...White Supremacists make assumptions based on observations....babies make assumptions based on observations, scientists make assumptions based on observations (then even test it;)). The criteria matters otherwise it is too loose a measure to use to be useful.

If you were watching a row of inmates coming out of a prison one after another and you observe that each one is white, it wouldn’t be racist to assume the next person coming out will also be white.

Lets continue with this here....Now you see a white man on the streets, could you assume he is or was a felon based on his skin color now? You could...and would that though be racist? Yup.

Whats the difference between this, your analogy and the original claim? The observation that in prison the majority of people are of X ethnicity is not racist but an observation, making guess that the next person is X ethnicity isn't race based but a probability based. Seeing someone of X ethnicity and thinking they are a criminal is not one made of probability but of race. One is using probability to determine the outcome the others are using race to determine an outcome.

The problem is people are too damn politically correct.

Ah the old PC defense. Funny how this gets used to try to justify bad behavior so often. I mean the definition of racism seems to fit the original exchange...

rac·ism

ˈrāˌsizəm/

noun

the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.

Seems to fit well save for the "especially" bit. A person is smart they must be white is a racist thought. Racism is not dependent on intent but what they are using to justify the belief and here it is race. While in this instance the less intelligence or debate ability was implied rather than explicit, it could have been chalked up to phrasing.

Try this...

Jews are good people.

Jews are bad people.

Natives are proud people.

Natives are drunkards.

Blacks are good at sports.

Blacks are welfare recipients.

Whites are smart.

Whites are stupid.

Is one racist...both racist...neither racist? We agree it is bad logic.

One is negative and the other is intended to be a compliment (it may be construed as condescending or reductive). A call is being made on ability here (good or bad people) based on broad blanket assumptions about race.

Intent aside, it was racist. And you have said nothing that actually disputes my explanation as to why. Do you understand why that comment was racist?

My apologies. Everyone makes mistakes. Keep your head up. :)