Wimbledon and Bias

@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

Snood wrote:
But they do say any "any non-European, non-white person"

and that would include Nadal.

How so? Nadal is a from Mallorca, Spain, Euorpe, with no distinguishable immigration background among his ancestry. So what exactly makes him "non-European, non-white" in your view?

According to the difinition I supplied - you're right, Nadal doesn't fit the description.
I guess it would depend on what Nadal called himself. White or non-White.

1 Reply

@snood,

Snood wrote:

I guess it would depend on what Nadal called himself. White or non-White.

As a modern European, he probably wouldn't call himself anything, because race just isn't a big deal in Europe anymore. We still have widespread discrimination by religion against Jews and Muslims; we have nationalist discrimination, for example against Gypsies. Then we have discrimination based on language---for example, Nadal might get foul looks in Madrid if he speaks Catalan rather than Castilian. But race as such isn't nearly as big a deal in most of Europe as it is in most of North America. I'm still taken aback when I have to fill out an American government form, and it asks me about my race. That's because in Europe, we (now) take it for granted that the government ought to be color-blind.

But if Nadal called himself anything, it would be "white". The reasons would be pretty much the same as the ones outlined in your dictionary definition: He's white under its first prong because he's born in Europe to European parents. And he's white under the second prong because nobody would have discriminated against him for being less white than the discriminator was.

3 Replies

@snood,

Quote:

Okay, let's look further... Laughing

I bet (look out! Unverifiable claim follows!)) that most people who dislike or avoid using the phrase person of color are negatively disposed toward the aims and ideals of political movements that are focused on rights of ethnic minorities.

I can't speak on behalf of most people who dislike the term, but I think it has the opposite effect of what is intended. The situation of the world isn't 'white Anglo-Saxons vs. everyone else.' Whites don't even make up a majority of the world population. Lumping every other race together and calling them 'people of color' does a disservice to the unique individuality of each of these groups.

Not only that, but I really disagree with defining races using the terms 'black' and 'white.' They are not only grossly and physically inaccurate, they invite comparisons which are also inaccurate. We need to come up with a new way to classify folks other than by their skin color - I foresee a future in which the Synthetic Phyle of one's choosing is more defining than one's genetic origin.

Quote:

I think it’s the same folks who winced at any newfangled terms like “African-American” (well, it was newfangled a while back) and who scornfully associate such terms with the dreaded “political correctness”.
See, I not only support wholeheartedly the kinds of legislative or social actions that are meant to ensure the rights of ethnic minorities, but I also support the rights of all racial groups to decide for themselves how they would like to be referred to. I’m a militant sumbitch.

Hell, me too! But, is 'person of color' the way that people want to be referred to?

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

Y'all be like me and move to an entirely new place every five years. Wake up city. (Oh, wait, Thomas did..)

I do love visiting LA again. I know, I know, I'm not from south LA, but my ex is. I'm mostly not afraid of LA.. maybe some parts around Long Beach, with a lot of racial and gang stuff going on.

The weirdness is being in Albuquerque with few blacks. I suppose that most here, are army. Probably weirder for them than me.

To speak on Snood's side, I've always figured I'd will my piffling little house, major lemon that it is, to my niece, whose mother was african and father irish american. This would not be a favor, more of an aggravation.
I do wonder though, how the neighborhood would be for her. I think ok, but maybe not. On the other hand, maybe ok.

1 Reply

@ossobuco,

On the other side of this, I present as an increasingly scrawny old white person, and if you look harder, have an irish face. I'm not insensitive to hostility, and I pretty much don't see that here. The test will be when my niece visits me. They took her for a prostitute, back in north north, when she walked my business partner's dog. Gave her trouble in a nail salon.. She was 13 or 14. Plus a city elder was semi snotty - but there was a power balance (me).

0 Replies

@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Quote:

Okay, let's look further... Laughing

I bet (look out! Unverifiable claim follows!)) that most people who dislike or avoid using the phrase person of color are negatively disposed toward the aims and ideals of political movements that are focused on rights of ethnic minorities.

I can't speak on behalf of most people who dislike the term, but I think it has the opposite effect of what is intended. The situation of the world isn't 'white Anglo-Saxons vs. everyone else.' Whites don't even make up a majority of the world population. Lumping every other race together and calling them 'people of color' does a disservice to the unique individuality of each of these groups.

Not only that, but I really disagree with defining races using the terms 'black' and 'white.' They are not only grossly and physically inaccurate, they invite comparisons which are also inaccurate. We need to come up with a new way to classify folks other than by their skin color - I foresee a future in which the Synthetic Phyle of one's choosing is more defining than one's genetic origin.

Quote:

I think it’s the same folks who winced at any newfangled terms like “African-American” (well, it was newfangled a while back) and who scornfully associate such terms with the dreaded “political correctness”.
See, I not only support wholeheartedly the kinds of legislative or social actions that are meant to ensure the rights of ethnic minorities, but I also support the rights of all racial groups to decide for themselves how they would like to be referred to. I’m a militant sumbitch.

Hell, me too! But, is 'person of color' the way that people want to be referred to?

Cycloptichorn

What people? I haven't conducted a poll, or anything. My thing about that is, people should be able to be referred to in the way they prefer. If someone likes "Cablinasian", then by god that's what I'll call 'em, 'cause after all, who am I to tell anyone what's a goofy name?

0 Replies

@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

I'm still taken aback when I have to fill out an American government form, and it asks me about my race.

That was my experience as well. America was the first place on earth anyone asked me what race I was. Sometimes it seems like America is obsessed with it to me.

1 Reply

@Robert Gentel,

Quote:

Sometimes it seems like America is obsessed with it to me.

Only sometimes?

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

That includes the folks in your positions to me. The folks obsessed with the obsession going on about PC etc and who take up militant anti-anti-racism positions.

1 Reply

@Robert Gentel,

there is a world of difference between being obsessed with something and continuing to point out that the obsession is a problem. One person is part of the problem and the other person is attempting to be part of the solution to the problem.

0 Replies

@snood,

snood wrote:

I bet (look out! Unverifiable claim follows!)) that most people who dislike or avoid using the phrase person of color are negatively disposed toward the aims and ideals of political movements that are focused on rights of ethnic minorities.

Speaking strictly as one subjective person who dislikes that term: that's not the reason I dislike it. It's not even the term in itself I don't like, and I certainly have nothing against strengthening the rights of ethnic minorities. Rather, I'm annoyed by the speed at which the newly-coined, "sensitive" language of today turns into the derogative language of tomorrow, and how this dynamic powers an eternal spiral of re-branding minorities.

Until the 1960s, social reformers, Black and White, where perfectly content to use the word Negro. Then the Black Power people convinced the Civil Rights movement that Negro was a slavery word, and established the term Black in its place. (I believe there's one identifiable Mississippi march in 1966 where Stokeley Carmichel persuaded Martin Luther King to start using that term and stick to it.) Then the word Black became offensive to some and had to be replaced by Afro-American, which in turn was replaced by African American. And now comes people of color---not to be confused with colored people, which is offensive.

I totally get that Black Americans don't want to be called Negroes anymore, and that they wanted to change their name once. But I'm getting tired of this linguistic treadmill that's kept turning since the 1960s. It's beginning to look like something out of Boondocks. Except that Boondocks is satire, whereas the renaming treadmill is supposedly serious.

And that's why I'm annoyed by coinages like people of color. My opinion of civil rights movements doesn't enter into it.

0 Replies

I can't relate to anyone being annoyed if some minority announces a hundred changes in what they prefer to be called.
I fancy myself as a fairly intelligent person, but I can't seem to come up with any reasons (that aren't unflattering of the 'bothered' people) for anyone being bothered by that.

2 Replies

@snood,

Quote:

but I can't seem to come up with any reasons (that aren't unflattering of the 'bothered' people) for anyone being bothered by that.

1) if you can't make up you mind what you want then stop bothering me.

because if you keep it up I will decide that

2) what you really want is attention, and since catering to your emotional needs is not my job kindy **** off...

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

Quote:
but I can't seem to come up with any reasons (that aren't unflattering of the 'bothered' people) for anyone being bothered by that.

1) if you can't make up you mind what you want then stop bothering me.

because if you keep it up I will decide that

2) what you really want is attention, and since catering to your emotional needs is not my job kindy **** off...

dude, who was talking to you?

1 Reply

@snood,

any minority group which can't make up their minds, as you posited.

Thus is also how I deal with individual attention seekers who suck up my time.

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

Yer funny, man. Demented, and funny. I will take you off 'ignore' again, the next time I need a yok.

0 Replies

Best statement anybody ever made on the question of degrees of whiteness was Dennis Hopper explaining the history of Sicilians to Christopher Walkin in Tarantino's "True Romance". The scene is famous and easily found on youtube.

1 Reply

@gungasnake,

gungasnake wrote:

If you're not using your wrist on a backhand, you've got no real way to get any serious power on it.

On a correctly hit one hander, the racquet is held in an eastern grip and the wrist stays at a constant orientation. The power comes from the forward motion of the body and the rotation of the waist. The topspin derives from the angle of the racquet striking the ball and the low to high motion of swing, just like a forehand. I see people try to "flip" their wrists to generate spin, but you are correct that that makes for a weak shot. A good one handed backhand with an eastern grip mechanistically looks just like a forehand hit with a semi-western grip.

1 Reply

@engineer,

Quote:

On a correctly hit one hander, the racquet is held in an eastern grip and the wrist stays at a constant orientation. The power comes from the forward motion of the body and the rotation of the waist

That's what Federer does all right. That's basically why he loses to guys like Nadal and Del Potro.

0 Replies

@snood,

snood wrote:

I fancy myself as a fairly intelligent person, but I can't seem to come up with any reasons (that aren't unflattering of the 'bothered' people) for anyone being bothered by that.

Perhaps the reason is just that some people, being less intelligent than you are, prefer that entities retain their dictionary names. Sure, you might consider their lack of intelligence unflattering. But then again, not everyone depends on your flattery for their sense of self-worth.

1 Reply

Wimbledon and Bias

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know