Bigot? Racist? Something Else?

My father was born in 1919. My mother in 1939. My father died in 2013, he was amazed by computers and cell phones (but never used them). My mother is still alive and actually has a flip phone but she rarely uses it. My father thought most TV was "goofy" and usually only watched documentaries about the war or war movies.

It is a very interesting question how to call people.
Don´t we all now and then have difficulties in using the right word for a person?
Do you remember Kojak? The guy with a lollipop?
In the Swedish version he was on first name and politely addressing all the other guys.
In the German version he was also on first name basis, but politely adressing the white guys and in not so polite form the black ones.
So here two translator made him different one as non racial and the other one racial.

About technical things.
I think my father would have been interested in computors etc.
There has been a telephone in the family since 1899, cars since around 1912,
radio as far back as I can remember, but TV late and of not great interest.
My aunt was one the first women to get a driver´s licence and my father said
there were few so good driveers as she was. Far above most men.

Foofie might say this person's introverted.

Introverted means you do not open up very much to others.
Many authers are introverted - they prefer to write than to talk.
The same happens to painters.
It really has nothing to do with being uninformed or ingorant about things.
An introvert might know a lot, but does talk about it.
An extrovert might talk constantly and giving an impression about knowing a lot and it is just hot air.

You must not read a lot of Foofie's posts. I mentioned it because Foofie calls people who do not care to involve themselves with others introverted. And he does not see this introversion, as he defines it, as a bad thing.
If it were me, I'd probably call this person close-minded or narrow-minded. Maybe egocentric, even.

[img]believes in the other groups innate inferiority.[/img]
I think that happens a lot, that people feel a certain group is inferior to their group.
It can be racial, nationalistic, a group in your own country, certain people working in certain jobs, political, religiously, academicly.
I must admit there is a group of people I cannot stand. I do not mind them seperately, but in groups I can´t stand them and I am not the only one.
It is not the country, it is not the people as such it is just a group of them.

Believing in others' (innate) inferiority could be a consequence of believing in one's self-importance, which also might encourage keeping to oneself and one's immediate community. Or maybe it's the opposite. People who know no different than keeping to themselves develop a sense of self-importance that may be unshakable in old age.

Believing in the inferiority of other groups is part of human nature I am afraid. If you are human, you do it. This is not to excuse it... but if you think you are immune you are kidding yourself.

Ask yourself; how to you feel about polygamist cultures, or fundamentalist religions, or Trump voters? There is a strong assumption that our modern Western culture is superior to any culture that came before us... and this is from the left.

There is a bit of irony here; if you say "those people believe in the inferiority of other groups....", you yourself are displaying the human tendency to believe in the inferiority of other groups.

There are Indigenous cultures, including ones that were systematically wiped out to make way for what is now the United States, that had child marriage (often combined with polygamy) where a younger girl would be given away to a more powerful man according to the customs of their culture.

Our modern American culture believes that marriage should be equal and that no one should be wed outside of their own will.

Is there anyone here who wouldn't say that our modern American culture isn't superior to these Native American cultures?

Looking down on cultures that had child marriages meets the definition of "bigotry" being offered in this thread. Is it bigotry?

How often do we human beings praise ourselves without saying it?
"It is a shame how our next door neighbor is letting her garden fall apart"
really meaning, mine is so much nicer....We are critical to people around us how they dress, how they bring up their children, how they named their children - the list is long.
OH if we can say things about famous people...wonderful. They have no taste,
they do not know how to behave....

Who is not interested in the world? Golly. I watch news less today than 2 years ago. Good or bad, I dunno.

You assume that someone who doesn't approve of child marriages automatically disagrees with all other ideas and practices of the same culture. You are not correct.

An objective definition of the term "racist" is the belief that races, in a comparison to one another, based on perceived traits or characteristics that are generally specific to that race, can be considered superior or inferior.

Of course the definition of the word has been undergoing all sorts of silly attempts to revise it to compliment political agendas, but what I'm not sure of is if the addition of malicious intent is a relatively recent change or it's been so for as long as the word's been used. There are a number of reference sources that include the words and concepts of prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism in their definitions, but for how long has this been the case?

You seem to be describing someone who doesn't, arguably, demonstrate blatant prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism in regards to their view of other races, but those views are racist, because even if malice is somehow not present, the person believes that one race can be inferior or superior to another. That is textbook racism.

I think it's an unwarranted, charitable assessment of the person to conclude she is simply ignorant, because she is not aware of many, or any members of other races. Such a state of ignorance is very difficult to imagine or believe, because in today's world for this to be the case, the person would not only have to be a hermit or restrict herself to functioning within a community consisting of members of only one race (and how many of them exist?), but she would have to cut herself off from all of the many other means by which we can become aware of and come to know people of different races: Films, TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, books, the internet and even conversations with people who don't themselves live a similarly cloistered life, and have interacted with members of other races.

In addition and more importantly, the person would be demonstrating considerable stupidity as opposed to simply ignorance. One doesn't have to have direct or even indirect contact with members of different races to understand that no large group of people are sufficiently similar to be able to generalize to the extent that individual traits and characteristics are so totally subordinated to the perceived traits and characteristic of the group that one can, with any intelligence, consider them to be inferior or superior to the individuals in another group. Again, unless the person is something like a Taoist monk who spends his entire life alone in a cave, she is likely to have had numerous experiences with people who are members of much smaller groups than any "race." Is she prepared to accept that all of the members of her church's congregation are so similar to one another that fair generalizations can be made about them to label them inferior to those members of the congregation of a church in the next town over?

People of a race other than your own aren't alien life forms that we can't possibly know without some form of exposure to them. If she is unable to grasp the difference between between aliens from another galaxy and members of "another" race, she is not merely ignorant, she is flat out dense and stupid.

A good rule of thumb is that birds of a feather flock together, and that even then, individual birds of any feather use themselves as the standard by which to judge all other birds.

I don't assume that at all.

My point is that when you encounter another culture, you make judgements based on your own cultural lens (which happens to be a White Western lens). Of course you will approve of the things in indigenous cultures that are similar to your own values, and you will disapprove of the places where their values differ from yours.

The point is that in the areas where you disagree with indigenous cultures (for example child marriages) you will always assume that your culture is superior.

Cultural Superiority means that when your culture and another disagree about an institution, you have the privilege of making the final decision about right or wrong. It doesn't means that you won't approve of other cultures that are already in line with your beliefs.

It is a matter of the power to declare yourself right and ignore the beliefs of indigenous cultures. And, that is exactly what you are doing.

This morning I read an article in a Swedish paper. It is the thoughts of a young
refugee, who now studies in Sweden. He has been there two years.
He got the impression from his homecountry that Sweden is the most refugee friendly country in the world. We have taken the most refugees per capita.
He says he has difficulties getting in contact with young Swedes. If he sits someplace no Swede sits down next to him etc...
According to him the government and state has to fix this problem.
68% agree.
As a Swede I would say that no Swede sits down next to someone else especially if they do not know that person. It would often be concidered
"disturbing someone". We are as a rule very careful with distance to others.
You can spend hours in a train without talking - even to your travel companion. It might disturbe others.
Personally I think this young man, has gone thrugh a lot of things you do not wish upon anybody. So he is in some way mature, in some way not.
I think when you come to a country you have to learn the rules there. It is not the big things, but those little things. I do not care what they like to eat or drink. You certainly do not ask for a nation to change to fit you.
Am I now a bigot, racist or something else?

I'm not ignoring anyone's beliefs. If someone believes that taking a female child for a bride is reasonable, then that person has been influenced by their culture to believe that such a situation is fair to all concerned parties when it is not.

You, on the other hand, believe that such a marriage is okay. And your rationale for believing such a thing is that you deem yourself unqualified to make a call due to your own cultural indoctrination. What else could explain your inability to call female mutilation wrong?

You assume that people in indigenous cultures have been "influenced by their culture" to accept their cultural beliefs. You don't accept that you to have been influenced by your culture to make this judgement.

That is how cultural superiority works; your culture is assumed to be correct and other cultures are assumed to be "influenced" to believe the incorrect thing.

I have never said that such a marriage is OK. I have the same cultural indoctrination that you have and as I have said repeatedly I would never accept my daughter being a child bride. That would go against my strongly held beliefs about right and wrong. The difference between me and you is not the cultural beliefs we share; it is what we do when we encounter different cultures with different cultural beliefs.

I believe that my beliefs are correct living within my own cultural context. I don't promote the idea that my cultural beliefs are correct in other cultural contexts... or that they are superior in any objective sense.

If you could admit that you are just as susceptible to cultural indoctrination as these indigenous cultures we are discussing, it would be a big step forward.

If you believe that your moral judgement is superior to theirs, I strongly disagree.

Of course not.

Expecting give and take in any relationship is not only not bigotry, racism or any other sort of malicious point of view, it's perfectly reasonable.

You've not identified the man's place of origin, but I think its safe to assume that it's somewhere in the Middle East or North Africa, however it could be anywhere. If your feelings about his needing to learn the rules and adapt are the same as those you would have if he were from America, Europe or Norway, you're not even guilty of unfair discrimination.

I don't know, personally, I think it takes a lot of cheek to move to a new country and not only expect people to reach out and welcome you in ways that are not usual to their culture, but to call for the government to fix it. It looks like the generosity and compassion of the Swedish people towards refugees is not fully appreciated by all of those being welcomed into your country, and may, perversely, be leading to an unfounded sense of entitlement in some.

It appears the desire to be considered a victim of one sort or another is a global (and greatly unfortunate) trend. I've no idea what this young man experienced before he moved to Sweden, but it's difficult to imagine someone who has escaped the horrors that many refugees face, whining about strangers not sitting next to him and actively seeking his friendship.

I read in a Danish paper an article about Danish emmigrants who came to USA about 150 years ago. Their descendant still have trades and traditions back from 150 years ago. Even their sence of humour. Of course they live as USA citizens. It is not just the Danes - others too after generations say "my family came from...."
I have lived in five different countries in my life. I behave the way which is expected of me.
I notice my personality changes a little bit accoring to which language I speak.
And also in which country I speak a language. I behave just a bit differently in USA than in GB.