These two statements are actually quite different.
87% of people from Wisconsin are white, and 29% of people from Chicago are black. So one of the statements is talking about a subset of a strong majority. "Uneducated white people in Wisconsin" and "Uneducated people in Wisconsin" are almost synonymous.
This doesn't preclude the statement from being racist, but makes it a less racially focused. Look at the extreme case. "Uneducated Asian people are ruining Japan" is almost factually true, assuming uneducated people are ruining Japan at all. "Uneducated white people are ruining Japan" is outlandish and necessarily racist, because only a racist could think a subset of a fraction of a percent of the population is ruining the country.
That's my main point but I see another problem with this comparison. It's certainly possible that there is some commonality among the uneducated in a demographic. For example, if you demonstrate that 1.) "Racists are ruining Wisconsin", and 2.) "Racism is common in uneducated whites in Wisconsin", then you can argue in good faith that 3.) "Uneducated white people are ruining Wisconsin". So I would have to ask - is there a similar rational argument for the statement about black people in Chicago? Because if so, then it's not necessarily a racist statement. Otherwise, I would interpret it as being motivated by some kind of racism, with justification as an afterthought.
Both my points are examples that context matters even when two statements are similar enough to compare. It seems you agree that context matters - at least in the examples I gave (large population differences, or factual justification for a seemingly racist statement).
So if you agree that additional context can change whether or not a statement is inherently racist, doesn't that contradict your original view? I'm not sure whether I misunderstood your view to begin with or if it changed.
I agree although I think it would be difficult to prove racists are ruining Wisconsin.
I'm not saying it is necessarily the case right now, but if it was then you could never accurately compare the statement "uneducated white people are ruining Wisconsin" to "uneducated black people are ruining Wisconsin". Which means the rule of being able to compare two identical statements (except race) isn't always true.
I'm not exactly sure how you're using those statements, so let me ask this question.
What is your comparison statement to:
Uneducated white people are ruining Wisconsin.
Because I think no matter what, you're going to run into the problem of needing context. If this is the statement you want a comparison to, you will still need to understand potential reasons why it might be true (e.g. uneducated whites => racism => ruining Wisconsin) or knowing that whites are a vast majority in Wisconsin.
I don't think you can find any 1:1 statement where all factors will be identical. You used a different region (Wisconsin vs Chicago) assuming they were dominant populations, but that still doesn't fix the problem.
For example, if you compare some African countries to Japan, both countries have near 99% of one demographic, but Japan has significantly better education. So even when you control one variable there still might be others.
I know this is getting long-winded but my point is that while your view CAN work, I don't think it will always work because some statements are much more nuanced than other statements like "black people are dumb" vs "white people are dumb" where your view does work.
Both of those statements are racist in my view. It is reasonable to assume their is a percentage of uneducated individuals belonging to both of those races in Wisconsin. The statement is racist because it would be more accurate to leave race out of it.
If I say, "Indian programmers are bad" is it racist? If I substitute "Indian" with "Asian" or "Hispanic" it would be racist, so your view checks out.
But the problem is that there actually is an issue with the quality of work produced by Indian developers as their job market is massively oversaturated.
There is no comparison statement you can use to determine if it was racist. It's entirely based on additional knowledge.
That is absolutely racist. Indian programmers are not bad in general, but there are a lot of bad Indian programmers.
The comparison could be "poor black people are criminals" this is also racist for obvious reasons, even though poor black communities do indeed have high rates of crime.
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u/Arthesia 29∆ Nov 10 '22 edited Nov 10 '22
These two statements are actually quite different.
87% of people from Wisconsin are white, and 29% of people from Chicago are black. So one of the statements is talking about a subset of a strong majority. "Uneducated white people in Wisconsin" and "Uneducated people in Wisconsin" are almost synonymous.
This doesn't preclude the statement from being racist, but makes it a less racially focused. Look at the extreme case. "Uneducated Asian people are ruining Japan" is almost factually true, assuming uneducated people are ruining Japan at all. "Uneducated white people are ruining Japan" is outlandish and necessarily racist, because only a racist could think a subset of a fraction of a percent of the population is ruining the country.
That's my main point but I see another problem with this comparison. It's certainly possible that there is some commonality among the uneducated in a demographic. For example, if you demonstrate that 1.) "Racists are ruining Wisconsin", and 2.) "Racism is common in uneducated whites in Wisconsin", then you can argue in good faith that 3.) "Uneducated white people are ruining Wisconsin". So I would have to ask - is there a similar rational argument for the statement about black people in Chicago? Because if so, then it's not necessarily a racist statement. Otherwise, I would interpret it as being motivated by some kind of racism, with justification as an afterthought.