DesertFox
11-13-2007, 07:11 AM
Selwyn Duke
American Thinker
13 Nov 07
In a racial profiling lawsuit against the Maryland State Police (MSP), a plaintiff's attorney named Eliza Leighton said that some training documents contain "startling examples of racial stereotypes about Hispanics." According to the Associated Press:
For example, one document cautions that Hispanics generally do not hold their alcohol well. They tend to drink too much and this leads to fights. And it notes, Hispanic males are raised to be MACHO and brave, while females are raised to be subservient. Other sterotypes [sic] include the assertion that the weapon of choice for Hispanics is a knife and that Hispanics are reluctant to learn English.
Regardless of the outcome of this lawsuit, we can now expect such information to be purged from the training documents. But, as I wrote about Dr. James Watson's comments regarding Africans, intelligence and genetics, this is part of a very distressing pattern. Everyone fixates on the fact that such comments constitute generalizations (about groups that are supposed to be immune from such things), as if this is an offense in and of itself. Yet, no one seems to ask the only relevant question.
Are the generalizations true?
Before anyone waxes stupid, please don't tell me that all generalizations are invalid because not every member of the given group will conform to a generalization. Intelligent people understand that legitimate generalizations are statements about a group's general characteristics, not individuals' specific ones. For example, if I say that men are taller than women, I don't mean that every man towers over every woman; nevertheless, it is an accurate relation of a general difference between the groups.
More (http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/11/stereotyping_101.html)
American Thinker
13 Nov 07
In a racial profiling lawsuit against the Maryland State Police (MSP), a plaintiff's attorney named Eliza Leighton said that some training documents contain "startling examples of racial stereotypes about Hispanics." According to the Associated Press:
For example, one document cautions that Hispanics generally do not hold their alcohol well. They tend to drink too much and this leads to fights. And it notes, Hispanic males are raised to be MACHO and brave, while females are raised to be subservient. Other sterotypes [sic] include the assertion that the weapon of choice for Hispanics is a knife and that Hispanics are reluctant to learn English.
Regardless of the outcome of this lawsuit, we can now expect such information to be purged from the training documents. But, as I wrote about Dr. James Watson's comments regarding Africans, intelligence and genetics, this is part of a very distressing pattern. Everyone fixates on the fact that such comments constitute generalizations (about groups that are supposed to be immune from such things), as if this is an offense in and of itself. Yet, no one seems to ask the only relevant question.
Are the generalizations true?
Before anyone waxes stupid, please don't tell me that all generalizations are invalid because not every member of the given group will conform to a generalization. Intelligent people understand that legitimate generalizations are statements about a group's general characteristics, not individuals' specific ones. For example, if I say that men are taller than women, I don't mean that every man towers over every woman; nevertheless, it is an accurate relation of a general difference between the groups.
More (http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/11/stereotyping_101.html)