No, you would be racist if you said, “Now, you’re obviously Asian, why do you think you can be a Senator?” You would look at someone and make an assumption. It would be even worse for you to say such a thing when they had literally just talked about that they were American.
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The DAR has a reputation. And actually sort of an implied charter. DAR members ask each other; “So, who’s YOUR patriot?”
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I’m not sure what duration has to do with anything. I mean, sure, she’s DAR…so? I also hope she beats the pants of that guy. He seems like a real dick.
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But not knowing, you also wouldn’t scoff if she said she was descended from people who fought with George Washington, either, I bet. You’d bookmark it in your head and later check it out. If she’s lying, score, if she is not, you didn’t stuff your foot in your mouth.
Someone without the sense to do that has no place in public service, or working behind the counter at McDonald’s, for that matter.
I know it seems like people cry out racism so often, but really, what sort of person would say this sort of thing at a public event, to a distinguished disabled veteran? What sort of Senator fights a long election without reading the opponent’s wikipedia page? Come on. He made a racist funny trying to be like Trump, he knew what he was doing.
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actually, making a blanket assumption that someone who looks a certain nationality is either of that descent or directly from that nation isn’t racism. Its profiling and stereotyping.
Racism is believing they are inferior because that nationality is not your own.
In this case, Kirk makes two mistakes. He first makes an assumption about her family lineage based on her physical appearance. Now, that in and of itself is troubling but most people don’t take it as an insult. He then intimates that because she is Thai, she must be lying about her claim that her family served during the US Revolution. His words and tone clearly are insulting and portray a sense of superiority. Is he a racist? Perhaps not. Did he just quack like one…yup.
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And her father isn’t, therefore, her parents, as a group, are NOT from Thailand. That’s sort of the point, that you don’t just look at someone and assume, “Hey, they must be exactly like their parents, who are exactly like each other, because anything else would be unnatural.”
Nobody said it did. And even if you did make this kind of mistake in casual conversation with someone (“Huh? You’re a daughter of the American Revolution? I thought you were from Thailand?” “I was born there, but my dad was from the US.”), it’d be pretty forgivable. We make assumptions all the time just to get through life more easily. I mean, I made the same class of assumption… having never looked into her, I wouldn’t have expected Duckworth was from Thailand, just because of her NAME. It’s not generally a HUGE deal. However, it still does rely on some racist assumptions. It doesn’t make you racist. But it doesn’t help, either.
And when you’re someone who is clearly familiar with her history to some degree (I mean, if they were complete strangers, why choose “Thailand” as opposed to any other country she might have been born), it doesn’t help a LOT and this is a guy who’s talking with his opponent, an opponent he presumably researched a great deal. When that’s your situation it looks like either your brain is so invested in that racist assumption (she’s Thai, her ancestors couldn’t have been Americans!) that EVEN having been told the truth on several times before you can’t correct your reaction before it’s spoken, or that you do know and are pandering to racists by insinuating that idea. Neither would speak particularly well of you.
Luckily, you’re not in that situation. But we’re not talking about you.
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That requires conflating multiple definitions of “racist”. The technically accurate but uncommon definition which is not used in this context and these days near-exclusively in the context of being confused about someone’s disparaging, passive-to-active loathing of someone’s ethnicity.
Yes you’re correct in that sense but it is not useful to the manner in which the term is used.
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That still doesn’t explain her first name, nor, you know, the whole story she told about her American family.
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I really want to believe these excuses for another’s racism come from ignorance, but I fear that they aren’t entirely ignorant and yet still condone racism. Racism wouldn’t be nearly so common if persons didn’t turn a blind eye.
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It’s not a problem for THEM, so it’s not a problem that needs to be addressed at a systemic level, I think they rationalize.
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I deal with this issue almost daily. I am Irish/French decent, my three kids’ mom is Nigerian. Now, when you look really closely at my oldest and youngest they look remarkably like me, my middle one looks just like his mom. That said, if you glance, all three of them do not look like they are my kids. We routinely get asked “Are these your children?” or “Is this your dad?”
Its rather frustrating.
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If you think that what he said wasn’t racist, then ignore the more abstract point for a moment. We know that he had all the necessary information to get it right because he was responding to it. So what could have been the thought process that made him say that?
- With a face like that? LIAR!!!
- Granted, but on the other side of the family it’s all g****, so not that great on balance.
- Shit, I better remind my voters not to let that cloud their racism.
Can you come up with one that isn’t fucked up?
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My daughter’s a teenager now, and active in sports and in the community. She’s “black” with two “white” parents. If one of us goes somewhere with her, everyone assumes the parent not present must be very dark-skinned. Old news to you, unsurprising, right?
Recently she has started asking us to not both attend events together with her, because she’s tired of explaining that she’s adopted. It’s too much non-conformity for a teen; like most teenagers she’s only interested in the prepackaged “nonconformity” considered “cool” by thousands of other teenagers.
I think I reached some kind of personal limit for ironic quoting there. Sorry.
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There’s gonna be a lot of temptation to interpret Trump’s unbelievable success in this election as meaning politically incorrect snarks are positives. Like the kid who hears the cool guy on TV say the curse word, then says it himself and everyone just stares, aghast.
Trump can do it because he has an established identity, a persona, which includes being an insensitive buffoon. He’s the heel in a wrestling match. People see it and it is “Donald Trump being a buffoon”. A junior senator tries it, he’s just “A buffoon”.
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Her first name isn’t Tammy.
Has this not already happened?
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What’s their reputation?
Not knowing Kirk I was giving him the benefit of the doubt. The first thing that came to my mind was “why would anyone say that?” and the generous answer was “maybe he didn’t know her ancestry and thought he caught her in a lie.” That’s like the kind of accidental racism we’d expect from our grandparents: cringe-worthy, patronizing, but maybe forgivable. The fact that he was well aware of her family history makes it malicious not accidental, it has an intent to portray her as an outsider based on her genes.
Of course, it’s a Senate race, and any campaign worth its salt would know everything about the opponent, so I stand corrected.
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What a dick. Just… wow. No class, whatsoever.
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Yes, he was being racist. How can you possibly be so stupid as to think that wasn’t racist?
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