Is Racism a Sin?

Biblically we are all descendants of Adam and Eve. Beyond that, we are all descendants of Noah and his family. Scientifically, we are all descendants of common ancestors. So, if you are religious or not, there is no basis for bias based on race.

I was raised to believe that each person is to be evaluated by me as an individual. That is, by their actions and not by the ethnic or racial group to which they belong.

So, is racism a sin? I believe so. It is certainly morally and ethically wrong.

When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt; I am the LORD your God.— Leviticus 19:31-34

“When a human being makes many coins in a single mint, they all come out the same. God makes every human being in the same image, His image, yet they all emerge different.” ~ Mishna

childeye 2 said:

I underlined these definitions of race and racism and highlighted them in bold from the Merriam-Webster dictionary and then reiterated them word for word like this:
Race:
a family, tribe, people, or nation belonging to the same stock
Racism:
racial prejudice or discrimination

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Trumps words did not racially discriminate against those women, thus it was not an example of racism.

Strathos said:

Please clarify then.

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Post #181 I was referring to the insult “why don’t cha go back where you came from!” Which is an insult used against immigrants suggesting they aren’t wanted here; something completely different than what Trump said
Post #203 I was addressing what Trump actually said.

Strathos said:

Why does that make a difference? Do you actually believe that that was a realistic suggestion, not just an attack?

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Do you understand the difference between these two statements?
1. Go back!
2. Go back, try your ideas, then come back and show me how it works.

Strathos said:

If you accept that some groups statistically are treated worse than others, that's all I needed for you to acknowledge.

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I don’t know who gets it worse. My point is when one group is move vocal about their mistreatment, they get more attention from everybody; so any study that is done about who gets it worse, that study becomes suspect IMO because I suspect the study is colored by the false assumption that those who complain the loudest feel the most pain.

Strathos said:

Against 4 US citizens, 3 of whom were born in the US. Do you think it's just a coincidence that they are all minorities?

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Of course it was a coincidence! Do you really think Trump told all white people to leave the room so he can fight with the minorities? C’mon!

Strathos said:

Why didn't he ever tell Hillary Clinton, his biggest political enemy, to 'go back and fix the UK'?

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1. The UK is fixed
2. Hillary wasn’t insulting the USA in his opinion
3. He was aware that Hillary was not a foreign immigrant.

Strathos said:

What does he make the assumption based on? And there's no real way to know if the intention is racist without reading the person's mind,

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Well if you have no way of reading Trumps mind, how do you know if his intention was racist?

If someone is perfectly alright thinking that degrading other peoples very humanity is the right thing to do then there is no point to the debate of what God thinks.

zephcom said:

<chuckle> That would be true if one assumes that only the Presidential salary is the only source of income a billionaire has.

It does appear that representatives of foreign nations have a much easier time getting in to lobby the current president when they stay at his hotels and play golf on his courses while in the nation.

And, it is truly suspicious that the current president has several times made public announcements which have affected the Stock Market and then a week or so later changed his position. Anyone with the money (like a billionaire) who knew when to sell stocks and when to buy stocks could make massive amounts of money if they knew when the president was going to do that.

While I'm confident that the current president is clueless about government, public and foreign policy or even how the law making process works, there is not doubt in my mind he certainly knows how manipulating the Stock Market can vastly enrich the one doing the manipulation.

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You have some pretty... Interesting theories.

zephcom said:

The crucifixion how He came to it was part of His life. Why would I object to that?

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Jesus allowed others to kill a completely innocent person....Himself.
He did this claiming that the authority to do so was granted to
local government by his Father.

John 19
10 So Pilate said to him, “You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?” Jesus answered him, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above.

zephcom said:

I didn't just fall off the turnip truck yesterday.

There is a lot of miles under this old body and I've fallen for a lot scams over the years. With experience I've learned how to spot them.

How better to insulate oneself from charges of insider trading than being immune from prosecution by being president? That is why most presidents put their personal investments into a blind trust. It is the way to demonstrate to the public that the president is making decisions which affect wealth without knowing whether the decision is good or bad for his/her own wealth.

This president refused to do that. Instead he put his wealth in the charge of his son. A son that he can call anytime he wants and talk to privately.

"Hi son, in the next four or five days, dump our Amazon holdings. In a week start buying it back."

Is there anyone here who -honestly- thinks Trump would never ever do that?

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Hmmm... But yet you couldn't detect my sarcasm.

zephcom said:

Sorry. -That- part of me doesn't work all that well. I tend to pick up sarcasm from body language rather than the actual words.

In reading I largely give the words their normal meaning unless the little part after the quote marks says "he said sarcastically".

Again...sorry.

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If someone tells you that you have... "Interesting theories" then it's usually not a good thing.

zephcom said:

Sorry. -That- part of me doesn't work all that well. I tend to pick up sarcasm from body language rather than the actual words.

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As with everyone.

Ken-1122 said:

Post #181 I was referring to the insult “why don’t cha go back where you came from!” Which is an insult used against immigrants suggesting they aren’t wanted here; something completely different than what Trump said
Post #203 I was addressing what Trump actually said.

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"Completely different"? Because it included a nonsensical 'challenge' at the end? That's just downright ridiculous. He directly told them to go back where they came from, and his supporters were chanting "send her back", not "send her back so she can reform Somalia and then come back here".

Do you understand the difference between these two statements?
1. Go back!
2. Go back, try your ideas, then come back and show me how it works.

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The second is just the first with a silly challenge tacked on. Look at the rally he had where everyone was chanting, what part of that message was resonating with them?

I don’t know who gets it worse. My point is when one group is move vocal about their mistreatment, they get more attention from everybody; so any study that is done about who gets it worse, that study becomes suspect IMO because I suspect the study is colored by the false assumption that those who complain the loudest feel the most pain.

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You assume that any study has to be biased and inaccurate regardless of methodology? Sounds like a creationist approach to evolution.

Of course it was a coincidence! Do you really think Trump told all white people to leave the room so he can fight with the minorities? C’mon!

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Show me examples of him telling white people to go back to the countries they came from (with or without the silly 'fix them and then come back here') and I'll believe it was a coincidence.

1. The UK is fixed

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Yet that hasn't stopped Trump from criticizing it and its government whenever they do something he doesn't like.

2. Hillary wasn’t insulting the USA in his opinion

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Really?

3. He was aware that Hillary was not a foreign immigrant.

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One of her grandparents was. Is there a generational cutoff or something?

Well if you have no way of reading Trumps mind, how do you know if his intention was racist?

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As I said in post #208:

Me said:

At most you could argue that he was not being deliberately racist, and his statement was just tone-deaf.

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That's really no defense though, as he should know better.

We could also look at a hypothetical situation in which a white person called a black person the n word, when the former had no idea what the word meant or its history, and didn't connect it to the color of the latter's skin. In that case, they would not be deliberately racist either. That doesn't make it acceptable though.

BTW, some have branded the president's recent attack against Rep. Elijah Cummings as racist, but I personally don't see it as being so. Dishonest and deflective, yes, but not racist.

Strathos said:

"Completely different"? Because it included a nonsensical 'challenge' at the end?

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What you call the nonsensical challenge at the end was the point of the tweet!

Strathos said:

" That's just downright ridiculous. He directly told them to go back where they came from,

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What you’re doing is akin to someone saying
“Heroes never die, they will live in the hearts of us all forever”
Then you come by and only address “Heroes never die” and calling it a lie because heroes are human and all humans die! I find it dishonest to look at only a portion of something said, in order to judge it out of context

Strathos said:

" and his supporters were chanting "send her back", not "send her back so she can reform Somalia and then come back here".

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We are only addressing his tweet; not his supporters.

Strathos said:

" You assume that any study has to be biased and inaccurate regardless of methodology? Sounds like a creationist approach to evolution.

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How do you know the study is not biased due to the reasons I said?

Strathos said:

" Show me examples of him telling white people to go back to the countries they came from (with or without the silly 'fix them and then come back here') and I'll believe it was a coincidence.

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Are you suggesting that because he didn’t levy the exact same insult at a white person, that makes it racist?

Strathos said:

" Yet that hasn't stopped Trump from criticizing it and its government whenever they do something he doesn't like.

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So what’s your point?

Strathos said:

" Really?

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What he said to Hillary was far worse than what he said to those other women. I will bet if he said to a black or brown person what he said about Hilary, you (and the media) would call that racist too!

Strathos said:

" One of her grandparents was. Is there a

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generational cutoff or something?
Yes; it only counts if you are an immigrant. He didn’t know them well enough to know most of them were born in this country.

Strathos said:

" As I said in post #208:

That's really no defense though, as he should know better.

We could also look at a hypothetical situation in which a white person called a black person the n word, when the former had no idea what the word meant or its history, and didn't connect it to the color of the latter's skin. In that case, they would not be deliberately racist either. That doesn't make it acceptable though.

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The only way you can come to that conclusion is by taking a small portion of what he said out of context, dismissing the main point of what he said, then call it racist or tone death.
The fair and honest approach would be to take the entire statement and judge it.

Ken-1122 said:

What you call the nonsensical challenge at the end was the point of the tweet!

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How do you know? You can't read his mind either.

What you’re doing is akin to someone saying
“Heroes never die, they will live in the hearts of us all forever”
Then you come by and only address “Heroes never die” and calling it a lie because heroes are human and all humans die! I find it dishonest to look at only a portion of something said, in order to judge it out of context

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In this case the context does nothing to make it better. Consider how the various white supremacist groups interpreted it as an endorsement of their views.

We are only addressing his tweet; not his supporters.

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So the fact that he held a rally shortly afterward where that chant was made, and (contrary to his claims) did nothing to discourage it, doesn't say anything about his intentions?

Besides, if you think that your interpretation of the tweet's meaning is so clear, apparently a very large fraction of his supporters didn't get the message.

How do you know the study is not biased due to the reasons I said?

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First of all, burden of proof. Second of all, these studies use double blind methodology. Most of the time people don't even know they are participating in a study.

Are you suggesting that because he didn’t levy the exact same insult at a white person, that makes it racist?

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I'm suggesting that using historically racist language in an attack on minorities is a fairly strong indication of racism, and if you want to claim that race had nothing to do with it, it would behoove you to provide examples of the same attack used on white people. It's not like it was some super specific insult individually tailored to each of them - it was a blanket statement based on the false assumption that they they weren't born in the US.

So what’s your point?

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My point is that he has never let facts get in the way of a useful insult.

What he said to Hillary was far worse than what he said to those other women. I will bet if he said to a black or brown person what he said about Hilary, you (and the media) would call that racist too!

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Now you're diving off into non-sequiturs again. Yes, he's said nasty things about her, but AFAIK he has never said anything racist against her. And please stop with the strawman that any criticism or insult towards a non-Caucasian is racist. Literally no one is claiming that. In fact, I just made a point in my previous post that I did not find the president's recent Twitter attack against Rep. Elijah Cummings to be racist. You conveniently ignored that and are now continuing to make this same dishonest accusation.

Yes; it only counts if you are an immigrant. He didn’t know them well enough to know most of them were born in this country.

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And why do you think he assumed that they weren't?

The only way you can come to that conclusion is by taking a small portion of what he said out of context, dismissing the main point of what he said, then call it racist or tone death.
The fair and honest approach would be to take the entire statement and judge it.

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Explain how the context magically makes it not racist.

Once again, let's use my 'get back in the kitchen' example. Suppose that a man told his wife to 'get back in the kitchen, make me dinner, and if the food is good enough I'll let you go shopping'. Is that now no longer sexist?

Peeking in on this thread...

I was hopeful I could thumb through all fourteen pages and every reply would consist solely of a simple "Yes."

Instead, I see a thread with a concerning number of participants interpreting, debating, and qualifying the question, which enables them to deny certain behavior, language, and ideas are "racist" despite that those things target and discriminate against people based on their color, ethnicity, or nationality. The general feel I'm picking up from these individuals is that as long as racism is done subtly enough, or circumvents explicit slurs in favor of dog-whistle encryption, it doesn't count...