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| quote: | And now for something completely different: I would like to know which, if any, of the following statements you would classify as racism (and why):
"Asians are generally more polite than other ethnic groups",
"White people are generally more tolerant than other ethnic groups", and
"Africans are generally better dancers than other ethnic groups".
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Obviously it depends on the definition of "racism".
I think racism, most broadly, would be the application of a universal statement (I'm sure you're familiar with syllogicstic logic?) to a particular race. Therefore, to say "all Asians are more polite than any other ethnic groups" would be racist in this sense, because you are - almost a priori - attributing, universally, a quality to the entire poluation of a particular set. If the statement were particular (as opposed to universal) on the other hand (i.e. "many Asians are more polite") then it would not be racist, as there is no sweeping, universal statement based on the "race" of a particular population.
The statement "Asians are generally more polite" however, seems to be somewhere in between. Strictly sepaking, it would be more particular than universal, as it does not say that all Asians are more polite, but it still seems to be attributing a particular quality to a population. However, technically, these statements would not be considered "racist" via our first definition, simply because they are not making a universal statement under the pretense of race.
The next definition of racism, runs something akin to what could be described as "racial chauvanism". This definition of racism would say that universal statements based on race would be okay, so long as they neither attempted to promote the superiority of one race, nor the inferiority of another. The statements you made, if you removed the word "generally" would still be considered racist by this definition (as with the above definition) as not only would the statement be universal on the basis of "race" it would attempt to promote the superiority of a certain race (if only in a specific facet of behaviour). Therefore, a universal statement such as "All Asians like apples" would be racist under the first definition but probably not under the second, as it is neutral in terms of either promoting or demoting the superiority of a given race.
However, given that your statements are "particular" rather than "universal" (due to the addition of the word "generally") it would be hard to label them chauvanistic as chauvanism would (in my mind) require stating the superiority/inferiority of an entire population bound by some common trait. You can't be chauvanistic if you say "Many Asians are polite" or even if you say "All Asians are polite and so are all Black People" because in the first case, the statement is particular and in the second, as there is no attempt to imply the superiority of a population against another, there does not seem to be any hint of chauvanism involved (unless you want to argue that the statement was made to assert the superiority of Asian people and black people over white people).
The last definition of racism I can think of is the "PC Definition" which, so far as I'm concerned, misses the point.
It's hard to define, as there is no real logical consistency to it, but it appears to rely on the "balance of societal power" to ascertain whether a statement is racist or not. That is, for an Asian to say "I think all white people are impolite" in a society that is "white", or where white people hold the majority of the power anyway, would be more acceptable by this definition, than for a white person of the same society to say "I think all Asians are impolite" - or rather than the first statement being more acceptable, I should say that the second statement is less acceptable. Of course, the other way around (i.e. a white man in an Asian society) we would expect the opposite to be true (i.e. it would be less acceptable for an Asian to make negative universal statements about a white people in an Asian society, than for a white person to make the same statement about Asians in the same society). Though of course, on a global level, in a world where the balance of power seems heavily skewed in the favour of white western societies, white people, regardless of which society they live in, have to be very careful about what they choose to say about another race.
Anyway, the main qualities of this "PC Racism" seem to be that the statement must be negative towards a particular race and does not really need to be universal in order to be considered "racist". Therefore, to say "all black people are good dancers" would be technically racist via our previous definitions, but not under the PC one (so long as we assume a non-black person is saying) as it is a "positive" universal generalisation. Similarly, saying "many black people are criminals" - while it is not universal, but rather particular to some members of a given population - would probably be enough to get the PC Police out of the woodwork and be condemned as "racist".
I don't really know where I stand, having said all that, it's a very grey issue. For me, for something to be considered racist, I suppose it must be a universal statement based on race, and there must be an element of "untruth" or "ignorance" to it (so it would be racist to say "all Asian people are impolite" but not "all Asian people, naturally, have black hair"). If its intended to incite hatred against a certain race as well (regardless of how it is phrased) then that's usually enough for me to label it as being racist as well.
Anyway, I think that's enough for now. Hope you all found it illuminating. 
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