Quote:
Originally Posted by photon
I like the poison M&Ms example, even if there's 1 poison one in a bowl of 1000 M&Ms, do you just grab a handful and start eating?
If violence against women was a rare thing then I might agree that the statement is offensive, or at least I'd entertain the idea. But violence against women (EDIT: And the attitude that women are objects still) is endemic in our society. The # of women who have been raped or attempted rape isn't in the 1 in 1000 or 1 in 10,000 level. It's in the 1 in 3 level (or 1 in 4 or whatever, I don't know the actual stats, but it's a single digit fraction).
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Right, because statistics and data have never been used to justify the perpetuation of negative attitudes about a group of people based on a shared immutable characteristic. That would never happen!
Again, it wouldn't matter if 1 in 4 people had been the victim of assault at the hands of a black person, it would be equally wrong to take the position that any time you see a black guy walking toward you you need to take a defensive posture.
Whether or not a person makes the choice that they're going to adopt an attitude like this out of necessity (which I think is a very sad way to live one's life) is a different issue. But if you do, don't be self-righteous about it because if it's a necessary evil (which again I dispute) it remains evil. Reading some of the posts on facebook and other social media about this stuff lately has made me sick to my stomach.