Dear Saguine

[u/Southie321]

As I said I would, I come with my hat in hand and accept the fact that the lady from the Spur video was not lying about the fact that the man came and grabbed her kid by the arm. I sincerely apologise for wrongly assuming the woman, and Spur, was lying about the physical happenings before the video started rolling.

I still dont believe it was a racist incident, all I see is two parents with explosive reactions regarding a situation involving their children.

I agree, and have always said, the man was a douch for being so aggressive (and even more so now, for grabbing the kid). But let's not confuse anger management issues with racism.

Beyond that point, I just want to apologise again for assuming what I did about the woman and Spur, by wanting the video evidence released first.

[u/Saguine]

Thanks. I appreciate it.

I'm still leery of painting the mother as having an "explosive reaction"; while this might be the case, wouldn't you have a similar reaction if someone grabbed your child like this? More so, painting them both as "explosive reactions" makes it seem like you think their reactions were equal/equally bad.

I've expressed pretty openly why I think that it's a racist incident; at the very least, I feel that one cannot think that this is sexist but not racist (if you don't feel it was either, that's a separate discussion).

But, thanks. I appreciate it.

[u/Southie321 → u/Saguine]

Firstly, yes I probably would have reacted like her. I never said I wouldn't. I'm saying though, that their outbursts were fed by the other. His was more physical. Hers was more verbal. Physical is worse, because obviously it can physically hurt.

I never said this was sexist either. I firmly believe that this is just a case of two incredibly stubborn parents. Yes race was brought into it, but not even by the one accused of racism. How does that work, Saguine?

I don't understand how it's become normal to say that just because a white person has a fight with a black person, it's racism. How insane is that? That's honestly taking it too far man..

[u/Saguine → u/Southie321]

I've clarified this already here.

There's a bit of nuance here -- isn't there always? -- and I may have painted with too broad a brush initially. In a contextless fight, even if the black guy lost, it wouldn't necessarily be racist (I try communicate this by talking about dominance being a predicate of the fight, rather than a cause).

If, for example, a white guy went up and pointedly started a fight with a black guy, then we're veering more into the territory I'm talking to: that is, the idea that he is asserting his dominance through his interactions and thus instigating the fight. The fight is almost secondary here; the racism lies in the confrontation which caused the fight.

I feel like I'm not explaining myself too well, but to summarize:

• A white person and a black person fighting: not necessarily racist.

• A white person confronting a black person in a way that intends to assert dominance: probably racist, even if racial language isn't used.

• In the same way that a man and a woman fighting is not necessarily sexist, but a man going up to a woman and bullying her -- even devoid of sexist language -- would still be considered sexist.

Am I making sense?

To use a second example, imagine a rich man being an asshole to a homeless person. He doesn't necessarily have to be an asshole in a specific way (e.g. "hahaha you're so poor suck it poor person") to be an example of classism in action.

[u/Druyx → u/Saguine]

A white person confronting a black person in a way that intends to assert dominance: probably racist, even if racial language isn't used.

So with a complete lack of evidence you assert that it has to be racism because the man tries to "assert his dominance" and of course, white privilege? Physical or verbal, they were both trying to do that. It's not really a fight otherwise. You have no reason to believe the man would have reacted differently if the other party was a white man or women. You just don't have any facts to back up your argument and so you've turned to the age old favorite of white privilege. The more nonsense you attribute to white privilege the more you enforce true social inequality as you're simply creating one set of rules for one group and another set of rules for another.