I said:
mrfish wrote:It's impossible to deny that a majority of those signing these petitions almost certainly have strong racist reasons for doing so. There may be some people who sign these petitions who are not racist, but they'd be a tiny minority of those pushing for secession!
SurfSteve's response:
SurfSteve wrote:I did not know that being from the south makes someone a racist. How does that work?
Also:
SurfSteve wrote:Since the video as you correctly pointed out did not say anything about racism and only about people from the south being for succession, the assertion that people that signed the petition are racists (all but a tiny minority) must have come from Mr. Fish. Unless he was having a brain fart when he made the comment, the only explanation that makes sense is that he is prejudicial towards southerners being racists as a whole.
BoraxBill pointed out:
BoraxBill wrote:No, it does not appear that it is Mr. Fish who had the brain fart. What he said stands up to logical analysis. However, what you say shows that you applied a logical fallacy and misinterpreted what Mr. Fish said through the lens of that logical fallacy.
To be clear, the video did talk about institutionalized racism in the south. Also it is undeniable that the south (particularly the Confederate states as pointed out in the video) has had more problems with racism than has been the case in the rest of the country. However, I never said that ALL people who live in the south are racists. What I implied is that a higher percentage of people in those states have racist beliefs. I also assert that the majority of people who signed the petitions for secession are motivated by racism. That is a long ways from saying that "being from the south makes someone a racist". In fact, I would say that the majority of people who live in the south ARE NOT racist. However, the majority of those who signed the petition ARE racist. There is a difference between these two assertions. If there are 2 million people living in a state and 300,000 of them are racists and there are 25,000 people who signed the petition, I am saying that most likely out of the 25,000 people who signed the petition that most of them are racist. In other words although 15% (300,000 out of 2,000,000) of the population is racist, it is almost certainly not the case that only 15% of those who signed the petition are racist. I am asserting that something like 90% or even 95% of the people who signed the petition are racist. Hopefully that is clear enough for you!!!