Is it racist to attack someone based on which country they belong to?

[Marshalscienceguy]

If you attack someone based on what country they are from is it racist? A lot of people will attack someone based on what country they are from and claim its ok since they are not attacking this persons race but this persons country. Is this not still racist? Like saying "American is not a race" or "British is not a race". Is this truly a reasonable argument for it? When someone argues with these people over it they counter with "Its not racist, British is not a race and your an idiot for believing so" its ok to attack you for it as long as it is not race". If so what else would you call it?

[davidivad]

either way it is discrimination.

[swansont]

A more generic term that would apply is probably bigotry, of which racism would be a subset.

[iNow]

It seems to me like a violent and aggressive strain of nationalism.

[John Cuthber]

Most forms of sterotyping don't work very well.

So, it may not be racist, but it isn't sensible.

[Trumptor]

Yea, the British with their crazy foreign accent, spelling words wrong like theater (theatre) and liter (litre), eating fish and chips, and calling elevators lifts?!!!?! How dare they!

 

 

It seems that we differ from our ancient ancestors by technology alone and are ethically and morally no richer for it.

[dimreepr]

Racism equates too prejudice and to pre-judge can only come from ignorance.

[Trumptor]

Nice picture. It's funny that the baby has a red star on his or her shirt. Growing up, the red star was always associated with communism and there were popular shirts here in the US that said, "Kill a commie for your mommy." It's sad that we find all sorts of reasons to consider other human beings as undeserving of even life itself. I'm sure most of the people wearing those shirts would never kill anyone, but still, what kind of message does this kind of idiotic propaganda send to children? As a species that has invented calculus and formulas for fluid dynamics it is surprising that we can be so unbelievably stupid sometimes.

Edited January 21, 2014 by Trumptor

[ajb]

If you attack someone based on what country they are from is it racist?

Not necessarily, but it is for sure xenophobic.

[sona_p]

Kind of discrimination and generalization of your way to look at everyone from that country based on limited experience.

[Trumptor]

Which post are you referring to?

[Schneibster]

To the thread title and the OP: No, it is nationalist. "Racism," as generally used, means "prejudice against a race," and races are generally identified by physical characteristics rather than national origin. (I have a rather different definition myself, but it is of little importance in this conversation; the result would be the same.)

 

That is of course not to say that most persons of a given national origin, who become refugees, are the same race, and that prejudice against their nationality does not arise. But technically this is nationalism not racism, though the underlying motivation may be racist.

 

In common parlance, however, because the refugees are generally all a different race from the population they are forced to settle among, this kind of prejudice is often called "racism," though technically it is anti-nationalism.

Edited April 5, 2014 by Schneibster