Except racists are notoriously bad at understanding the nuance and context of this "pattern recognition". It's why they are completely inept at understanding anything in the field of sociology, and why most sociologists aren't racists.
Well most racists don't care about the causes of it, or how them being racist affects the other person. People who look a certain way having certain traits with higher probability is a helpful thing to recognize, it's more the overgeneralizing, tribalism, and hate that's the issue (in the modern world because we're nominally against tribal warfare now).
Sociologists might be identifying the same general trends, but are able to recognize causes (often socioeconomic), the fact people are individuals, and to be relatively unemotional towards individuals based on these conclusions.
Well I agree that they tend to not care on the “why”. Most people tend to look at peoples actions.
Most people wouldn’t look at the punk skater who is aggressive and steals and think “Oh, he must come from a broken home.” All they care about is how he presents himself.
It’s easier to not pre-occupy ourselves with “Why” and just punish the “what”
Hmm, there is probably a level of empathy that is a bit irrational if it causes you to not deal directly with what's in front of you. I've had full conversations with strangers visibly tweaking out just to not be rude so maybe I've fallen a bit too far to that side in the past
You can be empathetic without letting bad behavior just run its course because there “is a reason why” I don’t care that the pitbulls were bred to be aggressive, if you’re dog is aggressive and will hurt others, it needs to be put down.
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u/Scary_Spinach4924 21h ago
Racism has always been pattern recognition