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"Calling someone who says or does bigoted things 'a bigot' isn't censorious, it's descriptively accurate, like calling a bad movie "a bad movie", even if the bigot didn't intend to come off as bigoted and the movie didn't intend to come off as bad." -- Kai Chang, 2006-11-06

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There are 5 comments on this entry. (Reply.)

"Censorious" isn't a word I normally use. Dictionary.com says it means "severely critical; faultfinding; carping." If I called someone a bigot, I'd be "severely critical," though not "faultfinding" or "carping."

Then there's the question of whether someone who does X-like things is an X. Calling a normally non-bigoted person who says one marginally bigoted thing a bigot would be carping.

A bad movie is, tautologically, a bad movie. Someone "who says or does [any] bigoted things [at all]," without regard to the frequency or clear nature of such actions, isn't necessarily a bigot.

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People so often use this argument ("by pointing out the bigoted thing I did you have called me a bigot! I'm not a bigot! Therefore the thing I did isn't bigoted and you're entirely wrong and I don't have to listen and I can keep doing it!") to deflect any and all attempts to point out that any one thing they did was bigoted and thus to refuse to learn.

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Such a response would be begging the question (assuming that the act is not bigoted in order to prove that it isn't). But the accuser may be the one who is actually begging the question (assuming that an action is bigoted in order to prove that the person accused is a bigot). E.g., "You don't like Obama. Not liking Obama is racist. Therefore you're a racist. Q.E.D."

Charges of bigotry, racism, and the like are an area where arbitrary accusations are particularly common, so it's particularly important to look out for circular reasoning on both sides.

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It's descriptively accurate to say "That person says or does bigoted things" or even "That person behaves like a bigot." But calling them "a bigot" is probably reducing them to a subset of their actions -- which is a common shortcut, but not "accurate."

I agree with

minoanmiss that the distinction I'm making is commonly used to derail, though.

As for intention, it matters if you might be interacting with the person. If they intended to act bigoted it's probably a waste of time trying to educate them and you probably want to focus on minimizing the damage from their actions. If they didn't intend to act bigoted, there are other options for how you might approach the situation.

If you're discussing the behavior in some other context, then their intentions don't matter.

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A bad movie will be bad forever--it can't do anything tomorrow or next year that might be good (or even a little less bad.) It's different for people. A person who says or does bigoted things today can behave better in the future. Does one act of bigotry define a person as "a bigot" forever? (Who among us has never done anything at all bigoted?) As a matter of strategy, focusing on evil actions rather than evil people is usually a more effective way to change behavior.

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