hear! here! hear!..just let me catch my breath
what you're saying really NEEDED to be said.
(a pleasure to read)

Any chance i can come into this thread at all with the view (un-naive) ought not to be/generally isn't an issue or cause celebre - indeed, immediately upon it apearing to be held to be so [RTV] all very REAL instances of racism become, perforce, questionable and, oft, lamentably moot.

A battle remains, not to be belittled.

/flame me for all you're worth, both 'possible' sides could - i rest.

No

You just don't have exact numbers on that. 92 [||8] x 0.01 % or x20% you just don't know. That's all I am making, a statement of not knowing. This is neither before or against.

Any chance of understanding that to make race an issue purely to make race an issue, reactionary term' does a greater disservice to REAL issues of race, than otherwise!

What's so far fetched about thinking that multiple voting rates might vary by race?

Multiple voting will be affected by social, cultural and economic factors, and they're just the sort of thing that can vary by race.

There's still a lot of prejudice against homesexuals in Britain, yet that hasn't stopped a gay from winning Big Brother.

Is there any good reason to believe that racial prejudice has been a decisive factor in any but very close votes?

What have I/we done wrong now?

Race is a genetic clustering of similar traits in a whole genepool of human traits.

Racism is the judgment and distinction of decisions/opinions/actions based on race.

Neutral racism is logical actions based on information of the closer gentic clustering of some peoples traits. [IE recent New Scientist saying a drug has more efficiency for a specific race]

Negative racism is the exclusion/discrimination etc based on race

Dunno if there is a positive racism?

What now, is the REAL issue of race?

Race itself is a simple genetic fact, that's all, like hair colour.

Maybe if one would ask if people with flat feet could win BB it wouldn't be so hard to talk about it. Maybe there are people out there who don't like people with flat feet. So one might want to explore Britains flat feetism.

I hopefully understand where you are coming from, but the problem is that race like flat feet is a reality. So it will pop up now and then (see the medical example).

So you can't just ignore it.

Now in relation to BB. I can accept that racism might not be a problem, but Mesostim has first stated that racism per se exists [which I agree to] then made a calculation and how it could affect it. I say it doesn't give you an answer either as we don't have exact figures.

"Yes" or "we don't know" are perfectly acceptable answers to the question "Any black winner ever?".

So we can conclude that BB voting is not representative of British average opinion? People who don't like the remaining housemates, switching off, not bother voting, leaving in Brians case, blond welsh hairdresser supporter vs funny air steward supporter? So if you don't like the flat feeted one, but also not really the other non-flat feeted, you wont vote, unless you really hate the other one very strongly, leaving mostly only clear supporters.

So whichever group then has more money and or more people wins.

For example me, voted for John cause it was funny, no vote in final cause I couldn't be arsed. Bez or Kenzie didn't really care.


One reason I forgot. ITS ALL A FIX...

No, I'm suggesting may not, for the various reasons outlined - as opposed to your proposition that it definitely will. With so many variables involved, it could affect it a huge amount, or it could make no difference at all - essentially without thorough (as in research-grant thorough) investigation, you simply don't know.

Yes...definately will be a contributing factor....As opposed to it isn't at all which some people seem to insist......Racism is real...why would you need research to know racists are influenced by skin colour? By all means the debate can linger on quite how much it will affect the vote, but it's not so little it can be dismissed......

You're missing the point - no-one is suggesting that racism doesn't exist. But your assumptions are that the same percentile of person who are racist in British society is the same percentile of people who watch/vote for BB that are racist.

However, you have first to look at the dynamic of the BB viewer ship, and then work out what proportion of THAT may be racially influenced. If a study, for example, showed that 95% of BB viewer a liberal, left wingers, the chances are that practically none of those will be racially prejudiced. If that remaining 5% were centre to centre right, then you could say that a good 5% may be racially motivated. That would leave you with 0.25% who have a generally "racist" view. Of that percentage, you cannot assume that everything they do is racially motivated, and so only a portion of those votes would be based on skin tone - say a quarter to be generous. That would give you 0.06% voting on a racial basis - so little as to make no difference at all.

Then you have to factor into that multiple voting - and the type who multi-vote - largely obsessive fans and teenagers texters - and again you have to look at what fraction of them is likely to have a racial motivation.

I'm not saying that statistics are accurate, but they may be, and as such the situation is far to complex to say that certain given opinions with a fraction of society will definitely be represented in the voting structure.

Actually, that's not so clear. See for example The Race Myth, by Joseph L. Graves, or The Race Gallery, by Marek Kohn.

We can conclude that however much prejudice there is against homesexuals in Britain, it wasn't enough of a factor in BB votes to stop a gay from winning.

That doesn't in itsefl show that BB voting isn't representative. There are many possibilities. For example, the prejudice might not take a form that works against someone like Brian in a show like BB. Gay entertainers are often very popular.

Your suggestion that people who don't like any of the remaining HMs might just not bother is also a good possibility.

We also know (at least there have been credable press reports saying it) that women, gays, and the young are overrepreseneted among BB voters as compared to the overall population. That may also work in favour of some gay housemates.

The point is that we can't go from the undeniable existence of a prejudice in Britain to the conclusion that it is a decisive factor in BB votes.

We'd have to know what sorts of people vote, what the patterns of multiple voting are, and also how influenced they are by the prejudice in question. Someone who is prejudiced against blacks or gays or women might still be influenced more by other factors.

It's by no means a safe assumption, btw, that left liberals are free of racial prejudice. It can be a very subtle thing.

Race is like in dogs and cats, a multidimensional genetic distribution cloud.

If I look at my dog a Jack Russell, and a Dobermann, they look completely different, yet are interbreedable. Now they made research into this and say it's slightly different genes.

That difference has been labeled race, like a mixture of sugar and fruits with jelly has been labeled marmelade.

"Graves reveals the impossibility that any group of humans now in existence has a separate genetic line of descent."

Haven't claimed they are, and I find the book a perfectly valuable contribution of someone incidently in the same field as me. And the social interpretation of the name race can be seen different from the zoological term race.

If you want to redefine/redefine, genetical difference in humans that is fine.

Still many chinese look different to caucasians. People tend to want to label differences. If you call it something new, you probably gonna have to go through the same bollocks as with the term "race".

Nevertheless we are (most likely) all the same species.
There was some research on the disappearance of the Neanderthals so we might be a mixture too,

Life is extremely messy/complicated/diverse and language is a model system of this.

By all means if you think race is a useless term to label human optical differences do so.

http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-...ge=1&word=race

Add something here

We can make no other assumption and remain fair.....There is no reason why racists are any less likely to watch the show than anyone else.


You could...but then that wouldn;t be even slightly accurate would it.....I refrained from simply plucking over exagerated numbers out of the air....We do know the proportion of white people to every other racial group in the country however....


Except you had to use a made up figure to do so....and thus didn;t really prove anything. My figures were used to point out the complaint that "not just white people are racist" would still mean a massive disadvantage to black contestants......If we're hoping to say it doesn't simply because racist people are watching something else then that is simply wishful thinking.


Indeed we do.....but there is no reason to suspect that racist voters are any less or more likely to multile vote, be obsessive fans (or haters remember....negative vote most of the way) or racist teenager voters.....


I think you'll find that the proprtion of people influenced by racism....enough to cause an effect and far to many to be dismissed....The habit here on these discussions is that people will simply deny racism exists at all.....and it does I'm afraid.....

To see how it might be so, look at it the other way around. Are the types of people who vote statistically more or less racist than the general population?

Then how about the types who multiply vote?

There could easily be differences from the general population. Indeed it would be surprising if there weren't.

It's wishful thinking....We'd just hoping racist people simply don;t vote or watch the show....

No, just pointing out that we don't know how significant a factor racism is because we don't have the required data. Your assumption that BB votes match the general population is very questionable.

Although no less questionable than your claim that it doesn't....why are you so confident you are right an I am wrong?

There are a lot of what if, buts and maybe but nothing at all
to support the frequent claim that racism has nothing to do with the voting on Big Brother at all.....especially if we are relying on "maybe racists don't watch" as an argument.

I didn't claim that it doesn't; but it's much more likely that it doesn't than that it does. No polling organisation would take BB voters as a representative sample, let alone BB votes.

That's not the argument. So long as you continue to spin it that way, you won't understand the point.

In any case, it's not my view that racism has no effect on the votes. But sex-related prejudices probably have a stronger influence, despite being less discussed.

It's interesting btw that Elton John (among others) accused American Idol voters of racism last year, and let's supposed he's right and it was a factor. It still didn't stop a black man from winning the year before.

Why?........

Ah yeah, and the American Idol winner the year Elton complained (see above)... Also black.

Ah....so I'm spinning and you are not Veri.....?How does that work?


Racism is hardly discussed...whenever it is it is leapt on by an outraged crowd shouting denial...."racism has nothing to do with it" goes up the shout........However it does remain an influence which is all I am suggesting....this is oddly described by you as putting a "spin" on it despite you being the one trying to add the "what ifs"....


It also doesn;t stop racism influencing the vote the year after......Nor does it prevent there being a racist influence on Britiains Big Brother.......not even with the spin of "racist people proably dont watch".....

Doesn;t make them wrong though does it......

You'll happily except one form of prejudice influences but refuse to believe that another one does? Spin?

Your only hope is that racism is evenly spread throughout the population or that by a bizarre coincidence the particular mix embodied in BB votes (not voters) happens to match the mix in the whole population. But the even spread theory (so that no matter what sample you take, you get the same result) is obviously not going to work. Do you really believe that Daily Mail readers, Sun readers, BNP members, Guardian readers, and anti-racism campaigners all have the same profile of racial prejucide?