Why do people more often pull the race or sex card, rather than the religion or weight card?

Elaborate

Well most people make excuses for peoples thoughts or judgements of them. (i.e. “He only chose her as the new president of such and such, because he’s black.” Instead of, “He wasn’t picked as a worker because he’s too fat.”

Hmmm… i guess race and sex are more obvious and harder to argue with.

Black people and women were prohibited from voting for a long time in the US. People (white men?) apparently didn’t believe they had the brains to be trusted with making such a vital decision about the fate of the country, and I think there’s still some residual doubt about whether or not they can lead it (from others as well as internalized, in some cases)... especially if they are talking about making the world more pro-woman or pro-black.

On the other hand, the country was founded on religious freedom (and making a buck), so while there’s a decided bias in favor of one’s own religious group, people are aware of smart people that hold other faiths. Likewise, while fat people might be seen as greedy or without self control, nobody held them up from voting.

Racism and misogyny are two very real issues that continue to plague society. Being an ethnic minority or (to a lesser extent, I think) a female means being faced with a whole lot of preconceived notions that individuals automatically assign to an entire group of people. It is pretty simple to observe, especially when race is considered. It’s hard not consider one’s race or ethnicity when faced with a situation in which one has been mistreated, or judged unfairly. The power in the United States continues to be held by a rather homogeneous group of people. Power in the government, the mainstream media, and bureaucracy means that ethnic minorities are associated with evil (take note of most “bad guys” on TV and in movies) and that women are associated with weakness (cleaning products are always advertised by women). Of course we have made, and continue to make strides, but like laureth said, traditionally power has not been ours.

By the way, I love this topic! I could go on and on about the status of minorities and women in the U.S.!

And I suppose that no one in the world has any preconceived notions about Men? No none at all. Bad men, bad bad bad!

Oh, lots of people have preconceived notions about men. My grandma, for one, thought that only men were smart enough to be doctors and leaders, for example.

I think I know what you mean, though: things like “he thinks with his ‘other’ head” or something like that. Those are common preconceived notions, too. It doesn’t seem to keep them out of power, though.

Maybe the weight card is just a lot harder to pull?

I hate how people bring out these kinds of things for no reason, they even do it when no one is being persecuted, they may even be being helped to get their message across and they go and bite the hand that feeds them.

For example, nowadays we have reverse racism, where people are so worried about being racist that they actually discriminate even more! E.g. Not being rude to someone because they are black. What is up with that?

There are lots of good reasons not to be rude to people. If the one you pick is race, well, at least you’re choosing to be “nice” instead of choosing to, say, lynch them. I bet they’d prefer it that way, too.

On the other hand, when I have been less than friendly to someone (for reasons other than race), I have been called racist because the person I was talking to did not have the same skin color as me. Perhaps that’s why people are especially nice in that situation – being otherwise would cause more drama than they really want at that moment.

It certainly depends where you are from, what the culture is like in a certain place makes social faux pas more or less evident from my experience.

I don’t know. I suck at card games.