[RealJames]

There's a pretty large gray area between justifiable generalizations and outright racism, and which side a comment lies on is so very subjective.

The fact is generalizations are necessary, it's not feasible for anyone to have an absolutely clean slate every time we meed someone, and even more difficult after we learn a little about them to not fill in the gaps with patterns we've noticed before.

There's a separate issue also, factual evidence that demonstrates the opinions of the majority of the population of a country. For instance, votes in a democracy, it's perfectly appropriate to generalize a population on the votes of the majority.

If there was a nationwide poll in Japan that asked "do you prefer pasta or bread" and it came out 8:1 favoring bread, then it's entirely okay to say Japanese people generally like bread more than pasta.
Now bread and pasta is hardly controversial, but change that to a pass/fall for literacy, or a presidential election or whatever, and it doesn't change the facts.

What must also be considered is what causes the results of the statistics, like, for example, when looking at the crime rate associated with a certain ethnic minority in a certain part of a country. To assume the results are due to the color of their skin is just misusing a statistic.

I'm trying to skirt the issues raised in a thread that was closed while staying clear of any form of bashing, I hope we can continue this thread with consideration to all who are reading it.