story
Otherwise, they do seem to be the same.
One needs not explicitly add "I, personally" to his personal correspondence.
"Chinese women are so ugly, I cannot understand how people manage to reproduce in China" should be read as: "I find Chinese women so ugly, that I cannot understand how people manage to reproduce in China".
It's understood that in personal correspondence everything stated is the opinion of the author. Both my fictional examples were written from a personal point of view.
The actual difference was that one expressed a personal preference without being offensive; the other called a vast group of people "ugly", which is offensive, and expressed incredulity that they even managed to find each other sexually attractive enough to reproduce (which is naive as well as offensive).
Racism is primarily subjective, so that's no excuse either. Rational justifications for racism are more often than not a posteriori justifications.
Having established that...
>The actual difference was that one expressed a personal preference without being offensive; the other called a vast group of people "ugly", which is offensive
My point is that racism is not about being offensive (or not) in one's subjective opinions. Being rude is not the same as being a racist -- even if the characteristics you're rude about belong to a race of people.
>Rational justifications for racism are more often than not a posteriori justifications.
They might be, but without them there's no racism. Just personal preference or dislike, which people are entitled to.
"Freedonians look ugly" is not racist. "Freedonians are genetically inferior" is.
Even saying "freedonians are stupid" is borderline, because they might indeed be by the criteria of the one making that statement (e.g. they might value leisure, where the one making the statement might think that it's smarter to be productive).
Racism should reflect an attribute that can be factually proven---intelligence, strength, moral character at birth, etc.
It should not reflect a totally subjective physical attribute like beauty.
"I've always thought <class of people> were dumb, weak, morally bankrupt, and have brought decadence to our country, but now that I look at this scientific study I'm convinced otherwise".
