So, these English definitions quite clearly do apply to blacks as they only refer to psychological states of individuals and not at all to sociological or historical group-level power imbalances.
I purposefully provided definitions in 3 languages not just "in English" to demonstrate that there is a consensus among all those dictionaries representative of not just one culture but at least 3, that the definition of racism relies on the concept of "race" hierarchy , superior versus inferior.
My point was to demonstrate that individuals who rely on such definition and from 3 different cultures are far from doing it with a personal agenda at play as Bomb was implying they are. I must say I am surprised that there should be such reluctance in this thread to recognize the authentic character of such definition. Am I to assume here that such consensus met by a variety of dictionaries in 3 languages was met by people who somehow have a personal agenda at play?
What your definitions demonstrate is the total absence of consensus that actual group-level power differential in society is a neccessary feature of racism. In fact, they show consensus that group-level variables are not part of the definition, but rather that racism is about psychological ideas and beliefs. and thus it applies to the psychological states of individuals.
Let's add to my list the Dictionary of l' Académie Française :
http://atilf.atilf.fr/dendien/scripts/generic/cherche.exe?15;s=3292231050;
RACISME n. m. XXe siècle. Dérivé de race.
Ensemble de doctrines selon lesquelles les variétés de l'espèce humaine appelées races, principalement distinguées les unes des autres par leur apparence physique, seraient dotées de facultés intellectuelles et morales inégales, directement liées à leur patrimoine génétique. Par ext. Préjugé hostile, méprisant à l'égard des personnes appartenant à d'autres races, à d'autres ethnies.
My translation ,
Racism : XXth century. Derived from race :
Ensemble of doctrines holding the notion that the variety of categories within the human species referred to as races, primary distinct from each other via their physical appearance, would be endowed with unequal intellectual faculties and ethics, directly related to their genetic inheritance. By extension, hostile prejudice, contempt towards persons belonging to other races or ethnic groups.
Am I to assume that the members of the French Academy, by upholding such definition of the word racisme=racism, somehow have a personal agenda at play?
That French definition, like the English ones, in no way presumes the existence of any actual power differentials between groups. It refers to concepts and ideas which only occur within the brains of persons. Thus, any person capable of such ideas is capable of racism. I don't think the French Academy has an agenda, I think you clearly do have one in your unreasonable attempts to contort these definitions to support the notion that actual group level power differences and belong to the group with more power are required for racism. Also like the English definitions, the notion of a general value judgment about the inferiority of a race is only a secondary feature provided and an extension or example of the more general concept of racism which is about presuming differences in particular characteristics between the races. Notions of inferiority can be an implication of such presumed differences if the difference is on a dimension valued to be a core determinant of general worth. But even then, the inferiority is nothing more than a belief of persons, and does not require that the belief be acted upon to successfully achieve group level outcomes that favor ones group.
So, the only way blacks could not be racist is if we make the racist assumption that blacks are not mentally capable of the psychological states that whites are.
Non. It is not a matter of "mentally capable" and has nothing to do with a matter of inferior capacity based on mental status.
It has to do with a people conditioned via their history to be at the receiving end of doctrines which declared them as an inferior ethnic group to the dominant ethnic group endowed with the sense of being morally and intellectually superior, dominant ethnic group who empowered itself to exploit, enslave and oppress persons of Black ethnicity.
Again, your definitions say nothing in support of the idea that actual differential power at that group level is a neccessary precondition for holding racist beliefs.
Happening to share traits with group that has more power at the aggregate level is under no viable psychological theory a neccessary precondition to personally believing that one's own race is superior in some valued dimension. Belong to the more powerful group merely reinforces such in-group biases, it is not the source of them, which is rather the inherent tendencies of all humans to form ideas that favor their own value and interests. Therefore, only if blacks were inherently incapable of the psychological processes that are at the core of racist beliefs would it be true that "no blacks are or can be racist".
Also again, the very belief that only whites can be racist meets most of the definitions of racism that you provided. Racist is widely felt to be unethical and a bad thing to be, just as much or more than unintelligent or lazy are things thought to be negative. Thus, to claim that only one race possesses such a negative, unethical, and generally inferior quality is racist.
The response or reaction from folks of Black ethnicity to such persistent race superiority concept upheld by members of the White ethnicity cannot be fall under the definition of being racist.
Many responses to oppression aren't racist, others are. Merely wanting equal treatment is of course not racist. However, if oppression leads a person to believe that the group oppressing them have the ethically inferior quality of being the only ones who can be racist, then that response to oppression is itself racism. And for the nth time, not one definition you provided assumes historical group level oppression as a precondition for racism. So, while racism can be tied to actual oppression and even sometimes be a response to being racially oppressed, most instances of racism do not depend upon any actual group level oppression, neither as the cause of it or the result of it.
Also note that the notion of superiority is a secondary aspect of the definition, with the primary aspect being merely the belief that individuals' qualities and characteristics differ by their race.
I disagree. Race hierarchy based ideologies are not "merely the belief that individuals' qualities and characteristics differ by their race". They contain the element of comparing races based on claims of one race or the other being inferior or superior.
The definitions your provided show otherwise. They present notions of inferiority only as secondary extensions or manifestations of racism, because if groups are thought to differ on a trait that is also highly values, then that difference on the trait implies a difference in value or worth, which is essentially the notion of inferiority. More importantly, beliefs about inferiority do not require actual group-level power differences, thus any member of a less powerful group can still form beliefs about racial differences that imply inferiority (and the belief that only whites are racist is such a belief).
As I had noted in my reply to the OP, the dominant and self empowering ethnic group being the one who endorses the sense of being racially superior to the oppressed, exploited, enslaved ethnic group. If you wish we can expand on my contention in the World History Forum where I will demonstrate that European colonialism in Africa was indeed fueled by the belief of superiority of the White ethnicity while holding the belief of racial inferiority affecting African natives.
No reasoned analysis of history places racist beliefs as a neccessary and sufficient condition for colonialism, which is what your argument logically presumes. Within race oppression, enslavement, and mistreatment utterly falsify such a notion. Racist beliefs are merely an enabling condition of colonialism. Colonialism can occur without racism and racism without colonialism. Therefore, whether a group engaged in colonialism cannot be used to imply their racism. The fact that European colonialism was enabled by racist beliefs shows nothing other than that racism
can be a contributor to colonialism, not that it must be a contributor or always produces colonialism as your argument logically presumes. The evidence of European racism is independent and not merely inferred from their colonialism.
For example, the Oxford definition starts with "The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race," The notion of superiority isn't presented as neccessary but presented as a typical motive for presuming such differences ", especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races."
Yet, every other definition I submitted in 3 different languages and now duly upheld by the dictionary of the French Academy (if you are not familiar with the French Academy, their for life members are the guardians of the French language) convey the meaning of race hierarchy based or/and racial superiority versus inferiority based on ethnicity or "race". And I am rather certain that those definitions directly applied to the specific term in 3 languages : racism= racisme= il razzismo.
Most of them start with beliefs about differences between races, then secondarily present notions of hierarchy as extensions. And none of them presume as you do that beliefs about hierarchies require being among to a group that actually has more institutional power.
Also, individual beliefs (which is what all these definitions refer to) about superiority are not remotely neccessary nor sufficient for actual group level oppression which has much more to do with opportunity, strategic advantage, and practical motives than racial beliefs.
We can take your contention and compare it with mine, to the World History Forum, and see how it goes when expanding on European colonialism in Africa. Deal? I will add that I will also develop on post colonial mentalities in France still portraying our population of Sub Sahara origin and Norther African origin (all representatives of our ex French colonies) as individuals inferior in intellectual capacities while questioning their ability to abide to ethics. I will certainly document the ideology nurtured by the Front National party ( a party becoming more and more popular in France) of the "True French" expanding on the genetic inheritance of White/European origin French versus Black ethnicity/Arab ethnicity genetic inheritance French. The White/European ethnicity being the "True French" while the rest is a bunch of racially inferior morons whose genetic influence should be eliminated from the oh so precious "True French" genetic pool.
This is a critical problem in so much of the soft to the point of mushy sciences, where analyses of particular events confuse local causality with fundamental causal principles, failing to grasp the critical differences between causal contingencies that are neccessary and sufficient, with those that are neither, and merely probabilistic, such as the enabling and highly context depend forms of causal influence that account for most variance in human behavior at both the individual and especially the group level. As I explained above, the influence of racist beliefs that facilitated French colonialism does not support your argument, which rests on the assumption that racist beliefs always produce such colonialism and thus differences in colonialism directly imply differences in racism.
In contrast, nothing I have said implies that racism has not played a major role in various historical events and European colonialism in particular. Neither I nor anyone else has denied that racism can fuel oppression or that institutional oppression can be a manifestation of racism. It is you and Athena taking the extremist stance that racism does not exist unless their is oppression and that the psychological state of racism that is described in every one of your definitions is somehow only accessible to people who happen to be categorizable in the same group as others who have successfully enacted group-level oppression.
Thus, nothing you have brought up in terms of the historical role of racist ideas in colonialism has any relevance, unless you can prove that racist ideas are are psychologically impossible to form in a person's mind if they belong to a group that has generally been the target of oppression. You cannot prove or even support such a notion with any historical analyses and decades of psychological science show that this notion is clearly wrong. Again, all your definitions refer to psychological states of persons, and none require successful historical oppression as a neccessary or sufficient determinant of these beliefs. So it is actually psychological data and not historical data that is relevant to the presence of racist beliefs and that data supports the existence of racist beliefs among non-whites.
