Are you racist?

[Nice Squirrel]

http://odinsblog.tumblr.com/post/127808197400/28-common-racist-attitudes-and-behaviors

3. Reverse Racism.
A. “People of color are just as racist as white people.”
B. “Affirmative action had a role years ago, but today it’s just reverse racism; now it’s discriminating against white men.”
C. “The civil rights movement, when it began, was appropriate, valuable, needed. But it’s gone to the extreme. The playing field is now level. Now the civil rights movement is no longer working for equality but for revenge.” Or
D. “Black pride, black power is dangerous. They just want power over white people.” (Include here any reference to pride and empowerment of any people of color.)

REALITY CHECK + CONSEQUENCE:

A. Let’s first define racism with this formula:

Racism = racial prejudice + systemic, institutional power.

To say people of color can be racist, denies the power imbalance inherent in racism. Certainly, people of color can be and are prejudiced against white people. That was a part of their societal conditioning. A person of color can act on prejudices to insult or hurt a white person. But there is a difference between being hurt and being oppressed. People of color, as a social group, do not have the societal, institutional power to oppress white people as a group. An individual person of color abusing a white person – while clearly wrong, (no person should be insulted, hurt, etc.) is acting out a personal racial prejudice, not racism.

B. This form of denial is based on the false notion that the playing field is now level. When the people with privilege, historical access and advantage are expected to suddenly (in societal evolution time) share some of that power, it is often perceived as discrimination.

C+D. C is a statement by Rush Limbaugh. Though, clearly he is no anti-racist, both c+d follow closely on the heels of “reverse racism” and are loaded with white people’s fear of people of color and what would happen if they gained “control.” Embedded here is also the assumption that to be “pro-black” (or any other color) is to be anti-white. (A similar illogical accusation is directed at women who work for an end to violence against women and girls. Women who work to better the lives of women are regularly accused of being “anti-male.”)

 

[Tom Sawyer]

A. Let’s first define racism with this formula:

Racism = racial prejudice + systemic, institutional power.

That's not actually a definition of racism. It's a definition of a subset of racism called systemic racism. When the author later talked about people being prejudiced against people because of their race, he was defining racism.

 

[repoman]

So Chinese can be racist in China but not in the US?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

So Chinese can be racist in China but not in the US?

No, English colonists were once rude to the Chinese a few centuries ago, so Chinese can never be racist. They can only be prejudiced against people due to their race.

 

[Trausti]

Are you a sinner?

Here's how my religion defines sin and sinners . . .

Do you have something to confess?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Let's simplify this with a little bit of a poetic twist.

People that are prejudiced against people they don't know merely because of the race/sexual orientation/etc... are assholes.

It should be noted that the institutional reach of such assholes is limited based on their ability to encode their asshole prejudice into law. So assholes that can make and enforce asshole laws are now to be known as ASSHOLES, with all caps due to the influence they have to be assholes to so many. Assholes that support ASSHOLES and their ASSHOLE legislation are Assholes, with a capital A to symbolize the influence they have in the electorate to put ASSHOLES into power to pass and enforce their ASSHOLE agenda. Meanwhile the remaining assholes will stick with the lower case because while they are assholes, most people will never be a victim of their assholishness.

 

[dismal]

A. Let’s first define racism with this formula:

Racism = racial prejudice + systemic, institutional power.

I do not have "systemic, institutional power" so I guess I can't be racist.

QED.

 

[Trausti]

A. Let’s first define racism with this formula:

Racism = racial prejudice + systemic, institutional power.

I do not have "systemic, institutional power" so I guess I can't be racist.

QED.

Oh, but you do. While it is horribly racist to generalize about a whole racial group, it's okay if that generalization is made about white people. It's the Orwellian "all are equal but some are more equal than others" trope that some on the left trot out to defend their hypocrisy.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

A. Let’s first define racism with this formula:

Racism = racial prejudice + systemic, institutional power.

I do not have "systemic, institutional power" so I guess I can't be racist.

QED.

Systemic institutional power is not possessed by a given individual any more than all the air in a public library can be owned by one patron. BUT the air in the public library is petty much utilized by only the people in that library at any given time as opposed to people down the street at the Food Lion. Now if you chose to go the public library and then hold your breath and pass out, that is not because the air wasn't available to you. System institutional power delegated to a race works the same way. If you have been unable to used such power for you own benefit, like the guy holding his breath, that is all on you. And the power, whether you use it or not, is still there.

 

[ronburgundy]

I am assuming that the OP is an excerpt from of test of intelligence and reasoning ability. Anyone who actually thinks the question measures anything at all, let alone racism, or who thinks the blathering nonsense that follows the question is a valid argument gets 10 points deducted from their intelligence score.

 

[dismal]

I do not have "systemic, institutional power" so I guess I can't be racist.

QED.

Oh, but you do. While it is horribly racist to generalize about a whole racial group, it's okay if that generalization is made about white people. It's the Orwellian "all are equal but some are more equal than others" trope that some on the left trot out to defend their hypocrisy.

If I did have "systemic, institutional power" it's probably been over some very small systems, institutions. Like when I was fantasy football commissioner.

Unless you're going to do something wacky like define "systemic, institutional power" as "a thing dismal has".

But at some point people will wonder what the agenda is behind fucking around so much with definitions.

- - - Updated - - -

I do not have "systemic, institutional power" so I guess I can't be racist.

QED.

Systemic institutional power is not possessed by a given individual

Right, that's what I'm sayin.

 

[repoman]

Is this the right thread for this?



/sarcasm

 

[ronburgundy]

I do not have "systemic, institutional power" so I guess I can't be racist.

QED.

Systemic institutional power is not possessed by a given individual

And therefore, no individual can be racist under this definition. It is not a quality that any person can possess. Thus, making it nonsensical to ever refer to anyone as a racist, by this definition. Even worse, the quality of holding prejudiced ideas is something that only brains can do and thus only individuals can do.
Thus, if the "racial prejudice" in the definition refers to an idea or mental state, then the definition has 1 trait that only an individual can have and 1 that no individual can have. Thus, the definition is nonsensical and can never apply to anything. But that is just the kind of meaningless nonsense that sadly too often passes for academics in humanities where empirical evidence is so rare that it doesn't occur to many that you cannot define a concept that has multiple necessary properties that cannot even be measured at the same ontological level of observation.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Only a racist could pass that test as a non-racist.

 

[laughing dog]

Only a racist could pass that test as a non-racist.

Are you saying you do not pass that test or that you did pass that test?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

About one of the dumber arguments at this web board and abroad the Intertubes is the semantical pissing war over the word "racist" and "racism".

And for the record, I'm not a 'racist', I'm an unemployed, self-hating communist. At least, according to the right I am.

 

[Metaphor]

A call to religious belief and penitence requires a religious response. I don't know if I'm appropriating Catholicism or not (my family's Catholic but the majority of Catholics worldwide are probably people of colour so I might be appropriating something):

O my social justice warrior, I am heartily sorry for
having offended you, and I detest
all my white skin, because of Your just
pronouncements about the world, but most of all because
it offends You, my social justice warrior, who are
all-good and deserving of all my supplication.
I firmly resolve, with the help of
Your grace, to sin no more .

Thanks for the link, Athena: I now have confirmation that white people adopting elements of Native American religion is cultural/spiritual genocide and appropriation. Please note that although I am known for my heightened rhetorical flourishes, the words 'cultural/spiritual genocide' are not my own but actually appeared, without irony, in the essay Athena linked to.

Excuse me but I think I saw a little white girl with braided hair walking outside; as a properly contrite bearer of privilege I need to go out there and explain the wrongness of her cultural appropriation.

 

[Toni]

These sorts of threads always make me really sad. Not surprised, though. I grew up in a family of bigots and racists of varying degrees. One relative (may he RIP) was actually a member of the Klan. As in KKK. You know: white sheets, burning crosses. I am ignoring the 'friend request' of a family member because his facebook page makes my stomach churn just too much, although I loved his father, who was a sweet man, may he also RIP. I have a cousin who was like a sibling, who adopted her child from a Central American country and whose nieces and nephews were born to her sister in law, who hailed from that same Central American country. Whose FB and whose husband's FB pages are filled with a lot of anti-immigrant posts, anti-Hispanice memes, and so on. That's not even counting parents and siblings. So, I'm a little bit desensitized to the overwhelming sense of grief that overt and covert racism often inspire in me.

The absolute honest truth is that none of the family members mentioned above, including the one who was a member of the Klan, thought/thinks of himself/herself as a racist or even a bigot. They just thought/think they are 'realistic.' Or that the joke/meme was 'funny.'

I have never met a single person who thought of himself or herself as a racist. Including members of the Klan.

Which is why the responses on this thread do not surprise me.

Which is really sad.

 

[Metaphor]

The SJWs strike me as similar to the anti-same-sex marriage crowd. Sure, non-white people could be racially prejudiced, sure they could channel this prejudice into real negative consequences for white people via the State, but it isn't really the same thing as racism.

Sure, the people in same-sex couples could love each other, sure, the State shouldn't discriminate against them, but their unions just aren't the same as opposite-sex couple unions. So let's call what opposite couples do 'marriage', and let's call what same-sex couples do 'civil unions'.

Whenever a SJW refuses to call racist actions by non-white people racist, they are 'civil unioning' racism.

 

[dismal]

These sorts of threads always make me really sad. Not surprised, though. I grew up in a family of bigots and racists of varying degrees. One relative (may he RIP) was actually a member of the Klan. As in KKK. You know: white sheets, burning crosses. I am ignoring the 'friend request' of a family member because his facebook page makes my stomach churn just too much, although I loved his father, who was a sweet man, may he also RIP. I have a cousin who was like a sibling, who adopted her child from a Central American country and whose nieces and nephews were born to her sister in law, who hailed from that same Central American country. Whose FB and whose husband's FB pages are filled with a lot of anti-immigrant posts, anti-Hispanice memes, and so on. That's not even counting parents and siblings. So, I'm a little bit desensitized to the overwhelming sense of grief that overt and covert racism often inspire in me.

The absolute honest truth is that none of the family members mentioned above, including the one who was a member of the Klan, thought/thinks of himself/herself as a racist or even a bigot. They just thought/think they are 'realistic.' Or that the joke/meme was 'funny.'

I have never met a single person who thought of himself or herself as a racist. Including members of the Klan.

Which is why the responses on this thread do not surprise me.

Which is really sad.

This is a very strange reaction to a semantic debate about the meaning of a word.

Are you worried if they narrow the definition of "racist" too much you won't be able to fling it about as much?