4 ms·
If you are allowed to redefine any word you want and completely remove it from its common usage and any vestiges of its actual meaning then you are certainly fr
by wfo 11y ago
If you are allowed to redefine any word you want and completely remove it from its common usage and any vestiges of its actual meaning then you are certainly free to say something like "it's not clear to me than an ethnic group that is not part of the 'majority establishment' can be 'racist'" -- you're just saying nothing more than "I'd like to redefine racism as something that can only be done by white people". Which is fine, you just need to make it clear when you use the word that you don't mean actual racism, you mean your new definition of "white-only" racism, or you need to use a different word if you don't want people to be confused. What's wrong with using 'systemic oppression' to describe systemic oppression (or even just oppression if you want something shorter) and 'racism' for actual racism?
It seems very extreme the mental contortions that are required to say to a white kid in an inner city school that when other students beat him up for being white they aren't being racist. Or when a hispanic person uses the n-word to describe a black person they aren't being racist.
Then once we've agreed on the definition of words we can argue whether or not there's any context in which white people can experience systemic oppression in the US (I think probably not but perhaps there's an argument to be made)