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Seems like you two are using different definitions of "racism". There seem to be two floating around. 1. "Prejudice on the basis of race or color." Reference:

Seems like you two are using different definitions of "racism". There seem to be two floating around. 1. "Prejudice on the basis of race or color." Reference: pretty much any dictionary. 2. "Oppression based on racial hierarchy." Harder to find a reference, but here's one: http://www.diversityinc.com/ask-the-white-guy/does-playing-the-race-card-make-you-racist/ http://www.diversityinc.com/ask-the-white-guy/does-playing-t... Note that under definition #1 black people can be racist against white people. Under definition #2 that's not possible, because black people are (or at the very least historically have been) oppressed. I have seen #2 used to make categorical statements like "black people can't be racist." Which may not be an Orwellian dystopia as @adekok said in a sibling comment, but it is inflammatory to people using definition #1.

MaxfordAndSons 10y ago
I appreciate you clarifying this distinction. I was aware that I was using a non-normative definition that comes from radical leftist intellectual discourse, and I should have been more clear that I was presenting an alternative understanding of the term. I guess #2 is more readily understood in mainstream discourse under the term "structural racism".
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > I was aware that I was using a non-normative definition that comes from radical leftist intellectual discourse The problem with this definition is that it conflates racism -- which is problematic in any case -- with an external condition which interacts with racism and makes it more damaging (and, worse, it treats that external condition -- which in reality is a continuously-valued property -- as binary.) By doing so it obstructs discussion of the continuum of problems associated with racism and serves to normalize some racism (which may be less harmful racism in the conditions in which it originates, but as those conditions change for what would otherwise be the better, becomes more harmful without the actual content of the racism changing.) It also has the additional unfortunate side effect that people more distantly following the theorists adopting such a radical definition pick up the conclusion "Black people can't be racist" and lose the context of the understanding of the conditions justifying, in the particular definition the theorists are applying, why negative racial stereotyping of whites by blacks isn't racism, and just taking it as a categorical privilege of blacks (regardless of their position and privilege in a particular milieu) to engage in racial stereotyping and discrimination, because "black people can't be racist".

MaxfordAndSons 10y ago

I appreciate you clarifying this distinction. I was aware that I was using a non-normative definition that comes from radical leftist intellectual discourse, and I should have been more clear that I was presenting an alternative understanding of the term. I guess #2 is more readily understood in mainstream discourse under the term "structural racism".

dragonwriter 10y ago
> I was aware that I was using a non-normative definition that comes from radical leftist intellectual discourse The problem with this definition is that it conflates racism -- which is problematic in any case -- with an external condition which interacts with racism and makes it more damaging (and, worse, it treats that external condition -- which in reality is a continuously-valued property -- as binary.) By doing so it obstructs discussion of the continuum of problems associated with racism and serves to normalize some racism (which may be less harmful racism in the conditions in which it originates, but as those conditions change for what would otherwise be the better, becomes more harmful without the actual content of the racism changing.) It also has the additional unfortunate side effect that people more distantly following the theorists adopting such a radical definition pick up the conclusion "Black people can't be racist" and lose the context of the understanding of the conditions justifying, in the particular definition the theorists are applying, why negative racial stereotyping of whites by blacks isn't racism, and just taking it as a categorical privilege of blacks (regardless of their position and privilege in a particular milieu) to engage in racial stereotyping and discrimination, because "black people can't be racist".