7 ms·

The US is a racist society: "race" has no valid biological basis, but is a salient social category which impacts social and economic interactions in a wide vari

The US is a racist society: "race" has no valid biological basis, but is a salient social category which impacts social and economic interactions in a wide variety of ways, producing inequalities of privilege and injustice. Whether or not you have bigotry in your heart is beside the point—no one can know such things. When you spend all your energy trying to prove that you are untainted and innocent of racism, it seems like you are missing the point: in a pervasivly racist society, discriminatory behaviors creep in the subconscious of everyone, black/white/antiracist/whatever, and we have to consciously struggle with them. The question is really more about how you interact with broader society racism, not whether you are a naif.

yummyfajitas 10y ago
I don't know what you mean by "racist". Can you provide a clear and unambiguous definition? I don't think you can.
- daveguy 10y ago
  Negative action, thoughts or words based on race. No individual is a stereotype. Treating a racial group as a stereotype is racist. Edit: fortunately we can legislate the hell out of the actions. It's not that difficult. Though I will give you credit for willful ignorance for the sake of argument. Good rhetoric. A-
  - reitanqild 10y ago
    I was with you almost until the "willful ignorance". I also guess yummyfajitas was with you until the second paragraph as well. My frustration is that your definition doesn't seem to be the one that one is jugded against but rather one that defines us all as racists because of the society we live in, because of our distant relatives etc. Because of this there seems to be no way to defend against this. And since I am a "racist" it is only fair to dismiss all my opinions, right? Again: I'm arguing in good faith. I don't like Trump but I am afraid the rethoric we see from Democrats and others are driving voters straight into his arms. I'm also fairly certain that it hurts this community when people go around accusing other long term contributors of willfull ignorance.
    - daveguy 10y ago
      Do you honestly believe he did not know the meaning of racism? That he was not being deliberately ignorant (the definition of willful ignorance) about racism to make a rhetorical point? Come on now. I didn't mean to hurt anyone's feelings by calling out the obvious. I apologize.
      - reitanqild 10y ago
        No, I think yummyfajitas knows full well the dictionary definition of racism, or would be fully capable of looking it up. A lot of people seem to use another definition though and that is what I think yummyfajitas tried to get them to admit. For some reason only you seemed to want to put their definition in writing.
- derrickdirge 10y ago
  You're being willfully obtuse. The points the parent was making were not reliant on a concrete shared definition of 'racism.' Do you want to be part of a discussion, or do you just want the rush of endorphins that contrarianism provides?
  - reitanqild 10y ago
    I don't think yummyfajitas is. I don't like Trump but I still agree that racist is now used as a general slur.
    - derrickdirge 10y ago
      You're still missing the point the parent was making.
      - reitanqild 10y ago
        What then? This: "it seems like you are missing the point: in a pervasivly racist society, discriminatory behaviors creep in the subconscious of everyone, black/white/antiracist/whatever, and we have to consciously struggle with them." ? I have recently argued against my own misunderstanding of someones explaination and find that embarrassing so I am actually listening.
        derrickdirge 10y ago
        Yes, that. We all hold prejudices that we all need to be mindful of. Getting tangled in the weeds of arguing about semantics completely derails that point.
        someguydave 10y ago
        To be clear: Racism is important but arguing about its semantics isn'?
        grzm 10y ago
- panglott 10y ago
  Racialism is is the idea that Homo sapiens can be divided into separate social categories or "races" based on a variety of relatively arbitrary society-specific markers: religion, kinship, skin color, and so on. The ideas of race is tied up with the idea of ancestry (and nation), but the biological link between genetic ancestry and racial identities is very ambiguous. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/12/22/a-lot-of-southern-whites-are-a-little-bit-black/?utm_term=.ecd94270b337 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/12/22/a-lot... Racism is the discriminatory or prejudicial treatment of people based on these socially-salient-but-mostly-arbitrary social categories. This is pretty basic stuff, really.

yummyfajitas 10y ago

I don't know what you mean by "racist". Can you provide a clear and unambiguous definition? I don't think you can.

daveguy 10y ago
Negative action, thoughts or words based on race. No individual is a stereotype. Treating a racial group as a stereotype is racist. Edit: fortunately we can legislate the hell out of the actions. It's not that difficult. Though I will give you credit for willful ignorance for the sake of argument. Good rhetoric. A-
- reitanqild 10y ago
  I was with you almost until the "willful ignorance". I also guess yummyfajitas was with you until the second paragraph as well. My frustration is that your definition doesn't seem to be the one that one is jugded against but rather one that defines us all as racists because of the society we live in, because of our distant relatives etc. Because of this there seems to be no way to defend against this. And since I am a "racist" it is only fair to dismiss all my opinions, right? Again: I'm arguing in good faith. I don't like Trump but I am afraid the rethoric we see from Democrats and others are driving voters straight into his arms. I'm also fairly certain that it hurts this community when people go around accusing other long term contributors of willfull ignorance.
  - daveguy 10y ago
    Do you honestly believe he did not know the meaning of racism? That he was not being deliberately ignorant (the definition of willful ignorance) about racism to make a rhetorical point? Come on now. I didn't mean to hurt anyone's feelings by calling out the obvious. I apologize.
    - reitanqild 10y ago
      No, I think yummyfajitas knows full well the dictionary definition of racism, or would be fully capable of looking it up. A lot of people seem to use another definition though and that is what I think yummyfajitas tried to get them to admit. For some reason only you seemed to want to put their definition in writing.
derrickdirge 10y ago
You're being willfully obtuse. The points the parent was making were not reliant on a concrete shared definition of 'racism.' Do you want to be part of a discussion, or do you just want the rush of endorphins that contrarianism provides?
- reitanqild 10y ago
  I don't think yummyfajitas is. I don't like Trump but I still agree that racist is now used as a general slur.
  - derrickdirge 10y ago
    You're still missing the point the parent was making.
    - reitanqild 10y ago
      What then? This: "it seems like you are missing the point: in a pervasivly racist society, discriminatory behaviors creep in the subconscious of everyone, black/white/antiracist/whatever, and we have to consciously struggle with them." ? I have recently argued against my own misunderstanding of someones explaination and find that embarrassing so I am actually listening.
      - derrickdirge 10y ago
        Yes, that. We all hold prejudices that we all need to be mindful of. Getting tangled in the weeds of arguing about semantics completely derails that point.
        someguydave 10y ago
        To be clear: Racism is important but arguing about its semantics isn'?
        grzm 10y ago
panglott 10y ago
Racialism is is the idea that Homo sapiens can be divided into separate social categories or "races" based on a variety of relatively arbitrary society-specific markers: religion, kinship, skin color, and so on. The ideas of race is tied up with the idea of ancestry (and nation), but the biological link between genetic ancestry and racial identities is very ambiguous. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/12/22/a-lot-of-southern-whites-are-a-little-bit-black/?utm_term=.ecd94270b337 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/12/22/a-lot... Racism is the discriminatory or prejudicial treatment of people based on these socially-salient-but-mostly-arbitrary social categories. This is pretty basic stuff, really.