7 ms·

But people are not agreeing about the causes of the problems or the solutions. So if you say "Yeah, but I'm not talking about all white people" you should be ab

by cc81 7y ago

But people are not agreeing about the causes of the problems or the solutions. So if you say "Yeah, but I'm not talking about all white people" you should be able to exchange that to "black" instead and still not be racist for it not to be racist for example. People are very similar. It is nice to find a common enemy and it is nice to generalize. So on 4chan people analyze and find that black people are the problem and generalize about black people and in certain groups people find that white men are the problem and tend to generalize about white men.

Miner49er 7y ago
This misunderstands what race even is though. Race is a made up thing (created by white people) to give white people more power. To criticize white people for that is to critisize the system itself and critisize them for creating and continuing to allow the system of racism to exist. To say negative things about black people is sort of like victim blaming and it makes things worse.
- cc81 7y ago
  Why do you think race is created by white people? So things like this from wiki is incorrect: >For example, an historian of the 3rd century Han Dynasty in the territory of present-day China describes barbarians of blond hair and green eyes as resembling "the monkeys from which they are descended".[2] (Gossett, pp. 4). or >This theory dates back to the Babylonian Talmud, which states, "the descendants of Ham are cursed by being black, and [it] depicts Ham as a sinful man and his progeny as degenerates." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_race_concepts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_race_concepts People all over the world are tribal and have probably always been.
  - Miner49er 7y ago
    I mean that race is a social construct. Who is and isn't what race is set by society and it changes. The definition of racism I'm using isn't simply prejudice, it's a system of oppression on the basis of race. Which, as I said above, is a social construct. Modern racism and the general idea of the current races was created out of European colonialism and racialized slavery. In America it was mostly racialized slavery. The Wikipedia article you mentioned describes this. That article says the word race itself is modern and wasn't used as it currently is until the 16th century.
    - flahgd 7y ago
      Race is a social construct in the same way that dog breeds are a social construct. They're fuzzy and often overlap, but they do correspond to some underlying biological reality. They're not an artificial political creation.
      - Miner49er 7y ago
        This is simply not true: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/race-is-a-social-construct-scientists-argue/?redirect=1 https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/race-is-a-social-...
        flahgd 7y ago
        Really? A blog post? Perhaps you would benefit from reading this wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
    - cc81 7y ago
      But why are you removing prejudice from the equation? In my experience, in Sweden, that is often used by people who really want to say what I define as racist shit but they see themselves as anti-racists so that is a problem. Take something pretty harmless like "white men are such shitty fucking drivers". That is an example from a young very left wing politician in Sweden on twitter. She would of course never say "arab men are such shitty fucking drivers" even if they are statistically involved in more accidents in Sweden because she would see that as racist. Same as if a guy had written "women are such shitty fucking drivers" he would probably be seen as bigoted. I think a lot of these discussions of what is racist and not and systems of oppression comes down to that it is nice to have a group of people you can generalize over. So that is why people are redefining concepts. If a Black American hates and think Native Americans are worthless. Is he racist then? Who wins on the oppression competition?
- 0815test 7y ago
  > Race is a made up thing (created by white people) to give white people more power. To criticize white people for that is to critisize the system itself and critisize them for creating and continuing to allow the system of racism to exist. This is actually a very good description of many places in Latin America, and perhaps even of some parts of the U.S. (particularly the southern parts, where privilege hierarchies were always quite strong even in colonial times). It's not a sensible way of thinking about the U.S. as a whole, much less the wider Western world. To the extent that some people identify as "white" (however silly that might be from an 'objective' POV) it happens purely because self-identity is important to people, and shedding one's self-identity is really hard. Expecting people to "criticize the system" is just wishful thinking when one doesn't even understand what that "system" actually is, and where it applies!
  - Miner49er 7y ago
    I'm not sure what you mean. Are you saying that racism doesn't exist in most of America? Or that race is more then a social construct in most of America?
    - 0815test 7y ago
      It is a social construct, but the point of that construct is identity, not a direct exercise of power. Race ('white' race especially) is an "easy" answer to the perceived problem of "what am I supposed to identify as" for many Americans. And renouncing one's self-identity is really, really hard so it's very likely that this social construct will be sticking around for a while, whether we like it or not. Of course, this also implies that whenever we engage in derogatory discourse about "white race", "whiteness" and the privileges thereof, we're launching a direct and sometimes vicious attack on what many millions of people see as part of their deep self-identity - which of course can be seen as rather disrespectful, and liable to generate pushback of some sort!
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

by cc81 7y ago

Miner49er 7y ago

This misunderstands what race even is though. Race is a made up thing (created by white people) to give white people more power. To criticize white people for that is to critisize the system itself and critisize them for creating and continuing to allow the system of racism to exist. To say negative things about black people is sort of like victim blaming and it makes things worse.

cc81 7y ago
Why do you think race is created by white people? So things like this from wiki is incorrect: >For example, an historian of the 3rd century Han Dynasty in the territory of present-day China describes barbarians of blond hair and green eyes as resembling "the monkeys from which they are descended".[2] (Gossett, pp. 4). or >This theory dates back to the Babylonian Talmud, which states, "the descendants of Ham are cursed by being black, and [it] depicts Ham as a sinful man and his progeny as degenerates." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_race_concepts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_race_concepts People all over the world are tribal and have probably always been.
- Miner49er 7y ago
  I mean that race is a social construct. Who is and isn't what race is set by society and it changes. The definition of racism I'm using isn't simply prejudice, it's a system of oppression on the basis of race. Which, as I said above, is a social construct. Modern racism and the general idea of the current races was created out of European colonialism and racialized slavery. In America it was mostly racialized slavery. The Wikipedia article you mentioned describes this. That article says the word race itself is modern and wasn't used as it currently is until the 16th century.
  - flahgd 7y ago
    Race is a social construct in the same way that dog breeds are a social construct. They're fuzzy and often overlap, but they do correspond to some underlying biological reality. They're not an artificial political creation.
    - Miner49er 7y ago
      This is simply not true: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/race-is-a-social-construct-scientists-argue/?redirect=1 https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/race-is-a-social-...
      - flahgd 7y ago
        Really? A blog post? Perhaps you would benefit from reading this wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
  - cc81 7y ago
    But why are you removing prejudice from the equation? In my experience, in Sweden, that is often used by people who really want to say what I define as racist shit but they see themselves as anti-racists so that is a problem. Take something pretty harmless like "white men are such shitty fucking drivers". That is an example from a young very left wing politician in Sweden on twitter. She would of course never say "arab men are such shitty fucking drivers" even if they are statistically involved in more accidents in Sweden because she would see that as racist. Same as if a guy had written "women are such shitty fucking drivers" he would probably be seen as bigoted. I think a lot of these discussions of what is racist and not and systems of oppression comes down to that it is nice to have a group of people you can generalize over. So that is why people are redefining concepts. If a Black American hates and think Native Americans are worthless. Is he racist then? Who wins on the oppression competition?
0815test 7y ago
> Race is a made up thing (created by white people) to give white people more power. To criticize white people for that is to critisize the system itself and critisize them for creating and continuing to allow the system of racism to exist. This is actually a very good description of many places in Latin America, and perhaps even of some parts of the U.S. (particularly the southern parts, where privilege hierarchies were always quite strong even in colonial times). It's not a sensible way of thinking about the U.S. as a whole, much less the wider Western world. To the extent that some people identify as "white" (however silly that might be from an 'objective' POV) it happens purely because self-identity is important to people, and shedding one's self-identity is really hard. Expecting people to "criticize the system" is just wishful thinking when one doesn't even understand what that "system" actually is, and where it applies!
- Miner49er 7y ago
  I'm not sure what you mean. Are you saying that racism doesn't exist in most of America? Or that race is more then a social construct in most of America?
  - 0815test 7y ago
    It is a social construct, but the point of that construct is identity, not a direct exercise of power. Race ('white' race especially) is an "easy" answer to the perceived problem of "what am I supposed to identify as" for many Americans. And renouncing one's self-identity is really, really hard so it's very likely that this social construct will be sticking around for a while, whether we like it or not. Of course, this also implies that whenever we engage in derogatory discourse about "white race", "whiteness" and the privileges thereof, we're launching a direct and sometimes vicious attack on what many millions of people see as part of their deep self-identity - which of course can be seen as rather disrespectful, and liable to generate pushback of some sort!
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]