7 ms·

> Americans believe that racism doesn't include prejudices towards the dominant "race"/ethnicity, and find it offensive to even suggest that it might be so Ah,

by thefz 6y ago

> Americans believe that racism doesn't include prejudices towards the dominant "race"/ethnicity, and find it offensive to even suggest that it might be so Ah, the good old "you can't be racist towards white people" mantra. As an example, all of ex-Yugoslavia would like to disagree. > But will it really make a difference to your history? These seems like nervous attempts at "making everything right" in a situation where no right can be made - at least there is no easy way to do so. And worst, sometimes these precautions are used by corporations who mean no good other than signalling wokeness to turn up a profit.

eesmith 6y ago
The argument is that "racism" is not simply discrimination on the basis of race but rather that racism requires structural and systemic bias against an ethnic, racial, religious, etc. subgroup of the population who do not have political power. As such, you can therefore talk about the racism of the English towards the Irish, even though both are considered "white" by modern standards (though at that time, the English prided themselves as being in the "Anglo-Saxon" race). And you can certainly use that framework to talk about the genocide of Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats targeted by the Bosnian Serbs with who had local power in the areas controlled by the Army of Republika Srpska. So to summarize the argument as "you can't be racist towards white people" comes across as a complete misunderstanding of the actual argument. It's certainly possible for someone who self-identifies as "white" to be discriminated against on the basis of race. But if you want to also call that "racist" then what term do you use for something like Jim Crow laws in the US or apartheid South Africa where racism was truly and without doubt systemic?
- Tade0 6y ago
  ...but rather that racism requires structural and systemic bias against an ethnic, racial, religious, etc. subgroup of the population who do not have political power. Why should it, though? Nazi Germany racism was infamously based on the notion that it's the Jews who are in power and favour their own. The very concept of ant-zionism today puts the people it's racist towards as the oppressors with political power.
  - eesmith 6y ago
    Telling lies about who is in power doesn't mean those people actually have power. It's a common technique - hype people who don't have much power into some sort of super-villain, unite the rest of the population against them, and leverage that into political power. Nazi Germany racism was also based on US racism, including its treatment of Native Americans. See https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691172422/hitlers-american-model https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691172422/hi... with PDF at https://www.law.nyu.edu/sites/default/files/upload_documents/Hitler%27s%20American%20Model%20for%20NYU.pdf https://www.law.nyu.edu/sites/default/files/upload_documents... .
    - Tade0 6y ago
      Telling lies about who is in power doesn't mean those people actually have power. My fossilized-antisemitist relative once told me that the reason there existed people in my country (Poland) who would help nazis was that, and I quote, "before the war everyone owed the Jews some money". Also a large part of islamic antisemitism stems from wars lost to the Israelis. Basically there are instances in history where whole ethnic groups are hated because they are dominant.
      - eesmith 6y ago
        That hatred wasn't meaningfully due to Jewish political power. Banking was almost literally the only field where Christian law in the Middle Ages - in this case prohibitions against usury - discriminated against Christians in favor of Jews. The section at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usury#Judaism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usury#Judaism gives more context: > As the Jews were ostracized from most professions by local rulers during the Middle Ages, the Western churches and the guilds,[30] they were pushed into marginal occupations considered socially inferior, such as tax and rent collecting and moneylending. Natural tensions between creditors and debtors were added to social, political, religious, and economic strains.[31] > ...financial oppression of Jews tended to occur in areas where they were most disliked, and if Jews reacted by concentrating on moneylending to non-Jews, the unpopularity—and so, of course, the pressure—would increase. Thus the Jews became an element in a vicious circle. The Christians, on the basis of the Biblical rulings, condemned interest-taking absolutely, and from 1179 those who practiced it were excommunicated. Catholic autocrats frequently imposed the harshest financial burdens on the Jews. The Jews reacted by engaging in the one business where Christian laws actually discriminated in their favor, and became identified with the hated trade of moneylending. I surely agree with the other statements you made. (As another example, apartheid South Africa's and the unrecognised state of Rhodesia's minority white population were far from loved by the rest of the population.) I don't, however, understand the relevance.
- thinkingemote 6y ago
  Missing the point. In the examples above, the ideology would say it would be impossible for the Irish to be racist against the English. Unless the definition of racism was based on bigotry, intolerance, prejudice and stereotypes based on race which is how the majority of the world understands it. This also includes the possibility for whites to be racist against whites, and allows systems to be racist. it's actually a more encompassing definition.
  - eesmith 6y ago
    I don't think I'm missing the point. I think the argument is that "racist" should be reserved for systemic racism, in which case the Irish under English rule could not be racist against the English. They could be prejudiced, discriminatory, Anglophobic, and more. But not racist. That you - and yes, many others - disagree with that argument doesn't make it fundamentally wrong in the way that can flippantly be rejected by "of course people can be racist against whites." The definition I gave includes the possibility for whites to be racist against whites .. though "white" is such a nebulous term. Would the 1800s Irish or English call themselves "white"? The latter preferred "Anglo-Saxon race", for example. See my parallel comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23449545 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23449545 .
    - naasking 6y ago
      > That you - and yes, many others - disagree with that argument doesn't make it fundamentally wrong in the way No, it's fundamentally wrong because only a minority of people use it in this way. Check a dictionary.
      - trav4225 6y ago
        This is new to me, too. It seems like we're overloading an existing term with a new meaning that is foreign to anyone over the age of 30..?
        naasking 6y ago
- thefz 6y ago
  > The argument is that "racism" is not simply discrimination on the basis of race but rather that racism requires structural and systemic bias against an ethnic, racial, religious, etc. subgroup of the population who do not have political power. Nope, this is precisely the modernized, bastardized, wokenized definition of racism which gives ground to the "can't be racist against whites" because, in this narrative, "whites are in power". Which is so wrong and so tied to a specific point in the history of the US that I am wondering if you re-read your comment before posting. The bosnian genocide was mostly a military coup. There's no structural and systemic bias in place here.
  - eesmith 6y ago
    I interpret the issue as "racism" being used too broadly, such that a minor snub for "being white" is called racist, while sundowner towns and other Jim Crow laws are also called racist. It doesn't make much sense to lump them together. We have "murder" and "manslaughter" - two forms of homicide. Wikipedia tells me the distinction goes back to at least the 7th century BC. In US law, both have multiple nuances; first- and second-degree murder, and voluntary and involuntary manslaughter. I interpret the argument as wanting to reserve "racist" for systemic and institutional racism. We already have other terms we can use. For example, the law talks about discrimination on the basis of race and color as well as national origin, sex, or religion. So, why not use "discrimination on the basis of race" or "racial discrimination" for the non-systemic kind, and reserve "racist" for the systemic one? Even better, there's no reason to use "reverse discrimination on the basis of race" because that's identical to "discrimination on the basis of race." FWIW, in my understanding of the issue, as I described above, I'm perfectly fine describing the US treatment of Mormons as racist - "white-on-white" racism - being also highly aware that Mormon religion was itself highly racist against blacks. But the concept of "can't be racist against whites" isn't meaningful for even 100 years ago, because "whiteness" is such a slippery social construct. Finns were racially discriminated against, as the "Finnish race", and derogatorily called a China Swede, even though in the modern sense they are very "white". As for "mostly a military coup" ... a genocide is by definition affecting a protected group - more specifically a national, racial, ethical and religious group. All of those are also protected groups under US anti-discrimination law. If you want to argue that racism should be treated as a broad term, then genocide is a type of racism. If you are arguing that my definition is wrong - congratulations. I'm a programmer, with only a lay understanding of the topic. My point wasn't to give an exactly correct definition but to point out an apparently deep misunderstanding of the issue at hand.
- effie 6y ago
  > But if you want to also call that "racist" then what term do you use for something like Jim Crow laws in the US or apartheid South Africa where racism was truly and without doubt systemic? Being racist has nothing to do with laws or power structure. It is believing that people of some other race are inferior. Racism supported by laws/government is called ultra-right-wing state, nationalism, segregation, apartheid.
  - dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago
    > It is believing that people of some other race are inferior. I think this is a view from the 90s. Today's view is that the're not inferior but different, and that race itself is a social construct.
    - effie 6y ago
      It is a view from the colonial era at least and probably much older.
  - eesmith 6y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism : > Today, some scholars of racism prefer to use the concept in the plural racisms, in order to emphasize its many different forms that do not easily fall under a single definition. ... > Garner (2009: p. 11) summarizes different existing definitions of racism and identifies three common elements contained in those definitions of racism. First, a historical, hierarchical power relationship between groups; second, a set of ideas (an ideology) about racial differences; and, third, discriminatory actions (practices). Your "believing that people of some other race are inferior" falls under the second of those three. But compare your "nothing to do with laws or power structure" with "historical, hierarchical power relationship". Clearly there are different definitions. On the same page: > Scholars also commonly define racism not only in terms of individual prejudice, but also in terms of a power structure that protects the interests of the dominant culture and actively discriminates against ethnic minorities. From this perspective, while members of ethnic minorities may be prejudiced against members of the dominant culture, they lack the political and economic power to actively oppress them, and they are therefore not practicing "racism". Which leads us back to the reason I joined this thread in the first place - that perspective was dismissively summarized earlier as the '"you can't be racist towards white people" mantra.'

by thefz 6y ago

eesmith 6y ago

The argument is that "racism" is not simply discrimination on the basis of race but rather that racism requires structural and systemic bias against an ethnic, racial, religious, etc. subgroup of the population who do not have political power. As such, you can therefore talk about the racism of the English towards the Irish, even though both are considered "white" by modern standards (though at that time, the English prided themselves as being in the "Anglo-Saxon" race). And you can certainly use that framework to talk about the genocide of Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats targeted by the Bosnian Serbs with who had local power in the areas controlled by the Army of Republika Srpska. So to summarize the argument as "you can't be racist towards white people" comes across as a complete misunderstanding of the actual argument. It's certainly possible for someone who self-identifies as "white" to be discriminated against on the basis of race. But if you want to also call that "racist" then what term do you use for something like Jim Crow laws in the US or apartheid South Africa where racism was truly and without doubt systemic?

Tade0 6y ago
...but rather that racism requires structural and systemic bias against an ethnic, racial, religious, etc. subgroup of the population who do not have political power. Why should it, though? Nazi Germany racism was infamously based on the notion that it's the Jews who are in power and favour their own. The very concept of ant-zionism today puts the people it's racist towards as the oppressors with political power.
- eesmith 6y ago
  Telling lies about who is in power doesn't mean those people actually have power. It's a common technique - hype people who don't have much power into some sort of super-villain, unite the rest of the population against them, and leverage that into political power. Nazi Germany racism was also based on US racism, including its treatment of Native Americans. See https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691172422/hitlers-american-model https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691172422/hi... with PDF at https://www.law.nyu.edu/sites/default/files/upload_documents/Hitler%27s%20American%20Model%20for%20NYU.pdf https://www.law.nyu.edu/sites/default/files/upload_documents... .
  - Tade0 6y ago
    Telling lies about who is in power doesn't mean those people actually have power. My fossilized-antisemitist relative once told me that the reason there existed people in my country (Poland) who would help nazis was that, and I quote, "before the war everyone owed the Jews some money". Also a large part of islamic antisemitism stems from wars lost to the Israelis. Basically there are instances in history where whole ethnic groups are hated because they are dominant.
    - eesmith 6y ago
      That hatred wasn't meaningfully due to Jewish political power. Banking was almost literally the only field where Christian law in the Middle Ages - in this case prohibitions against usury - discriminated against Christians in favor of Jews. The section at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usury#Judaism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usury#Judaism gives more context: > As the Jews were ostracized from most professions by local rulers during the Middle Ages, the Western churches and the guilds,[30] they were pushed into marginal occupations considered socially inferior, such as tax and rent collecting and moneylending. Natural tensions between creditors and debtors were added to social, political, religious, and economic strains.[31] > ...financial oppression of Jews tended to occur in areas where they were most disliked, and if Jews reacted by concentrating on moneylending to non-Jews, the unpopularity—and so, of course, the pressure—would increase. Thus the Jews became an element in a vicious circle. The Christians, on the basis of the Biblical rulings, condemned interest-taking absolutely, and from 1179 those who practiced it were excommunicated. Catholic autocrats frequently imposed the harshest financial burdens on the Jews. The Jews reacted by engaging in the one business where Christian laws actually discriminated in their favor, and became identified with the hated trade of moneylending. I surely agree with the other statements you made. (As another example, apartheid South Africa's and the unrecognised state of Rhodesia's minority white population were far from loved by the rest of the population.) I don't, however, understand the relevance.
thinkingemote 6y ago
Missing the point. In the examples above, the ideology would say it would be impossible for the Irish to be racist against the English. Unless the definition of racism was based on bigotry, intolerance, prejudice and stereotypes based on race which is how the majority of the world understands it. This also includes the possibility for whites to be racist against whites, and allows systems to be racist. it's actually a more encompassing definition.
- eesmith 6y ago
  I don't think I'm missing the point. I think the argument is that "racist" should be reserved for systemic racism, in which case the Irish under English rule could not be racist against the English. They could be prejudiced, discriminatory, Anglophobic, and more. But not racist. That you - and yes, many others - disagree with that argument doesn't make it fundamentally wrong in the way that can flippantly be rejected by "of course people can be racist against whites." The definition I gave includes the possibility for whites to be racist against whites .. though "white" is such a nebulous term. Would the 1800s Irish or English call themselves "white"? The latter preferred "Anglo-Saxon race", for example. See my parallel comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23449545 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23449545 .
  - naasking 6y ago
    > That you - and yes, many others - disagree with that argument doesn't make it fundamentally wrong in the way No, it's fundamentally wrong because only a minority of people use it in this way. Check a dictionary.
    - trav4225 6y ago
      This is new to me, too. It seems like we're overloading an existing term with a new meaning that is foreign to anyone over the age of 30..?
      - naasking 6y ago
thefz 6y ago
> The argument is that "racism" is not simply discrimination on the basis of race but rather that racism requires structural and systemic bias against an ethnic, racial, religious, etc. subgroup of the population who do not have political power. Nope, this is precisely the modernized, bastardized, wokenized definition of racism which gives ground to the "can't be racist against whites" because, in this narrative, "whites are in power". Which is so wrong and so tied to a specific point in the history of the US that I am wondering if you re-read your comment before posting. The bosnian genocide was mostly a military coup. There's no structural and systemic bias in place here.
- eesmith 6y ago
  I interpret the issue as "racism" being used too broadly, such that a minor snub for "being white" is called racist, while sundowner towns and other Jim Crow laws are also called racist. It doesn't make much sense to lump them together. We have "murder" and "manslaughter" - two forms of homicide. Wikipedia tells me the distinction goes back to at least the 7th century BC. In US law, both have multiple nuances; first- and second-degree murder, and voluntary and involuntary manslaughter. I interpret the argument as wanting to reserve "racist" for systemic and institutional racism. We already have other terms we can use. For example, the law talks about discrimination on the basis of race and color as well as national origin, sex, or religion. So, why not use "discrimination on the basis of race" or "racial discrimination" for the non-systemic kind, and reserve "racist" for the systemic one? Even better, there's no reason to use "reverse discrimination on the basis of race" because that's identical to "discrimination on the basis of race." FWIW, in my understanding of the issue, as I described above, I'm perfectly fine describing the US treatment of Mormons as racist - "white-on-white" racism - being also highly aware that Mormon religion was itself highly racist against blacks. But the concept of "can't be racist against whites" isn't meaningful for even 100 years ago, because "whiteness" is such a slippery social construct. Finns were racially discriminated against, as the "Finnish race", and derogatorily called a China Swede, even though in the modern sense they are very "white". As for "mostly a military coup" ... a genocide is by definition affecting a protected group - more specifically a national, racial, ethical and religious group. All of those are also protected groups under US anti-discrimination law. If you want to argue that racism should be treated as a broad term, then genocide is a type of racism. If you are arguing that my definition is wrong - congratulations. I'm a programmer, with only a lay understanding of the topic. My point wasn't to give an exactly correct definition but to point out an apparently deep misunderstanding of the issue at hand.
effie 6y ago
> But if you want to also call that "racist" then what term do you use for something like Jim Crow laws in the US or apartheid South Africa where racism was truly and without doubt systemic? Being racist has nothing to do with laws or power structure. It is believing that people of some other race are inferior. Racism supported by laws/government is called ultra-right-wing state, nationalism, segregation, apartheid.
- dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago
  > It is believing that people of some other race are inferior. I think this is a view from the 90s. Today's view is that the're not inferior but different, and that race itself is a social construct.
  - effie 6y ago
    It is a view from the colonial era at least and probably much older.
- eesmith 6y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism : > Today, some scholars of racism prefer to use the concept in the plural racisms, in order to emphasize its many different forms that do not easily fall under a single definition. ... > Garner (2009: p. 11) summarizes different existing definitions of racism and identifies three common elements contained in those definitions of racism. First, a historical, hierarchical power relationship between groups; second, a set of ideas (an ideology) about racial differences; and, third, discriminatory actions (practices). Your "believing that people of some other race are inferior" falls under the second of those three. But compare your "nothing to do with laws or power structure" with "historical, hierarchical power relationship". Clearly there are different definitions. On the same page: > Scholars also commonly define racism not only in terms of individual prejudice, but also in terms of a power structure that protects the interests of the dominant culture and actively discriminates against ethnic minorities. From this perspective, while members of ethnic minorities may be prejudiced against members of the dominant culture, they lack the political and economic power to actively oppress them, and they are therefore not practicing "racism". Which leads us back to the reason I joined this thread in the first place - that perspective was dismissively summarized earlier as the '"you can't be racist towards white people" mantra.'