4 ms·

> Why do people still use the term white supremacists to imply some nefarious group? The term has lost all value and is now used in mainstream best selling boo

by JadeNB 6y ago

> Why do people still use the term white supremacists to imply some nefarious group? The term has lost all value and is now used in mainstream best selling books and media to describe every white person. What is an example of mainstream best selling books or media that use it that way? (I mean which specifically, not just in the sense of "it feels that it's used so much that it might as well mean that.") I'd argue, even if you are right about this useage, that "white supremacist" should still be used to describe white supremacist activities—responding to the dilution of a word by refusing to use it at all does no-one any good—and that activities properly so described should be regarded as nefarious.

mesozoic 6y ago
White fragility applies the term so broadly that it implies the author herself is a white supremecist.
- JadeNB 6y ago
  Based on a quick search through it, White Fragility mostly but not completely avoids the term "white supremacist" (as applied to people), instead using "white supremacy" or "white supremacist culture". In that context, she says: > White supremacy in this context does not refer to individual white people and their individual intentions or actions but to an overarching political, economic, and social system of domination. Note the specific disclaimer about not so referring to individuals. In this context, it is true that much of the world is part of a white supremacist culture. As the author says: > … within a white supremacist society, I am rewarded for not interrupting racism and punished in a range of ways—big and small—when I do. Pointing this out does not, I think, dilute the term; it rather insists on confronting the fact that "but I'm not racist" is not a sufficient response to claims of systemic racism. (The author does use the phrases "explicit white supremacists" and "avowed white supremacists", thus referring to individuals; but, as far as I can tell, she does not define the term, and I think that it is clear that she means by this to separate out people with overt white supremacist ideas from those of us who are merely a part of the culture—a clarification, rather than a dilution.)

by JadeNB 6y ago

mesozoic 6y ago

White fragility applies the term so broadly that it implies the author herself is a white supremecist.

JadeNB 6y ago
Based on a quick search through it, White Fragility mostly but not completely avoids the term "white supremacist" (as applied to people), instead using "white supremacy" or "white supremacist culture". In that context, she says: > White supremacy in this context does not refer to individual white people and their individual intentions or actions but to an overarching political, economic, and social system of domination. Note the specific disclaimer about not so referring to individuals. In this context, it is true that much of the world is part of a white supremacist culture. As the author says: > … within a white supremacist society, I am rewarded for not interrupting racism and punished in a range of ways—big and small—when I do. Pointing this out does not, I think, dilute the term; it rather insists on confronting the fact that "but I'm not racist" is not a sufficient response to claims of systemic racism. (The author does use the phrases "explicit white supremacists" and "avowed white supremacists", thus referring to individuals; but, as far as I can tell, she does not define the term, and I think that it is clear that she means by this to separate out people with overt white supremacist ideas from those of us who are merely a part of the culture—a clarification, rather than a dilution.)