5 ms·

Most of the time in the US race means skin color. Which is somewhat ironic for a society so attached to Martin Luther King’s Jr. values.

wpietri 4y ago
[flagged]
edhowzerblack 4y ago
[flagged]
- gitrog 4y ago
  [flagged]
- spiderice 4y ago
  I don't know that I agree with everything you're trying to get at, but shouldn't it just be called "racism". The term reverse-racism seems nonsensical. The term itself seems racist, implying that you can't be racist toward certain races. You can only be "reverse-racist".
  - delecti 4y ago
    "Racism" can mean interpersonal ("I don't like black people") or it can mean systemic ("society disadvantages black people"), and lots of people in social studies focus on the latter. Because there's not really any systemic disadvantage to being white, that focus on the latter effectively defines racism against white people as non-existent (there's not systemic racism against white people, so there's not "racism" against white people). Given that, "racism against white people" is definitionally not "racism", hence "reverse racism". Of course there are multiple steps in there which can be criticized, but within the set of terms they've defined, it makes the language less ambiguous. It's like how astronomy often defines "metals" as "anything bigger than helium". The terms have a useful meaning in the proper context.
    - mindover 4y ago
      Racism by default means interpersonal racism. That’s why when we talk about systemic racism we add this qualifier. There might not be systemic anti-white racism in the US but there is certainly interpersonal racism against whites in the US. Insisting on dismissing that is not helpful to literally anyone: whites or people of color.
- Akronymus 4y ago
  It should not be called reverse racism either, but just racism
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - jjeaff 4y ago
    Nah, reverse racism should be called "individual cases of racial bias". Because that's all that it amounts to. There is no systemic "ism" that is discriminating against white people.
    - Akronymus 4y ago
      "This scholarship is only for blacks, latinos and women" Would you describe that as not systemic? And I personally think your proposed alternarive just amounts to word games.
    - mindover 4y ago
      Why are you conflating interpersonal racism with systemic? Both exist. If a white person is racist towards a black person do you call that racial bias? If you do, you are just replacing the established definition of racism, not addressing the phenomenon itself.
      - jjeaff 4y ago
        Because the suffix "ism" doesn't really refer to interpersonal things. It connotes a system. Some may not agree with the distinction, but the reality that racial bias without power and a system behind it is not really the same thing. Which is why there is not equivalent to things like the "n" word for white people.
- jakelazaroff 4y ago
  Which of MLK's values did we once hold that we've now abandoned? Anti capitalism and pro economic redistribution? > The evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and racism. The problems of racial injustice and economic injustice cannot be solved without a radical redistribution of political and economic power. [1] That white people should radically support racial justice? > I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice. [2] That riots are understandable in the face of oppression? > But it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear?...It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity. [3] The fact is that MLK was a radical who was opposed by most white people. When he died, 75% of the American public disliked him. It's only in retrospect that conservatives have tried to whitewash his legacy, pretending to support racial progress while opposing the very things he stood for. [1] https://www.cityheightscdc.org/stories/mlk-quotes-too-radical-to-be-white-washed https://www.cityheightscdc.org/stories/mlk-quotes-too-radica... [2] https://www.latimes.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/story/2022-01-20/white-moderate-mlk-voting-rights https://www.latimes.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/story/... [3] https://www.salon.com/2017/01/16/martin-luther-king-jr-the-radical-9-mlk-quotes-the-media-wont-cite_partner/ https://www.salon.com/2017/01/16/martin-luther-king-jr-the-r...
  - SllX 4y ago
    “I have a Dream” was delivered to an audience of a quarter million and televised to millions more and has continued to be a cornerstone of public school education at least where I grew up where we would listen to the audio and later stream the video. That’s the breakthrough hit. We don’t treasure everything even about the people we like. MLK was a man, and therefore it is safe to assume a complicated person who developed and changed his beliefs a lot throughout his life. When he seized the opportunity to deliver a speech to the nation, it wasn’t “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and it wasn’t sympathy for rioters, it was “I Have a Dream”.
- chowells 4y ago
  You apparently have never read or listened to more than the "I have a dream" speech. King was very much about anti-racism, which is best termed "anti-racism". It's not sufficient to not add racism to the world, you should seek to counter it. And no, that's not the same thing as being racist in another direction. If you can't tell the difference, maybe you should go study what MLK actually said.
  - MockObject 4y ago
    On the other hand, King's notorious speech sounds absolutely nothing like Kendi or other current anti-racists, so evidently there's quite a gap between the two stances, and it's dishonest to deny it.
    - jakelazaroff 4y ago
      That speech is just one of many. But anyway, MLK was at the forefront of anti-racism 60 years ago; it would be more alarming if there weren't a gap between him and the current vanguard. Curious why you described the speech as “notorious” rather than “famous”?
- fdr 4y ago
  I suggest that Martin Luther King, Jr is more than one phrase in one speech.
- notafraudster 4y ago
  I don't mean to be rude, but I suspect by "MLK's values" you mean the sentence "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." as interpreted to mean support for racial neutrality and opposition to the use of racial categories in programmatic decision making. It's fine for that to be the thing you believe in, but that is not a reasonable interpretation of "MLK's values". MLK scholars, his contemporaries he worked with, and his successors within his organizations would nearly categorically reject your characterization of that being his values. Like this is an entire area of academic study: what MLK said, thought, and wanted done. Again, it's fine to conclude that MLK has it wrong and the left is wrong about race and social justice warriors etc. etc. etc. I don't think you should be made to care about what MLK thought or to study him. I am not interested in telling you you are right or wrong about any policy issue. It's just incredibly flip to engage so superficially with a guy who left such a voluminous archive of writing and thought and use him as a prop in the argument. I think if you are going to assert yourself as understanding what his values were, you owe it to him to spend a lot more time and effort trying to understand what they were. This is sort of the equivalent of thinking you understand Nietzsche to be anti-religious because you half-remember the quote "God is dead" and although you've never read him you feel confident you know what it means.
  - orand 4y ago
    Those are a lot of words that don't actually tell us what you think MLK's values are. Until you do, you didn't actually refute anything.
- hgsgm 4y ago
  MLK, whose initials you couldn't bother to spell correctly, wrote a letter from Birmingham jail about people like you.
FalconSensei 4y ago
Most of the time it does NOT mean skin color. Otherwise 'caucasian' wouldn't be there, a lot of latinos (or at least Brazilians) would be 'white' too, my wife (who basically reflects light) and myself included.
- aidenn0 4y ago
  By the US federal definition, a lot of latinos are white. Hispanic/Latino is classified as an "ethnicity" not a "race" so you can be e.g. white/latino or native-american/latino
  - nostromo 4y ago
    Fun fact: most latinos are white. Several South American countries have more European ancestry than does the US.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > Hispanic/Latino is classified as an “ethnicity” not a “race” Hispanic/Latino (and not-Hispanic/Latino) are the only ethnicities in that context, and it exists specifically to enable categorization that reflects the social construction of Whiteness at the time it was created while not obviously breaking the (bogus, in any case) biological rationale for the construction of “racial” categories, which is why most categorizations of data using that ethnicity treat Hispanic/Latino as another bucket alongside the racial buckets, from which everything of either White or every race (usage differs) is transferred if Hispanic/Latino ethnicity is also indicated, leaving the effected race buckets with only the non-Hispanic/Latino elements.
- Jensson 4y ago
  Don't they call you "white hispanic"? As far as I know they just have white, black, native american and asian in the main race categories, then you might add "hispanic black" or "hispanic white" to those two, but hispanic isn't a separate category.
  - airstrike 4y ago
dragonwriter 4y ago
> Most of the time in the US race means skin color. No, it doesn’t. In fact, most of the time in the US, “skin color” is code for race/ethnicity. Light-skinned Black people, White non-Hispanics, mostly-White Hispanics, Native Americans, and Asians can have very similar or even identical literal skin colors; but the Black person is still Black, the Whites are still White (except maybe the Hispanic ones), and the rest are neither White nor Black.

wpietri 4y ago

[flagged]

edhowzerblack 4y ago

[flagged]

gitrog 4y ago
[flagged]
spiderice 4y ago
I don't know that I agree with everything you're trying to get at, but shouldn't it just be called "racism". The term reverse-racism seems nonsensical. The term itself seems racist, implying that you can't be racist toward certain races. You can only be "reverse-racist".
- delecti 4y ago
  "Racism" can mean interpersonal ("I don't like black people") or it can mean systemic ("society disadvantages black people"), and lots of people in social studies focus on the latter. Because there's not really any systemic disadvantage to being white, that focus on the latter effectively defines racism against white people as non-existent (there's not systemic racism against white people, so there's not "racism" against white people). Given that, "racism against white people" is definitionally not "racism", hence "reverse racism". Of course there are multiple steps in there which can be criticized, but within the set of terms they've defined, it makes the language less ambiguous. It's like how astronomy often defines "metals" as "anything bigger than helium". The terms have a useful meaning in the proper context.
  - mindover 4y ago
    Racism by default means interpersonal racism. That’s why when we talk about systemic racism we add this qualifier. There might not be systemic anti-white racism in the US but there is certainly interpersonal racism against whites in the US. Insisting on dismissing that is not helpful to literally anyone: whites or people of color.
Akronymus 4y ago
It should not be called reverse racism either, but just racism
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- jjeaff 4y ago
  Nah, reverse racism should be called "individual cases of racial bias". Because that's all that it amounts to. There is no systemic "ism" that is discriminating against white people.
  - Akronymus 4y ago
    "This scholarship is only for blacks, latinos and women" Would you describe that as not systemic? And I personally think your proposed alternarive just amounts to word games.
  - mindover 4y ago
    Why are you conflating interpersonal racism with systemic? Both exist. If a white person is racist towards a black person do you call that racial bias? If you do, you are just replacing the established definition of racism, not addressing the phenomenon itself.
    - jjeaff 4y ago
      Because the suffix "ism" doesn't really refer to interpersonal things. It connotes a system. Some may not agree with the distinction, but the reality that racial bias without power and a system behind it is not really the same thing. Which is why there is not equivalent to things like the "n" word for white people.
jakelazaroff 4y ago
Which of MLK's values did we once hold that we've now abandoned? Anti capitalism and pro economic redistribution? > The evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and racism. The problems of racial injustice and economic injustice cannot be solved without a radical redistribution of political and economic power. [1] That white people should radically support racial justice? > I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice. [2] That riots are understandable in the face of oppression? > But it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear?...It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity. [3] The fact is that MLK was a radical who was opposed by most white people. When he died, 75% of the American public disliked him. It's only in retrospect that conservatives have tried to whitewash his legacy, pretending to support racial progress while opposing the very things he stood for. [1] https://www.cityheightscdc.org/stories/mlk-quotes-too-radical-to-be-white-washed https://www.cityheightscdc.org/stories/mlk-quotes-too-radica... [2] https://www.latimes.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/story/2022-01-20/white-moderate-mlk-voting-rights https://www.latimes.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/story/... [3] https://www.salon.com/2017/01/16/martin-luther-king-jr-the-radical-9-mlk-quotes-the-media-wont-cite_partner/ https://www.salon.com/2017/01/16/martin-luther-king-jr-the-r...
- SllX 4y ago
  “I have a Dream” was delivered to an audience of a quarter million and televised to millions more and has continued to be a cornerstone of public school education at least where I grew up where we would listen to the audio and later stream the video. That’s the breakthrough hit. We don’t treasure everything even about the people we like. MLK was a man, and therefore it is safe to assume a complicated person who developed and changed his beliefs a lot throughout his life. When he seized the opportunity to deliver a speech to the nation, it wasn’t “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and it wasn’t sympathy for rioters, it was “I Have a Dream”.
chowells 4y ago
You apparently have never read or listened to more than the "I have a dream" speech. King was very much about anti-racism, which is best termed "anti-racism". It's not sufficient to not add racism to the world, you should seek to counter it. And no, that's not the same thing as being racist in another direction. If you can't tell the difference, maybe you should go study what MLK actually said.
- MockObject 4y ago
  On the other hand, King's notorious speech sounds absolutely nothing like Kendi or other current anti-racists, so evidently there's quite a gap between the two stances, and it's dishonest to deny it.
  - jakelazaroff 4y ago
    That speech is just one of many. But anyway, MLK was at the forefront of anti-racism 60 years ago; it would be more alarming if there weren't a gap between him and the current vanguard. Curious why you described the speech as “notorious” rather than “famous”?
fdr 4y ago
I suggest that Martin Luther King, Jr is more than one phrase in one speech.
notafraudster 4y ago
I don't mean to be rude, but I suspect by "MLK's values" you mean the sentence "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." as interpreted to mean support for racial neutrality and opposition to the use of racial categories in programmatic decision making. It's fine for that to be the thing you believe in, but that is not a reasonable interpretation of "MLK's values". MLK scholars, his contemporaries he worked with, and his successors within his organizations would nearly categorically reject your characterization of that being his values. Like this is an entire area of academic study: what MLK said, thought, and wanted done. Again, it's fine to conclude that MLK has it wrong and the left is wrong about race and social justice warriors etc. etc. etc. I don't think you should be made to care about what MLK thought or to study him. I am not interested in telling you you are right or wrong about any policy issue. It's just incredibly flip to engage so superficially with a guy who left such a voluminous archive of writing and thought and use him as a prop in the argument. I think if you are going to assert yourself as understanding what his values were, you owe it to him to spend a lot more time and effort trying to understand what they were. This is sort of the equivalent of thinking you understand Nietzsche to be anti-religious because you half-remember the quote "God is dead" and although you've never read him you feel confident you know what it means.
- orand 4y ago
  Those are a lot of words that don't actually tell us what you think MLK's values are. Until you do, you didn't actually refute anything.
hgsgm 4y ago
MLK, whose initials you couldn't bother to spell correctly, wrote a letter from Birmingham jail about people like you.

FalconSensei 4y ago

Most of the time it does NOT mean skin color. Otherwise 'caucasian' wouldn't be there, a lot of latinos (or at least Brazilians) would be 'white' too, my wife (who basically reflects light) and myself included.

aidenn0 4y ago
By the US federal definition, a lot of latinos are white. Hispanic/Latino is classified as an "ethnicity" not a "race" so you can be e.g. white/latino or native-american/latino
- nostromo 4y ago
  Fun fact: most latinos are white. Several South American countries have more European ancestry than does the US.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > Hispanic/Latino is classified as an “ethnicity” not a “race” Hispanic/Latino (and not-Hispanic/Latino) are the only ethnicities in that context, and it exists specifically to enable categorization that reflects the social construction of Whiteness at the time it was created while not obviously breaking the (bogus, in any case) biological rationale for the construction of “racial” categories, which is why most categorizations of data using that ethnicity treat Hispanic/Latino as another bucket alongside the racial buckets, from which everything of either White or every race (usage differs) is transferred if Hispanic/Latino ethnicity is also indicated, leaving the effected race buckets with only the non-Hispanic/Latino elements.
Jensson 4y ago
Don't they call you "white hispanic"? As far as I know they just have white, black, native american and asian in the main race categories, then you might add "hispanic black" or "hispanic white" to those two, but hispanic isn't a separate category.
- airstrike 4y ago

dragonwriter 4y ago

> Most of the time in the US race means skin color. No, it doesn’t. In fact, most of the time in the US, “skin color” is code for race/ethnicity. Light-skinned Black people, White non-Hispanics, mostly-White Hispanics, Native Americans, and Asians can have very similar or even identical literal skin colors; but the Black person is still Black, the Whites are still White (except maybe the Hispanic ones), and the rest are neither White nor Black.