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Well, it's an argument that one side does win by default, and that "racism" should be used to acknowledge that power imbalance. "Minorities saying racist thing
by unalone 14y ago
Well, it's an argument that one side does win by default, and that "racism" should be used to acknowledge that power imbalance.
"Minorities saying racist things", by this theory, doesn't hold a candle to, say, the fact that minorities are more frequently imprisoned, more often pulled over/searched illegally/beaten by law enforcement agents, more often feared, more often treated with bias in the workplace or dating world, and on and on and on and on and on. Racism isn't "the act of saying something bigoted", it's the acknowledgement of a systemic bias based on a person's skin color. And it doesn't deny that bigotry exists in both directions – it just insists that to focus on bigotry is to miss the deeper issue.
This is relevant to this thread, because gender inequality works much the same way. What Adria did was a dick move, and I think her actions were and continue to be rude as hell. But she acts within a greater context of sexism and misogyny in the programming world – hell, in America at large – and to completely disregard how shitty an environment exists for many women is to miss that Adria's behavior stems from a crappy reality. Doesn't make what she did any less inappropriate, perhaps, but it suggests that maybe there are issues here more important than what she did which may be more worth focusing on. I mean, any ills resulting from her behavior have been more than counteracted by the death and rape threats that have been fired her way – she may have started this, but the backlash against her has been obscenely disproportionate.
- mercurial 14y agoIn both cases, it seems to work more as extenuating circumstances than as a blanket permission to say inappropriate things to another human being based on his looks. Or in other words, it's not OK to discriminate against somebody else solely for the reason that you are part of a group discriminated against. It just makes you part of the problem. I think having a definition of racism to be "discriminate against somebody else due to skin colour", as well as a notion of "institutional racism", which is the same thing but on a systemic level, would make more sense than the more academic definition of racism.
- unalone 14y agoI agree with you. It's an ambiguity that leads to lots of people ignoring the real problem, because they're convinced the people talking about it are really just looking for an excuse to be bigots – as here.
- Jaigus 14y agoI agree with you. I took notice of how the backlash was disproportionate as you mentioned, and I believe its because of what I've heard people describe as "racial fatigue" (in this case it's gender). The media is constantly bombarding us with racial issues, and at times even finds ways to racially charge stories that have nothing to do with race. I'm sure the accused party (white people, or Men in general) gets tired of being portrayed as the proverbial villain, so when someone attempts to blow something out of proportion under the banner of sexism(and it turns out to be bullshit), you get this colossal shit storm.