4 ms·

Is making a choice based of race inherently racism? And is racism inherently bad? As someone who is new to this world i felt like things like race and racism d

Is making a choice based of race inherently racism? And is racism inherently bad? As someone who is new to this world i felt like things like race and racism don't matter if you are a nice person and caring about what others feel.

boomlinde 12y ago
Choosing a mate seems discriminatory by nature. What racism is is a matter of definition, and as for whether it's good or bad, I firmly believe that there isn't anything inherent about whatever answer you come up with. That said, I think people usually mean racial prejudice and it being applied in ways that hurt people or cause injustice when they say "racism". Personally I think those things are bad.
roguecoder 12y ago
"Things like testing and bugs don't matter as long as you are a good programmer and care about code quality." Emergent social dynamics still have a very real effect on people's lives, even if no one intended to do anything wrong.
- blueflow 12y ago
  I thought its like that a programmer knows that he makes mistakes, and therefore takes actions to reduce the amount of mistakes. Isn't "code quality" and the nature of human implying this? I would expect people to know the consequence of what they are doing. Am i wrong?
tomp 12y ago
De gustibus non est disputandum. It's Latin for "taste is not to be discussed" - meaning that just because we like different things does not mean that our choices are bad. In fact, attraction/taste is most often not even a choice! So, for example, just because I'm attracted to women (and not attracted to men), it doesn't mean I'm sexist. Likewise, just because someone isn't attracted to black/asian/redhead men/women, doesn't mean they are discriminating. On the other hand, if you're making choices that are based on race (i.e. not trusting someone who is black - apparently police in the US is quite prone to that), it's either discrimination or racism. Sometimes, discrimination helps us survive (that big dangerous-looking man coming your way? better run), but very often, it's based on irrelevant things (black man driving an expensive car? must be a drug dealer!!), or even institutionalized (women can't own property). I'd say that's inherently bad. Edit: I personally consider any institutionalized discrimination bad and immoral. Grants for black students are bad, IMO. On the other hand, grants for poor students (the majority of which will be black (in the US), but not all of them) are good.
- roguecoder 12y ago
  "Indeed, in America there is a strange and powerful belief that if you stab a black person 10 times, the bleeding stops and the healing begins the moment the assailant drops the knife. We believe white dominance to be a fact of the inert past, a delinquent debt that can be made to disappear if only we don’t look." Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Case For Reparations http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case-for-reparations/361631/ http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case...
  - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
    You can use violent language to sensationalize it, sure. But its always seen as a stretch to me, to use ancient history to explain the current generation. Native Americans are jobless and alcoholic? Must have been those Indian wars 200 years ago. African-American folks uneducated and over-incarcerated? Blame slavery. Everybody is born into their own life, and make of it what they can. Some change their position dramatically, some sit where they started. How do we explain that? "My parents were poor and uneducated because..." is just an excuse for one's own failures. I understand that culture can strongly influence outcomes. But do we really believe that ancient wrongs have so warped a demographic's culture to the point they are doomed? And need 'reparations' to make it all right again? I favor the process in the parent post - help those in need, sure, who demonstrate a willingness to use that help (send the poor to college etc). Blindly. That's important because people game any system, and others use quotas and officially-sanctioned profiling as further proof of whatever bigotry they already harbor.
    - codygman 12y ago
      > But its always seen as a stretch to me, to use ancient history to explain the current generation. Calling it ancient history is disingenuous. History does repeat itself, and as any historian will tell you "If you don't know history, you are a doomed to repeat it". > African-American folks uneducated and over-incarcerated? Blame slavery. You are reducing it into something much less believable than: "Blame the current people in power (white) for African-American folks having a harder time because there are still racist effects, cultural ideologies, subconscious denigration, uncaught biases, and traditions passed down from their great-grandparents who were slave owners."

boomlinde 12y ago

Choosing a mate seems discriminatory by nature. What racism is is a matter of definition, and as for whether it's good or bad, I firmly believe that there isn't anything inherent about whatever answer you come up with. That said, I think people usually mean racial prejudice and it being applied in ways that hurt people or cause injustice when they say "racism". Personally I think those things are bad.

roguecoder 12y ago

"Things like testing and bugs don't matter as long as you are a good programmer and care about code quality." Emergent social dynamics still have a very real effect on people's lives, even if no one intended to do anything wrong.

blueflow 12y ago
I thought its like that a programmer knows that he makes mistakes, and therefore takes actions to reduce the amount of mistakes. Isn't "code quality" and the nature of human implying this? I would expect people to know the consequence of what they are doing. Am i wrong?

tomp 12y ago

De gustibus non est disputandum. It's Latin for "taste is not to be discussed" - meaning that just because we like different things does not mean that our choices are bad. In fact, attraction/taste is most often not even a choice! So, for example, just because I'm attracted to women (and not attracted to men), it doesn't mean I'm sexist. Likewise, just because someone isn't attracted to black/asian/redhead men/women, doesn't mean they are discriminating. On the other hand, if you're making choices that are based on race (i.e. not trusting someone who is black - apparently police in the US is quite prone to that), it's either discrimination or racism. Sometimes, discrimination helps us survive (that big dangerous-looking man coming your way? better run), but very often, it's based on irrelevant things (black man driving an expensive car? must be a drug dealer!!), or even institutionalized (women can't own property). I'd say that's inherently bad. Edit: I personally consider any institutionalized discrimination bad and immoral. Grants for black students are bad, IMO. On the other hand, grants for poor students (the majority of which will be black (in the US), but not all of them) are good.

roguecoder 12y ago
"Indeed, in America there is a strange and powerful belief that if you stab a black person 10 times, the bleeding stops and the healing begins the moment the assailant drops the knife. We believe white dominance to be a fact of the inert past, a delinquent debt that can be made to disappear if only we don’t look." Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Case For Reparations http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case-for-reparations/361631/ http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case...
- JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  You can use violent language to sensationalize it, sure. But its always seen as a stretch to me, to use ancient history to explain the current generation. Native Americans are jobless and alcoholic? Must have been those Indian wars 200 years ago. African-American folks uneducated and over-incarcerated? Blame slavery. Everybody is born into their own life, and make of it what they can. Some change their position dramatically, some sit where they started. How do we explain that? "My parents were poor and uneducated because..." is just an excuse for one's own failures. I understand that culture can strongly influence outcomes. But do we really believe that ancient wrongs have so warped a demographic's culture to the point they are doomed? And need 'reparations' to make it all right again? I favor the process in the parent post - help those in need, sure, who demonstrate a willingness to use that help (send the poor to college etc). Blindly. That's important because people game any system, and others use quotas and officially-sanctioned profiling as further proof of whatever bigotry they already harbor.
  - codygman 12y ago
    > But its always seen as a stretch to me, to use ancient history to explain the current generation. Calling it ancient history is disingenuous. History does repeat itself, and as any historian will tell you "If you don't know history, you are a doomed to repeat it". > African-American folks uneducated and over-incarcerated? Blame slavery. You are reducing it into something much less believable than: "Blame the current people in power (white) for African-American folks having a harder time because there are still racist effects, cultural ideologies, subconscious denigration, uncaught biases, and traditions passed down from their great-grandparents who were slave owners."