prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism by an individual, community, or institution against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group
It’s not an original thought, but a very publicly taught one. Which was a redefinition made by some well meaning academics and activists who wanted to narrow the focus of civil rights work to the most egregious violations.
(Which would have been a laudable goal except that it makes everyone fight about what “racism” means instead of solving anything and implicitly tells poor whites that their economic oppression doesn’t matter.)
I’d say it’s less that they are an idiot and more that they don’t understand there is systemic racism and interpersonal racism (there is probably a more official term here but interpersonal covers it well enough for a Lemmy comment).
Systemic racism can only be done by the majority group with the power in a given system (usually government but it could be perpetrated in a religion, an institution, club, etc.). Red lining is a great example of that. Segregation as well. Things done by the group in power to the ones not in power of the given system. Throughout the history of the USA, this means white people oppressing other ethnicities but especially black people.
Interpersonally, anyone can be racist. They can hold racist views and hate others without knowing them beyond their appearance.
Edit: strike through on majority. While most commonly it is a majority group in power, it doesn’t have to be a majority group, just the group in power.
No, just that there’s a subtle difference between anti-white bigotry (which is real) and reverse-racism (which isn’t). You can pull out dictionaries all you like but to put it in terms of a cute nursery rhyme, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but socioeconomic bias by the ruling class can kill me and everyone I love.”
No, this is over-complicating a very simple concept all over again.
Reverse-racism doesn’t exist because it’s just regular old racism. White people can be the target of racism just like anyone else, but this is distinct from the fact that as a privileged social identity they may not be nearly as harmed or affected by that racism as a minority would. The fact that social power modulates our experiences of racism does not mean that some people cannot experience racial targeting.
Harm, friend. I take all kinds of shit for being white, and you know how much it affects my real lived experience? Not at all, because you can talk shit to me all you want, if you can’t back it up, it doesn’t matter. My Jamaican cousin, my indigenous friend growing up, or the Indian girl I dated in High School on the other hand by definition has to deal with the fact that those words can and often are backed up by petty people who absolutely can get away with that.
You’re now talking in circles. I did just explain why the amount of perceived or real harm caused by racist treatment does nothing to qualify or disqualify it as racism.
The redefinition of “racism” to mean only “racially-motivated oppression” appears to have had two major negative effects.
It makes us all waste time arguing about a word even when we agree on the injustice, and thus have less energy to fight that injustice.
By linguistically excluding whites we give rhetorical space for white resentment and anti-white prejudice, which politically helps bad actors benefit electorally from the former.
Arguing that racial animus towards whites doesn’t count as racism helped Trump get elected!
I’d be very interested in any information about the positive effects it’s had to offset either of the above. From my perspective I don’t see them.
Arguing that racial animus towards whites doesn’t count as racism helped Trump get elected!
That’s pretty damning in itself isn’t it. A few minor semantic differences and half of America is ready to vote for the living embodiment of the 7 deadly sins? A convicted felon, a rapist, a monster. A hateful, incompetent, malignant joke of a human being. Perhaps this is what we needed. Someone to cut open the thin veneer of civilization and show all of us just how unfit America is. To break the illusion that our neighbours are good people.
You see, I don’t think that’s true. I’m pretty sure there’s always been disagreement on the precise subtext of that word, and it just hasn’t mattered much until people started trying to use it to mean things that are semantically nonsensical to half the country.
This argument has been going on for 60 years, by historians and educators, black and white, who are much smarter than us… Here’s a reddit comment I found that detailed the argument well (paraphrasing)
the purpose of “power + prejudice” was to move discourse away from the idea of being racist as a personal failing, and instead focus on structural oppression and the material reality of minority groups.
Basically liberal society largely seems to have conceived racism as ‘being irrationally mean’, but for people with a materialist anti-racist perspective, that definition isn’t productive or insightful and the lack of material, tangible progress for black people post-civil rights made it clear that there needed to be more focus on power dynamics and historical context to combat racism.
Beverly Tatum’s work offers an informed and compelling perspective on the matter
The dictionary definition is not adequate for defining racism.
The majority of people agree with how the dictionary defines racism and that’s how it is used in common language and legal contexts.
It is a vocal minority of absolute fools who insist it’s about systems and power and not the discrimination that everyone else so clearly recognises it as.
You people throw the word “majority” around a lot. I’m whiter than you are and I can acknowledge that there’s a dimension of subtext in the word racism related to power structures. “Me and my drinking buddies” does not constitute a majority.
If you’re trying to talk to people don’t define the word to inherently include systemic power structures, then you’re never going to get anywhere by refusing to use language in a way that they understand. There’s no harm in specifying “systemic racism“ if the people you’re talking don’t include “systemic“ in their idiolectic baseline definition of racism. But just telling a person they can’t experience racism when their definition of “racism“ is simply analogous to prejudice will only make them defensive and hostile
And why exactly is it my responsibility to adapt to their idiolectic preferences? They understand the concept, or they wouldn’t get so damn angry about it.
Because you’re the one trying to convince someone you’re correct. If you can’t even properly use the words defining the concept you’re discussing, why would they listen to you?
There’s already a term for what you’re describing, systemic racism, that will communicate your point in a way that doesn’t end with you arguing semantics and not getting anywhere in the actual conversation. Redefining terms to mean something the other person doesn’t agree with just turns your debate about a concept into a meta debate about what words mean.
They absolutely understand the concept and it’s ignorant to treat them like children that don’t understand.
What say the great grumbling masses? Any of you not understand what I mean when I use the word that way? Or does this guy who thinks you’re too dumb to understand have a point?
What they’re annoyed by is the feeling that they got rug-pulled by the fact that the specific meaning of the word is different to different people. Always has been, we just didn’t need to address it when we were discussing the more obvious gross misconduct of yesterday; it was close enough both ways. And now it’s not.
How about you explain in depth what you mean by that instead of being really vague and condescending. Can you do that? Can you explain in depth and with precise language what you mean by that? If you actually have knowledge you want other to also have, please go ahead and share it.
I didn’t think I was being condescending, but I apologize if I came off that way. I’m happy to explain what I mean. Why don’t you associate racism with power?
The discrimination is on the basis of race. That doesn’t make it right, that doesn’t mean that’s the actual reason they’re doing it in their minds. You’re adding unnecessary context to the base word instead of adding the appropriate expansions to the base word to make it fit the desired context.
No it’s just that words can sometimes mean different things depending on context. It’s not “unnecessary” when you’re actually trying to understand the long term effects of 400+ years of slavery, oppression, and atrocities.
The only kind of people who find it “unnecessary” are the kind of people with no actual genuine interest in grappling with our horrific racist past which is the only way we could ever possibly begin to repair that shit. They’d rather just ignore it and pretend it never happened. Or immediately get weirdly defensive because “they didn’t personally do slavery”.
Let’s look at some of the most well known historic instances of racism:
Slavery: an institution that cruelly subjugated black people. It was enforced by the provisional governments in North America before the US revolution, enshrined into the Constitution, and required a civil war to end. People in power: white men
The Trail of Tears: an illegal genocide of several Native American tribes, which had them march over 1000 miles to Oklahoma. People in power: white men
The Chinese Exclusion Act: this was the first time the US border was strictly enforced. It was designed to stop people from China and the Philippines from entering the US, on racist grounds. It was used to deport Chinese people that had just finished building the Transatlantic Railroad. People in power: white men
Redlining neighborhoods: the US and banks worked together to provide cheap loans for buying houses and starting businesses. Zip codes were classified as low risk, medium risk, and high risk. It was never stated outright, but there was high correlation between black people living in an area and being associated with more risk. Black people almost never qualified for a loan, because their zip code was in a “high risk” (redlined) neighborhood. People in power: white men
Building the national highway network: when deciding where to build highways, white neighborhoods were usually avoided and instead divided or destroyed minority neighborhoods. People in power: white men
Jim Crow: the famous “separate but equal” laws, which controlled several aspects of black people’s personal lives and legally entrenched them as second class citizens to white people. People in power: white men
racism noun
lanzybear is an idiot
Exactly, lazybear’s take is very close to the moronic thinking making people believe that men can’t be raped.
Stop making simple concepts complicated.
It’s not an original thought, but a very publicly taught one. Which was a redefinition made by some well meaning academics and activists who wanted to narrow the focus of civil rights work to the most egregious violations.
(Which would have been a laudable goal except that it makes everyone fight about what “racism” means instead of solving anything and implicitly tells poor whites that their economic oppression doesn’t matter.)
I’d say it’s less that they are an idiot and more that they don’t understand there is systemic racism and interpersonal racism (there is probably a more official term here but interpersonal covers it well enough for a Lemmy comment).
Systemic racism can only be done by the
majoritygroup with the power in a given system (usually government but it could be perpetrated in a religion, an institution, club, etc.). Red lining is a great example of that. Segregation as well. Things done by the group in power to the ones not in power of the given system. Throughout the history of the USA, this means white people oppressing other ethnicities but especially black people.Interpersonally, anyone can be racist. They can hold racist views and hate others without knowing them beyond their appearance.
Edit: strike through on majority. While most commonly it is a majority group in power, it doesn’t have to be a majority group, just the group in power.
Counter argument: South Africa
Fair enough, I guess I can drop the majority phrasing and just leave it as group in power.
Because what they really want to say is “it’s okay and even just to be maligned to white people” without having the stones to actually say that.
No, just that there’s a subtle difference between anti-white bigotry (which is real) and reverse-racism (which isn’t). You can pull out dictionaries all you like but to put it in terms of a cute nursery rhyme, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but socioeconomic bias by the ruling class can kill me and everyone I love.”
Sorry, that doesn’t rhyme very well.
Just end it with: “…with loans.” Then it rhymes. <3
No, this is over-complicating a very simple concept all over again.
Reverse-racism doesn’t exist because it’s just regular old racism. White people can be the target of racism just like anyone else, but this is distinct from the fact that as a privileged social identity they may not be nearly as harmed or affected by that racism as a minority would. The fact that social power modulates our experiences of racism does not mean that some people cannot experience racial targeting.
What is the purpose of making the distinction if it’s not “I want to be maligned to white people and not be called racist?”
Harm, friend. I take all kinds of shit for being white, and you know how much it affects my real lived experience? Not at all, because you can talk shit to me all you want, if you can’t back it up, it doesn’t matter. My Jamaican cousin, my indigenous friend growing up, or the Indian girl I dated in High School on the other hand by definition has to deal with the fact that those words can and often are backed up by petty people who absolutely can get away with that.
You’re now talking in circles. I did just explain why the amount of perceived or real harm caused by racist treatment does nothing to qualify or disqualify it as racism.
Because you said so?
Piping in here:
The redefinition of “racism” to mean only “racially-motivated oppression” appears to have had two major negative effects.
Arguing that racial animus towards whites doesn’t count as racism helped Trump get elected!
I’d be very interested in any information about the positive effects it’s had to offset either of the above. From my perspective I don’t see them.
That’s pretty damning in itself isn’t it. A few minor semantic differences and half of America is ready to vote for the living embodiment of the 7 deadly sins? A convicted felon, a rapist, a monster. A hateful, incompetent, malignant joke of a human being. Perhaps this is what we needed. Someone to cut open the thin veneer of civilization and show all of us just how unfit America is. To break the illusion that our neighbours are good people.
You can always disagree, but I’m quite certain you’d be going against the consensus of most people familiar with this topic.
You see, I don’t think that’s true. I’m pretty sure there’s always been disagreement on the precise subtext of that word, and it just hasn’t mattered much until people started trying to use it to mean things that are semantically nonsensical to half the country.
This argument has been going on for 60 years, by historians and educators, black and white, who are much smarter than us… Here’s a reddit comment I found that detailed the argument well (paraphrasing)
the purpose of “power + prejudice” was to move discourse away from the idea of being racist as a personal failing, and instead focus on structural oppression and the material reality of minority groups.
Basically liberal society largely seems to have conceived racism as ‘being irrationally mean’, but for people with a materialist anti-racist perspective, that definition isn’t productive or insightful and the lack of material, tangible progress for black people post-civil rights made it clear that there needed to be more focus on power dynamics and historical context to combat racism.
Beverly Tatum’s work offers an informed and compelling perspective on the matter
I reject the idea that a sixty year old redefinition that was followed by a rise in white resentment was done by people “smarter” than any of us.
The sooner you accept that racism is about power, the better you will understand it. The dictionary definition is not adequate for defining racism.
The majority of people agree with how the dictionary defines racism and that’s how it is used in common language and legal contexts.
It is a vocal minority of absolute fools who insist it’s about systems and power and not the discrimination that everyone else so clearly recognises it as.
You people throw the word “majority” around a lot. I’m whiter than you are and I can acknowledge that there’s a dimension of subtext in the word racism related to power structures. “Me and my drinking buddies” does not constitute a majority.
If you’re trying to talk to people don’t define the word to inherently include systemic power structures, then you’re never going to get anywhere by refusing to use language in a way that they understand. There’s no harm in specifying “systemic racism“ if the people you’re talking don’t include “systemic“ in their idiolectic baseline definition of racism. But just telling a person they can’t experience racism when their definition of “racism“ is simply analogous to prejudice will only make them defensive and hostile
And why exactly is it my responsibility to adapt to their idiolectic preferences? They understand the concept, or they wouldn’t get so damn angry about it.
Because you’re the one trying to convince someone you’re correct. If you can’t even properly use the words defining the concept you’re discussing, why would they listen to you?
There’s already a term for what you’re describing, systemic racism, that will communicate your point in a way that doesn’t end with you arguing semantics and not getting anywhere in the actual conversation. Redefining terms to mean something the other person doesn’t agree with just turns your debate about a concept into a meta debate about what words mean.
Your double-standard with regards to who gets permission to revise the language is duly noted.
By all means, don’t change your behavior and keep wasting your breath on arguments you participate in where you can’t agree on terms.
They don’t understand the concept. And using language in a way they don’t understand doesn’t help.
They absolutely understand the concept and it’s ignorant to treat them like children that don’t understand.
What say the great grumbling masses? Any of you not understand what I mean when I use the word that way? Or does this guy who thinks you’re too dumb to understand have a point?
What they’re annoyed by is the feeling that they got rug-pulled by the fact that the specific meaning of the word is different to different people. Always has been, we just didn’t need to address it when we were discussing the more obvious gross misconduct of yesterday; it was close enough both ways. And now it’s not.
And there is exactly where you lost any credibility with me
My heart breaks, random internet snowflake.
“As a white person”
That’s rich, considering who’s talking.
Without referring to the dictionary, explain why it’s foolish to ascribe a dimension of power to racism.
It’s not foolish, there’s just another term for it, it’s called “systemic racism”. Not all racism is systemic
Nope, that is just your own made up definition of the word.
How about you explain in depth what you mean by that instead of being really vague and condescending. Can you do that? Can you explain in depth and with precise language what you mean by that? If you actually have knowledge you want other to also have, please go ahead and share it.
I didn’t think I was being condescending, but I apologize if I came off that way. I’m happy to explain what I mean. Why don’t you associate racism with power?
Because it’s not powerism, it’s racism.
Whiteness itself is proximity to power.
That’s why it can change, like for Italians and Irish
The discrimination is on the basis of race. That doesn’t make it right, that doesn’t mean that’s the actual reason they’re doing it in their minds. You’re adding unnecessary context to the base word instead of adding the appropriate expansions to the base word to make it fit the desired context.
No it’s just that words can sometimes mean different things depending on context. It’s not “unnecessary” when you’re actually trying to understand the long term effects of 400+ years of slavery, oppression, and atrocities.
The only kind of people who find it “unnecessary” are the kind of people with no actual genuine interest in grappling with our horrific racist past which is the only way we could ever possibly begin to repair that shit. They’d rather just ignore it and pretend it never happened. Or immediately get weirdly defensive because “they didn’t personally do slavery”.
Let’s look at some of the most well known historic instances of racism:
You expect me to take this seriously as a rebuttal?
I’d like a list of interpersonal racism that has the same historical impact, then. I’ll help you get started:
I don’t think you can make sense of the Emmett Till lynching and its aftermath without the social context. It’s an expression of (systemic) racism.
You just love moving those goalposts so you can keep having a leg to stand on.
I don’t love you doing it. Ta-ta.
If racism is about power then why can’t I call Obama the n word
If you (the reader) don’t upvote the above comment you hate diverse perspectives which is basically the same thing as being racist. Checkmate lemmy
If you don’t upvote the above comment I will hunt you down and tickle your feet when you least expect it.
Hee hee hoo hoo
Because of the institution of slavery, which still affects the lives of black people to this day. A black person in power does not erase history.