Racism - Page 3

On April 25 2011 09:47 Dalguno wrote:


I did, thought it said black women :/

On April 25 2011 11:00 Craton wrote:
Because you have no actual explanation or reasoning as to the conclusions you drew regarding the polls. You simply state a conclusion with the expectation of people to accept your word as fact, rather than lead the reader from point a to point b.

The second portion of the OP contains several definitions of racism and your interpretation of several pieces of media, but none of that serves as the explanation that your conclusions require. Thus, there is a logical disconnect ("Step 2: ???") between your second and third sections.

On April 25 2011 11:00 des wrote:
My hand is very firmly down my pants about the use of words as well!

Race isn't genetic. Obviously we consider it to be something passed through heredity but that is a definition created by society. Any observation of how people have been classified into race based on their ancestry demonstrates this, for example the "one drop rule". It has always been arbitrary groupings and it always will be.

What would you have us call your first example? How is assigning negative qualities to a group of people based on their race not implicitly stating the inferiority of that race?

In some other thread I made the point that oppressed people who are upset about the nature of their oppression are generally depicted as having something wrong with them. There is an elaborate unconscious machine in society designed to remind us all that if they had a little more sense they wouldn't be upset. This thread is part of that machine. "If you only had a finer understanding of semantics, you'd see that this isn't racist!" Rather than contributing something to the dialogue it distracts from it by creating a second dialogue about the first one, a second dialogue which specifically attacks one side of the first one.

I'm terribly sorry that it's inconvenient to have to explain how "it's not racist" when you say something offensive but a perfectly good solution is to not go around saying offensive shit and respect the people around you a little bit.

PS dis post not racisms

On April 25 2011 11:22 Pandain wrote:
I feel like #1 is in fact racist.

I would agree that's its not racist if he had said "I don't like most white people, they are mean to me." Or even "I don't like any of the white people I've met-they are mean to me." But the fact that he says "I don't like this race(AT ALL)" because of a select individuals he has met characterises it as racist.

What the person who said that has done was generalize a whole race based on a select few. Basically its sterotyping, while not exactly racism in itself in this case it is(judging all of a select race).

If you feel all white people are mean, because some white people you have met are mean, that is racist. That person, if he heard the word "white person", would immediately picture someone less than him, someone who's mean, that ALL white people are mean.

I hope I articulated my point well enough. Good post though, I learned alot.

On April 25 2011 11:24 micronesia wrote:

This is only true if the speaker believes meanness is an inherent/negative trait. I don't think most people believe that but I could be wrong.

As you said it is stereotyping.

On April 25 2011 11:30 Pandain wrote:


In my wrong humble opinion, I believe however that the speaker of that sentence believed meanness is inherent in white people. He said that he doesn't like white people, because they are mean. Not because some white people are mean, but all of them are mean. The speaker believes that he doesn't like white people because they are mean(so all mean.)

Note how he catagorizes white people as mean, that all white people are mean. I believe that fits the definition of "inherent". He believes if you are a white person, you are mean.
As for negative, what do you mean? If you're speaking about whether it is a positive or negative attribute I don't think anyone would really say it's a positive attribute.

On April 25 2011 11:17 micronesia wrote:

The speaker in the first example didn't assign negative qualities that were necessarily inherent.

I don't agree with you. I don't think this blog serves to make oppressed people feel less oppressed. At no point did I say or imply an offensive statement is less offensive once we accept that it isn't racist.

I have no idea what point you are trying to make with this bit and don't see how it relates to the blog at all...

On April 25 2011 11:39 des wrote:


Again, what would you have us call it, and why is meanness across an entire group of people of the same race not inherent? What makes it not inherent? How did all these white people end up being mean if something about whiteness isn't the cause of their meanness? If it's not inherent, what does the statement do to communicate the belief that it is not inherent? If I say "I don't like black people, they're all stupid" (that made me feel a little sick to write) is that racist? Why?

I'm not saying its intent is to make oppressed people feel less oppressed. I'm saying it serves to give the oppressor an out in the discussion of race. Rather than addressing his/her behavior, the oppressor says "well that's not technically racism please refer to micronesia's post" and deflates the argument of the oppressed. Every oppressor does this to every oppressed group in a multitude of ways. There is always dialogue which serves to point out that the oppressed person is not capable of arguing "correctly" and therefore can safely be ignored. You may not intend this post in that way but it is doing that. The fact that you think that this is an important point demonstrates that you are part of this machine. Again, you don't necessarily know that you are doing this, but it doesn't change the fact that you are. Intent is not the issue here and you do not need to directly state that the statement is less offensive, or even think it. You are impeding productive discussion by creating a new discussion about the first one which will only be used to invalidate arguments in the original discussion.

This was born out of anger and I should probably not have posted it. I am referring to you saying that it would be difficult to explain to someone in the street why something you said wasn't racist. This is an illustration of my above point. You said something offensive about race, the other person called you on it, and rather than reflect on your statement and whether you should say stuff like that or not, you're setting up the appropriate response as correcting him on his use of words.

When someone says "X is racist" and it doesn't fit the dictionary definition they are usually pointing out how it is based off of a racist intent. As an example, seperate-but-equal is arguably not racist by definition. However, it makes no sense other than as an oppressive tool designed to deprive people of rights, amenities, etc. based on race. The actual realization of s-b-e laws clearly was not truly equal, and it is also clear that if race were not a concern, there would be no reason to have the law. It is only because we believe there are firm divisions between race that the law was passed. So, while the written law may not pass your litmus test of racism, it doesn't take a genius to realize that it has plenty of racism between the lines. Calling that out should not be bogged down in a discussion of semantics.

On April 25 2011 11:33 micronesia wrote:
The meanness of white people could be entirely culturally caused.

Institutional racism is the differential access to the goods, services, and opportunities of society. When the differential access becomes integral to institutions, it becomes common practice, making it difficult to rectify. Eventually, this racism dominates public bodies, private corporations, and public and private universities, and is reinforced by the actions of conformists and newcomers. Another difficulty in reducing institutionalized racism is that there is no sole, true identifiable perpetrator. When racism is built into the institution, it appears as the collective action of the population.

If you say something offensive, and someone calls you out on it, then you said something offensive. If someone simply accuses you of being racist then you can explain how it wasn't racist. What they should have done is said you were saying something offensive, and you are not off the hook for saying it even though the person didn't think to call you out on it.

On April 25 2011 13:38 ClysmiC wrote:
I totally agree that people's perception on racism is so overblown. Sure, there are some blatantly racist people, and that's wrong. But honestly, sometimes people's zealousness towards racial issues pisses me off. It especially pisses me off when teachers and administration at my high school don't deal with all races the same way. Kids of some races seem to cause more commotion in classes and in the hallway, and while they are urged to stop, they usually don't get any disciplinary action. The same wouldn't be true if a student that is part of the majority (in the case of my high school, caucasian) had done the same thing.