?
say wha?
I think you mean integration, maybe?
Exactly Guinastasia. I was watching O’Reilly while typing this. What I meant was: Is it racist to say integration is not a good thing?
When whites say it, it’s racist. When blacks say it, it isn’t.
That applies to both terms, integration and segragation. In fact it applies to anything.
Got it?
Cite?
lol Monstro, “cite”.
Monstro:
I couldn’t resist my above post. Sorry. I’m a bad person.
Actually, there IS a school of thought that defines racism as being inexctricably tied to social/political power. Claiming that a minority cannot be racist because it has no power to oppress. Only the majority has that power and only that majority can, therefore, be racist. I’m not sure who the adherents of that school of thought are, or how many there are, but I’m sure you could find someone who thought along those lines at most of our esteemed instutions of higher learning.
If I’m really bored tomorrow I’ll do a little net surfing and see if I can find something.
Saying “integration is not a good thing” is not racist, but then it’s not saying anything at all. That is, the assertion has no more than trivial meaning apart from articulation of the logic supporting it.
Insofar as the historical alternative, namely segregation, was based on pervasive institutional racism, the argument in its favor at this point in history is presumably racist also – it’s hard to imagine a non-racist justification for racial segregation. But without an explanation, the assertion is just empty.
monstro -
There is school of thought that only people in power can be racist
http://husky1.stmarys.ca/~hmillar/racism.htm
http://www.psc.uc.edu/sh/SH_Racism.htm
http://www.greenparty.org/color.html
Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and John Hope Franklin have said similar things along these lines, its common knowledge in my neck of the woods.
There is also a school of thought that says the white man is the devil and integration is just an attempt by him to confuse blacks and keep them enslaved.
http://home.att.net/~phosphor/week1a/message.html
And this idea is becoming popular
http://slate.msn.com/id/1080/
Daddy:
Thanks for the links, but I actually didn’t find anyting in them that defined racism as confined to the majority. But… I had never seen the term African-Canadian before. That was interesting.
I’ll do a little digging later on today. Is “Critical Race Theory” the school of thought I’m getting at? Maybe not. For some reason that term sticks in my head. But I could be wrong on that.
Moderator’s Note: Edited thread title to change “segregation” to “integration”.
Appreciated Buckner
I’m hesitant to say yes or no, primarily because I don’t think enough information is being given. Their could be a valid non-racist reason (although I can’t think of one).
I have always thought to be an utterly preposterous statement. There are many poor white people who hate black–does his lack of social and political clout magically make a gaptoothed Klansman from back of beyond Alabama not a racist? Does it make a poor black guy in Roxbury, Massachussetts not a racist, no matter how much he talks about “poppin a cap in a cracker”?
Racism is hating someone in your heart because of the color of their skin. Hate is as free as the air, open to everyone of all colors, genders, and incomes.
by John Mace
Oh for the love of God, man! I am sick and tired of this reoccurring fart of a lament. You do not get cool points for playing the persecuted-white-male card whenever the topic of racism is broached. You just get ignored.
Got it?
by lout:
Exactly. The most important question is why do you believe integration is bad? Then we can decided whether or not the idea is racist.
Except the people who make the statement that racism is tied to power don’t define racism that way. They define racism as a political/societal system that disadvantages people of a specific race. So, while a person might have anti-black prejudice, or (to use other examples) anti-gay prejudice or anti-woman prejudice, only a society or other grouping can be racist, or homophobic, or sexist.
Director Spike Lee, for another, has spoken similarly in the past about black Americans unable to be racist because of an inequity of power between blacks and whites in American society.
I agree with this. It would be a mistake to think that a minority population could not be racist.
Daddy:
Here’s a link to the student newspaper at the College of William and Mary (in Virginia). For those not familiar with it, W&M is a highly regarded leberal arts college, one of the oldest, if not THE oldest, college in the US.
http://flathat.wm.edu/December012000/opinionsstory4.html
A simple google search turns up dozens of such sites of various authors and academicians who claim that “minorities cannot be racist”.
Again, I’m not saying this is mainstream, but anyone who laughs at the concept is not aware of what is being taught at many universities and bandied about by “intellectuals” these days.