# Racialism: Everyone's Favorite Politics

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racialism-everyones-favorite-politics/817715>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [July 11, 2018, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racialism-everyones-favorite-politics/817715 "2018-07-11T14:56:48Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 408

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**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\
**Post date:** [July 19, 2018, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racialism-everyones-favorite-politics/817715/408 "2018-07-19T16:28:54Z")

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> [@iiandyiiii](#):
>
> Please, by all means. I’d love to know how describing a historical phenomenon/system put into place by the policies and practices of various 18th and 19th century American landholders and politicians is “broad-brush generalizing”.

I agree that the policies and practices in 18th and 19th century America had incredible destructive impacts on black people and communities, and those impacts are still widely prevalent today. That’s not broad brush generalizing. Calling it “whiteness” is. Here is what I get when I google the term:

> [@](#):
>
> 1. 
> 
> the property or quality of being white in color.  
> “a landscape dominated by the whiteness of snow”  
> the quality of being very pale.  
> “the whiteness of her skin, like fine porcelain”  
> 2.  
> the fact or state of belonging to a human group having light-colored skin.  
> “whiteness was defined as both a racial and a regional characteristic”

Further down on the list of results are hits that are more in line with how you are using the term. Again, I understand your usage - I simply reject it. Adding the suffix “-ness” typically turns an adjective into a noun, meaning the state of being the original adjective.

This is what you said when another poster leveled essentially the same criticisms, but instead of calling it “whiteness”, just said “white folks”:

> [@George Will says vote Dem in November](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-will-says-vote-dem-in-november/816619/14):
>
> A friendly recommendation, feel free to take it or leave it – I think your arguments might gain more traction and positive response if you left out the extremely broad brush attacks, which IMO are entirely unnecessary to make your points. Just my opinion, anyway.

It’s clear you were using the term in the same way as the person you were responding to, white folks vs. whiteness, same utilization with the same message. But you saw fit to recommend against extremely broad brush attacks in one of those instances. Do you think there is some substantive difference in those terms where the use of one would merit a caution against broad brush attacks, and the other is totally immune to the same caution? Dude look in the mirror.

It’s basically a giant True Scotsman. This super broad generalized attack, but when there’s pushback, it’s oh no, I’m only talking about this specific other group. It’s ineffective because you are redefining words that generalizes about a broad group of people as a pejorative. Systemic or institutional racism, even White Supremacy are better descriptors, and have a more widely understood etymology. This isn’t tone policing - it’s using words in standard ways for effective communication.

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