I’ve noticed that folks who spend a lot of time arguing over how we need to be super restrictive with the word “racist,” and how any specific incident can’t possibly be called racist, and how using the word “racist” is like throwing a bomb, and how it dilutes the words–none of the folks doing this are also the folks who have dedicated a lot of energy toward actually ending racism.
Which makes sense. Injustice has never, ever, ever been properly addressed by ever-tightening the circle around what the injustice is. That behavior serves only the perpetrators, not the victims, of the injustice.
I think I see what you’re saying… but I’m not sure exactly how to refute it. It has to do with the attribution of general and vague group things to individuals based solely on something relatively arbitrary.
I mean, if I was to say “Italians like soccer”, then what I’m saying is that in the aggregate, Italians like soccer. This is about as accurate as generalizations get, but it’s not really extendable to the individual. Assuming that because someone is Italian, that they like soccer has taken it from the general to the personal, and you’re making an incorrect assumption about someone based on their nationality.
This is fundamentally different, although I’m struggling to articulate exactly why, than saying “Fair skinned people sunburn easily”, and then saying “Sally is fair, she likely sunburns easily.”
Sunburning easily is a physical property of fair skin. Liking soccer isn’t a physical property of being Italian.
Statements that are not prejudiced:
-Bob is an adult cis male. He probably grows hair on his face.
-Lisa is 4’11". She probably has trouble reaching things on the top shelf.
-Julio has long hair. He probably gets a sweaty neck on hot days.
Statements that are prejudiced, but not part of a culture of oppression:
-Bob is an adult cis male American. He probably likes football.
-Lisa is Italian. She probably expresses her emotions loudly.
-Julio identifies as Latinx. He probably speaks Spanish.
Statements that are prejudiced and are part of a culture of oppression:
-Bob is a black man. He is probably a criminal.
-Lisa is a woman. She is probably irrational and emotional.
-Julio identifies as Latinx. He is probably here illegally.
Back on the main topic of the thread, I find it interesting that some Reagan biographers claim this took them completely by surprise. How bad do you have to be at your job to not notice that the person you’re biographying about actively courted KKK members and the like while keeping up a thin veneer of plausible deniability is actually pretty racist?
Yes, the habit of objecting much more strenuously to the use of the word ‘racism’ than to actual racism is really common and says a lot more about the person doing so than they intend. Using ‘the r-word’ to describe racism is a non-ironic attempt to equate pointing out someone’s racism with using a racial slur! But if you’re making ‘fried chicken and watermelon’ jokes about your new black neighbors, even if you say it’s innocent, and even if you do it pretending to be friendly, the problem is not that someone called you out on doing racist BS, it’s that you engaged in racist BS. Same thing with the ‘how dare you call someone a white supremecist, that associates them with white supremecists who I don’t want to be associated with’ from earlier or 'don’t call the camps ‘concentration camps’ even though it’s accurate, that term is associated with the Nazis and it’s mean to make that comparison even indirectly - the person objects much more strenuously to someone pointing out atrocious behavior than they do to the behavior itself.
Well, that’s the thing. Since about 1960, American racism has had to engage in some profoundly silly contortions and denialism in order to survive. If you want the white supremacist policies of Reagan, but don’t want to admit you’re a white supremacist, you gotta twist and deny.
Interesting, indeed. Maybe in fact they are not taken by surprise by this, are hagiographers instead of biographers, and have nothing else to defend themselves with. That is, they knew it all along. Who are they?
ETA: Knew all along about this quote. I’m not implying anything else.
The problem with this is that it uses the “abnormalness” of the minority to point them out.
If someone asks you to point out “Bob”, and you say, “he’s the black guy”, does that mean that if Bob was white, you would be unable to point him out? If someone asks me who Sarah is, is an appropriate response, “She’s the girl with the big breasts”?
If someone asks who Lebron James is at a Lakers game (he’s still at the lakers this week, right?), would pointing out that he is black be of any use?
How is that “abnormalness” different than any other distinguishing feature?
I mean, how is saying “Bob- he’s the black guy” is any different than “Jim, he’s the guy with the big lumberjack beard.” or “Jill’s the tall redhead”?
Not every mention of race is racist. To a large degree, the intent counts, and pointing it out as a distinguishing factor isn’t in itself, racist. Had someone said “Bob, he’s the ghetto looking guy” or “Bob, he’s the <insert slur here>”, that would be racist. But merely pointing out that he’s the dark skinned guy by using the commonly accepted vernacular for people of his skin color isn’t racist.
Where I work, we like to think that being black is not something that should make someone feel uncomfortable. It’s not about black “Bob” being abnormal to white “Bob”, but that by sight alone the most obvious way to distinguish between the two individuals is the melanin concentration in their skin.
Bearded men and tall redheads have not historically been called out due to those distinguishing features. They have not been historically discriminated against due to those features. They have not had people try to make them feel as though they are less of a person due to those features.
How is any of that different from saying, “Sarah- she’s the big breasted woman.”? Or “Bob- he’s the guy standing next to the big breasted woman.”? Would you use either of those in a professional environment?
I get it, it is a distinguishing characteristic, but I see no reason for it. I can see situations where it is benign, and I can see situations where it can be hurtful. As the only one that would really know if it were benign or hurtful would be the object of my description, I do not see it as being up to me to make that determination. I don’t see it as racist, I see it as unnecessary and potentially harmful.
It’s not racist, in the sense that if there were a supercomputer or god who could beam into your mind and project your true heart of hearts for all to see, it’s obviously possible that you can identify a person as being apparently of a particular race without having any animus toward that race. I don’t think anyone believes that it’s fundamentally impossible for that scenario to occur.
There is, though, some blurry line where it starts to encroach on territory where people who are doing it are usually racist. It’s a weird thing to do to suddenly develop amnesia about the fact that lumberjack beards and tall redheads don’t have racism thrown at them very frequently because of those things, isn’t it? And so at some point it seems like the only reason to do it that isn’t directly racist is to stake out some kind of claim that racism doesn’t exist or isn’t important.
I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect somebody to go around giving the benefit of the doubt for things that are “only” racist 75% of the time. 1% of the time, sure. 30%, I don’t know. 50%, I don’t think so. Sure, maybe somebody genuinely believes they don’t have a racist bone in their body, and thinks that if someone calls them the R word for saying “go back where you came from,” that’s just as bad as dropping the N bomb on a black person. But, like, that’s an absurd expectation! If you say a thing predominantly said by racists, it is not important that you could, perhaps, be the rare person who says it and means something else. It’s reasonable for people to not think that’s important. When things have almost always happened in conjunction with racism, you don’t have much entitlement to be considered not racist, because why would you. People don’t know, and they don’t owe anybody that.
Some examples are more or less extreme, but it’s the same thing – confederate flags, MAGA hats, “white pride,” whatever… is it possible on a like molecular level to want to associate with those things in a non-racist way? Sure, in varying degrees. Is it possible to articulate a way in which those things could subjectively feel non-racist to somebody, yes. It’s a literally possible scenario. But in the same way that nobody gives the benefit of the doubt that the person lurking in the alley behind a bank in a balaclava just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, it’s unreasonable to expect that things that are racist-adjacent won’t get associated with racism by many people. Because being indifferent to the fact that you’re creating the impression you’re racist is also a thing that racists do.
So, with a thing like casually saying “so this black guy Jeff says,” I think it’s fair that the rule is you have to do a little calculus and figure, “OK, if casually pointing out somebody’s race in this way is done for racist reasons like half of the time, and if it would be really really bad if that’s what I was doing, then that’s a coin-flip chance of something really bad. And it’s kind of a mean thing to do to put everybody in the position of having to play those odds.” Even though in 50% of those scenarios the person isn’t being racist, in 100% of those scenarios they’re putting everybody else in that coin-flip zone. At which point who does it really matter to that you’re not “being” racist? You have dragged up the specter of very real racism either way, and they don’t know if you’re a heads or a tails.
With stuff like using the word “niggardly” or publishing crime rates or whatever, sure, at some point the reasonable calculus is that it’s a totally OK thing to say. But pushing on the margins of whether you’re doing something that’s usually racist or not… like who would want to do that? If it was in the news that people were getting jumped and beaten and spit on for having big lumberjack beards, and you needed to know where the pita bread was in the store, would you call across the store “hey, dude with the lumberjack beard!!!” or would you, you know, find another way to address them?
The Electoral College was winner-take-all in nearly all those states. The popular vote shows a more accurate picture of Reagan’s popularity with Americans. Look at Reagan’s percentage of votes from all eligible voters in 1980 and 1984:
1980: Eligible voters: 164,520,740. Reagan got 43,903,230 votes, which is 26.7% of the votes of those eligible to vote.
1984: Eligible voters: 174,418,600. Reagan got 54,455,472 votes, which is 31.2% of the votes of those eligible.
I believe it was Earl Butz. Secretary of Agriculture in the Nixon and Ford presidencies, who said that, and got caught for it, and lost his damn job over it, in 1976. Served the old potty-mouth right, too
I don’t see how he has argued anything that other posters who disagreed with your definition have argued. The only part that is different in what he said is the part you didn’t mention: his claim that you should “check your shit,” i.e. introspect yourself.
You seem to be unaware of a common tactic made by disingenuous defenders of bigotry. They may claim to agree with the general idea that something was wrong, but then get into semantic arguments over what a particular bigotry-related term means. They generally attempt to restrict these terms beyond how they are used by the general public.
It’s a common pattern that I’ve seen with “racist,” “bigoted,” “concentration camps,” “sexism,” “misogyny,” “transphobia,” “homophobia,” “Nazism,” etc. And I’ve definitely seen it used about “white supremacy.”
Like most semantic arguments, these have little value, but tend to result in people making very strong arguments one way or the other. As such, they are very good at distracting from the main argument, and successfully moving the goalposts so that people forget the original argument. They are thus a good way to defend racist comments without being seen as to endorse them.
Of course, part of what makes it effective is that people may make such arguments entirely innocently. The entire point of these tactics is plausible deniability. It’s much harder to call someone out for a tactic that can also be an innocent argument. That is the point.
However, I think there is a solution this time. Since semantic arguments have such low value anyway, it is generally best to avoid them (especially on bigotry-related topics), and, if necessary, couch them as iiandyiiii did. Once everyone is on the same page by what is meant, there’s no need to continue.
So iiandyiiii calls it “white supremacy,” while you prefer the term “racist.” So what? Why make a big deal about it? You both agree it was a comment that black African people are inferior. That’s what matters.
Like I said, semantic arguments have very little value. They turn agreement into disagreement. Why not avoid them?
(and, yes, I am a hypocrite on this, sometimes. I will continue the semantic argument. The pull is that strong, that even though I realize what I’m doing, it still feels like I need to do it. It’s a hard habit to break.)