It’s casual racism. Huge distinction that many with blanket opinions fail to see.
Racism
Sexism
Nationalism
All of these are based on the concept that a particular class (race, sex, or nationality) is inherently better than another. Not necessarily better at a specific function, but better in general.
To say that females are better mothers than men is not sexist. It is a statement of fact. This does not mean that every single female is a better nurturer than any male, only that most people would not disagree, or find fault with the statement females are better mothers. However, to say that females are only useful for raising children is sexist, since the implication is that males are superior for all other endeavors.
Same with nationalism (or, more common in the USA, regionalism). To say the Germans are better engineers, French are better cooks, or Italians are better lovers are all generalizations (although perhaps inaccurate) , but to say such things would only be nationalist statements if the speaker was trying to show that engineers (or cooks, or lovers) are better people than
OK, this computer has a hair trigger on it, and I can’t edit, so let me finish.
…are better people. Same with Regionalism. To say someone from the northeast US has better morals than someone living in the deep south (US) is very regionalist. It should carry the same stigma as sexism or nationalism, but people tend to not object to it as much (heck, Jeff Foxworthy has made a fortune off of it).
Racism is a bit different. Some would say the concept of race is racist, since its only purpose is to demonstrate some people are better than others. There is no denying racial differences, just like there is no denying sexual differences, so I don’t feel the concept is racist. The idea that the characteristics of a particular race makes a member of that race superior to another is racist, however. That (eastern Asian) orientals are better at math is only racist if the implication is that nobody “normal” could be that good in math, so they are not “normal”. To say blacks like fried chicken is only racist because of the stereotype and it is used to poke fun.
No, we aren’t all racists. We all don’t believe that a particular race is better than another.
We are, however, prejudiced. We all judge someone before we have the chance to learn enough about them to make valid conclusions.
We all discriminate, too. You can’t decide on what to watch on TV with discriminating against every show you decide not to watch. Now, to decide not to watch The Cosby Show just because the main characters are black could be racist. Or, it could just be you have already seen every episode a dozen times and you really would rather watch something else.
There, I finished.
excavating (for a mind)
That may seem self-evident to you, but the concept is really much slipperier than most people assume.
I deny racial differences. That is, I deny that you can definitively assign any given characteristic to any imagined “race,” except by resorting to circular definitions of the race by that very characteristic.
I agree that,
I don’t understand this attitude at all. And I think how you use the term “scientific validity” shows you aren’t getting the concept here.
Race is simply a man-made subjective way to classify people. A person can classify humans into any number of racial groups from 1 (all humans are the same race) to the number of humans that exist and have ever existed (all humans are a in a race of their own).
As for the OP, I think a person is a “racist” if they believe that people of at least one race are inherently and irredeemably inferior to people of at least one other race, not based on any measurable factor, just in general and based only on the fact of their race.
So, as far as what a racist “concept” is, I guess just the concept that makes one a racist under my definition. I guess any of the items in the poll could tend to indicate that one is a racist, but they aren’t conclusive in and of themselves.
Sure. It’s a rather arbitrary and culture-specific attempt to superimpose categories on the multidimensional spectrum of human diversity. It’s just not a very meaningful way to categorize people.
It would be meaningful if a person who classified people into different groups were to discover regularities among people they classified into the same group.
Does the claim that some group is superior also implicitly say that other groups are inferior?
Also, I don’t understand what you mean by “…it must be directed towards an individual or group of individuals.” Isn’t every statement made in public directed toward one or more people? And by “directed toward” are you referring to the group being disparaged, or to the listening audience, which may or may not be the same group.
Oh, yeah, I didn’t vote, because I don’t think any of the choices are entirely correct.
IMO, a “racist” is a person, not a comment. Comments need context in which they can be assessed.
This bring to mind the highly edited speech released a while back that purportedly showed racist comments made by a women in the Ag department. On their face, and out of context, they seemed blatantly racist, and the woman was immediately fired. But in the next day or so, the entire context was made available, and pretty much everyone realized she had been done a terrible injustice.
Well that sure is awfully dismissive, isn’t it? Such a statement doesn’t treat Asians as individuals; it categorizes them as some monolithic mass in a way I’m certain the person making the claim would not do to his own racial/ethnic group.
If we use that definition, then any generalizing statement would be “racist”, and that simply does not mesh with reality. We use that term specifically to refer to statements that generalize in a negative, incorrect, or ignorant manner usually. It wouldn’t be racist to say : “Japanese people have black hair, and epicanthic folds on their eyes.” While there may be a few Japanese who don’t share those traits, it is a factual statement for the vast majority of the population. It is simply a statement of reality that doesn’t reflect judgement in any manner.
That’s just silly. You’re not honestly going to tell me you see no distinction between making generalizations about the physical appearances of certain races, and generalizing their intellectual aptitudes or personality traits, are you?
No, But I do think there IS a distinction between those comments that denegrate a group and those that are complimentary.
The only distinction I see between the two is that some people don’t mind generalizations about physical appearance (and certain other physical qualities, such as propensity for certain diseases) but get all bent out of shape over generalizations about intellectual aptitudes. They should be treated similarly, IMHO. A study that purports to show a difference in intellectual aptitude of different races should be treated the same as one that purports to show a difference in height or pinky finger length or propensity for sickle-cell anemia.