This is the only part of your post that I find surprising.
I would never claim there is a total lack of those ideas (and haven’t), just that I have not been highly influenced by them to the extent that I am a racist or take racist actions.
Now that is condescending. You will not only explain to me why I’m wrong but also what causing me to feel that way in the first place…why thank you.
However, I suspect that is a thought-process you wouldn’t extend or accept if the subject was the recipient of racist remarks rather than recipient of a racism accusation.
If I explained to the offended racism recipient that they were unreasonable and their reaction was stemming from other emotions? Would that be fine in your opinion?
Of course it would be. You want to contend that no one can ever be so irrational in their reactions as to be subject to criticism?
Or, to put it more precisely, whether that behavior is “fine” would turn entirely on whether your criticism was correct or not.
Then on that point I think we are in complete agreement. My suspicions were not warranted.
I disagree. It’s like being pregnant - you either are or you aren’t.
It’s not like being pregnant really; if you are foolish and careless in one way, you can become accidentally pregnant for nine months or so, then you aren’t pregnant any more.
If you are foolish and careless in another way, you can be seen as racist for an indefinite amount of time - sometimes for only a few minutes, or sometimes for months or years (depending on whether you do it in print or on social media, or just in an off-hand remark). We are all careless or insensitive sometimes, that means we can all be racist.
Do you think it’s possible that someone can be racist but not realize it?
Wow. This thread grew quicker than I anticipated.
I witnessed conversations with Richard Parker that perfectly illustrated the issues we have with people’s varying definitions of racism. We’ve seen people feeling insulted about being labeled racists (in this very thread!) because the word means something different to them
The entire point of this thread is to avoid binary categorization of people in Racist/Not racist buckets to eliminate misunderstandings.
If you re-read the OT, you will see that I claimed that virtually all of us are racist to some degree. Richard Parker’s posts in this thread explain how and why better than I could.
Exactly right.
I feel that if you go over them one by one, you will not be able to defend that claim.
You’re one of the people with whom I hope to have a more meaningful dialogue once we agree on degrees of racism.
The whole premise of this thread is exactly the opposite of that. I didn’t realize that saying “we’re all racists to some degree”, I was making a controversial statement. :eek:
Anyways, I like Richard Parker’s idea of having a scale for racist actions / words instead. I’d like to see what it looks like.
This is because you have an odd definition of racist. Racism is the belief in the inherent inferiority of other races because of animus. Therefore you should not be surprised to find that most people don’t believe everyone thinks other races are inferior or has bad feelings about other races.
If you use the correct definition of racism you can easily see how ridiculous the list Richard Parker made is. If you don’t like rap music then it means you hate black people, if you think black men are better in bed it means you believe in the inherent inferiority of black people. etc.
As one of those taking exception to an assumption of racism I think it is a bad idea to prejudge people. Rather ironic don’t you think given the subject?
Had you said “we all have the* potential* to be racist” then that would not be controversial. I’d agree with it and I also think it accomplishes the same ends rhetorically speaking.
And yes, Richard’s scale for actions and words make perfect sense and implicitly allows for the fact the some people will not carry out any of those specified actions/words and so do not warrant a label of “racist”. I just don’t think that “not racist” is a label I have to earn, more that “racist” is a claim to be proved to a greater or lesser extent.
eta - Of course if you open the list out into the absurd then we run into problems again but in principle, it seems sound.
Nothing Richard Parker said would indicate this.
Of course it does. RP made a list of types of racist behaviors. It’s perfectly consistent with the definition he is using. It’s the idea of the thread - to have a scale of racism to differentiate the levels of “badness” of various things that are all called racist. But that’s not the definition that puddleglum is using, nor is it the one that Novelty Bobble is using. To them, the definition of racism is narrower, so it’s not accurate to label some edge case behaviors as racist at all.
Look at one example, the tendency to overestimate the age of black youth. Under RP’s rubric, that’s indicative of a racist behavior. Under puddleglum’s, I’m guessing it’s not. It’s something, but whatever that something is, it is not racism or racist behavior. As RP explained, it is probably a combination of things, some of which would include the societal constructs that one has been exposed to, some kind of conscious or unconscious bias.
It seems to me the question of the thread is whether or not the broad umbrella approach to racism is useful. The way I think about the idea of a scale is asking what it is trying to achieve. It inherently recognizes differences in actions and tries to distinguish them, but wants to maintain the label of racism for some reason. Whereas we already have other words to describe actions that are more racist or less racist, but those labels don’t carry the same baggage and heft that the racist label does. I think the impact of the broad umbrella approach is to escalate the stakes and reduce clarity, making it harder to address the actual issues.
Why not call the tendency to overestimate age in black youth unconscious bias? Is it more useful to label that tendency racist, or racist level 1? Why not call prejudice against African-American names prejudice, or discriminatory? Is it more useful to label that prejudice, or racism level 3? We have different words to describe different types of actions.
If you have a belief in the inherent inferiority of other races because of something else, what would that something else be? And what would be a fair characterization of such belief?
I’m fine with all such approaches, in differing circumstances and depending on the audience. I don’t argue the same way IRL and with family members/friends as I do on the Dope, necessarily – I modulate tactics and rhetoric as I think they would be most effective.
But it works the other way, too, I think – “racism” really can be and often is used in the way that Richard Parker uses it, and therefore that usage is part of the definition of racism. When these various definitions are used pretty frequently, none of them are “wrong”. You can argue about the most effective strategy – IMO, that depends, and all usages can be effective with different folks. I think RP’s usage is best when trying to describe the broader system, society, and culture in America, and difficulties that so many groups face within it. And I also think this broader definition can be so effective because these systemic problems harm far more people, in my understanding, then simple hatred and malice. If the far more harmful aspect is simply called bias, or similar, then IMO it sounds a lot less bad and less harmful than “racism”, and thus less in need of urgent change.
I agree with iiandyiiii that this is almost certainly context-dependent.
But here’s a thought experiment for you.
I think you want to make this distinction because you see the accusation of racism as morally loaded, and potentially harmful for the person accused of it, and want to limit it to the most morally reprehensible behavior. Taking that as the appropriate test for how to use the language (i.e., use racism to refer to only the most morally blameworthy negative treatment on the basis of race), how do you assess the moral blameworthiness of the following people, and which would you be comfortable calling or a racist or declaring they have engaged in racist behavior?
[ul]
[li]Person A [English Professor who knows it is wrong but cannot help negatively judging a student because the student’s name is “DeShawn” and the professor makes no effort to eliminate this bias leading to a score of 91 on DeShawn’s essay about his struggle with addiction instead of the score of 94 that it objectively deserved][/li]
[li]Person B [Police officer who completely unconsciously overestimates dangerousness of black male suspects and ends up shooting and paralyzing DeShawn in the course of investigating a drug deal when DeShawn went to pull out his ID as commanded][/li]
[li]Person C [A prosecutor who believes all races are equal, but after much study also sincerely believes that whether prison is appropriate for opiate possession cases depends on whether the defendant lives in a high poverty neighborhood or not, and therefore sends DeShawn to prison][/li]
[li]Person D [A prison librarian who believes black people are a superior race descended from Egyptian kings devotes special attention to DeShawn on the basis of race, using his free time to help DeShawn complete his college degree][/li][/ul]
IMO, those people have quite different moral blameworthiness, and it does not align at all with who you would want to call a racist and who you wouldn’t.
Yes, this is an accurate summary of my position. I hope I’ve summarized yours accurately as well.
A is exhibiting racist behavior. The knowing part escalates it past mere bias.
B is exhibiting unconscious bias.
C is exhibiting discriminatory behavior.
D is exhibiting racist behavior.
But doesn’t this agree with what I’m saying? They have different levels of moral blameworthiness, so doesn’t it make sense to describe them differently? This goes to what iiandyiiii says here:
It’s a tactic to group objectively less bad behavior under the umbrella of racism to instigate change more quickly because it borrows the moral weight of the charged term escalating the incident. But there are a number of other negative things that happen as well. It gives cover to those who disagree with the definition being used. It pivots the discussion away from the acts themselves and onto the definitional argument. It dilutes the impact of the charge.
From my perspective, it’s the reverse (you might remember that I’m not calling individuals racist, but rather actions, words, and most importantly systemic and institutional practices) – it’s the “objectively worse behavior” (not less bad) that I want lumped “under the umbrella of racism”. You called the librarian’s behavior (d) racist – I won’t disagree that his opinions are racist, but his behavior is (IMO) by far the least bad and least harmful of all of those examples. The cop (b) paralyzed someone that presented no threat – that’s far, far worse, both morally and for society in general, than helping someone at the library… and yet you put a far “lesser” descriptor on the cop’s actions. IMO, it’s that “unconscious bias” (and systemic/institutional bias) that is causing far, far more harm to individuals and to society, and therefore is “worse behavior” and worthy of the more urgent/significant descriptor.
As long as it’s just “unconscious bias”, then there’s no urgency needed, and no blame. And with no person or system to blame, how can it ever change?
This isn’t just tactical – I do think people are responsible, to some degree, for the biases they hold (consciously or not)… and the systems that create a higher likelihood of these biases are even further to blame.
It can change by recognizing it, describing what it is accurately, and working to change it. If a person has unconscious bias that manifests as B, then awareness, exposure, and training could help. Telling B that they have unconscious bias could open that dialogue.
Telling B that they are racist IMO, would not.
If every bad thing was described as being just as bad as Hitler, that’s not going to be very persuasive. The wide umbrella of racism is like that, but not as bad (as Hitler).
I think when you base the label on the outcome rather than the action itself, you are appropriating the term and using it in a way that is counter to its actual definition.
If I were talking to that cop, I might describe it this way. Talking to you, I describe it otherwise, since I want to emphasize how utterly awful this situation is – lots of people are suffering and otherwise severely held back from a chance to survive and thrive due to bias like this, and it should be one of the most important political issues to people of goodwill, IMO.
How are you classifying B as racist? In order for me to have any opinion on that question, I would need some information as to his estimates of the dangerousness level of non-black and/or non-male suspects.
If he uniformly overestimates the dangerousness of all suspects (which was not ruled out by the stated scenario) I don’t see how you could accurately label his actions as racist. They’re terribly wrong, but labeling them as ‘racist’ is incorrect and might be detrimental to addressing the problem.
I expect there exist some cops who simply resort to violence too readily regardless of race. I also expect there exist some racist cops, and some who are members of both sets. I think that different responses would be needed for each group, and that assuming they’re all the same might prevent successfully addressing the other problem cops.