‘Seem’ does a lot of work for you, but not to any beneficial purpose.
Of course I am. How not?
When Trump says he’s happy to get the right sort of immigrants, that’s racism, not nationalism. When Brexit leaders say they’ll still allow immigration post-Brexit, only they’ll control it and get the right sort of immigrants, that’s racism, not nationalism.
Look, race is a made-up thing, right? There’s no science of race. So it can’t be wrong to say that people make up racial differences that don’t actually have any factual basis, and then hate based on that, can it?
Even though I agree that “race” is socially constructed and has a historically fluid definition, it’s certainly arguable that discrimination on readily identifiable and immutable physical characteristics is qualitatively different than discrimination on creed, say, or national origin.
I’m open to the argument, but I can’t see why it would seem different to Poles in the UK. Nothing about it excuses racism; it just highlights how absurd racism is.
Yes and no. We have a definition for race. We have a definition for a nation. We have a definition for ethnicity. Whether or not there is science backing these definitions doesn’t really matter. You’re using them interchangeably as if these are not defined terms, but they are defined.
Now none of this says that the treatment or the experience is better or worse, it’s just… in the language that we use today, in current times, these terms are different and mean different things.
I’m not really the right person to make this argument, but I know that part of it is that lots of social relations are mediated non-verbally, by the gaze, and if you’re a Pole in England you can more-or-less easily escape being classified in the out-group solely by the gaze. This makes the subjective experience of discrimination markedly different.
Yes, you’re right of course.
I was going to comment further about how the ongoing semantic kerfuffle about the definition of “racism” in this thread emphasizes that proportionality > semantics in this debate, but I got exhausted reading the near infinite paragraphs of legalistic reasoning and gave up. Have I mentioned that I’m an attorney with 25 years of litigation experience? Yeah, you folks are too semantically legalistically crazed even for me.
It’s a free country, keep at it if you like.
Meanwhile, the rest of us can think about how to respond to behavior in the real world instead of splitting hairs into pico-bits to define just exactly minutely what happened.
The real world where they use dogwhistles and code words and then people like Steve King get elected to Congress?
That real world?
Real world? Should we argue for a day about your definition of a real world or… or… maybe racism has no place here, and some people don’t acknowledge what was shown here as racism because they have such a narrow definition and/or view of what racism is that they allow a few code words and a couple of thank yous to lead them to believe that it can’t be racism. Meanwhile we have others who might have broadened the term which is why some of the Republicans, not alt-right people, seem kind of worried that they or others might accidentally cross some threshold and wind up in some not only unwelcome but bannable territory.
For that later concern, QT3 is not and probably will never be ban heavy, and there was nothing accidental or unconscious about gman’s approach, position or lingo. He knew exactly what he was doing and how to say it to try and fly under the radar, so I don’t think some long-term member is suddenly going to wake up with a ban out of the blue if we say racism has no place here… and take the next step and actually do something about it when it shows up.
I would think that if someone thinks that Poles are literally inferior people that that is racism regardless of skin colour.
I mean it’s semantics. Polish isn’t a race it’s an ethnicity. Hating people for existing is shitty regardless of what the label is.
And if you are prejudiced against a specific ethnicity, you’re a racist.
I believe I understand now why Scott has been accused of being the lefty counterpoint to gman.
Before you guys kick into high dudgeon mode, you might want to look for the post on proportionality @sharpe is referencing. That’s what he means by “responding to behavior in the real world”.
-Tom
And it’s really just about them being “other people”. About them being immigrants. It’s the same as hating the Irish, or the Italians, or gypsies, or any other group of different people.
It has nothing to do with actually hating the poles. If they weren’t there, that hate would have just found some other target.
He is literally not referencing anything because there is no link to speak of. If he wants us to go back and look at something posted earlier, I assume he would’ve actually referenced it.
Here’s the thing though. I am just going to put this out there again, just so my perspective is fully understood, whether it’s right or wrong, or can be understood by others… It’s not semantics, although definitions do matter.
I walk into a room, and I am different. Now racists will almost instantly know not only that I am biracial but what races because they look for it. Others might be confused and just guess and normal / average not hateful people used to a mixed world either don’t care or are curious enough to ask some questions sometimes in a not horrific way.
I don’t have to say anything. It doesn’t matter what I wear, and it doesn’t matter what country I am from or what country I am going to or what country I was born in, or any accent I might or might not have. I could literally stand there naked, mute and have nothing to identify me other than the human form and people will judge me due to my race, or more technically, the races that make me me. Everyone, not just white, not just black, everyone because believe me, people will judge… and the white racists, by far, are the worst thus far.
I cannot pass, no matter what clothes I wear, what accent I have or the passport I carry. There really is no country on this planet that I look like I just belong to, except maybe the USA which is full of people that tell you on a recurring basis that… people like you don’t belong here. I will not pass for anyone who is looking for whatever the hell it is they are looking for.
Now does that mean someone from a different nationality, a different ethnicity, or a different sexuality doesn’t experience similar experiences or worse than me. No. I imagine there are several groups that experience way worse, more often and the most horrific things imaginable to the human mind that I have not experienced at all due to these other categories they fall into.
So yeah are we going a little academic with the definitions, but the ability pass… for a lot of the different races, it’s just not there.
I am not really comfortable anymore presenting real life examples of these scenarios and actual things that have been said to me that made me come to these conclusions I have come to in addition to general experience I’ve read and heard about because this it not really a safe place to do that anymore. .It probably wasn’t before, but hey it felt that way.
This is not a Webster debate; it’s just definition and the reason these terms are separated; I think there is valid reason we do that, and no, it’s not science based, and that doesn’t really matter.
I apologize for not including links; my original post was actually in a completely different thread, sparked by the Sarah Jeong discussions. Here are my larger scale thoughts on proportionality.
Here is a post in this thread applying some of those thoughts to the debate about defining “racism”.
In response to Nesrie’s point about walking into a room, it’s an extremely valid point and I don’t have a great answer for it. A few months back this issue came up and Nesrie made a similar point, which made me think for a while but I still don’t have a great answer.
Here’s the deal: in my view, there is a huge amount of racism in our society and the key issue is how to respond to that. And different acts require different, proportional, responses. This is a longstanding principal of justice. IMO, just as we have degrees of various crimes and gradations of many types, there are levels of racism, requiring proportionate levels of response. My crude categorization was to sub-divide American racism into 3 categories from least severe to most severe: racial stereotyping, racial prejudice, racial hatred.
Nesrie makes the extremely valid point that from her perspective, if she walks into a room and is subject to stereotyping or prejudice, she has no way to know if that person’s racism stops at stereotyping or stops at prejudice, or goes all the way to hatred. The hateful types are going to stereotype and discriminate and also go beyond that to active violent oppression. So, what, Nesrie has to wait for someone to actually punch her in the face before she can call them on their racism? That’s a real problem with my whole “proportionality” concept.
From Nesrie’s point of view, society has to slam back with maximum force on stereotyping and on prejudice, not just on the full-blown haters. From Nesrie’s point of view, fuck proportionality, she’s not waiting around to be assaulted.
That’s a valid point. On the other hand, there is a real difference, from the point of view of the person performing the conduct, between stereotyping and prejudice and hate.
The best way to bridge this gap that I have come up with is to focus on behavior, rather than our expectations of behavior. I’ll give a specific example: there has been much discussion about gman and racism based on his many statements, and reading the fine points of his wording etc. To me, the point at which his fundamental disregard for people of color (specifically immigrant asylum seekers) became clear was when he refused to condemn Trump’s family separation policy, for pages and pages of posts, dancing around with a Fred Astaire level of legal legerdemain to avoid saying anything bad about his deal leader, in the face of the morally abhorrent reality of harming small children. All the dog whistling etc., that can be hard to interpret, but in the context of the lengthy back and forth, it became apparent to me that gman was willing to elevate his rhetorical games over the lives and well-being of children of color, and that was the point at which IMO, a banning would have been appropriate, if not before (b/c I read only a a fraction of his output.)
The problem with that, is that doesn’t help Nesrie walking into a room. And yet, I still feel proportionality is a fundamental principal of justice.
Hell, life is hard. I have this great idea about justice and proportionality, but Nesrie also has a real world point that I just don’t have a great answer to.
Anyway, that’s my best overall take on the bigger issues.
On the smaller issue of semantics, I do think burning all these brain cells to create a single all-purpose definition of “racism” is a waste of time: it’s too big of a concept, and too messy in the real world, for a single definition to work.
Yep - that is pretty much the perfect description of how it is to be (visibly) bi-racial. And I’d be the first to agree that there are many, many people who have it far worse, but that particular wrinkle gets old really, really fast - even if it’s a lot better in today’s world than when I was growing up.
So you’re 5-7 years old, sitting in a classroom, at the back of the class because the teacher told you to sit there. You can sit anywhere but the teacher wants you at the back of class. You don’t get the attention the other kids get, you’re interested in math but the teacher convinces you that math just isn’t your thing. You want to make friends, but the teacher keeps discouraging you from getting close to anyone. The only thing you understand about Africa is there are animals there, and they’re pretty cool but for some reason some kids tell you to go back there, and again you don’t know where there is, and the teacher thinks it’s funny, and for some reason kids tell you you’re dirty but not matter what you do, you can’t really clean the dirt off they keep talking about because it’s actually your skin. Oh, and you’re hair is bad, and you’ll be told that for the rest of your life.
So from the ripe age of five, one adult has decided that you’re not worth anything, you’re dumb, probably won’t amount to anything, and they might even speak more harshly to you, grab you physically with some weird belief you’re skin is thicker and since you’re an animal you don’t really feel anything anyways. The other kids are taking her lead or they’re just mimicking what the adults their parents have said around them.
So at five years old, you’re told you are less than, right at the bat. Later in life, you might try go get into a program or an event, but they don’t think you’re a good fit. The scholarship you’re interested in, well it’s not for people like you. Want an apartment, well you’re not really what they’re looking for. Want a car loan… well they’re not only going to make you pay more but they’re going to give you a worse loan than most others. Want a job, well if you have a certain name, they won’t even look at your resume. Negotiating salary, they’re going to offer you less, promote you less, overlook you. If you’re in the hospital and you are in pain, the nurse ignores you because you feel less pain, in their mind, due to the color of your skin. Are you waiting in line and in a hurry, doesn’t matter, the white person behind you will be served first. And if at any point you get mad at any of this, you’ll be labeled as angry at best, out of control at worst.
No one was punched you in the face. No one was killed. No one took a video of the five year old learning they’re nothing, and that child’s parents might not even know it’s happening because the five year old doesn’t understand enough to tell them.
Which of these do you think are so insignificant that they don’t actually leave a lasting if not a lifetime impression? Which one of these do you think so so minor that society should label it as not evil? Which one is not evil because there are no bruises you can see, no bodies, no videos, and no proof you can use in court?
All of these true examples taken from stories, from articles, and in some cases experiences, most are not mine.
So which are not fireable offenses? Should we keep teachers that isolate, segregate and push their racism to the point the children they teach not only learn that they are less than but teach other kids how to treat others as if they are less than? Do we keep the manager who won’t hire someone because their name is Jamal. Do keep the loan officer who saddles one race with years more in debt than the other? What about the car sales person who consistently adds thousands to the sale price in addition to the poor loan that person receives. Do we punish the person who discourages certain young people from even applying for a program or the person who might just refuse them if they do apply anyway?
There is no minor racism; there is no degree of how bad racism is. The only thing that’s minor is the optics, how well other people perceive what is happening, and if they can understand or even internalize that experience. If you think someone, some group, is inferior to you based on nothing but their race, the only thing Twitter or Facebook or some mic did was capture a single moment of that intolerance. There are usually years of other examples behind it no one knows about or if they do know, they overlooked it because it wasn’t… that bad. And they tell themselves it’s not that bad because it’s their family member, their boss, their neighbor… just some reason to want to grasp onto the excuse which benefits them in some way.
So when someone says proportional racism, and tries to attribute it like it’s some sort of moment in time, like a singular crime, a singular incident, I wonder how deep the understanding is about the experience that is racism, not only from the one who is exhibiting the behavior but also the one who is on the receiving end of it.
I am not saying we need to or should jail people left and right, but if someone walks up to a pool and demands a black person be removed, you can be 100% certain, that is not the first time that person has voiced and/or acted on their racism. And because the person being targeted is black, you can be fairly certain that is just 1 of years of experiences they’ve had dealing with racism. And if you don’t think those experiences leaves a lasting impression, sometimes life altering impressions and experiences, then maybe that is why it’s so easy to dismiss racism as just… minor or I guess closer to the point, somehow felt less than if someone put a bullet in you or slapped you. I would say the most harmful racism, is subtle and it’s frequent and it’s built in and too easy to overlook and ignore.
And while I am replying to one person, this is not directed just at him, by any means.