tip: you aren’t obligated to argue everything everyone says, you can pick and choose you know!
2 Likes
tip: if you ask to “respectfully agree to ignore each others posts,” and promise you’ll remember, it’s not a bad idea to keep your promise.
3 Likes
So much angry vitriol in this thread about the distinction between “racism” and “bigotry.” Can’t we just agree to disagree instead of fighting like a bunch of filthy Luxembourgers?
11 Likes
Realizing that the racism/bigotry/whatthefuckeveryouwanttocallit aspect of things is bad m’kay, I’m going to go out on a bit of a limb and say that this lady lucked out a bit.
How so? Better to find out that your potential employer is a bit of an asshole and not get the job, than to get the job, move to another country (incurring all sorts of expense and great effort), and then find out that you’re working for intolerable twats.
5 Likes
my apologies, I wasn’t replying to the content of any specific comment you made, it wasn’t my intention to break a truce. i think after the fifth or so thread with a huge number of posts specifically contradicting other members posts, I was just having filter fatigue and snapped, you are right that wasn’t really fair of me, sorry. please pardon the lapse. carry on.
2 Likes
1 Like
Points for execution: that’s an extremely well done “I won’t even ask you if you still beat your wife” kind of comment that effectively claims moral high ground while making the point it pretends to be apologizing for making. I don’t know the last time I’ve seen it done that well.
that was not my intention, i do apologize for snapping at you. my explanation was intended to explain my state of mind, i was frazzled and let stuff get to me that I shouldn’t have. my apology stands.
1 Like
In the case of the Irish as a racialized ethnicity, yes it does. By the way, they are Hebrews and not “The Jews” and they certainly are a race of people.
But you never said it wasn’t racist. You said Irish was not a race which is incorrect and the Irish not being a race is your entire argument for why this was not racism.
Then you have yet to meet your goal. Keep going little one. Keep reaching for the stars. Eventually you will grab that brass ring and prove once and for all that thinking all Irish people are drunks and denying employment based on that prejudice is not racist. Keep going and you will prove it, I’m sure of it. All you need is the right turn of phrase and you can prove it’s not racist.
3 Likes
Repeatedly saying that the Irish are a race doesn’t actually show that the Irish are a race. And excuse me for saying Jews when I guess I should have said “Jewish people,” which is a term you have used.
You have yet to meet your goal of proving that the Irish are a race, and that your definition of to the extent you have provided one—is the correct one.
And, as I’ve already said, something doesn’t have to be racist to be reprehensible. Discrimination on the basis of sexual preference is horrible, as is discrimination on the basis of religion. As is discrimination on the basis of national origin or citizenship (which this could be, as I think the employer was looking more at her country of origin than her racial background). This doesn’t mean discrimination based on these factors is racism.
Here is a handy guide for you which most children can follow.
If a person mistreats another because of their ancestry, it is racism.
And you have offered no counter definitions leaving mine standing unopposed.
But, I’ll offer some support to my definition
From the UNESCO statement “The Race Question”,
Because serious errors of this kind are habitually committed when the term ‘race’ is used in popular parlance, it would be better when speaking of human races to drop the term ‘race’ altogether and speak of ‘ethnic groups’."
Pan and Pfeil (2004) count 87 distinct “peoples of Europe”, of which 33 form the majority population in at least one sovereign state.
I also invite you to read through this collection Race (human categorization) - Wikipedia
Finally, if the combined opinions of social anthropologists of the past 100 years isn’t enough to convince you that ethnicity equates with race when discussing racism, I’ll leave you with a bit of non-social science evidence demonstrating a genetic distinction between the Irish people and the general European population.
Trinity College scientists identified a particular genetic pattern in the Y chromosome of the Irish. An ancient genetic marker, known as haplogroup 1, was found in most Irish men as reported by geneticist Dr. Emmeline Hill in Issue 88 of INSIDE IRELAND.
The prevalence of the marker is significantly higher than that of the general population of Europe making the Irish a genetically distinguishable race.
6 Likes
Do you want a counter definition? How about the US Supreme Court, which has talked about racial discrimination being particularly pernicious because race is innate and unalterable, yet externally recognizable. It is a form of discrimination that can be made on the basis of appearance alone, and there’s nothing an individual can do to effectively conceal or change it.
If you want to use a UNESCO statement that suggests you don’t use the word race, then maybe the proper term for discrimination along these non-race lines isn’t ‘racism.’
Hey, a link that points to many different ways that race has been defined! Here’s what it says about views on race in the US:
One result of debates over the meaning and validity of the concept of race is that the current literature across different disciplines regarding human variation lacks consensus, though within some fields, such as some branches of anthropology, there is strong consensus. Some studies use the word race in its early essentialist taxonomic sense. Many others still use the term race, but use it to mean a population, clade, or haplogroup. Others eschew the concept of race altogether, and use the concept of population as a less problematic unit of analysis.
So, race is biological, then? Or cultural? Or ethnic? Or based on ancestry (but whose ancestry? Your own individual ancestry, that of your community/nation, or what?)?
What race are Canadians, or citizens of other countries with highly diverse backgrounds? Are they non-racial? Or do individuals belong to very small micro races that reflect their unique cultural and ethnic values?
1 Like
That wasn’t a great example to use: ethnic heritage in Canada for a number of groups is often highly researched and proudly claimed, and there are distinct genetic markers in each group.
The US Supreme Court also said money is free speech and corporations are people. Your counter definition is rejected.
The discrimination was on race lines. The employer rejected an applicant due to their genetic heritage.
Not at all germane. there is no relevance to the discussion at hand. try again please.
When a person holds a prejudice against a socially, ethnically, or biologically distinct group based on a stereotype of that group, it is no longer relevant if you or I consider that group a race or not. For all intents and purposes, the person holding such prejudices is treating those people as a race. They are viewing an entire class of people as distinctly different from their own group. They are viewing them as the other. When they cause harm to those people because of the simple fact of their heritage and not because of their religion, creed, opinions, or point of view the end effect is not bigotry or simple prejudice. No, the word that best describes that situation is racism.
Canada is a country of varied races or ethnicities. Because members of different ethnicities share a country has nothing to do with anything. If you are trying to say that the employer rejected this person because of their country of origin, you miss the entire point. The employer thinks Irish people are pre-disposed to alcoholism. Obviously they don’t think that it is because of the fact that they live in a particular country. They think that because they see Irish as a group of people who inherit the trait of alcoholism. They are viewing them as a race. So, whether or not the Irish people are in fact a race is immaterial. The racist employer is treating them as a race… and that, you thick headed fool, is racism.
One thing, off the subject, I think you should know. Being argumentative is a tactic. It is not an argument. You would do well to form an argument before entering in to one.
1 Like
I am a Canadian of mixed ethnic and racial heritage, so it was a less haphazard example than you think. I identify more as Canadianwhatever that may mean—than any of the ethnicities or races I may (or may not, depending on how race and ethnicity are defined) be a member of.
1 Like
The US Supreme Court has also said that there is a constitutional right to interracial marriage. I guess they must have been wrong about that, too
Unesco has rejected the use of race, remember? Their rejection was, at worst, along ethnic lines, and possibly along pure citizenship lines (it is possible to be an Irish citizen while being genetically Chinese, for example).
Is the caste system racism? Is the class system racist? Was the Greek slave system racist? Indentured servitude? Is disdain for white trash racist?
It really a country with mixed and combined races and ethnicities, and so this sharing of the country has a lot to do with things.
I don’t know that’s obvious. Korean drinking habits are a lot different inside Korea than outside Korea. On the other hand, I would personally stereotype Australians of all ethnicities and races as being hard drinkers. Those living in Mexican and Caribbean resort cities would likely hold the same stereotype of all Canadians, regardless of ethnicity or race. I would similarly interpret Irish stereotypes as them having a strong drinking culture (just as Korea or Australia does), which I don’t think is a racial stereotype. On the other hand, a true racial stereotype about drinking (at least in Canada) is that natives are alcoholics.
One doesn’t have to have a fully-developed position in order to recognize the flaws in other positions; I also don’t have to have a fully-formed opinion about exactly why this doesn’t seem like racism in order to disagree with your flat assertion that it is. And as arguing tactics go, insulting people (which you’ve done since your first reply to me) isn’t as compelling as you think.
The US Supreame Court is a legal body. They have exactly zero expertise in social anthropology but you know that. You simply can’t find anyone of worth who agrees with your position.
Your UNESCO point has no point. It’s just being obtuse. You are attempting to argue the exception as the rule which tells me you are running out of reasons to support your argumentative stance.
A position does not have to be flawless to be essentially correct. All you are saying is that my presentation is lacking. You in no way have addressed my actual thesis as you have none of you own to offer. That leaves you floundering about as you have been. It’s really quite sad. I’ll just go on and ignore you now since it is clear that you only care about continuing an argument and have no point of view of your own to speak of. After all, I’ve seen your type my entire life. Now that I can see you for what you really are (and don’t worry, I won’t tell) I can take my usual route of not associating or conversing with people like you lest I find myself casting pearls before swine. After all, how can a pig see the value?
1 Like
My position? What position is that exactly, and where did I articulate it (other than saying the SCOTUS position seemed reasonable)? Heck, the wikipedia article you yourself posted and suggested I read detailed substantial disagreement about what race is and how it should be defined. The apparent lack of expert consensus on race reflects my own.
Your thesis started out as that the Irish are a race because they were historically discriminated against and seen as inferior by other Europeans, then shifted to that they were a race because of their shared ancestry/ethnicity, then that they are a race because they were considered to be a distinctly identifiable and cohesive group by the Korean who was discriminating against them.
Do I agree that discriminating on ethnicity or culture is the same as racism? No.
Does this mean I have a clear thesis about what exactly racism is? No. But thinking about why I disagree with you actually does help clarify what racism means to me. And I think that at its core, racism is about believing that a readily identifiable and distinguishable group of people has innate characteristics. Saying that blacks are innately less intelligent than whites would be the typical example of this. I think that associating innate characteristics with facially distinguishable groups is very different than stereotyping non-innate cultural behaviors with those groups, and even less pernicious than associating cultural traits with groups that can’t be facially distinguished from other groups. But I also think it’s also a sliding scale, with factors like the corrosiveness of the stereotype and the strength of ethnic or racial identification or differentiation.
Thank you for not telling anyone, and thanks especially for the clarification; I’m not sure I would have grasped that obscure metaphor without your help.
Black people are much less of a race than Irish people are. At least Irish people can claim some kind of common ethnic, cultural and geographical origin. There is often very little in common between people from Sudan, PNG, Brazil and Louisiana (or even between two people from Sudan), even if a racist person thinks there is. At the end of the day, racism has very little to do with any characteristics of the group being discriminated against, and much more to do with the racist person’s stereotype of them. A Sikh or Christian can suffer from Islamaphobia based on their clothing or other elements of their appearance and a Canadian could suffer anti-American hatred because someone can’t tell their accents apart. Generally, there’s no necessity for people to be a different colour to face racism when there are many other factors that will make people (mis)identify you as part of a group (even when it isn’t actually a group). White Irish people will face this less if there’s generally a good impression of white people, but your accent or passport could easily be a disadvantage to you if there was prejudice against Irish people. I left Ireland when I was 13 and spent my high school years being ridiculed for my accent and the stereotype that Irish people were a bit thick. I knew older people who remembered the “no Irish/blacks/dogs” signs and the difficulty that some people had in finding a job. It’s not as bad as the kind of thing people with darker skin have to put up with, but it’s the same idea.
In my experience teaching in China, there was a definite rank of nationalities - Americans, Canadians and British passports were generally pretty safe, an Irish passport wasn’t quite as good, South African was worse and Filipinos were screwed. However, even having an American passport wouldn’t help you that much in many schools if you weren’t white. I used my British passport when applying for a job as I didn’t want my passport to be a barrier at all. If I’m travelling in some countries, I’ll use my Irish passport. I’m the same person, but the group I’m in matters to some people and I don’t want to be associated with some British foreign policy decisions.
7 Likes
