Certainly! But use of the term like this conflates simple prejudice with systemic bias and makes folks able to entertain the idea that the “aren’t racist” because they have some black friends while saying that, I dunno, stop and frisk isn’t racist because it happens to white people sometimes, too. So it’s a normal and everyday use of the term that obfuscates its embedded nature in society’s structure and not just the minds of individuals.
So it’s not the best way to use the term.
It’s an understandable way, though. And the post accomplishes a lot of good and isn’t contradicted by an imprecise use of language.
If I honestly thought that using the term “racism” more narrowly would encourage more people to admit that they were biased, I’d support the language police in this thread. But I think the exact opposite is the case – if we say that only structural power-based imposition based on racial prejudice is racism, it’ll just encourage more people to say “Well, I can’t be racist then, so I’m fine!”
Check out Thomas Sugrue’s, where he walks the reader through what happened in the case of Detroit. It’s pretty clear these were not usually choices on the part of working class African Americans:
Descrimination, prejudice, and bigotry are expressions of power differentials. Racism is a system of oppression. The hypothetical you describe is a person using hateful speech created from racism. It is prejudice without power. Racial slurs and hate speech are the most easily recognizable expressions of overt racism, but overt racism is not the core problem, merely a symptom of a deeper culture of apartheid that silently permeates all aspects of our society.
It’s kind of the opposite, though. If racism is just in your head, cognitive biases come into play and reaffirm that of course you, yourself, are not racist, and so, of course, because you don’t hate black people, everything you do is fine. That’s a mentality that actually exists for a LOT of folks. The Supreme Court’s decision to stop enforcing anti-voting measures in the south was based on this perspective.
Meanwhile, if you accept that racism is embedded in the society in which you live, we all have to admit that it doesn’t matter if none of us, personally, hate black people or not – you can do a lot of harm simply by living your life, because the system is set up to be a problem. It makes it much clearer that you can’t give yourself a gold star for inclusiveness and call the job done just because you’re not in the KKK. You have to actively uncover the ways in which your behavior contributes to the problem, even if it’s not obvious.
The latter is an important perspective. Trying to remove your own prejudices is a start, but it’s only a start. Removing the systems that reinforce, perpetuate, and create suffering (and support those prejudices!) is necessary.
Woop. Woop.Language police. Please put your hands where I can see them.
If we understand that racism is a system it will allow all of us to see that we are trapped in a racist culture. It actually empowers all of us to confront our internalized racist programming. Using the word racist to define only overt acts of hate lets everyone else off the hook and keeps the system of opression in place.
But on the other hand, people will conclude that they can’t personally do anything about it, and hence will ignore the problem. I mean, look at how few people in the US vote.
You are trying to make the case that if people describe not wanting to live next to people who don’t look like them as ‘racist’ that will somehow make them more likely to continue to promote racists systems. The entire point of the blog post was that ways of thinking that a lot of people find understandable and acceptable create a racist structure. The point was to enlighten people to their participation in the structure via their own biases, and to show us that the only solution to segregation is for us to actively seek inclusion.
I feel like that is exactly the kind of message that you are saying we need to deliver, but we are here discussing whether an everyday use of a word that 100% of people understand and 99.9% of people think is appropriate is very problematic. You are talking about words, not about power structures which may have existed before we even had words.
That’s exactly what I said. Even if we choose to use the word ‘racism’ in a way that excludes the prejudices of individuals, prejudices based on race, racial slurs, and so on, are the manifestations of the system of racism as rain drops are manifestations of a weather system of rain. But we don’t have to stop calling rain drops ‘rain drops’ because individually, at the moment of impact, they are merely isolated instances of water striking a surface.
But no one here suggested that we should use the word ‘racism’ to refer only to overt acts, only that it makes sense to use it to refer to overt acts.
Are you telling @mathew and myself that we don’t know we are in a racist culture because we use the word ‘racism’ wrong? Black men in America are serving target dummies for bored police officers and we have a justice system that can’t deal with that, even with clear video evidence, but we need to be careful about how we use words to notice that society is racist?
If we casually use the term ‘racist’ and ‘racism’ interchangably when discussing prejudicial difference and preference bias then yes there is a problem. It is a way to maintain status quo power structures by eliminating the nuance of language.
Here are the facts from my perspective, I think that not wanting to live next to someone, work with them, go to school with them, etc., because of their skin colour is racist (not ‘slightly’ racist). I am simultaneously aware we live in a culture that has racism baked deeply into it and that it will take a lot more than individuals overcoming overtly racist acts and thoughts to fix. I can’t see any way that the way I am using the word ‘racist’ is hindering me in noticing that, nor how choosing not to use ‘racist’ to refer to not wanting to work with a black person would help me notice that.
The racist structures in place, and people’s ability to notice them, precede the language we use to discuss them. If it is necessary in certain discussions to define specific terms in specific ways in order to distinguish between different concepts then people engaging in those discussions should agree on their jargon. If the only way that racism can be tackled, however is if everyone agrees that not wanting to put your kid in a daycare with a black kid isn’t racist, then I’m afraid racism is here to stay, because that is never going to happen.
If you can identify a single time in the history of the English language where people explaining the ‘proper’ definition of a word has actually changed how other English speakers use that word, then maybe your cause of which word we use when we point out that people are discriminating against other people based on their race has some hope.
Racism is much bigger than just skin tone! Getting to define others as ‘black’ is racism. Wether or not to hate that category is the bigotry. The hate is not racist, the classification of others for arbitrary physical reasons is.
Ok. BB is telling me I am monopolizing this conversation…I will shut up now. Peace.
Yes it is. I’m not sure why you feel that it is necessary to exclude hatred from that. A dog is a thing with a head and with a tail.
Have you fact checked this with the experiences of people who have been denied jobs and places to live, who have been brutalized by racists? Go find someone who has been beaten up for the colour of their skin and explain to them that was not an instance of racism. That might be an enlightening conversation.
I’m honestly not sure if that is what you are saying, maybe this whole conversation is based on a misunderstanding, but if you aren’t then I don’t know what you are saying.
Honestly, I think that if you want to support existing power structures, you can’t do much better than paralyzing a discussion of how individual preferences combine to create unintended segregation with talk about the definition of a word.
I read this as you saying you are the language police.
I actually agree with this, I just don’t think anybody else here is using the word racism as to apply to only overt acts of hate.
In truth, before this, I’ve understood you to say that it only applies to systemic problems that are not affected by individual’s behavior.
[quote=“anon50609448, post:51, topic:47809”]
You are trying to make the case that if people describe not wanting to live next to people who don’t look like them as ‘racist’ that will somehow make them more likely to continue to promote racists systems. [/QUOTE]
Nah. I’m just trying to make the case that saying “I’m not racist because I think black people are just the same as white people” is only Step 1. There’s a whole context for this thing that still needs to be dismantled.
Notably, I’m not saying anything about the main point of the blog post. Like I said above, quibbling over the use of the word “racism” in the title distracts from the good the post does. Ultimately, this awesome little “playable post” isn’t about systems, it’s about attitudes (and a bit maybe about how attitudes might play out within a system that is “fair”). Attitudes are Step 1. They’re prerequisite and foundational. They’re just not the entirety of “racism.”
The blog post doesn’t talk much about structure – the shapes have personal preferences. The structure is inherently equitable – shapes can go anywhere they want. This is fine for a simplification and for the point of the blog post, necessary even, but “racism” is bigger than personal preferences.
There is a distinction to be made here that you’re kind of smashing together.
Before we even had words, we had biases, like these little shapes do. Those are primordial and evolutionary and even understandable. We are never going to have a society without personal bias. Even the most progressive and aware SJW in the world has personal biases. If we’re lucky, they’re at least aware of them.
But in order to have racism, we needed to have words. We also needed to have trade, war, the concept of nations, Darwin, the Bible, and on and on. There needed to be systems we could use. Racism is an artificial construct of culture, not an inherent part of humanity.
That’s why the distinction is pretty important. Bias and prejudice like these shapes display are a part of racism (a foundational part!), but they’re not the whole thing. So saying that this is about “racism” is…imprecise. It’s not. It’s more about things like prejudice. Which isn’t to take away from it. It’s just to point out that the language could be better in an ideal world where everyone always used loaded terms in precise ways.
Imprecision isn’t a big deal. What is kind of a bigger deal is ignoring the fact that racism is a lot more than how one person feels about other people. Which is what calling all of this “racism” kind of does. A little bit. Like a lot of other things. Not the end of the world.
Its probably a good idea to accept that, as in every other facet of life, words have multiple meanings and while it is worth splitting hairs on what is meant on a technical level you can also understand how its used in normal language.
I think you’ll find that you’re making an argument for a narrow definition of the term by eliminating common usage in order to prove a point, when what you actually want is to broaden people’s understanding of the term to include institutionalized racism and how it creates white privilege.
I’ve seen this a lot across the internet in connection with the word “racism”.
Some people insist on using the less common “Academic” version of the word, that both restricts and massively expands the scope of what can be called racism beyond the definition in everyday use
Incidentally, linguists might point out here that the use of the word that is in common use is the real definition of the word, because English is a language which defines itself by usage. We have no version of the Académie française to act as arbiters of “correct” usage, no matter how much some people may wish to take on the role (or should that be rolé). Thus, in English, decimate means to do massive damage, literally means “figuratively”, Liberal means “anything to the left of Joe Lieberman” and privilege means "I’m about to misquote some half-remembered Derrida and Foucault to make a self-serving political point. "
This insistence has turned the word into a piece of ideological language, that tries to do an end-run around the arguments about racism by making one set of conclusions definitionally true. It’s similar to the other sneaky little ideological short cuts that you see on the other parts of the political spectrum Taxes = theft, Abortion = murder, regulations = burden and so on.
Perhaps I’m being cynical, but I think that the reason that we see such vehement insistence on the definitions is that in all these cases, the arguments that lead to these conclusions are thin, to the extent of non-existence. In particular, in the case of the word “racism”, I see the defenders of the academic definition prepared to sacrifice every enlightenment principle of universalistic ethics, non-discrimination and equality of all people in favour of post-modern prevarication, woolly consequentialism and ad-hominem as a primary method of argument.
[quote=“tachin1, post:59, topic:47809”]
Its probably a good idea to accept that, as in every other facet of life, words have multiple meanings and while it is worth splitting hairs on what is meant on a technical level you can also understand how its used in normal language.[/QUOTE]
I don’t understand how my position of “not the most precise use of the term, but don’t let that distract from the good the post is doing” doesn’t demonstrate that acceptance?
Not eliminating the “common usage,” just pointing out that the “common usage” has problems (though not problems so large that they should distract from the point of the post).
