For undergrad, I attended an HBCU, and before that, mine was the first high school in our district to implement an African American History course.
Personally, I’ve known about such horrific events for a long time, because I actively sought out the knowledge.
It’s no coincidence that historic atrocities against Black folks and other POC are routinely glossed over, swept under the rug, or omitted from "official’ history all together - the ugly, bloody reality of our country’s origins don’t even remotely match up to the idealistic, sugar-coated facade we’ve been spoon-fed since time out of mind.
It is simply not possible to build a “land of the free” on the backs of slaves.
The difference between “black people can’t be racist” and “all lives matter” is that the former gets at the heart of what racism is, while the latter completely misses the point. The reason why people misunderstand racism as a personal belief thing – or say things like ‘all lives matter’ – is because they don’t understand that there is no racism except systemic racism.
And while I’d concede that you may or may not want to lead with the bald statement that “black people cannot be racist,” especially if you’re talking to someone and trying to work around a tricky case of white fragility or whatever. But it is still an incredibly important corollary that they should take away from any discussion of systemic racism.
I don’t think clarification is necessary. When someone says “black people can’t be racist” it’s always pretty clear from the context that they are referring to American racism. (Or to another system with a similar feature.) At least it’s clear to anyone listening in good faith.
And just to be clear myself, I don’t think anyone’s saying that the dictionary entry should contain that sentence. Just that it should make more clear that there is a fundamental difference between ‘free-form’ individual bigotry vs. the bigotry and prejudice that serves – and is a symptom of – a racist system.
Request declined; partially for the lack of the magic word, but mainly because sometimes I get really tired of doing “all the heavy lifting.”
If you’re genuinely interested, my comment history in this particular thread and on the site in general on the subject of racism (both systemic and individual) is readily available.
Wypipo demanding that African-Americans solve racism is so 2020.
You spent 3/4 of a page vacillating between “racism is bad” and “but there is no such thing as race!” Please. Don’t piss on me and say it’s raining. Maybe you’re a time traveller from some time in the future where there is no racism. If so, I apologize. In the meanwhile, we have a lot of work to do and you’re wall-o-text does nothing to help.
The fact that we have multiple definitions of the word and that we keep on having this conversation over and over again, is in itself a clear indication that the terminology is not doing its job of conveying meaning.
Since there is ambiguity in the way this word is used, if we don’t want to go over this again and again (and I’m really quite tired of this now), then everyone’s life would be easier if we just used a little generosity in interpretation, and aimed for some clarity in our own speech. If someone is clearly meaning racism(definition1) and you tend to use racism(definition3), but it’s clear from context, there’s no need to start an argument about it. And if someone thinks you’re using racism(definition 3) but you’re actually meaning racism(definition 2b), then clarify and move on.
Because a little interpretation and benefit of the doubt can save a hell of a lot of stress and conflict with your fellow happy mutants.
There’s a big difference between acknowledging the beliefs of racists and the fact that those beliefs are false. The belief is racism. It’s a real belief, it just doesn’t have any basis in fact.
It’s like flat earthers - they exist and are very real, but what they believe in is false.
So racism is real, but races are not. They’re fake distinctions that fall apart when you look at the groups they pretend to define. Modern genetics drove the last nail into the whole theory of race.
The new Webster definition is just an expansion of the old one - it does not change it, it just adds some of the effects of racism to the basic definition.
And when I say we should work on treating other people as individuals first, instead of looking at their perceived racial category first, I’m saying that as long as the first thing you see is race, you are still in the grip of racist ideology.
Think about it for a minute - white privilege is other people treating white people better than everyone else. It’s different from white entitlement, which is people expecting to be treated better. If you stop paying so much attention to race, white privilege goes away, because you are treating people as individuals first, and seeing their racial category but not obsessing about it or making major assumptions based on it.
We need to find ways to move towards equality - which means jettisoning the belief that race is the most important thing about other people. Until we get to that point, we’ll continue to prop up the whole theory of race.
You’re under no obligation. I’m just a little startled that you think that we’re in any disagreement whatsoever. You said here, for example:
Which I agree with wholeheartedly. And which also seems to me at least very closely related to my statement that all racism is, on some level, systemic.
Possibly I’m using my words a little sloppily - systemic racism has a specific meaning. Maybe it would be better to have said that racism doesn’t exist without a system. Truly ‘personal’ racism isn’t a thing. Without a system, it’s just prejudice or bias, and lacks the power to do broader harm.
Agreed, though only for the looser definition of ‘minority’. Strictly speaking, [pedantry alert] racists don’t need to be a numerical majority. It’s perfectly possible for a numerical minority (e.g., white South Africans) to maintain a racist system of power over a numerical majority (black South Africans), and to keep that system going for a long, long time.[/pedantry alert].
Social constructs exist. When you say “there is no such thing”, you’re denying the lived experience of the people effected by those social constructs. In the case of the social construct known as race, doing so is in fact racism, however unintentional.
Language is a social construct.
Language exists.
Laws are social constructs.
Laws exist.
Money is a social construct.
Money exists.
Religion is a social construct.
Religion exists.
Social mores are social constructs.
Social mores exist.
Existence does not require genetic, epigenetic or other biological encoding.
Please refrain from litigating the ontology of any of the examples I gave; it would be off-topic and flagged as such. That’s a philosophical discussion I’ll be glad to have at another time and place, but my sole purpose for them here is to give examples of things that really effect people that are not biologically encoded.
I do want to address something else however. I believe that you, like those wishing to remove the word race (rasse) from the German constitution, are well-intentioned but misguided. It’s absolutely the case that we should promulgate recognition that race isn’t biologically innate. But when you argue with people that have suffered from racial inequality that there’s no such thing as race, you’re implicitly denying their lived experience by those careless words. And people are going to be righteously indignant when you do that, not only but especially when you do so in a discussion in which interlocutors have experienced racism first hand, especiallyespecially when there are biracial interlocutors who’ve repeatedly had that argument erase their lived experience of heritage and oppression.
I don’t believe you want to do that, which is why I’m taking the opportunity to ask you to not do that.
I don’t know that I will ever live to see that, because people are wired to notice differences from an early age. I’ve been stared at by babies in public places who seemed fascinated at seeing someone who didn’t look like the folks closest to them. How they’ll feel about those differences (and behave) depends on what they’re taught. While this discussion is about race, that can apply to many other physical characteristics.
@alahmnat posted a good one about what people see:
Yep, there are plenty of race riots we can point to to show how bad structural racism can get and how ordinary white citizens helped to created those racist structures with the people in power - those, the Atlanta Race Riot, to that coup in Wilmington NC, Red summer, Ax Handle Saturday, etc, etc… the list is depressingly long.
I remember SPLC talking about an uptick in recruitment among white supremacist gangs/organizations and them being excited by it. And then the election of trump was part of the reaction to Obama getting elected. But it’s also clear that the white supremacists aren’t as successful in getting what they want, which is an ethnically cleansed white ethno-state, or at least a re-introduction of Jim Crow era regulations that enshrined white supremacy as the national standard. Almost every single time one of those fuckers has come out to the recent protests, trying to cause trouble and turn it into a race war like they’ve been dreaming about, they get their asses handed to them. They are failing miserably in their aims of CW 2… Most Americans want these issues of structural racism addressed, they support the protesters, and they support at least some sort of change to policing nation-wide. Most Americans whatever their race, I think are really fucking sick of seeing black men shot for no reason. William Pierce and anyone else dreaming of a race war to reinstate the pre-civil rights order vastly overestimated the attachment to whiteness, or at the very least to white supremacy, among white Americans. Even people who are kind of racists and don’t believe in systemic racism or the concept of white privilege really do not want to go to war to take away other’s rights. One thing that pisses them off is that Obama was elected, twice, and that meant that many white Americans ALSO voted for him. They can’t stand that notion that they are living among so many race traitors…
But I digress.
Over all, I think the defintion MW came up with is a vast improvement, but I suspect that they will continue to tweak and overhaul it over time. Which is precisely what they should do. Language isn’t static, it changes with the times.
