Just what is racism?

MikeK

Gold Member
Jun 11, 2010
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Brick, New Jersey
Like love and hate, the word racism has become one of the most over-used, misused and misunderstood words in the contemporary American language. I recently heard a radio talk show caller, apparently a young Black girl, say her family has a dog because her father is "racist against cats!" So it occurs to me that some (most?) people who use this word are expressing something the meaning of which is tainted by their own perceptions and/or misperceptions.

So I'm requesting that participants in this forum submit their personal understanding of what the word racism means. And it's important to understand that consulting a dictionary will defeat the purpose of the survey.

Thank you.
 
To me, "racism" is an extreme form of "prejudice". It is the belief that a person's character will turn out to have certain traits based upon their apparent racial identity. It is also the willingness to attribute apparent bad traits or bad behavior to their apparent racial identity, rather than to the factors we know to shape human personality: genetics overshadowed by environment. Where the perceived traits are predominately negative and the subject of the beliefs is predominately disadvantaged, the use of racist ideas to justify injustice or unequal treatment is most disturbing, but the failure to recognize that environment disables some folks -- and that environment includes encountering people with devaluing racist beliefs -- is almost as bad.
 
Racism is the belief that a persons racial characteristics are the predominantly controlling force of their lives.
 
A term you can safely ignore.

If "racism" were to have apolitical and widespread utility, Hispanic hatred of whites would be called "racism", Jewish oppression of Arabs would be called "racism", and so on.

But it's not.

"Racism" basically means white people noticing that they're a bit better at certain things than other racial groups.

Never mind that this happens to be true.

So maybe a nice definition would be, "a white person taking notice of the general ability of whites to maintain functioning civil societies in contrast to the inability of blacks or Hispanics to do the same."

Again, never mind that it's TRUE!

So...

"Racism": a scare-all term meant to bully whites into giving up their achievements and heritage without a fight.

So far, it's working.
 
Like love and hate, the word racism has become one of the most over-used, misused and misunderstood words in the contemporary American language. I recently heard a radio talk show caller, apparently a young Black girl, say her family has a dog because her father is "racist against cats!" So it occurs to me that some (most?) people who use this word are expressing something the meaning of which is tainted by their own perceptions and/or misperceptions.

So I'm requesting that participants in this forum submit their personal understanding of what the word racism means. And it's important to understand that consulting a dictionary will defeat the purpose of the survey.

Thank you.

Basically if you're white you are a racist. Repent.

If you're black or jewish you are a victim. white people must work harder to compensate you for your suffering.

If you're arab you're a terrorist. no advise for you - you're dead meat anyway.
 
Racism = using any kind of power to negatively effect someone's life based upon arbitrary standards. Or it's institutional actions that deprive someone of their rights because of arbitrary standards.

Bigotry = not like someone or hating them based upon arbitrary standards.
 

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