So What's Wrong With Racism?

[William Joyce]

Hillary is a racist, Biden is a racist, RP is a racist... so they say these days. But what exactly is the factual or moral problem here? What is it that "racists" think, say or do that is not based on facts or morality?

 

[eots]

Hillary is a racist, Biden is a racist, RP is a racist... so they say these days. But what exactly is the factual or moral problem here? What is it that "racists" think, say or do that is not based on facts or morality?

it is to vague of a term, there are many degrees and forms of racism or prejudice some are clearly wrong and illegal, others are illogical and fear based, some are in generalized terms valid while others are no more than cultural pride and preservation

 

[Toro]

Racism was used to violently suppress the rights of individuals under the belief that those of a different race are inherently inferior. It is still a sensitive topic today because

a.) there are still people who believe it
b.) systematic racism exists, manifesting in all sorts of areas such as prison sentences to loan applications
c.) the institutional memory is still vivid, given that just 40 years ago, people could get away with horrific crimes. The state of Mississippi had a secret police of sorts that spied on blacks and wasn't abolished until 1975.

There is benign racism and malicious racism. Benign racism is racism that is not intended to be malicious, such as Reggie White saying Asians are inherently intuitive because they can turn a television into a watch. Malicious racism is when people believe that they are superior to others because of race. Malicious racists are brain-dead redneck morons.

 

[eots]

Racism was used to violently suppress the rights of individuals under the belief that those of a different race are inherently inferior. It is still a sensitive topic today because

a.) there are still people who believe it
b.) systematic racism exists, manifesting in all sorts of areas such as prison sentences to loan applications
c.) the institutional memory is still vivid, given that just 40 years ago, people could get away with horrific crimes. The state of Mississippi had a secret police of sorts that spied on blacks and wasn't abolished until 1975.

There is benign racism and malicious racism. Benign racism is racism that is not intended to be malicious, such as Reggie White saying Asians are inherently intuitive because they can turn a television into a watch. Malicious racism is when people believe that they are superior to others because of race. Malicious racists are brain-dead redneck morons.

all true but we need to also recognize there can also be the brain dead sophisticated and refined or yellow necks ,black necks ,wetbacks etc etc. lets not put it all on trucker hat wearing pick -up truck drivers ..how about malicious racists are brain-dead

 

[jillian]

Hillary is a racist, Biden is a racist, RP is a racist... so they say these days. But what exactly is the factual or moral problem here? What is it that "racists" think, say or do that is not based on facts or morality?

Racism is drawing negative inferences about people solely based on the color of their skin and using power to discriminate against people against whom those negative inferences are drawn.

Neither Hillary nor Biden is racist. Paul just hangs out with them and has no issues addressing them and taking their money.

If you don't have the moral center to understand why racism is wrong, I'd suggest that's a far larger question that would require a more complex answer than could be gotten on a messageboard.

 

[Gunny]

Hillary is a racist, Biden is a racist, RP is a racist... so they say these days. But what exactly is the factual or moral problem here? What is it that "racists" think, say or do that is not based on facts or morality?

To do a little thieving of another man's words ... it judges people by the color of their skin and not the content of their character.

Which is stupid.

 

[midcan5]

Hillary is a racist, Biden is a racist, RP is a racist... so they say these days. But what exactly is the factual or moral problem here? What is it that "racists" think, say or do that is not based on facts or morality?

And the proof of this statement is?

 

[Paulie]

Paul just hangs out with them

A lie. And at best, a completely unsubstantiated claim.

and has no issues addressing them and taking their money.

He addressed it. You're just not satisfied, while many other non-racists are.

 

[Angel Heart]

It's judging someone one by something they have no choice over. I had no choice that I was born what color or sex I was born. However, I do judge on how they carry themselves. If someone dresses like a gang banger, I'll treat them as a gang banger. If they act like an upstanding member of society, I'll treat them as such. Doesn't matter they color of their skin. I've seen good and bad in all colors. It isn't something reserved for one race over another.

 

[Shogun]

I don't see a Constitutional imperative for government to address the personal opinions of it's citizens as long as equal application of liberty, as guarenteed by the Constitution, is maintained.

the gorvernment has jurisdiction in public schools and colleges not private business. There will never be a white president of the NAACP. Why is this not racism since a white orgainizations doing the same thing for the exact same reasons is? Equal application of Constitutional liberty should replace quotas.

 

[William Joyce]

Racism is drawing negative inferences about people solely based on the color of their skin

But science pretty clearly refutes the notion, popular with conservatives, that "race is just a skin color." In fact, race goes all the way to the DNA. Skin color is but one of infinite expessions of this DNA, including behavior and intelligence. It's a living, breathing, biological phenomenon. Aren't we foolish to ignore all this in making our grand plans for utopia?

 

[Doug]

The exact influence of DNA on intelligence and other aspects of behavior is not yet known in much detail. It almost certainly has some influence, though.

The racist view is that this influence is so great, and the differences among the races therefore are so great, that race should be the central organizing principle around which we view the world.

To the racist, all -- or most -- major social phenomena can be explained via the differences in the races.

Now there are certainly differences among the races, if we are talking about behaviors we can attribute to aggregates of people. Whether these differences are simply the unavoidable expression of innate drives, not subject to serious modification by social institutions, is a different question.

The Indians of Guatamala are a fairly inert bunch today. You don't look to them for advances in astronomy or architecture or mathematics. But these people bear the genes of the Maya, who were pioneers in all of these fields.

The Danes today are the nicest people in the world. Their genes were borne by the Vikings.

Something happened to both of these peoples, to alter whatever genetically-based drives they have.

It's not that race -- DNA -- plays no role in understanding behavior. It is just not the all-important one which dominates everything else.

Racists make the same conceptual error as extreme feminists. I don't know if any of the latter are around today, but when I was young(er), these ladies were quite vocal: they saw all of human history, and everything in present-day society, through the lens of our sex (or "gender" as we are suposed to call it now). The whole of human history was the history of female enslavement to the Patriarchy. All of present-day society was a male conspiracy to make women childlike, emotional, and dependent on men. Even language embedded male-supremacist assumptions. Science itself was a male-warped enterprise. And so on.

Now, the thing is ... the extreme feminists weren't entirely wrong! (For a sobering experience, read Susan Brownmiller's[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Against-Our-Will-Women-Rape/dp/0449908208/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1200675078&sr=8-1] Against Our Will[/ame]. She is not the most extreme of feminists, but she definitely sees the world through a feminist lens. And much of what she documents is true. Incidentally, anti-Black racists will appreciate how a strictly feminist approach can bring otherwise leftist people into congruence with their own outlook, when they read her attack on[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Till] Emmet Till[/ame], the young Black man murdered in Mississippi in 1955 for wolf-whistling at a white woman.)

No, the feminists were not entirely wrong. Just like the racists today -- Black and white -- are not entirely wrong when they call attention to the crimes and failings of the race they don't like.

But they are far from being entirely right, either. They see the world through a particular lens, and ignore all the multiplicity of other factors that must be taken into account if we are to understand how human society works, and how it may be made more congenial for us.

I used to see the world this way, although my special monocular vision was refracted through the lens of economic class and the class struggle. It is comforting. Like a good classification scheme, it helps you arrange your knowledge. It tells you where to look for information to support your viewpoint.

And seeing the world this way is very economical. You are acutely attuned to all evidence that supports your view. You filter out, explain away, push aside, or twist to your own purposes all evidence that does not. You don't have to do nearly as much mental work as someone whose understanding of the world is trying integrate many factors, instead of just one.

But it leads to wrong results. The extreme feminists wanted, in effect, women to withdraw from male-dominated society. The racists want to separate the races. The Marxists want to eliminate social class by making us all employees. None of these visions is practical.

We are all stuck with each other, and we'll only escape when we pass on to the next world.

 

[AllieBaba]

Racism is also giving preferential treatment to people based solely upon the color of their skin.

Hey, that means Hillary IS a racist....

 

[William Joyce]

It's judging someone one by something they have no choice over. I had no choice that I was born what color or sex I was born.

And yet we base public policy on just these generalities.

 

[William Joyce]

seeing the world this way is very economical. You are acutely attuned to all evidence that supports your view. You filter out, explain away, push aside, or twist to your own purposes all evidence that does not. You don't have to do nearly as much mental work as someone whose understanding of the world is trying integrate many factors, instead of just one.

But it leads to wrong results. The extreme feminists wanted, in effect, women to withdraw from male-dominated society. The racists want to separate the races. The Marxists want to eliminate social class by making us all employees. None of these visions is practical.

We are all stuck with each other, and we'll only escape when we pass on to the next world.

I would say that it's the egalitarian or equalitarian viewpoint that requires filtering, explaining, pushing and twisting. The racialist viewpoint is economical in the sense that it... works.

And it can be a lens, but not an entirely bad one in a world that absolutely refuses to acknowledge any racial differences. The bigger damage is done by this phenomenon.

You say that it is impractical to separate races. But the fact of the matter is that races separate themselves quite naturally. It's forcing them together that takes so much energy. We aren't "all stuck with each other" in the slightest. The "sticking together" is a government-mandated policy, enforced by those who like the arrangement where whites provide the nice standard of living and black lounge around in its bounty.

 

[Angel Heart]

And yet we base public policy on just these generalities.

It's not something I want. I don't support affirmative action or any other thing that puts people above other people based on things they had no control over.

 

[William Joyce]

It's not something I want. I don't support affirmative action or any other thing that puts people above other people based on things they had no control over.

OK, how about a gifted and talented program? That's a benefit that only those with the demostrated smarts get. How about playing for the NBA? I don't, and it's because I have no control over my height. Or, should I be kept out of women's bathrooms? I'm excluded from those places, but I can't help that I was born a man.

 

[mattskramer]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racist

Racism has many definitions, the most prevalent today being the belief that human beings are divided into more than one race, with members of some races believing they are superior or inferior to members of other races.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines racism in the following manner:
The theory that distinctive human characteristics and abilities are determined by race.

By its strict definition, "superiority" or "inferiority" are not implied. However, in contemporary usage, the word has come to imply them, or readers or listeners may infer those aspects, which now makes the word almost synonymous with bigotry or prejudice. Like many other socio-political terms, it is not unusual for this word to have evolved or expanded from its original dictionary definition.

That is why “Racism” is just a difficult term to nail down. In my opinion, it is not bad to bring up facts about how races are different but it is bad to keep on and on drawing distinctions at practically every possibility. It seems to me as though those people who keep on and on drawing distinctions and displaying how one’s race is better, has insecurities in himself. Those that seem to keep on finding bad things in other races and fail to find good things in other races (or see good things in his race without recognizing bad things in his race) has personal issues. Yes. Races are different. There might even bee some genetically based differences, but we still, for the most part and according to most people, seem to get along. I wish that more people spend more time finding the good in everyone and in every group instead of spending so much time picking sides and trying to crush the other side into the ground.

Why does it seem to be such a part of human nature to find differences in groups, pick a group, rant and rave about what is great about your group, rant and rave about what is bad in the other group, refuse to recognize the bad in your group, and refuse to recognize the good in other groups. Wouldn’t we have a greater America if we did a little bit more of the opposite – discover bad things within your own group and work on improving it yourself, and find good things to say about other groups and cheer them on in the process of life.

 

[LOki]

Excerpts from "Racism" by Ayn Rand

Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism. It is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man's genetic lineage -- the notion that a man's intellectual and characterological traits are produced and transmitted by his internal body chemistry. Which means, in practice, that a man is to be judged, not by his own character and actions, but by the characters and actions of a collective of ancestors.

Racism claims that the content of a man's mind (not his cognitive apparatus, but its content) is inherited; that a man's convictions, values and character are determined before he is born, by physical forces beyond his control. This is the caveman's version of the doctrine of innate ideas -- or of inherited knowledge -- which has been thoroughly refuted by philosophy and science. Racism is a doctrine of, by and for brutes. It is a barnyard or stock-farm version of collectivism, appropriate to a mentality that differentiates between various breeds of anmials, but not between animals and men.

Like every other form of collectivism, racism is a quest for the unearned. It is a quest for automatic knowlege -- for an automatic evaluation of men's characters that bypasses the responsibility of exercising rational or moral judgment -- and, above all, a quest for an automatic self-esteem (or pseudo-self-esteem).

To ascribe one's virtues to one's racial origin, is to confess that one has no knowledge of the process by which virtues are acquired and, most often, that one has failed to acquire them. The overwhelming majority of racists are men who have earned no sense of personal identity, who can claim no individual achievement or distinction, and who seek the illusion of a "tribal self-esteem" by alleging the inferiority of some other tribe. Observe the hysterical intensity of the Southern racists; observe also that racism is much more prevalent among the poor white trash than among their intellectual betters.

Historically, racism has always risen or fallen with the rise or fall of collectivism. Collectivism holds that the individual has no rights, that his life and work belong to the group (to "society," to the tribe, the state, the nation) and that the group may sacrifice him at its own whim to its own interests. The only way to implement a doctrine of that kind is by means of brute force -- and statism has always been the poltical corollary of collectivism.

When men began to be indoctrinated once more with the notion that the individual possesses no rights, that supremacy, moral authority and unlimited power belong to the group, and that a man has no significance outside his group -- the inevitable consequence was that men began to gravitate toward some group or another, in self-protection, in bewilderment and in subconscious terror. The simplest collective to join, the easiest one to identify -- particularly for people of limited intelligence -- the least demanding form of "belonging" and of "togetherness" is: race.

 

[jillian]

This was my favorite part:

Racism is a doctrine of, by and for brutes. It is a barnyard or stock-farm version of collectivism, appropriate to a mentality that differentiates between various breeds of anmials, but not between animals and men.

Very fitting.