Because I believe racism to be related to power, not just attitude or action. Power to create an environment where some lives are valued over others..power to pass laws that value some lives over others..power to deny housing, education, protection, to some while giving it to others..power to create the myth of race in the first place in order to ensure that you and only you can have and keep land in a country stolen from some and built up by others.Why do you not consider it racism if a black person is hostile toward you? There have been posts from a black poster admitting he felt blacks to be superior to whites.I have read many posts about what people are calling Black racism. I found this definition of racism: “a belief that race is the primary determinate of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.”
I realize that pointing out the existence of racism and the need to discuss it stirs up sensitivities on both sides. I also realize the need to admit that the white race in this country has historically seen itself as superior to other races, particularly the black race. If you watch the documentary, “Race, the Power of an Illusion,” you will learn that our “founding fathers” intentionally created the myth of white superiority to gain and keep control of property and lands.
While I as a white person have experienced the ugliness of being hated and mistreated for who I am, I do not consider that experiencing racism. When a black person is hostile towards me, I do not view it as racism against me. I do not like it. I do not run from it. I deal with it as best I can. But I do not consider it racism.
I do consider this. African Americans who are descendants of slaves, cross paths with descendants of slave owners every day. Descendants of the people who bought and sold their ancestors. Descendants of the people who raped, whipped and murdered their ancestors. Descendants of the very ones who owned their ancestors, and treated them like animals, considering them 3/5 human. And now these descendants are their teachers, their employers, their merchants, their neighbors and their co-workers.
And many still carry ingrained attitudes of superiority with them, consciously or unconsciously. And these attitudes are conveyed in many subtle, unspoken terms.
I believe that the biggest difficulty in race relations lies in the inability of white people to listen to black people. I mean really listen. Without criticizing. Without defending. Without interfering. Without interjecting our values, our opinions, and our view point. I believe that most of us white people still see life from the view of the oppressor. And from that standpoint, we will never fully understand the views, actions and reactions of the oppressed.
Nothing in the definition of the word, supports your view.
What you did there was give reasons to justify and excuse black racism, not explain why it can't exist.