We need to have an honest discussion about race in America

[Curious George]

*The idea that all white people are racist, and those who deny their racism are in denial
*The idea that black people cannot be racist because they lack power (as if black people don’t have power)
*The idea that we should not strive to live in a color blind society
From what I’ve seen; these are some of the ideas many activists will proclaim, and they often will not tolerate an opposing point of view.

Do you have a firm grasp on why some people believe these things? Could you explain?

 

[Kfox]

Do you have a firm grasp on why some people believe these things? Could you explain?

The idea that all white people are racist, and we should not strive for a color blind society is from the book “white fragility” where Robin DeAngelo makes those claims; this book (along with 1619 project, & how to be an antiracist) have become the face of CRT resulting in the outrage many have for the theory. The idea has been around before the book was written, but the book just put the idea on the forefront of discussion.
I believe it was film director Spike Lee who popularized the idea that black people cannot be racist because he claimed racism requires power, and we don’t have enough power to be racist. Again; he just made the idea mainstream, the idea was around before he popularized it.

 

[Kfox]

That's not a PC issue. Do try to stay on subject.

Sorry getting you mixed up with someone else.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

What/who are you referring to with "PC SJW crowd"

The Politically Correct/Social Justice Warriors.

 

[oldbadger]

A discussion where both sides get to discuss their views, and even if there is no agreement, there is at least respect for the other person’s views.

Sides?
What sides?
What side are you on?

 

[oldbadger]

I was actually hoping to run into the type of people described in the OP, and see if they disagree with me. Perhaps none of those type are here

But you said that 100% of people are as described in your OP.
What exactly do you want to tell us?

 

[Kenny]

It's both.

And that is why people have "racial" problems... I don't because I only see color.

So... If you see black, what do you call people who have more melanin that others?

Personally I prefer Martin Luther King's approach where he saw the day where people would judge "not by the color of your skin but by the content of your character".

Two things I noted:

1. He didn't say what race
2. He called it by "the color of your skin"

 

[Kfox]

Sides?
What sides?
What side are you on?

When you have 2 or more people on different sides of an issue discussing

But you said that 100% of people are as described in your OP.
What exactly do you want to tell us?

I said from my experience 100% of the people who say we need to have a discussion on race are described as in the OP.

 

[Curious George]

The idea that all white people are racist, and we should not strive for a color blind society is from the book “white fragility” where Robin DeAngelo makes those claims; this book (along with 1619 project, & how to be an antiracist) have become the face of CRT resulting in the outrage many have for the theory. The idea has been around before the book was written, but the book just put the idea on the forefront of discussion.
I believe it was film director Spike Lee who popularized the idea that black people cannot be racist because he claimed racism requires power, and we don’t have enough power to be racist. Again; he just made the idea mainstream, the idea was around before he popularized it.

For the first two, this explains who, not really why. Do you happen to know why?

And why do some people think racism requires power? Isn't racism merely a belief?

 

[Kfox]

And that is why people have "racial" problems... I don't because I only see color.

So... If you see black, what do you call people who have more melanin that others?

Personally I prefer Martin Luther King's approach where he saw the day where people would judge "not by the color of your skin but by the content of your character".

Two things I noted:

1. He didn't say what race
2. He called it by "the color of your skin"

Racial problems exist because of hatred. Pretending as if racial differences don’t exist is not going to get rid of any type of hatred. The reality is, racial differences do exist, sticking your head in the sand and pretending as if they don’t will not solve anything, and it definitely will not get rid of racism; because there will always be those who don’t have their heads in the sand and will see things for what they are.

 

[Stevicus]

For the first two, this explains who, not really why. Do you happen to know why?

And why do some people think racism requires power? Isn't racism merely a belief?

I think it relates to legal/political power based on the historical perspective of white supremacy in the U.S. I've also heard a distinction made between "prejudice" and "racism," in that people of color can be prejudiced towards other people based on race, but that would not be considered racism since they can't exert power or deny people rights based solely on race.

I suppose it would largely depend upon how one defines the term. While I was looking for information on this, it occurred to me that the usage and frequency of various terms has changed over the years. Then I found this chart, which I thought was interesting, considering that language, terminology, word choice and usage are also a large part of the ongoing debate.

 

[Stevicus]

For the first two, this explains who, not really why. Do you happen to know why?

And why do some people think racism requires power? Isn't racism merely a belief?

I found another article which also made some interesting points: Towards a History of the Term “Racism” - Monitor Racism (monitoracism.eu)

“Racism” today is one of the most politically charged words in our vocabulary – and also one of the most contentious. But what exactly does “racism” mean? Is racism, for example, any attitude that one’s own racial group is superior? Is racism just about beliefs in biological superiority, or should cultural superiority also be part of the definition? Perhaps racism can only be possessed by a racial group with the most social power; in other words, can only white people be “racist”? Maybe racism is not about individual attitudes at all, but about social structures and institutions that produce racial inequality.

Proponents on all sides in these debates often point to some kind of “classical” definition of what racism truly is, while charging others with having a false notion of racism. To try to disentangle this debate, I have begun to work on a new book that will chart the history of the term racism. My goal is not necessarily to make a case for one single “correct” definition, but rather to show that historically the meaning has always been contested with many competing uses existing simultaneously. With this in mind, anyone using the term will have to argue for why their definition is right: they can’t simply assert that it is. This might, I hope, help us to have more productive debates about race in the present.

The word racism is actually relatively recent. French appears to be the first language to use the terms racisme and raciste. Surprisingly, this was in the 1890s among members of the French far right, who used the terms to describe their own racial attitudes. The author Gaston Méry coined the term “racisme” in his novel called Jean Révolte, about a man who establishes an organization to preserve the integrity of the French “Celtic” race against the supposedly dangerous influence of Jews and the “Latin” race of southern France. This idea, rather than merely “patriotisme,” he calls “racisme.”[1] Likewise, in a 1897 article, Méry called for “truly French – truly racist – voices” to defend their racial interests.[2]

Likewise, Italian fascists applied the term razzismo to their own racial policy in a document from 1938. This document argued that Italians were Aryans and called for restrictive laws against non-Aryans, particularly the Jews. Point 7 of the document even proclaimed that, “IT IS TIME THAT ITALIANS DECLARE THEMSELVES RACIST. All the work that the Regime has done until now in Italy is essentially a form of racism.”[3] These instances are surprising, since today “racism” is always used in a negative way; even the most outspoken white supremacists are reluctant to apply the term to themselves.

The first English use of the term “racism” came in 1902 by a white general named Richard Henry Pratt, who spoke at a meeting of a group formed to protect Native Americans. There he said, “Segregating any class or race of people apart from the rest of the people kills the progress of the segregated people or makes their growth very slow. Association of races and classes is necessary in order to destroy racism and classism.”[4] The sentiment seems admirable at first glance, but a different story emerges when we look more closely.

Pratt feared that Native Americans would soon disappear due to disease and starvation brought on by white settler encroachment. Their only chance of survival, he believed, was through their total assimilation into western culture. With this in mind, he set up a boarding school for Native American children, which provided food and shelter for otherwise impoverished children. But the school also punished children for speaking their native languages and forced them to adopt Christianity. This practice of forced assimilation exemplified Pratt’s infamous saying: “kill the Indian” and “save the man.”[5] In this sense, then, Pratt’s call for an end to segregation and “racism” takes on a whole new meaning. For Pratt, to argue against “racism” meant arguing in favour of forced assimilation.

Use of the term was, however, still rare before the 1930s and 40s in English and other European languages. We can chart the changing frequency of the word “racism” by using the Google Books Ngrams Viewer, a tool which scans through a database of several million books.[6] Looking at the graphs for “racism” and its counterparts in other languages, we see a similar pattern showing the usage of the term first becoming widely used in the 1930s and 40s and continuing to increase throughout the century (see the table below).

“Racism” in the 30s and 40s was used especially to denounce Nazi racial doctrines. Probably the first use of the term in the title of an English book was the translation by Eden and Cedar Paul of the German Jewish sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld’s unpublished manuscript Rassismus as Racism in 1938, which criticized doctrines of biological racial superiority.[7] Other works in this period also used the term to condemn theories of racial superiority. Indeed, the first chapter of Ruth Benedict’s 1940 book, Race: Science and Politics, was entitled, “Racism: The ‘Ism’ of the Modern World.”[8]

Usage of the term rises dramatically in the 1960s and 70s. This was a time when people of colour asserted their rights more than ever before with decolonization in Africa and Asia and mass movements in the United States and elsewhere which demanded equal civil and political rights regardless of race.

New understandings of “racism” also emerged in these years. In particular, the idea surfaced that “racism” did not just pertain to individual attitudes or doctrines, but also to society. In the 1967 book, Black Power, by Stokely Carmichael (later Kwame Ture) and Charles V. Hamilton, the authors differentiated “institutional racism” from “individual racism.” This passage perhaps best demonstrates the difference between the two concepts:

When white terrorists bomb a black church and kill five black children, that is an act of individual racism, widely deplored by most segments of the society. But when in that same city – Birmingham, Alabama – five hundred black babies die each year because of the lack of proper food, shelter and medical facilities, and thousands more are destroyed and maimed physically, emotionally and intellectually because of conditions of poverty and discrimination in the black community, that is a function of institutional racism.[9]

This conception of “racism” as being rooted in social structures or institutions has gained much traction today, even as it exists somewhat uneasily alongside the understanding of “racism” as an individual phenomenon.

In reviewing some of the history of the term “racism,” we can see that there is no single, “correct” meaning of the word to which we can refer. Indeed, some of the earliest uses of the word differ from our understandings of what “racism” means today.

This next paragraph should be highlighted as the main reason why dictionaries are often woefully insufficient to define any word ending in "-ism."

The meaning of words isn’t handed down to us from the gods; we make the meanings ourselves and this is why multiple and even conflicting meanings can exist simultaneously. It might make sense, therefore, to think of words as tools, or even weapons, that we use for certain purposes at certain times. If this is so, it’s up to us to wield them with care.

 

[Curious George]

I think it relates to legal/political power based on the historical perspective of white supremacy in the U.S. I've also heard a distinction made between "prejudice" and "racism," in that people of color can be prejudiced towards other people based on race, but that would not be considered racism since they can't exert power or deny people rights based solely on race.

I suppose it would largely depend upon how one defines the term. While I was looking for information on this, it occurred to me that the usage and frequency of various terms has changed over the years. Then I found this chart, which I thought was interesting, considering that language, terminology, word choice and usage are also a large part of the ongoing debate.

Given the lack of clarity in this thread in defining race, i suppose there should be no surprise that people equally struggle, if not more so, struggle to have a coherent definition of racism.

 

[We Never Know]

The Politically Correct/Social Justice Warriors.

I figured PC was Politically Correct but Im not familiar with SJW/Social Justice Warriors.

 

[metis]

I'm late on this scene but let me just say that racism is alive & well here in the States especially. Of the people my wife & I know well, the majority of whites clearly have racist tendencies, and this was obvious even when growing up as a kid in the 60's as I heard the N-word on a regular basis.

Has there been any improvement? I think so, but today it is not as publicly vocalized as it was a half-century ago. However, I have no doubt whatsoever that one political party here has a strong appeal to those that are racist, and the fact that so many in that party have supported certain candidates and also willing to accept voter-suppression bills is very "telling".

However, I have no interest in pursuing this any further.

 

[pearl]

willing to accept voter-suppression bills is very "telling".

And with the change of balance the now conservative Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments against Affirmative Action.

 

[Kooky]

That is more of an economic issue; not an institutional issue.

It is always both; these two sides tend to be intertwined.

 

[Kooky]

The idea that all white people are racist, and we should not strive for a color blind society is from the book “white fragility” where Robin DeAngelo makes those claims; this book (along with 1619 project, & how to be an antiracist) have become the face of CRT resulting in the outrage many have for the theory. The idea has been around before the book was written, but the book just put the idea on the forefront of discussion.

I believe it was film director Spike Lee who popularized the idea that black people cannot be racist because he claimed racism requires power, and we don’t have enough power to be racist. Again; he just made the idea mainstream, the idea was around before he popularized it.

Do you have any interest at all in learning about CRT in depth, and why people argue the points you brought up?
Or would you prefer to dictate your subjective views about race on to others and just have them listen?

 

[Kooky]

I figured PC was Politically Correct but Im not familiar with SJW/Social Justice Warriors.

In practical usage, they're all just pejorative terms for people to the left of the speaker's political point of view, the latter is simply more recent than the former.

 

[metis]

And with the change of balance the now conservative Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments against Affirmative Action.

That I didn't know, so thanks.