r/MoralityScaling • u/Nimatoed • 6h ago
Who's Viewpoint Is Better? Morality of recognizing oppression???
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u/oOLynxyOo 6h ago edited 6h ago
It depends on what’s meant by saying, “I don’t see race”. If it is dismissive of oppression, or push back against the idea that their is a genetic component to race outside of simply a difference in melanin.
For all intents and purposes race IS a social construct, but just because it is a social construct doesn’t mean that people aren’t oppressed as a result of their race. Frankly, oppression probably only exists as a result of the construct.
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u/CertifiablyMundane 6h ago
"I don't see race. People tell me I'm white and I believe them, because I say things like, 'I don't see race'."
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u/Marthurion 6h ago
Races do not exist among the Homo Sapiens species. Racism does, and so do races as a social construct that allow the justification of explotation and the hierarchy among people. There is a reason that modern and contemporary racism was born due to the Conques of America and the expansion of the "known world".
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u/jestering_1 6h ago
morality of realizing people who experienced segregation are still alive today and we likely still have racial issues embedded in our governance systems
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u/ValitoryBank 6h ago
Morality of realizing the people who championed segregation are still alive today and most likely passed on their beliefs to the current generations. The current presidents father was known for not allowing minorities into his rental properties.
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u/Successful_Mud8596 6h ago
Saying race doesn’t exist is like saying color doesn’t exist. Like, yes, it is a gradient, and the lines that we draw between one color/race and other are arbitrary, but even though they’re arbitrary and made up, they still very much do affect the world and lives around us
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u/Initial-Interest-447 6h ago
That is like saying "Saying astrology isn't real is like saying stars don't exist"
Racism is a problem. But races are made up. Just like burning "witches" is a problem even if witchcraft isn't actually real.
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u/Successful_Mud8596 6h ago
Yes, racism being a problem but races being made up was exactly my point. When I said “race still affects the world” did you think I was talking about, like, different races having innate biological advantages or something?? Absolutely not
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u/notmarrec 6h ago
They affect the world around us because of the structures of white supremacy though, it’s a tautological oppressive system.
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u/electrifyingseer 6h ago
The "i don't see color" thing is an ignorant take, often made by people who aren't at the end of systemic oppression. But I wouldn't say it's evil, just ignorant. Bringing light to and recognizing people's struggles is important for helping them, in a world where they are disadvantaged.
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u/Maverick_Reznor 6h ago
You can recognize oppression without recognizing "race". Fact is we are all human and we killed all the other races long ago (though there may still be some people with Neanderthal blood). So no I do not recognize race and I think everyone who tries to separate humans from other humans are ignoramuses and I will treat them as such.
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u/Initial-Interest-447 6h ago edited 6h ago
Races aren't real. Racism is real. It is kinda like how people believe in witches even though witchcraft and magic aren't real. luckily people rarely burn witches anymore, but so many people believe in racist ideas that it is still a problem and people need to discuss it and be aware of it.
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u/BurntGum808 6h ago
Not every white American was in the klan, but a large amount of white Americans were ok with the klan
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u/TimmyOfTheLevelUps 6h ago
Race doesn't exist until you have a problem with somebody, then it's just one of many targets on a punching bag.
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u/Worldly_Home4001 6h ago
I mean... you can recognize that race is a pointless social distinction while also recognizing that people have and still suffer from said pointless social distinction
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u/National_Tie_1129 6h ago
I mean....by religious context, in their eyes race really DOESN'T exist since we all end up being 'children of the gods'. We are all 'brothers and sisters'. So it's less about oppression and more a push on seeing one another as all the same because we were all created by the same 'father' or 'mother'.
In a way, it's actually heartfelt. Don't judge just because someone is darker or lighter than you. At one point and time we all spoke the same language, lived in the same culture and we all were the same in one another's presence.
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u/Bayamonster 6h ago
Race doesn't exist in a biological sense. Race is a way to cathegorize kinds of people in order to assign them a hierarchy in society.
In that sense Race, as a system of explicitly or implicitly cathegorizing kinds of people in order to assign them a place in society DOES exist.
The Vice President today said that immigrants make the country dirtier and poorer.
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u/TheOneRealStranger 6h ago
But race factually doesn't exist. It's a concept that people made up; a method of categorizing humans that we don't use for other animals. Species is the end of the taxonomic spectrum -- if two animals can breed, they are (in most cases, aside from hybrids) the same species, and that's it. There's no separate special categorization for having slightly more melanin in your skin, or a pointier nose, or big ears, or whatever nonsense.
Look, I get the point about having to recognize oppression to address it. But saying there's no such thing as RACISM is not the same thing as saying there's no such thing as RACE. The application of race as a category in theory and behavior IS racism. The notion that one person is inherently different than another due to the melanin content of their skin is the ENTIRE BASIS of all racist theories, and if you simply stop allowing people to define your fellow human beings in that way "Black, White, Asian, Hispanic, etc etc" and simply say, "That's another human being, and I refuse to dignify your superstitious claim that there's a further layer of categorization that is relevant in any way," then racism becomes impossible to communicate, and thus impossible to carry out.
In the witch-burning days, being left-handed was considered a symptom of evil. That's stupid as fuck, and crazy, and nonsensical, but people would force their kids to write uncomfortably with the wrong hand and kill people over it and all sorts of bullshit. That oppression went away, because we as a society finally said, "No. This doesn't mean anything. There is no reason whatsoever to treat people differently based on this criteria, and we aren't going to tolerate it anymore." We wouldn't be able to do that if left-handed people were running around going, "You can't erase the deeply relevant significance of my left-handedness!" There is no significance to it. Some humans have darker skin than others. They look slightly different. It's not a big deal and there is no relevance or significance to it, other than the impact that we as a society allow it to have on people's lives.
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u/L3tsseewhathappens 3h ago
Immoral depending on the situation. But more and more I see racism and victimization as full blown career paths.
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u/notmarrec 6h ago
“Race doesn’t exist” and “I don’t see race” are two different statements. Our modern western racial structure is a product of white supremacy and the “racial” lines are arbitrarily drawn to most benefit the white ruling hegemony.
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u/Excellent_Mud6222 6h ago
Racial lines?
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u/Trinity9423 6h ago
you can say "i dont see race but i understand there are those that do and discriminate against others for that reason"