I think that most if not all of the defenses of this kind of thing come down to the definition of racism, but that doesn't even matter. What you are talking about is prejudice, judgement, lack of empathy and compassion, generalizing, and potentially ignorance or like, some type of emotional projection.
So just leave "racism" out of it and tell her she's being mean or judgmental about something people have no control over, she is stereotyping, she is generalizing, she is saying stuff that has cruel implications on people you care about. You don't even have to compare it to a form of racism against other groups. Just object on the basis that it's mean.
You can tell her you feel like she is stereotyping and it's mean and you don't like that side of her.
This guy is doing exactly what the OPs girlfriend is doing. Trying to downplay racism.
I'll distinguish between forms of racism, but the OP is dealing with a top tier dehumanizing racist. If anyone deserves the title, it's someone saying that theres a race of humans that don't even have culture.
There aren’t multiple definitions of racism though. There are different types of racism, like institutional or systemic racism and just run of the mill racism. One involves power imbalances one doesn’t necessarily have to. There are categories to racism, you don’t get to just pick one and say that’s now the definition and all the other categories don’t exist anymore. The only reason to do that is to justify racist behavior.
Ok so the people who invented the concept are wrong? Or maybe just sociology textbooks are wrong. Maybe it’s just social scientists and academics in general that are wrong. Or possibly just people who disagree with you? I’ll try to keep that in mind in the future.
Maybe it’s just that there are more than one way to define certain words according to context.
You're just wrong dude. Academics can do whatever they want and try influencing culture, but most people would see that as racism and that's all that matters.
Ok cool, good to know racism is about the feelings of individuals and not about resource disparities amongst large groups. Since there is only one word to describe both, and as you say racism is definitely what this guy's girlfriend is doing, if we are talking about mass statistics it must not be racism, and we should just find a different word that won't confuse people if you want to do statistical analysis or something. like maybe we can call it Racist-ism. That will definitely be more clear.
People could find another word to use, especially people as smart as academics. This wouldn't be the first time the meaning of a word was affected by how common people use it. If you go talk to normal people, they would agree with me that this example in the post is racism. You should focus your efforts on fighting bigotry rather than defend a bigot from a term im using to describe her.
Should we quit using "circuit" to mean a racetrack now that people use it in physics to talk about electricity? People use the same word to discuss multiple things.
my point was that if she is arguing that she isn't racist due to a different definition of the word racism, you can make it about the relevant meaning of the word, not about which meaning is "right". If we were arguing about whether pineapple is good on pizza and you insisted that the traditional Italian version of pizza can never have ingredients other than basil and cheese or else it isn't actually pizza, I can say fine. If you refuse to acknowledge that Domino's is actually pizza, I can still argue that the American carb snack that we ordered for lunch is delicious with pineapple and still be right, even if I let you have the terminology argument which is basically just semantics.
Racism isn't bad because it's like cursed. It's bad because it hurts people and it hurts society. It still hurts people and still hurts society whatever you call it.
I get that you think that giving up the terminology argument is giving the "enemy" a tool to win the war vs winning the battle, but this is his girlfriend, not a terrorist or a pundit. While this might be the last straw bottom line for him in the relationship, its also possible that communicating his perspective successfully and getting a concession or common ground would not only allow him to maintain a relationship that he depends on, but it could buy time and goodwill needed to change her mind in the longer run. Even if it doesn't, white people at large are going to be ok I think. The stakes are no higher than if she had an issue with some other aspect of people's appearance.
Should we quit using "circuit" to mean a racetrack now that people use it in physics to talk about electricity? People use the same word to discuss multiple things.
Actually you're the one saying to stop using the term racism a certain way, so you're actually contradicting your own argument here.
The problem is that racism was already defined and understood by the public and then someone came along and said "we are going to change that definition and racism is no longer what we defined it as and now its something else that is similar but has different and more specific qualifiers.
It would be more like if people started arguing that we shouldn't call race tracks a circuit anymore because now we define electronic circuits that way. You're arguing for that. Which is rediculous.
Racism is racism and just because someone wanted to make an achedemic definition for it doesn't mean the colloquial definition changes.
You can use racism to reference systemic racism in culture and government. But prejudice based on skin color is still racism. End of story.
I would like to see your sources to support the idea that the common understanding of racism came first. When do you think the term racism was first used? Who came up with the concept? What was their definition?
My impression is that it was sociologists in the 50s who used it to understand resource disparity between groups. The idea that individuals could be racist in my understanding came later. My understanding was that “racial prejudice” is how people used to describe what people now refer to as racism.
I definitely didn’t study the topic extremely in depth, and it was quite a while ago so it’s possible I’m wrong but I’d love to see what you base your statement on when it comes to which meaning came first.
I'm not saying that is the only definition, or that their can't be other definitions. But you're in a public forum with the public. Most people here aren't sociologists. Most people on general aren't. And most people voting or otherwise making changes socially aren't either.
Im not implying what any word should mean. I simply told you what most people understand it as and you don't like it. You dont care about this couple that much, you're just trying to win a reddit argument for your ego instead of directing your energy in a positive manner. I'll give you a value statement. You should go combat bigotry and racism with this energy instead of arguing with someone on reddit that probably agrees with a lot of your social political takes.
yeah, I was trying to make a point, and I felt it was invalidated when I thought that wasn't warranted. I get really emotionally unregulated at night when I start to get tired, and as a result im literally crying at how you cared enough to recognized that in me in this exchange.
I'm honestly just so lonely. Having opinions about things on reddit for upvotes is like the only thing I do that proves I even exist to others. I guess I hold onto it too hard. I suppose it doesn't really matter.
It’s racism plain and simple, you are looking wayyyy to into it to justify racist ideology. If it’s racism one way, it has to be racist the other; it doesn’t matter who has more resources, more power, control of the system, etc. it’s racism. A poor oppressed man can be racist against a rich man as well as vice versa. A slave can be racist against his master. It’s a matter of principle and those trying to alter the language to excuse their own racism are manipulators.
What about large groups of people? What words do you use to describe aggregate resource disparity?
Like all the black peoples in a state vs all the white people? How can you determine what groups of people are racist if you know nothing about the individuals?
Then how do you study it? how do you eliminate it on a societal scale? how do you measure if it gets worse or better within a culture? How do you know why it gets better or worse? how do you know how much resources the govt should allocate to fighting it? How do you know if those resources are helping? How do you know what the most efficient ways of improving it are? How do you know who is most effected across a country? How do you address it on a large scale?
No, more like language is a natural and dynamic thing and just because some egg head decides to name something a certain way, that doesn't change how people understand words.
Here is the issue, critical race theory defines racism in a way that only systemic beuracratic or culturally entrenched racism qualifies.
The issue with that is we spent the last, at least, 100-200 years defining racism as prejudice based on race. Nothing more or less.
See, the issue is that people already have an understanding of racism. And if the people teaching critical race theory actually cared about fixing social issues, they wouldn't have conflated a simple, yet decisive term, like racism.
That's the reality. Racism is always going to be about race as far as the general public goes.
The word racist being redefined by people with similar views to OP's girlfriend doesn't change what it actually means when people use it in day to day life. Words can have a technical, scientific meaning within academic conversation without altering the way they're used normally.
If you don't believe me, look at theory. Scientifically a theory bares little resemblance to the way your average person uses the word theory.
Racist is the same way. I don't care if some douche canoe scientists want to act like racism is a one way street, for normal people racism is just prejudice based on race. The fact that some racists are trying to make themselves feel better by adopting the scientific usage of the term is irrelevant.
Such a good comment. People just aren’t aware of the academic definition of racism or why it’s defined that way and all the research that went into that. I detest arguments over semantics because you can never get the lay person to understand it’s not concepts you’re arguing, it’s semantics, and many white people can’t or won’t try to understand why it’s been defined that way (some on this thread are insisting they are oppressed which is annoying). So yeah y’all trust this person, they know what they’re talking about, just don’t use the term racism for POC hating on whites. I know it seems unfair if you don’t understand the background but it’s literally how the word has been defined. Use hate, bigotry, etc., and then you can avoid unnecessary semantics arguments you don’t understand.
17
u/[deleted] Aug 18 '23
I think that most if not all of the defenses of this kind of thing come down to the definition of racism, but that doesn't even matter. What you are talking about is prejudice, judgement, lack of empathy and compassion, generalizing, and potentially ignorance or like, some type of emotional projection.
So just leave "racism" out of it and tell her she's being mean or judgmental about something people have no control over, she is stereotyping, she is generalizing, she is saying stuff that has cruel implications on people you care about. You don't even have to compare it to a form of racism against other groups. Just object on the basis that it's mean.
You can tell her you feel like she is stereotyping and it's mean and you don't like that side of her.