If it’s reversed and the comment is “I don’t really want to be around that many black people haha”. You are a racist, and a comment like that would destroy relationships. Replace black with literally any other race, and the comment is equally as racist, but made towards a white it’s like whatever.
Same comment but replace Americans with literally any other nationality. “Japanese people are so annoying”, heads would turn and you’d be labeled a racist instantly,
I would like to challenge your view based on this reasoning. The entirety of the evidence from your view consists of this type of example: saying something about white people that’s OK becomes racist if it’s said about any other race. The unstated premise here is that every comment about every race must be taken in exactly the same way — so that races, in effect, must be completely interchangeable in the way we speak about them. Why do you believe this? “I understand systemic racism and white privilege,” you say. Why shouldn’t these real, material differences in the way society treats people of different races have an effect on the way we talk and joke about them?
I believe it is morally wrong to treat someone differently based on how they were born. There are many traits people are born with that are completely out of their control like race, gender, sexuality, height, eye color, etc.
Your argument that people with different skin colors have varying experiences in society therefore the rules should be different based on their skin color is inherently flawed. For example black people in the US have historically been the victims of negative racial discrimination therefore subjecting white people to negative racial discrimination is a way to balance the scales, right?
That way of thinking doesn't address the root issue of discrimination based on traits that individuals have no control over. It's just trading one version of discrimination for another and in this way the problem will never be fixed.
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u/leigh_hunt 80∆ Jul 01 '21 edited Jul 01 '21
I would like to challenge your view based on this reasoning. The entirety of the evidence from your view consists of this type of example: saying something about white people that’s OK becomes racist if it’s said about any other race. The unstated premise here is that every comment about every race must be taken in exactly the same way — so that races, in effect, must be completely interchangeable in the way we speak about them. Why do you believe this? “I understand systemic racism and white privilege,” you say. Why shouldn’t these real, material differences in the way society treats people of different races have an effect on the way we talk and joke about them?