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"One cannot be racist against mexican..."

Aepervius

Non credunt, semper verificare
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"...Because Mexican is not a race" has been told more than once in this forum and others.

I think this is not well reasoned. Firstly "racist" under its modern meaning is actually "xenophobia" which can indeed be the sole xenophobia against Mexican. But nobody or nearly use that word among lay, and most people understand "racist".

Secondly, you can be racist against any non white, but single out Mexican as being the nearest in proximity. The sentence ignore this fully.

As such the various statement of Trump are definitively xenophobic in nature, and almost certainly racist.

What do you think ? Should we encourage the more accurate word at the risk that nobody else use it, or should the modern meaning of racist be taken and simply qualify Trump as racist ?
 
Seems as if racist is a word constantly being re-defined. We shouldn't find that surprising since "race" in regards to humans has also always been redefined ( because it is a social construct not based on any objective facts).

I would say that being "racist" was the default position of most folk for at least recorded history and we have only seen a widespread push against such a subjective view in just the last 50 or 60 years.

Perhaps it would be better as marplots suggests to use the word "bigot" as that sidesteps any attempt to ignore or obscure the actual criticism being made by a silly semantic dance as to the meaning of the word "racist"?
 
Darat said:
Perhaps it would be better as marplots suggests to use the word "bigot" as that sidesteps any attempt to ignore or obscure the actual criticism being made by a silly semantic dance as to the meaning of the word "racist"?
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The problem as per above is that bigotry contain far more than xenophobia. You then open to an even worst semantic dance IMO then.

ETA: and i think it is quite clear that the "justification" used for the hate against mexican , is founded in xenophobia/racism. IMO it is quite right to have all 3 prejudices put together : "prejudice against race/ethnicity/nationality". That is why it is IMO correct for example for wiki and dictionaries to put all 3 together under the chapter of racism (yeah I know "proof by wiki" and "proof by dictionary" is frowned upon, but it should be IMO acceptable to reflect current zeitgeist and definition).
 
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IMO it's a pretty weak defence of someone to say that their prejudice in a particular area is driven by xenophobic bigotry rather than racist bigotry.

Perhaps in this case, Trump was being a bigoted xenophobe rather than a racist but that doesn't make his comments any less inaccurate, doesn't make his behaviour any more excusable and doesn't mean that he hasn't been racist in the past (indeed a long time ago his business was found to have racist business practices and Trump himself is on record making racist comments.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slat..._blacks_inherent_laziness_1991_book_says.html
 
It's like raping a 15 year old and objecting to the term pedophile. Yes, in a pedantic sort of way you are correct in trying to avoid this stigma, but it does not address the problem.
 
Aepervius said:
Bigoted encompass hate or prejudice toward other groups, like for example against LGBT.
It is a more generic term used to represent all sort of form of prejudice.
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Aepervius said:
The problem as per above is that bigotry contain far more than xenophobia. You then open to an even worst semantic dance IMO then.
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You have a similar dance with xenophobia if you have to parse out which nation is of concern. I'm not even clear that Mexican-hating doesn't include Guatemala and points south as "understood." I've always assumed someone who dislikes Mexicans doesn't do so based on nationality, but some imagined ethnicity.

How about "ethnophobic"?

Actually, I don't think the "phobia" part is warranted. Do they really fear these folks or is it more like thinking them sub-human or even hateworthy?
 
Aepervius said:
... Firstly "racist" under its modern meaning is actually "xenophobia" which ...
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If you are willing to redefine terms in such arbitrary ways, then anything, except contradiction, can be true, and we can 'fix' the 'contradiction/tautology' problem by merely redefining 'true' and 'false'.

The problem your original quote appears to be addressing is the sort of language distortion that you are endorsing. It's impossible to have reasonable communication when people use these distorted and often loaded revision to semantic meaning.
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On topic - it's an an appeal motive fallacy that lies at the core of this thread.

Certainly the Trump-ites wish to treat illegal immigrants distinctly from legal residents, but there is a lawful reason for that, and a reasonable expectation that an executive officer would enforce such law. Differentiation with a reason cannot be described as prejudice. Is there evidence of anything more ? (note the "modern meaning" of 'evidence' is not seething bile and emotionalism).
 
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stevea said:
If you are willing to redefine terms in such arbitrary ways, then anything, except contradiction, can be true, and we can 'fix' the 'contradiction/tautology' problem by merely redefining 'true' and 'false'.

The problem your original quote appears to be addressing is the sort of language distortion that you are endorsing. It's impossible to have reasonable communication when people use these distorted and often loaded revision to semantic meaning.
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On topic - it's an an appeal motive fallacy that lies at the core of this thread.

Certainly the Trump-ites wish to treat illegal immigrants distinctly from legal residents, but there is a lawful reason for that, and a reasonable expectation that an executive officer would enforce such law. Differentiation with a reason cannot be described as prejudice. Is there evidence of anything more ? (note the "modern meaning" of 'evidence' is not seething bile and emotionalism).
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Saying they are not sending the best and are rapist and so forth is not "Differentiation with a reason". We are not speaking about illegals and legality of their stay. We are speaking on what sort of prejudice are put on them.
 
I think we should respect the meaning of words and not constantly redefine them on the basis of cloudy agendas.
 
Yep this is as crazy as classifying all blacks as one race, when as group there is more genetic diversity in africa than the entirety of the rest of the world. Racism needs a solid scientific basis people!
 
Porpoise of Life said:
It's like raping a 15 year old and objecting to the term pedophile. Yes, in a pedantic sort of way you are correct in trying to avoid this stigma, but it does not address the problem.
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Given that, much like the Islamaphobic folks will usually freak out over any perceived Arab (eg. the guy who shot two Indian men earlier this year), folks like Trump perceive "Mexican" as some sort of race - thus, why Judge Curiel was so horribly unfair towards him, despite being an American. No, "He's Mexican, we're building a wall. We're building a wall." Race is, in the end, a sociopolitical construct, and not something with a well-defined, inherent meaning. If someone treats "Mexican" as a race, and then is prejudiced again st "Mexicans", then we can reasonably call that person a racist.
 
Mumbles said:
Given that, much like the Islamaphobic folks will usually freak out over any perceived Arab (eg. the guy who shot two Indian men earlier this year), folks like Trump perceive "Mexican" as some sort of race - thus, why Judge Curiel was so horribly unfair towards him, despite being an American. No, "He's Mexican, we're building a wall. We're building a wall." Race is, in the end, a sociopolitical construct, and not something with a well-defined, inherent meaning. If someone treats "Mexican" as a race, and then is prejudiced again st "Mexicans", then we can reasonably call that person a racist.
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This.

It really isn't complicated.
 
Mumbles said:
Given that, much like the Islamaphobic folks will usually freak out over any perceived Arab (eg. the guy who shot two Indian men earlier this year), folks like Trump perceive "Mexican" as some sort of race - thus, why Judge Curiel was so horribly unfair towards him, despite being an American. No, "He's Mexican, we're building a wall. We're building a wall." Race is, in the end, a sociopolitical construct, and not something with a well-defined, inherent meaning. If someone treats "Mexican" as a race, and then is prejudiced again st "Mexicans", then we can reasonably call that person a racist.
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Excellent.
 
Aepervius said:
"...Because Mexican is not a race" has been told more than once in this forum and others.

I think this is not well reasoned. Firstly "racist" under its modern meaning is actually "xenophobia" which can indeed be the sole xenophobia against Mexican. But nobody or nearly use that word among lay, and most people understand "racist".
Click to expand...

In other words, "racist" doesn't mean "racist" anymore. It means a host of things that have nothing to do with what the word actually means.

But yes, mexican isn't a race, it's a nationality. It doesn't prevent people from being bigoted or intolerant. Hey, why not use those words instead?
 
Porpoise of Life said:
It's like raping a 15 year old and objecting to the term pedophile. Yes, in a pedantic sort of way you are correct in trying to avoid this stigma, but it does not address the problem.
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It's not correct in a pedantic sort of way. It's just correct.

There are plenty of words to describe such an act so we don't have to butcher one which doesn't.
 
Argumemnon said:
In other words, "racist" doesn't mean "racist" anymore. It means a host of things that have nothing to do with what the word actually means.

But yes, mexican isn't a race, it's a nationality. It doesn't prevent people from being bigoted or intolerant. Hey, why not use those words instead?
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Because they're clumsily, especially in Trump's case, using Mexican as a code word for Hispanic. As Mumbles noted:

Mumbles said:
Given that, much like the Islamaphobic folks will usually freak out over any perceived Arab (eg. the guy who shot two Indian men earlier this year), folks like Trump perceive "Mexican" as some sort of race - thus, why Judge Curiel was so horribly unfair towards him, despite being an American. No, "He's Mexican, we're building a wall. We're building a wall." Race is, in the end, a sociopolitical construct, and not something with a well-defined, inherent meaning. If someone treats "Mexican" as a race, and then is prejudiced again st "Mexicans", then we can reasonably call that person a racist.
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Much in the same way Zionist and Muslim aren't being used in their dictionary defined manner by racists and bigots.
 
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