What we mean when we talk about racism

[ponderingturtle]

All this monkey talk reminds of the Howard Cosell incident. . . I seriously doubt Cosell was racist given all his work supporting black athletes. That's the problem when innocuous words are cast as racial insults -every use of the innocuous word towards a minority does not default to racist intent but it's so easy to twist it that way.

So when does someone doing racist chants and using racial epithets mean it or not?

The flip side is that maybe he was racist, but he also did a lot to help black athletes, why should these be fundamentally incompatible?

That is really want people need to change how they think about it, racism is a spectrum and everyone does fall on it at some level, it is not a simple binary state.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Why? Part of the discussion is acknowledging the fact that not everything bad done to minorities/POC is racially motivated. If we aren't allowed to point out when something that has been deemed racist is not actually racist, then "the race card" has chilling effects.

Yep like how they get called back for interviews for jobs at lower rates if they have a clean criminal record than white felons, nothing racist about that either and claiming that HR departments systematically discriminate against black people while supported by evidence is in no way racist and claiming that race is the reason black people are called back much less frequently is playing the race card.

 

[luchog]

What you guys aren't getting is that this example of a crowd shouting racist insults at a minority is a good example of people who aren't racist being labeled racist just for disagreeing with a person of a different skin color. Somehow.

Schrodinger's Racist, apparently.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Schrodinger's Racist, apparently.

Look it is just the standard for considering someone a racist is a very high bar, merely chanting racist chants in no way makes someone a racist. They have to be wearing full KKK costume, chanting racist chants and drowning a black baby to really be considered to be racist, and even then it is only while they are doing that.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Look it is just the standard for considering someone a racist is a very high bar, merely chanting racist chants in no way makes someone a racist. They have to be wearing full KKK costume, chanting racist chants and drowning a black baby to really be considered to be racist, and even then it is only while they are doing that.

Even then it's "satire".

 

[jimbob]

Then you would be surprised by the actual studies. Who are you claiming has no unconscious bias with race?

Everyone has biases shaped by their experience, those will always come out in ways unless carefully controlled for. So race certainly is a part of it, though I guess with regard to specific races being unable to differentiate say someone Thai from Korean would limit ones racial biases with regard to differences between them. So how someone conceptualizes race would impact it to a degree.

I try to be aware of my biases, and as you say, I'm sure I have them, just due to having grown up in the 1970s in the UK. I'm not sure that this latest generation of kids will though. A lot will have not been exposed to racist tropes in general culture, but will have been aware of racism being bad.

Obviously it's different in different parts of the world, but if children don't see people expressing racist views and do see people of many ethnicities being friends, then I doubt that the'd develop that unconscious bias.

 

[luchog]

I try to be aware of my biases, and as you say, I'm sure I have them, just due to having grown up in the 1970s in the UK. I'm not sure that this latest generation of kids will though. A lot will have not been exposed to racist tropes in general culture, but will have been aware of racism being bad.

Problem is, general culture is still full of racist tropes, albeit many of them are more subtle than in times past, but they're there. Certainly in the US they're not only present, but some are very popular; and given what I see in the UK I'm certain they exist there as well. One only needs to pick up a copy of the Daily Fail or Torygraph to see just how present such tropes still are.

And the fact that hard-right political parties such as UKIP and the Brexit Party are so popular right now shows just how much the new generation is embracing those tropes; much like the various neo-nazi and other fascist gangs like Proud Boys show how much those tropes are being embraced in the US.

 

[psionl0]

What you guys aren't getting is that this example of a crowd shouting racist insults at a minority is a good example of people who aren't racist being labeled racist just for disagreeing with a person of a different skin color. Somehow.

When you have a stadium full of drunken sports fans booing a minority player, I'd bet a large sum of money that some of them are yelling racial slurs.

And they all lived happily ever after.

 

[The Norseman]

What you guys aren't getting is that this example of a crowd shouting racist insults at a minority is a good example of people who aren't racist being labeled racist just for disagreeing with a person of a different skin color. Somehow.

Oh, now I get it.

It's the standard conservative slice-n-dice, narrow exception, look at this in a vacuum, type deal.

ONE girl out of possibly dozens or more who were yelling terms like 'ape' who Goodes just happened to have singled out claimed she didn't understand the racial slur intended. See, we're all supposed to now realize that thiis sort of thing is apparently far more common than we all think and therefore, we cannot conclude any other particular person is actually using racial slurs just because they use terms that are historically racist and we mustn't be too hasty in future now!

 

[psionl0]

ONE girl out of possibly dozens or more who were yelling terms like 'ape' ......

A really good fairy tale includes crystal balls and magic wands.

 

[Checkmite]

ONE girl out of possibly dozens or more who were yelling terms like 'ape' who Goodes just happened to have singled out claimed she didn't understand the racial slur intended. See, we're all supposed to now realize that thiis sort of thing is apparently far more common than we all think and therefore, we cannot conclude any other particular person is actually using racial slurs just because they use terms that are historically racist and we mustn't be too hasty in future now!

LOL....I have seen it argued in this very forum, presumably with a straight face, that it's perfectly normal for non-racist white people to hurl racial slurs like the n-word at black people they are angry with.

 

[Dave Rogers]

Here you go:


https://legalinsurrection.com/2019/...ing-of-trump-from-russia-collusion-to-racism/

Interesting. The normal definition of the word "hoax" suggests that the story being offered is in some sense untrue, but apparently in Trumpian newspeak it means "focusing on stories we don't want anybody to be telling because they make us look as bad as we actually are." But thanks for clarifying that you've now expanded your personal definition of the word "hoax" to include things that are actually true.

Dave

 

[JoeMorgue]

LOL....I have seen it argued in this very forum, presumably with a straight face, that it's perfectly normal for non-racist white people to hurl racial slurs like the n-word at black people they are angry with.

Yeah the number of people who think racism is justified if you're legit angry at a minority is bothersome.

 

[wareyin]

And they all lived happily ever after.

Do you think you made a point there? I'm still stuck on how your crowd of people yelling racial insults, so much so that children in the group join in without understanding what they are yelling, is evidence of people who aren't racist being unjustly labeled. Or is this the "it's ok to yell racial insults if you really are upset" excuse mentioned?

 

[dann]

Then you are simply lying to yourself and pretending you are above all that. You might have less than others, but there is simply no way to prevent preconceptions from coloring your perceptions and hence actions.

No, I'm not lying to myself. Why do you think I am? And I disagree with your definition of racism as 'preconceptions coloring your perceptions and hence actions.' And I disagree with them even if you add the adjective racial to preconceptions.

 

[dann]

I agree that it is racism, but in this case the difference isn't skin color. I mean, it might be; maybe some groups are lighter than others, but it the Tutsi/Hutu thing the killers checked ID cards to find out who to massacre, so they obviously couldn't tell just by looking.

The Nazis also couldn't tell the difference between alleged Aryans and alleged Jews just by looking. Their race science was crap, of course. That didn't make their racism less racist.

 

[Thermal]

LOL....I have seen it argued in this very forum, presumably with a straight face, that it's perfectly normal for non-racist white people to hurl racial slurs like the n-word at black people they are angry with.

Hi Checkmite!

 

[dann]

What Disney record was that? The only references I've ever heard about were Song of the South and the crows in Dumbo.

I've probably still got it somewhere. I'll see if I can find it.
Like I said, it may have been a Danish thing. For instance, many of the Donald Duck comics were produced by the Danish publishing house Egmont/Gutenberghus for the European market.

This is from a children's movie (nothing to do with Disney) from 1958. Two Danish children in blackface:


Very popular at the time! Nowadays, probably not so much ...

In one of history's most successful Danish franchises Little Per and Little Grethe sing A Little Black Negro from Africa. They both have blackface makeup and sing that the animals in Africa and the N-words understand each other. The producer of the movie Henning Karmark sympathized with the Nazis, which may explain why the scene survived.
TOP 10: Negere kravler da i træer (Ekko Film, March 8, 2014)

I actually don't think that the scene had anything to do with a producer's Nazi sympathies. At the time, I don't think anybody in Denmark would find it problematic.

 

[dann]

What Disney record was that? The only references I've ever heard about were Song of the South and the crows in Dumbo.

I've probably still got it. I'll see if I can find it.

 

[JoeMorgue]

LOL....I have seen it argued in this very forum, presumably with a straight face, that it's perfectly normal for non-racist white people to hurl racial slurs like the n-word at black people they are angry with.

Or say, and I'm just totally speaking hypothetically here, to paint on swastika on your Jewish neighbors house but it totally not being racist because you didn't know your neighbor was Jewish you thought he was just a jerk.