smooth

I was the one who said something close to that. But even I didn't say that, I said that when people like roachboy and myself discuss racism (and I only spoke for him, it's the only time I can remember doing so, because we both have sociology hats in our hampers; it's not a liberal thing, see, it's a sociology thing. my wife, a psychologist would focus on racism at the individual level, too. but the difference is, she wouldn't mire herself into ONLY understanding it as such...just like roachboy and myself do not ONLY understand racism at the institutional level), we are doing it from a systems perspective and it's the cross-talk between people who only see racism as a individual acts vs. those of us discussing the problems of racism that exist at the systems' level, that makes it so discussion breaks down.


You did the very thing I was writing about. A pointless red-herring that doesn't clarify anything, it only served to disrupt the conversation about the problems directly related to racism in this country and its institutions. The way you've been carrying on appears like you don't really want to know what people who are talking about the problems related to racism mean when we talk about it. It comes across as you trying to trip people up by pestering their sentences without profit because the conclusion you try and draw from the confusion isn't warranted. how does what you were trying to point out rebut the point I raised that racism is about subjugation and power? you never developed that portion of what I thought you were trying to clarify.

I scrolled back and the first time you tried to raise this red-herring DC was the first to reply to you and he wrote pretty clearly that those were not acts of institutional racism.

Filtherton was replying to your posts as he tried to make sense of what you were writing. But he couldn't, because your basic concepts about the topic do not reflect how things normally are defined. He finally gave up and just flat out asked you what you meant.

there is no such thing as a "minority using their power and influence to maintain barriers to equal opportunity" because if an ethnic group can do that they are, by definition, not a minority in discussions about racial discrimination at the system's level.

you list a bunch of non-racial groupings and ask them to come up with rational explanations as to why that is or is not racism. in everyday common language, it's racism for lack of a better term because most people do not want to explain the problems with using "race" as a signifier. Some people want to use racism in a technical manner. To them, those acts are nationalism. That's correct, too. The breakdown was less about trying to figure out what racism is than a problem with coming to terms with what constitutes race. There's a problem from a scientific standpoint in defining people from a racial standpoint. And if you want to force that out of people, then you should realize there are only three scientific races and if we gotta use them, they don't break out in the way you categorized people.

what you did was float the idea that racism is only when one race discriminates against another race, but then challenged people to explain why discrimination between caucosoids isn't racism. And why isn't discrimination between mongoloids labeled racism? Do you see how you are confusing things by moving across problematic categories and using a strict definition for racism when you explain your point and then challenging people when they try to answer your questions by using the same strict standard you are employing?

Everyone agreed that it was some form of discrimination, but you still refused to let it go. When different groups discriminate against one another at the individual level, grant that we all can see that as some form of discrimination that should not continue. I even agreed that I'll go ahead and call the examples you are worried about "racism"...can we move on?

somehow that wasn't enough. because that's all you took away from my post! your only reply to my thoughts were, well filtherton and DC_dux said such and such. well aside from the fact that they didn't, it's not really relevant because I'm moving the discussion forward...or trying to at least by explaining where we see the real root of the problem. that's why I classified the last two pages as pointless red herrings, because you didn't even address the larger points. you just nitpicked some minor points and then moved on without even engaging with the lengthy explanation of what we are trying to talk about.

you go on and on about discrimination against the Irish, from Pakistani to Indian, from Chinese to Korean. It makes no sense...if your point was to ask those questions to rebut the argument that racism is about power and subjugation, how do those support such an argument?

Do you have any knowledge about the schism between all those groups you listed?
Each and every example you listed supports the general point I made about power and subjugation regardless of whether you see them as nationalists, racists, ethnic groupings, or "racial" groupings.

Hate crimes are not based solely on racially motivated crimes. Your assumptions about hate crime legislation is factually wrong yet you have a stance on it and built an argument around that stance.

no, no it's not. you spent all this time and energy trying to get people to disagree with a straw man you built about their responses instead of addressing the points I raised in my post explaining why this statement of yours can't work.

How do you get fairness to everyone when structures that prepare people for society are inherently racist because they embody the historical development of racism in our country?

how can we operate in a color blind society while at the same time our basic institutions, such as public education, are reproducing racist policies that used to be codified?

in this sense, how is racism anywhere near dead in the US?

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"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman