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Journal Profane MuthaFucka's Journal: Final answer 23

Journal by Profane MuthaFucka

The winnar of the last question was insanecarbonbasedlif (623558) for the question of what a racist is. The answer insight-fully disconnected a racist from mere actions; linking a racist to a relationship with a racist system.

A racist is a person who supports or enables a racist system

There's an interesting consequence of this definition. You don't have to be prejudiced or bigoted to be a racist. All you have to do to be a racist is to participate in a racist system, benefit from it, and do nothing to stop it.

Now all you bitches who were complaining about my other definitions, which were relatively uncontroversial, REALLY have something to bitch about.

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Final answer

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  • You said:

    All you have to do to be a racist is to participate in a racist system, benefit from it, and do nothing to stop it.

    Of course, all these words are definable to more and more exact terms, but the one in particular that I care about is the word "benefit". I suppose if you consider emotional responses as benefits, the statement is true as stands, but I seem to remember a great number of racists that engaged in racism not to their own benefit, but only to the harm of the victims. As I said, if the emotional exercise and resultant rush of hatred (or even the subtler smug feeling of superiority) is considered a benefi

    • I seem to remember a great number of racists that engaged in racism not to their own benefit,

      The actual definition is a supporter or enabler of a racist system. So someone who does racist things (supports the racist system) even if it doesn't benefit them is still a racist.

      The part you responded to was not intended to be the definition of racism I put forward. I could have worded it better.

  • You have brought up the question of a person making height-based choices about who she is interested in as an opposition to a racist making "race"-based choices. I think you were trying to get people to process the following thought, but it hasn't been stated officially, so I'll throw it out there and see what people think:

    Actions based on personal taste and preferences are quite different from ideological actions. Racism is problematic due to ideology, not personal preferential choice. Otherwise we start

    • Two points:

      What about the racism that is not ideological?

      And is the Harrison Bergeron scenario particularly appropriate here? The point is not to make people feel better about themselves, the point is to correct injustice.

      The corrections in Harrison Bergeron weren't examples of injustice.

      The injustice of racism is not that people are born black, the injustice is that black people do not have the same opportunities to participate in the life and benefits of our society.

      So, I am not persuaded.

      • What about the racism that is not ideological?

        I struggle to find any examples of racism that are not ideological. I've always assumed (perhaps incorrectly) that all racism had at at its roots at least the ideology of "We are intrinsically better than them". Often there are a great number of other ideologies attached as well, but this (in my experience) is the core doctrine, and held to most dogmatically by the racist.

        And is the Harrison Bergeron scenario particularly appropriate here? The point is not to make people feel better about themselves, the point is to correct injustice.

        My point was that if we start trying to prevent people from exercising personal preference, this is the flip side to the Harrison Berger

        • There are a number of stark differences between black and white in the USA, none of which required any decisions, or ideology to cause.

          Look at differences in income, life expectancy, educational achievement, age of first marriage, family stability, substance abuse, violent crime victim status, executions, home ownership, and on and on.

          Black people are a lot worse off than white people, and most have never seen segregation or anything like it in person. Yet, differences along racial lines persist.

          Just consid

          • even without a huge ideological force behind it

            That is the point on which we disagree, I guess. I think there are a huge number of people who refuse to admit that they are even racist at all but are comfortable in their (let's coin a term) crypto-racism. These people feel free to dismiss anyone of a certain look and/or background without considering the individual. They (and this I have confronted with some people directly) will deny that they are even being a little racists. They claim instead that "everybody generalizes", and that they "give everyone

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