Racism...Forever?

I think it was more complicated in the olden days. Swarthy Italians & Greeks 100 years ago in the US definitely weren't white. White northern Italians could pass. Irish weren't white for a long time even though most were pasty. Neither were Jews back then regardless of shade.

Don't know how Argentina treats Jews nowadays but at least here in NJ, Jews have graduated to full Whitehood. Yes we hear about anti-Semitic incidents but nobody really gives a crap about your religion here. Was different 50 years ago of course.

 

Race has obviously a biological component to it. If your family roots are in Europe and Germany and you are biologically "white", it is what it is.
If we stick to the definition posted by @Dominican Lou (that I totally agree with),
it is hard to call whatever you are at a receiving end "racism". It may be an expression of hate, prejudice but technically not racism. Racism is more systemic.

 

Every so often a college class called "the problem of whiteness" gets the attention of the American right, ranging from traditional conservatives to the "we must prevent white genocide" crowd, all of whom assume that the subtext of the course is "White People: The Problem That Won't Go Away (yet)." Actually, the courses (if they're well taught) deal with the issues you bring up, among others. Throw in the historical factors CP mentions, as well as other political and sociological issues of the sort soccernutter brings up, and you (should) have a pretty interesting semester.

Or prefabricated ideological bullshit that wastes everyone's time while politically accomplishing absolutely nothing, depending on the prof.

 

Right, cause the insults are only permitted from one side of the fence? Wouldn't expect anything different with the level of hypocrisy on this forum.

 

You described institutionalised racism.

You can be racist and have no power to codify your racism into laws or norms.

 

The definition of racism has been posted here several times. Yes it's racism. No discussion possible.

 

Nah, you can be bigoted and racist without economic power.

Also the missdefinition being used can be complicated when power changes hand, both political and economic.

In South Africa blacks have political power, whites have economic power, both can influence racist policies in government for one in industry for the other.

Zimbabwe is an another example on how racism would change, whites and Asians (indian), had power and set up a racist system (the whites did). After independence the government trying to reverse the economic inequalities set up laws that discriminated not only against whites (something probably viewed as ok for more lefties) but also against Asians who benefited under the old system.

Malaysia is another example where those that were in the receiving end of institutionalised racism turned the table when they got power, and now laws designed to help the ethnic Malays do discriminate against Indians and Chinese citizens (who still hold a unproportional level if wealth).

To be fair to Malaysia and South Africa, they have gone about it a way more defensible way. They could have just gone all Zimbabwe and confiscated property and expelled all non desirables.

 

Let me make sure I understand correctly, are you saying that Land reform/ redistribution in Zimbabwe is a racist policy?

 

So how do you all rate this then from the good old USof A.
Shows how far we've come as a nation in just 12 months.

Posted with permission from Newsweek
The United States is one of three nations that voted against a U.N. resolution condemning Nazism late last week.

The resolution called to combat the “glorification of Nazism, Neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fueling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.”

https://www.rawstory.com/2017/11/the-us-voted-against-un-resolution-condemning-nazism/

 

No shit.......

 

Yes and no, it did use race as who lost their land at first, but it was more political at the end since people close to the regime got most of the benefits as it usually happens with these things.

Now was Mugabe reason more of revenge/justice or did he feel blacks were a superior race?

If we go by the definition of power (economic or political) then yes using the power if the state to take back wealth from a racial minority group can be seen as racist.

On the other hand if we use bootsy definition below it was not racist because there was no sense of racial superiority.

I think this is what people like @JC-14 can't differentiate.

Under Webster's definition you need this idea of a race superior to the other to be racist.

You can plainly see it in slavery, colonealism and apartheid, a race (white or Arab) feeling that other people were inferior so they could do as they want with them.

In the other hand laws to confiscate lands or give preference on government jobs or school admission for one racial group over another can not be called racist if there is no idea of the prefered race being superior to another.

But by that definition many things that get called racist are just bigoted (not that it makes it much better).

So when a group or person discriminates against another, are they/he/her doing it for feeling of superiority of for fear of the other.

Fear if the other is most likely not racist as long as there is no sense of superiority IMO.

NOTE: feelings of religious superiority may need a different term than racist, but usually people use it interchangeable, same as Xenophobia against nationalities

 

Who are the other 2?

 

We can go on a long debate about race (a social construct, as far as I am concerned), to keep it simple though, the major factors are obviously skin colors and origins.

 

We had slavery for centuries then apartheid. S. Africa practiced apartheid fairly recently (BTW Queen played Sun City...another stain on them). Prejudice against minority groups has been practiced all over and resulted in WWII, Biafra, Rwanda & Bosnia to name a few

Basically we're awful to each other. Being less awful and more accepting of others (except Queen) should be everyone's goal.

 

Simple....White people are generally from European origins.

 

Or are they?

 

That is a narrow definition that only works to explain race relations in societies with a history of slavery formed during the colonial age, and primarily the Americas and southern Africa. However it is not universal and breaks down when applied to the Eurasian continent.

This is an example of the systematic error in this thread, assuming local conditions are universally present.

In this case, the problems with Middle Eastern migration are largely based on a religious conflict on a continent that has been torn by religious conflicts for the better part of the last 2000 years. Whether it's a rational fear or not, the current conflict is more similar to the Red scare of the 1950s, as Islam is pretty much the new evil ideology instead of communism, rather than a fear of seeing more people with a Mediterranean appearance.

 

According to race scholars such as Joe Feagin and Eduardo Bonilla-Silva. The first being the arguably most accomplished race scholar alive, the other the current president of the American Sociological Association (aka, the biggest and most important sociology organization in the world)

Here are their credentials:

https://sociology.tamu.edu/feagin-joe/

https://sociology.duke.edu/people/eduardo-bonilla-silva

But it's not just a personal quirk with these two guys. Any serious academic study of racism begins with the definition I gave.

And racism will never end if its true ramifications and meaning is too much for some to bear, which makes them resort desperately to it goes both ways-ism.

 

Nope.

You can racially discriminate and have race-based hate, but you're not taking part in a system of domination.

 

This is true.

It gets a little murky in Eurasia. The Japanese during their colonization of eastern Asia were unquestionably racist.

And, of course, the Ottomans and other Western Asian groups did enslave some European populations. Of course, the race of the enslaving groups is a big question mark as well. Are they white? They're not European but they're still part of the larger Caucasian family.

But in the Western Hemisphere the definition works well. I'd argue it works fairly well even in Western Europe too.