I always thought that racist means basically “something that involves racism” and that racism means “the idea that there are races”.
By that definition this sentence would be racist, bcs it speaks of races. However, I met someone who said this and then claimed that this wasn’t racist. What does racist mean then?
From Wikipedia:
Racism is discrimination and prejudice against people based on their race or ethnicity.
There are some nuances here and there, but that’s essentially it.
and that racism means “the idea that there are races”.
This isn’t true at all. Racism means being derogatory to other races. There are different races and it’s completely normal to acknowledge that. So no, it’s not racist to say you’re white.
Biologically speaking, there are no races. It’s ultimately just an arbitrary classification that can change entirely on people’s preconceptions. For example 100+ years ago, Irish people were often seen as not white by Americans.
…Not trying to say it’s racist to say you’re white though. That’s a ridiculous idea.
Correct. The different “races” should be referred to as “breeds” to be scientifically accurate.
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Then why do we refer to them as “cat breeds” and “dog breeds”? They’re genetically the same species with distinct visual characteristics.
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So are humans subject to different rules of categorization without reason or is there something else to be considered when creating these taxonomic silos?
Humans have not been selectively bred over thousands of fucking generations - hence the term “breed”. The language you’re using is classic racist dogwhistling - which is why you sound like an utter cunt.
I know you didn’t mean it this way, but the implication that there are “breeds” of people can be very offensive, as it compares someone’s lineage to domesticated animals. Racists have long used the term “breed” to describe disenfranchised minority groups in an intentionally derogatory manner. Culture and heritage are baked into our identities, and they are very dear to many people’s hearts and vital to our sense of self, which is why you’re getting the responses that you are.
It’s also not scientifically accurate, because breeds are bred. They are not naturally occurring variations in a species, they are bred for a purpose, by humans, through artificial selection. It’s why there are breeds of dogs, cats, and horses, but we don’t normally use that word for starfish or rhinos.
Humans don’t have breeds because we are not bred with intention in the way that dogs are. We are products of our environment, our culture, and our history. Race is a construct, and the closest thing we have is ethnicity, which is essentially just our ancestry’s geographical origins.
Honestly, I’m just taking the piss because PM_me_your_vagina_thanks is all worked up about it.
I didn’t find it ridiculous. Why do you?
Here’s why:
Is it racist to say that you’re blonde? You’re describing a physical feature. Hair color isn’t “generally” something that people get racist about so simply saying “this is what my body parts look like” isn’t racist.
Now, if you announce that you’re blonde and that all dark haired people must be eliminated from society, you’re racist.
Coming from the US, I had no idea until I became friends with an Australian, but some people in AU and the UK really hate people with red hair and call them ‘gingers’. I suppose it’s some anti-Irish thing.
“Ginger” as a term is not, in itself, derogatory or hateful in my experience.
Describing gingers as soulless or hot-tempered is about the same kind of destructive as describing blondes as stupid, which is to say it’s a silly stereotype that’s often the territory of playful insults between friends, while some small minority of people do run it into the ground and cause real hurt.
(This might be exacerbated by tensions between England and Ireland in that specific area, but… for most of the world “ginger” is a pretty harmless thing.)
It can be light hearted, or not. As you note some people do take it a bit seriously. The wiki article addressing the history and present nature of anti-ginger discrimination has some interesting examples.
That’s an American idea that there are different races. The term is obsolete in a biological sense. There are different connections of color, but that’s not sufficient to constitute different races.
Racism has been around a lot longer than fucking America has…
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I find it interesting that you have to specify it’s not real in a biological sense, which is true, but use this to imply it’s not real in any sense. It’s a sociological concept, constructed rather than inherent but still very much a thing.
Also, race as a concept was first conceived of by European explorers before America was even a thing, and the concept is pretty widespread.
A group of people united or classified together on the basis of common history, nationality, or geographic distribution.
What else would you call it?
Ethnicity? Race is primarily based on (arbitrary) physical characteristics.
There are distinct genetic lineages that can reliably tell roughly what region someone’s ancestors were from.
yeah, see that’s what I thought.
Racism is the -ism of race — the idea that race is one of the (or the) most important traits of a person.
That through race, you can assume things about them like their worth, how you should treat them, how they act, feel, etc.The way I see, all of these -isms are all like that (sexism, nationalism, etc).
So no, it’s not racist to call yourself white. It would be racist, though, to say you’re worth more or less than others because of your being white.
I don’t think that definition is widely accepted. I think most people generally believe racism is characterized by or showing prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism against a person or people on the basis of their membership in a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized. If you are white and call yourself white, most people would not consider that a racist statement.
racism means “the idea that there are races”.
By that definition, if you call yourself white and you think that white were a race, then you are racist.
But if you call yourself white in order to just describe yourself (whoever may need such a description, I don’t know), then you are not.
I was only talking about the sentence being racist (adjective) not the person being a racist (noun)
IMO a sentence is racist if it’s author is racist.
No, most well-adjusted people would not identify that sentence as racist. While it’s true that the sentence does involve race, racism is understood in society as something that involved prejudice or hate. None of that exists in the sentence “I’m white” within this context
Racism means being negatively prejudiced or bigoted against people of various races and ethnicities.
It can be an individual thing, but is also used often to mean institutional racism, as in a society that is constructed or functions in a way to disadvantage people of particular races compared to others.It is not. I’m not sure what gave you that impression.
that racism means “the idea that there are races”.
I think you would need to specify “the idea that there are biological races” for that to even remotely work and calling yourself white doesn’t imply you believe in biological races. Like someone saying they don’t worry as much about cops pulling them over because they’re a white (male driving a truck through rural Texas), for example, is talking about the social construct of race and how that influences their normal interactions compared to their darker skinned pears in a way that criticizes racism rather than reinforces it.
That is a pretty wild definition of “racism” as “the idea that there are races.”
But I kind of see how you got there.
The idea that human beings can be carved up along certain lines (demarcated by skin color and ancestry) and that there are significant differences between human capability across these dividing lines - and that justifies power differences and relationships of oppression between those groups – those are the ideas behind racism, which expresses itself in oppression and injustice.
But the fact that people do carve up humanity along those lines, and therefore people find themselves put in these categories we call “races,” and have different experiences and opportunities based on which one they find themselves in – that’s a fact. It’s not racist to acknowledge it – indeed, in a way, it would be racist to deny it because it would be denying the reality of oppression.
So “the idea that there are races” = “people are inherently and biologically divided up into ‘black’, ‘white’, etc and this indicates fundamental differences between them” – that’s racism
“the idea that there are races” = “there are ‘races’ because there are structures in the world which are built on the idea of ‘races’ having inherent biological differences, and these structures affect people” – that’s accurately recognizing that racism exists.
Does that make sense?
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I think it’s stupid that we use the words white and black to refer to people, who are literally all brown. We have a spectrum of melanin content and we just turned it into two big categories to justify slavery, and we never changed it back. We still think of it like two big separate categories of people, and now we’re all hung up on making sure there’s no difference between these two completely arbitrary made up categories.
Exactly. And since the categorization is the root of the problem, I assumed that this is what people are talking about. “categorizing people into races == racism” made sense to me. I’m sad to find out how other people understand this word. I find my definition much more useful
All the -isms boil down to “preconceived notions about the group” as opposed to being about individuals. These notions can be positive OR negative.
So saying that Asians are good at math… Is also racist.
Just saying that you are white isn’t racist, describing you further wouldn’t be racist, but saying that any of that was because of your race would be.
I think racism is the noun, racist the adjective (“that’s racist” is short for “that’s a racist saying/idea”), and thé racist is the person who practizes racism.
To add to the other conversation:
It also kind of depends on where you are. In America, it’s normal to talk about being white. But I feel like in Europe, usually people who refer to themselves as white are white supremacists. Unlike normal people, who tend to refer to themselves with their ethnicity, like “Polish”, “Irish”, etc.
So from the latter perspective, it would seem like racism itself is believing in the existence of races. But racism is really, after you started believing in them, then discriminating based on said races. It’s like step 2 on that path.
