Racism isn’t that easy to define. There are two competing meanings and the new, more specific one, is quite controversial once examined.
The Pedagogy of the Meaning of Racism: Reconciling a Discordant Discourse Carlos Hoyt Jr.
“We do our students (white and not white) a disservice by indoctrinating them into a belief system that charges white people with being de facto racists (by virtue of being the beneficiaries of historic and present institutional race-based oppression) while providing an exemption to black people from being held accountable for racist beliefs (racism) or practices (race-based oppression). One of our basic charges as social workers is to affirm that discrimination and oppression based on the accident of one’s condition (whether the condition is one’s appearance (lookism), physical ability (ableism), sex (sexism), sexual orientation (heterosexism), place of origin (xenophobia/ethnocentrism), or socioeconomic status (classism) are patently and intolerably unjust.
In defining and describing the types of social bias and injustice we confront and aim to dispel, we are obliged to observe nuance when it is relevant to a thorough understanding of a phenomenon under consideration. The minute that one human being is treated unequally by another, without legitimate basis for the unequal treatment, there is injustice, but until the motivation for that unjust treatment is determined to be a belief in the superiority or inferiority of races, the mistreatment cannot reasonably be labeled as racist.
There are, unfortunately, many factors that can derail reason and lead to irrational unjust behavior (personal enmity, fear of the unfamiliar, the perception of threat, social conditioning, any of the isms listed earlier). When the flaw is a belief in race as a legitimate reason to discriminate, it is racism. When racism is enacted to subjugate or disenfranchise others, it is oppression; when the source of the power is systemic, structural, or institutional, it is race-based institutional oppression.”
I highly recommend reading the paper in its entirety as Hoyt Jr lays out the arguments for the redefinition versus the original meaning of racism.
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
7 comments
May 10, 2016 at 9:07 am
tildeb
Introducing clear thinking about one the Regressive Left’s main assault weapon and when it and is not applicable is going to be an almost insurmountable problem, methinks. Few people willing to throw the term around care about linking effects they question or may not like with race; it’s far easier to simply use the term as an accusatory smear that far too many people go along with out of fear of being similarly labeled.
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May 10, 2016 at 11:05 am
The Arbourist
@Tildeb
Yep, of course the answer to being labelled is to give no-f*cks about it and attempt to pursue the argument to its logical end (if it has one). Hard to do, especially in electronic forums where understanding nuance is almost always at a premium.
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May 10, 2016 at 11:41 am
tildeb
Yes, understanding nuance is at a premium and being thick skinned a virtue, but a very real and growing problem is the fascist tactic of being banned for ‘insensitivity’ and then have this excuse widely accepted by the fearful as if reasonable. The actual banning is far worse an intolerant, disrespectful, and censoring practice than the is the faux-racism supposedly being targeted by the self-appointed Champions of the Oppressed and the Heroic Defenders of Tolerance, Respect, and Free Speech.
I’m beginning to think that understanding irony should have to be a mandatory course in education curriculum because it’s in such short supply as to approach endangered status.
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May 10, 2016 at 11:49 am
The Arbourist
It stultifies debate and the exchange of ideas.
I’ve only banned a few people here, and in every case, the ban has been temporary. I have a fairly high tolerance for people and their practices, but sometimes a break is order. Give the parties in question a change to cool down and start again.
Would that be before or after the tolerance and inclusivity training?
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May 10, 2016 at 12:13 pm
sepultura13
Interesting post. Unraveling and redefining racism would be like unraveling and redefining feminism, classism, and every other socially-created “ism” that exists.
Many seem to boil down to people’s irrational, incessant need to be “better than” or “one-up” another. Can they all be tied to basic insecurity, or something even more simplistic?
I wonder…
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May 10, 2016 at 12:18 pm
VR Kaine
Great post and excerpt, Arb.
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May 10, 2016 at 2:23 pm
tildeb
Do you think they might be co-requisites?
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