Are you sure that your rejection of their rejection of race isn't too focused on what they're thinking and too little on how they experience the world? — Srap Tasmaner
See this post. Racialisation doesn't have to hold together as a logically coherent story. That misses the nature and history of the phenomenon. When people study race with a historical eye, it's shown to be nonsense, when people study race with with a scientific one, it's shown to be nonsense on stilts. Still, racialisation happens. People are put into racial bins and treated differently depending on what bin they're in. Absent historical and scientific validation, but it still happens. That leaves the messy world of social norms.
Effectively, you're putting me in a position where I have to give you a check list of who counts as what and for what reasons - but the process by which people are put into racial bins just doesn't work like a logical definition of anything. From my position, the question you ask is loaded.
Racialisation works through norms; it's a societal process, a social fact; and it works associatively rather than logically. — fdrake
A reckoning with 'white' privilege in particular is a recognition that the ability to sail through life being racially unmarked is not something that many others are afforded. — StreetlightX
I mean, there's something comic - truly hilarious - about the dude above who reckons that he can just 'reject' racial labels. One has to ask: how does this play out when you're being shot at by a cop? "I reject this!". Oh goody, racism is cancelled, everyone can go home. I mean these people really think racism is some kind of discursive phenomenon, the kind of thing you can just reason about over a coffee table. — StreetlightX
Their experience of race - or lack thereof - is so far removed from any reality that they really think it's just some kind of moot-court exercise in which if one disavows with a clear, strong voice, then all will be right with the world. — StreetlightX
it's just some kind of moot-court exercise in which if one disavows with a clear, strong voice, then all will be right with the world. If only George Floyd had 'rejected' being knelt on. — StreetlightX
I am saying that within these confines, we should strive for language and thinking that is more accurate and nuanced than "white people bad!" — Pro Hominem
But you're not going to deny that a whole lot of people count you as white and that this has consequences, are you? — Srap Tasmaner
When one doesn't experience racial marking in one's day-to-day — StreetlightX
The white experience of race is largely one of having experiences which are not racially marked at all — StreetlightX
We're probably saying the same thing, but keep swapping who's pointing at the underlying context. — Srap Tasmaner
It has far fewer consequences than if they identified me as black. — Pro Hominem
By racially marked I simply mean that one's race is, as it were, re-marked upon, whether in word or deed. — StreetlightX
I think the consequences are really different, largely invisible, but no fewer. — Srap Tasmaner
I am saying that within these confines, we should strive for language and thinking that is more accurate and nuanced than "white people bad!"
— Pro Hominem
Cool, 'cause that's not what white privilege is - although I understand that for you, seeing the word 'white' can mean nothing other than some kind of slight because at no point have you ever had to deal with being racially marked in that way. — StreetlightX
What's actually bad is ascribing qualities to an individual based on their skin tone. That is what systemic racism fosters. — Pro Hominem
By racially marked I simply mean that one's race is, as it were, re-marked upon, whether in word or deed. A kind of racial intentionality as it were - to experience race as race; as distinct from those experiences of race which are not experienced in racial terms - as with your hypothetical police interaction. — StreetlightX
I think the consequences are really different, largely invisible, but no fewer. — Srap Tasmaner
But when you put the word "systemic" in front of the word "racism", do you mean something else? Something like "racism without gaps"? I truly don't know. Attributing qualities besides skin tone based on skin tone, I would just call "racist". Do you just mean "lots of people having racist ideas"? If so, I suppose I agree after all, I just make allowances for people not to be all-day-everyday racist, in this sense. You only need to be racist once in a while to do your part. (Like maybe you want your dog to have a fun day and that bird-watcher is just so annoying.) — Srap Tasmaner
Systemic racism is differences in experiences and outcomes that correlates to an improbable degree with which race your society, at large, assigns you. It is evidence of the holding, at least now and then, of racist attitudes because, being improbable, it must consist of racist behavior. As I say, "in effect racist". — Srap Tasmaner
By racially marked I simply mean that one's race is, as it were, re-marked upon, whether in word or deed. A kind of racial intentionality as it were - to experience race as race; as distinct from those experiences of race which are not experienced in racial terms - as with your hypothetical police interaction.
— StreetlightX
You don't see anything here or in the last handful of posts he and I have exchanged? Nothing that rings true? — Srap Tasmaner
white people experience the absence of the oppression non-white people experience. This is no straw man - scroll through the posts, that is what is asserted time and again. — Pro Hominem
I understand society might largely see me as white, but this really isn't an adequate descriptor of my racial/ethnic identity (I'm an Ashkenazi Jew). — BitconnectCarlos
Also keep in mind that these labels: white, black, etc. are political. They're not simple descriptors. Whether we like it or not whiteness has certain associations. — BitconnectCarlos
B: "If so, it's not because they are black, so what's the real reason?" — Pro Hominem
When was the last time someone said anything to you about your whiteness? — Pro Hominem
B: "If so, it's not because they are black, so what's the real reason?"
— Pro Hominem
But like... social facts are causal too. People drive on the side of the road they drive on because it's a norm. If you're happy to disentangle race from science, and you know the history of the concepts, that doesn't mean disentangling race from causality, no? People really are treated differently because of their race, that's the very essence of racism - be it a personal prejudice, an implicit stereotype, an apartheid system or systemic effects. If someone's racial profiled - yeah, it's because of their race. If someone avoids all of that horrible bollocks; yeah, it's also because of their race — fdrake
If we're happy to say that people get racially profiled because they're black; it's an act of racism and implicit stereotyping — fdrake
Then we should be happy to say that people aren't exposed to some risks, or have relative advantages, because they are white. And that's white privilege. — fdrake
If you want the causal chain spelled out:
skin colour -racial signification> assigned attributes+treatments — fdrake
We'll just have to agree on your terms. I make some distinctions I like and find useful but not everyone does.
Some of what you're describing I would call "institutional racism" and it bugs me that Wikipedia redirects "systemic racism" there. I think of institutional racism as the codifying of racist choices within an institutional structure — Srap Tasmaner
it allows members of that institution to avoid responsibility. "Look, if it were up to me, I'd hire you. But we just don't hire colored people, company policy. I'm not saying it's right, or that I wouldn't change it if I could, but I just work here." — Srap Tasmaner
Some things like mandatory minimums are kind of a grey area for me because they're certainly "in effect racist" but they are not explicitly racist — Srap Tasmaner
Are you referring to affirmative action? — Pro Hominem
We'll just have to agree on your terms. — Srap Tasmaner
No no, the differential minimum sentences for crack vs powdered cocaine, famous example of a law that is in effect racist.
There is a legal issue -- since we're here -- about whether a policy (or law or regulation) is known by those enacting it to be in-effect racist, in which case that's a no-no, and counts as discrimination — Srap Tasmaner
I'm allowing for the possibility that a lot of people contribute to a given institution being in-effect racist, while themselves only occasionally and perhaps quite rarely racist, and perhaps not even knowing it.
(As Michel Foucault said, people know what they do, mostly know why they do what they do, rarely know what what-they-do does.) — Srap Tasmaner
My experience of (a) being white and treated white but (b) thinking I'm raceless and treated raceless is what I think of as white privilege. — Srap Tasmaner
So if we remove racial signification, your chain breaks, yes? — Pro Hominem
If their participation contributes to that institution, does it necessarily follow that it contributes to the racism? — Pro Hominem
In many cases, no. The social relation in question is one of particular bodies. If every human lost their awareness skin colour tomorrow, it would not alter many of the present social relations between bodies. The same bodies would still be in jails, poverty striken communities, etc., and the structures of systematic racism would still be present of the bodies. We would just cease to be aware of them — TheWillowOfDarkness
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