What I think both kinds of racism have in common is this: people engage in it to make themselves feel better about who they are. True?
— frank
What if racist behaviour is a consequence of human genetics? There is overwhelming evidence in favour of kin selection, a form of selection where individuals act to the benefit of their relatives not of themselves (a very interesting topic); racism might be the consequence of a similar phenomenon but at a population level. Racism could be considered as a strategy carried by a genetically-related population to preserve its genetic material. It could be seen as an instinct of a genetically-related population. — Daniel
A challenge to that would be Native Americans who were reported to lack racism altogether, and in fact it was reported that a tribe might choose to wage war specifically to obtain new men. By the 19th Century, all the eastern tribes-people were mixtures of white and native blood because of their lack of discrimination in adopting men (and women).
So if rejection of difference is genetic, it would have to be a feature of more populated areas where there's competition for gene expression instead of need for diversity because of the threat of in-breeding. — frank
Or a feature not shared by all gene pools, taking into account that populations next to each other tend to share more genetic markers between them than with populations located farther away (I think). Think of a population as an animal with a number of traits; if certain traits promote its survival, those traits may be favoured by some kind of population selection phenomena. Maybe in the evolution of the native American tribes there was not a selective factor for racism but there was one for other populations. A selective factor could be population size or in-breeding (against?), as you said. Others could be terrain, reproductive availability (if you know what i mean), resource availability, or a mix of all these, making it a very very complex trait, as any other behaviour, right? — Daniel
1. But is this already evidence of racism being innate?*Although research reveals infants demonstrate a preference for caregivers of their own race — FrankGSterleJr
No, my friend, it's inescapably clear what "racism" means to anyone who has the courage or the scars to be honest enough to apply the ancient Roman dicta Cui bono? to thisIf you're trying to define "racism" though, good luck. The definition of racism, white supremecy, etc. changes depending on what political camp you belong to. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Excellent question. — TheMadFool
Racism, I think, can be justified IFF (A) the concept of "race" is factually warranted in biology, (B) comparative "superiority" of one "race" over another "race" or over all other "races" is measured with the consensus of all "races" involved on the results (like the final scores of a football game), and (C) the ideology of "racial supremacy" – that the right (or license), independent of whether or not members have the "might" to do so, of any "race" to exploit (enslave) and dominate (scapegoat) any other "race" – is soundly demonstrated to be true.
If (A) is not true,
then (B & C) necessarily fail.
(A) is demonstrably false;
therefore, "racism" is maniifestly unjustified. QED. — 180 Proof
To sum up: "racism is prejudice + power" is meaningless without defining power. — Count Timothy von Icarus
I've seen a hire criticized by a city council for lack of diversity, and when it was pointed out that the candidate was Latina, as requested, a hot mic picked up an objection that the candidate was "too light skinned."
That's clearly prejudice following a power dynamic. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Trivially obvious. And yet since you don't care to understand you forgo the principle of charity to score cheap points in your own mind. We've been here before, Count, and I've never not defined in context clearly, explicitly what I meant. An example (follow the link back to that thread for context):To sum up: "racism is prejudice + power" is meaningless without defining power. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Don't waste our time with trifling word games. Either you can talk about racism directly, bluntly, informatively, or you cannot – for whatever reason – but leave bs out of the discussion.↪Count Timothy von Icarus
Perhaps true of prejudice but not racism (i.e. power to enforce prejudice). — 180 Proof
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