What Is a Racist?
8th August 2012
t has to be evident to all thinking people by now that racism is the new witchcraft. Once you’re branded with the Scarlet “R,” some people do not regard it as immoral to assault you…or worse.
Calling someone a racist is sufficient to brand them as outside the pale of civilized company. In academia, the accusation is a career-wrecker. Socially it is enough to get you dropped from the A-list of the best parties.
August 8th, 2012 at 08:41
“This is obviously their working definition: A person who is so bad that you need not apply normal standards of decency…when dealing with them.” Hmm. Judging by the copious ad hominems cast my way by Jake, I must be a raaaaacist, and he must be a Leftist…
The term ‘racist’, although nominally descriptive, has been rendered useless by its profligate use in any and all contexts regardless of whether the situation at hand actually fits the definition of the word. The properly expansive term folks should be using is ‘bigot’, of which ‘racist’ is but a subset–but such niceties are lost on those with more passion than sense.
I blame the media. (Not because I think they’re responsible, but they’re handy.)
August 8th, 2012 at 13:21
A side note: ‘Racism’ is a word that is fundamentally defined differently in the minds of whites vs. blacks.
When whites say ‘racism’, they reference a personal attitude; though is hasn’t gone away (witness the black couple refused marriage in a white church just recently), it is far less prevalent than previously.
When blacks say ‘racism’, they reference an economic system; racism is essentially capitalism as seen from a Marxist perspective, with people of color standing in as the proletariat and ‘racists’ taking the role of the capitalist bosses. (They will never say that outright, however; I suspect most of them don’t even understand that that’s what they’re talking about.)
Given this huge disconnect between the two definitions, it is amazing that any meaningful discussion of the topic ever happens, even rarely.