Racist = personally defines or categorizes people by the color of their skin, according to a made up concept called "race"... — Pro Hominem

Every language user who has ever used the terms "black", "white", "asian", or "multi-racial" is racist according to that criterion for what counts as being racist.
— creativesoul

You are intentionally ignoring the nuances here — Pro Hominem

I simply showed the inherent inadequacy of the notion you're working from, as it was stated... verbatim...

Accounting malpractices won't do. — creativesoul

These are called syllogisms. They are meant to make it easier to judge the logic of an argument by removing a lot of the words that allow for misinterpretation. Believe me, the logic of your argument actually got better when I simplified it that way.

I don't like using the word black... — Pro Hominem

This is so common... Funny thing...

All my black friends, family members and loved ones throughout my entire life have called themselves "black". "African American" is used by those who feel strongly about keeping their roots in mind, particularly in the late 80's and since. Even then, none of them have ever had any problem with being black or called "black" or categorized as "black", aside from being subject to injury by white racists. That's certainly a problem with being black, not being called "black".

Black pride. Black power. Black Lives Matter.

My argument was given back on page seven, I think. I've given several since. I do not believe you. Use my words, and I'll gladly respond in kind.

I have black loved ones, asian loved ones, and white loved ones, but according to that definition of "racist", I am racist. — creativesoul

Not speaking about you personally at all, but it is entirely possible for those things to both be true of someone.

I have family, friends, acquaintances, and strangers. They all lack a racial dimension to me. I don't use these signifiers when I identify anyone internally. Personally, I don't have a filter labeled "race" when I consider other people.

If you categorize, differentiate, or single people out for their skin tone, that is racist thinking. You realize that you're having the same reaction you're so proud of inflicting with your "white privilege" formulation, right? You feel offended because someone is accusing you of a thing you're sure you haven't done.

This is so common... Funny thing...

All my black friends, family members and loved ones throughout my entire life have called themselves "black". "African American" is used by those who feel strongly about keeping their roots in mind, particularly in the late 80's and since. Even then, none of them have ever had any problem with being black or called "black" or categorized as "black", aside from being subject to injury by white racists. That's certainly a problem with being black. — creativesoul

I didn't say I don't like using it because I thought anyone was offended by it or because no one else uses it. Just the opposite. I said I don't like it because too many people use it to create a category of thought that is contributory to racist behavior.

I acknowledge that it is used by "black" people to describe themselves, and I have used it in their company. I don't think the word is taboo in and of itself. I just don't want people to go to this well of self-categorizing or making generalizations based on this concept. It perpetuates it, and that same mindset is reflected in the bigot, he is just attaching different meanings to the same generalization.

My argument was given back on page seven, I think. I've given several since. I do not believe you. Use my words, and I'll gladly respond in kind. — creativesoul

We've tried that already. It didn't work.

If you think about the "solution" to systemic racism, what does that look like in your mind? — Pro Hominem

Can we look at this, please? I'm not laying a trap, I'm curious to know what outcomes you are hoping for. What does the "equitable" system look like? If there were no more problems of disadvantage or hate crimes, if police treated everyone the same way, if racial slurs and discriminatory encounters disappeared, how would people behave? Do you see a world in which people of all skin tones are evenly populated across schools and neighborhoods, or are there still "black communities" and "white communities?" Is there still a distinct "black culture?" Do people still talk about "black people" and "white people" or do they just talk about "people?"

You don't have to use my questions if you don't want to. I just want to know what you think success ultimately looks like.

So, it seems that we've reached a point were we can all clearly see what some of the underlying problems are here with the objections to white privilege...

Notions of "racism" and "white privilege" and "systemic racism" that are utterly inadequate for discriminating between racists and non racists(the irony), just plain wrong and/or ignorant by sheer will alone(refusal to carefully consider what's been actually written), and conflating systemic racism with one of it's many bi-products(white privilege).

I've already answered that question as well... again, on page seven(I think). Perhaps eight...

Therefore, individuals may exercise acts of systemic racism unbeknownst to themselves, or even contrary to their intentions, — Number2018

There is no such thing as an "act of systemic racism". Systemic racism is system-wide, by definition. It is not contained in specific instances, it is perpetually present by virtue of the system in which it lives. Acts of racism are interpersonal, not systemic. You argument holds true if you make this distinction, but fails if you do not.

People engaged in discrete acts of interpersonal racism absolutely bear responsibility for those acts. There is no such thing as systemic responsibility. — Pro Hominem

Probably, you are right: the term act indicates a kind of juridical responsibility. So, let's replace the "act of systemic racism" with "unintentionally and/or unconsciously taking part in or supporting systemic racism practices." (Once again, as I wrote you, it does not work with your apprehension of institutional racism) Since we are talking about the unconscious dimension of activities, the analogy of psychoanalyses may fit here. A neurotic person systematically takes part in behavioural patterns that she is not aware of their hidden meaning. Yet, from the psychoanalytical perspective, the truth of the situation and treatment are known and achievable.
Similarly, the systemic racism framework supposes that people unconsciously, and maybe contrary to their intentions, participate in various practices having racist consequences. Indeed, they cannot be responsible for their activities. But they can be (ought to be) enlightened or educated to become aware of the truth. The same rationale may be applied to people who are not aware of their "white privilege." Again, please do not take it as my own position.

Notions of "racism" and "white privilege" and "systemic racism" that are utterly inadequate for discriminating between racists and non racists(the irony) — creativesoul

They are perfectly adequate, you just don't like the outcomes. I define racism as using the concept of race to define, categorize, or judge people. Without race, there can be no racists. Race is a construct that didn't even exist 500 years ago. We don't have to use it. If people choose to, then I would call that racist in a clear, definitional way.

You have defined racists as "white people who discriminate against colored people." This is a very radicalized view of racism. Only whites can be racist because racists are bad people, and the oppressed cannot ever be wrong about anything. You cannot see the irony contained in this line of thinking: "there are 2 kinds of people who are wrong - racists and white people." Mike Myers made this joke in Austin Powers 3 in a slightly different context. Here it's less funny. Saying "all white people are X" is an inherently racist proposition because it is based on judging a group of people entirely on the basis of race. That is so obviously true if you have any fidelity to the English language itself. If you don't, then why do you talk to people at all?

just plain wrong and/or ignorant by sheer will alone(refusal to carefully consider what's been actually written) — creativesoul

Back at ya. I've demonstrated your shortcomings on logical, linguistic, and practical grounds over and over. You don't want to believe me. Ok, don't. It doesn't change how logic works, what words mean, or whether its a good idea to employ a strategy that specifically seeks to alienate white people at a moment in history where many of them are starting to take your side in the conversation...

and conflating systemic racism with one of it's many bi-products(white privilege). — creativesoul

Systemic racism is an observable fact. White privilege is an argumentative construct. One exists, the other is a tactic (I've explained many times why I think it's a bad tactic, but that won't stop any of you from continuing to use it). I've acknowledged that some white people have benefited from racial attitudes and laws in all sorts of ways, and that that is a problem that must be addressed. I do not think that you can support the idea that all white people at all times are benefiting in any calculable way from the oppression of black people. I don't even think you can satisfactorily define who exactly all these "white" people are. You refuse to confront any of this. You just think it's a good idea because it makes white people mad when you say it to them. Good luck with that. You are perpetuating the system.

"unintentionally and/or unconsciously taking part in or supporting systemic racism practices." — Number2018

So where do I fit in? I am fully conscious of systemic racism, but I do not support its practices. Yet I am white. What now?

"unintentionally and/or unconsciously taking part in or supporting systemic racism practices."
— Number2018

So where do I fit in? I am fully conscious of systemic racism, but I do not support its practices. Yet I am white. What now? — Pro Hominem

It is a challenging question. Probably, it is a false choice between “being white” and “being fully conscious of systemic racism.” We need to avoid a trap of the imposed choices between fixed, rigid, and normative identifications. One of the functions of power is to reduce the complexity of our social reality to the easily recognizable obviousnesses.

It is a challenging question. I am sorry, but I cannot give you some advice. Probably, it is a false choice between “being white” and “being fully conscious of systemic racism.” We need to avoid a trap of the imposed choices between fixed, rigid, and normative identifications. One of the functions of power is to reduce the complexity of our social reality to the easily recognizable obviousnesses — Number2018

So one can be white, be conscious of systemic racism, and be in opposition to it? If that is true, whither "white privilege?" If I denounce any claim to it and actively work against it, how is it properly applied to me?

Your point about reducing complex problems to simple formulations may be especially apt in this case.

Understanding and/or becoming aware of white privilege requires knowing about enough of the situations that non whites deal with because they are not white. White privilege is the exemption from just these sorts of specific circumstances and/or situations. Those situations are only thought about when a non white individual tells their own story. Until then, the white individual cannot know about all of the injustices that they are themselves immune to. — creativesoul

All your consideration is based on the racial premise of skin colour as the most fundamental socio-economic distinction and operator. How can we know that non-white deal with various situations exclusively because they are non-white, and white are exempted just because they are white? One faces complex socio-economic situations, oversimplifies them, then transforms them into mere facts, and finally converts the descriptive truths into the ultimate prescriptive judgements. After all, the final truth has a binding ethical dimension. But who decides that we must accept this truth? Likely, one of the other dimensions is a political will and the intensive enforcement of this will. What if somebody disagrees with one of the stages of the operative process? For example, for a Marxist, the founding social dichotomy is not racial, but the working class and capitalists' opposition.

After one becomes aware of the wrongdoing they can also become a willing and knowing accomplice of continued wrongdoing. However, at that time they are not yet willing accomplices to any wrongdoing, for let us not forget that they have just became aware of the wrongdoing. So, an otherwise unknowing white individual becomes aware of the residual effects/affects of racism that still pervade American society to this day.

What personal responsibility do they have? That ought be established by the amount of power they have to influence and/or effect change. — creativesoul

Actually, you indirectly agree that here is a kind of ‘potential complicity.’ If one unintentionally takes part in systemic racism practices and/or benefit from them, to make it evident, and to make one aware of the wrongdoing or benefiting from “white privilege,” there is the program to develop the process of the enlightenment: the universal truth of systemic racism and white privilege should become widely available, it should become the integral part of the academic curriculum, sportive events, entertainment, the media narratives, etc. After such reinforcement, any dissent, disagreement, or the pretext of being unaware would become nonsensical and almost impossible.

I have black loved ones, asian loved ones, and white loved ones, but according to that definition of "racist", I am racist.

You’re safe to use adjectives to describe human beings. But races are a taxonomy. So when we start to classify them as members in this taxonomy, we’ve employed the racialist worldview to aid in our judgement of human beings. Once we drop the racialist worldview from our thinking we should have no problem using better foundations.

So one can be white, be conscious of systemic racism, and be in opposition to it? If that is true, whither "white privilege?" If I denounce any claim to it and actively work against it, how is it properly applied to me? — Pro Hominem

@Banno gave a worked example using "stairs" for able-bodied privilege at the start of the thread, then linked an essay later in this () post. gave a long explanation. If this question is rooted in a failure of understanding, one of the essays Banno linked has a checklist of ways white privilege works on a day to day individual level (as a manifestation of systemic racism).

Banno gave a worked example using "stairs" for able-bodied privilege at the start of the thread, then linked an essay later in this (↪Banno) post. ↪creativesoul gave a long explanation. If this question is rooted in a failure of understanding, one of the essays Banno linked has a checklist of ways white privilege works on a day to day individual level (as a manifestation of systemic racism) — fdrake

Are you....joking?

If your answer in any way relies on Banno's asinine stairs analogy that he thinks is an example, then we can just stop. I thought you were starting to explore this a little more and realize this simplistic view of a complex problem might be insufficient.

Instead, you went "stairs."

My soul died a little when I read that. You should be ashamed, if you're able to.

So one can be white, be conscious of systemic racism, and be in opposition to it? If that is true, whither "white privilege?" If I denounce any claim to it and actively work against it, how is it properly applied to me? — Pro Hominem

I mostly agree with your points in this thread but I don't think you can challenge the idea of white privilege on this front. It is like saying that if you disagree there should be an "attractiveness privilege" but you are extremely attractive, nobody should argue that you have an attractiveness privilege. Of course, it doesn't work like that, the fact remains that you receive the various social benefits (among other kinds) of being attractive - whether you think it's immoral that you do or not.

By the way pro hominem, what is your answer to this?

I am interested, do you account for historical explanations? For example, if we eradicated all forms of systemic racism in the US (magically, instantly) but black Americans are still disproportionately poor (not changed), would that be a problem for you? — Judaka

They are perfectly adequate, you just don't like the outcomes. I define racism as using the concept of race to define, categorize, or judge people... — Pro Hominem

It's not about me. It's about the reductio ad absurdum that your criterion inevitably leads to.

If we grant your definition/conception/criterion/notion of racist, then it only follows that everyone who has ever used "black", "white", "asian", and/or "multi-racial" was/is racist.

You have defined racists as "white people who discriminate against colored people." — Pro Hominem

No. I have not.

As I said... refusal to pay careful attention to what has been written.

I've demonstrated your shortcomings... — Pro Hominem

Prior to proper(valid) critique comes understanding that which is being critiqued. Thus far, you have not even managed to get the basics of my position correct. You've been furiously arguing with your own imagination...

...and yes, there are shortcomings.

You'll have to do better than that.

These sheltered two-bit liberals have gone all their lives without having to deal with any personal racial animus whatsoever, so the most insulting thing they can imagine is even being called a racially marked name. Meanwhile no one who actually has grown up under the sign of race actually gives a shit because they're busy avoiding being killed by cops, followed at in shops, and bypassed for jobs. And these kum-ba-yah motherfuckers think they can get their their post-racial paradise if everyone is just really polite and stops talking about race because it's just so damn uncomfortable for them. Hence why they'll tip-toe around with condescending names like 'person of color' and die of anxiety at the thought of using a nominative like 'black'.

Oh and while the 'real issues' are elsewhere, and 'white privilege' is 'just a distraction', the only energy these wankers can endlessly expend is precisely on the very topic that, it just so happens, affects them.

kum-ba-yah — StreetlightX

Using this as an insult you only show your ignorance of the Guadalcanal Diary version.

Aside from complicity, how would you describe the following thing MLK highlights:

I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.


For me there's a distinction between complicity - what I think MLK diagnoses as the system justifying behaviour of the "white moderate" in a different vocabulary - and collaboration, like the FBI's actions against black civil rights movements in COINTELPRO + within Garvey's movement. Complicity's "The wrong life cannot be lived rightly" vs collaboration's being an agent that works to promote or sustain the unjust conditions of life. — fdrake

Sorry it took a while. I wanted to reply earlier, but it slipped my mind...

I would readily agree that complicity and collaboration are certainly different. The difference is perhaps in the amount/degree of knowing and deliberate participation, and as you've duly noted, working for the goal of further promoting or sustaining the unjust conditions(wrongdoing). There are currently actors, it seems pretty clear to me, that are intentionally and deliberately misleading the public about much of it. These people are collaborators.

My earlier objection to the complicity charge revolved around unjustly charging whites who are not even aware of the extent of injury that has resulted from systemic racism.

I do think... with a fair amount of conviction... that once one becomes aware of the facts when blacks are not treated equally under the law, they can no longer be thought of as innocent. However, I would urge that the expectation placed upon each individual regarding what they ought do, would be commensurate with their ability to effect/affect change. A public official is held to a much higher standard than a poor rural white person living in the rust belt.

Both ought do what they can when they can.

You're like a communist who talks about the issues of capitalism to criticise critics of your ideology. The flaws of society don't justify the flaws in your ideology. You keep prattling on about how bad things are like it's a coherent justification for your approach and when that doesn't work, you just get upset and start acting tough. Your approach is the same on everything of yours I read and considering you have 6k posts, that's an awful lot of the same thing. I get a kick out of reading it though, please continue.

Oh I will sweetie pie, knowing that you're my biggest fan :kiss:

Maybe you can continue plastering me with labels while whining about how you hate identity politics so much.

Systemic racism is an observable fact. White privilege is an argumentative construct. One exists, the other is a tactic (I've explained many times why I think it's a bad tactic, but that won't stop any of you from continuing to use it). — Pro Hominem

Again...

For the umpteenth time, do yourself a favor and at least get it right to start with before you begin critiquing it. Perhaps then you'll be able to see for yourself that "white privilege" refers to the immunity and/or exemption from the liabilities of being non white in America.

White privilege(the immunity and/or exemption from the liabilities of being non white in America) existed in it's entirety prior to it's namesake, "white privilege". Either argumentative constructs exist in their entirety prior to the language they consist of(which is absurd), or white privilege is not an argumentative construct.

I have black loved ones, asian loved ones, and white loved ones, but according to that definition of "racist", I am racist.
— creativesoul

Not speaking about you personally at all, but it is entirely possible for those things to both be true of someone. — Pro Hominem

I didn't take that personally. Why would I? In fact, it is by virtue of knowing that I am not racist, in addition to knowing that there are many historical figures who are also not, that I can also know that your notion is sorely lacking in it's ability to be used to draw and maintain the actual distinction between those who devalue another based upon the color of their skin alone, and those who do not.

The irony of the earlier attempts to argue against white privilege based upon the purported grounds of being useless and/or counterproductive...

Why am I even continuing to bother?

The casual readers' sake.

You’re safe to use adjectives to describe human beings. But races are a taxonomy. So when we start to classify them as members in this taxonomy, we’ve employed the racialist worldview to aid in our judgement of human beings. Once we drop the racialist worldview from our thinking we should have no problem using better foundations — NOS4A2

You do realize that one can know the biological shortcomings of race as a purported biological category, yet still proceed to meaningfully categorize a group of individuals based upon skin color, and continue doing so without ever devaluing them based upon skin color...

Right?

You also realize that using those terms is not even necessary for devaluing someone based upon their skin color...

Right?

So...

Your suggested method would change nothing but the language being used. The racism would remain, and would be even harder to address than it already is. Those consequences do not surprise me. You would make such a suggestion... given the boot licking Trump apologist you are. That plan would work great to further perpetuate racism.