yovargas wrote:vison wrote:yovargas, in my mind racism is not rooted in any reasonable cause but arises from fear of "the other". A racist does not need to have ever experienced hurt from the other, he is simply allowing his prejudices and irrational fears to create hate.
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Oh, I disagree entirely. Firstly, because hating a race is racism by definition no matter what the cause or reason. Secondly, because a lot, probably most, racism has "reasonable causes" at its roots. Blacks
do have a higher crime rate in the US. Jews
did head a lot of banks and newspapers. Arabs
have tried to destroy Western culture. And whites
did enslave blacks. All real, factual reasons to fear, hate, or resent a race that have been used to justify racism at one time or another. But in all those cases, the justifications are wrong and the racism is wrong. I LOVED Obama's speech because he called a spade a spade - there are good reasons why some blacks resent and good reasons why some whites resent other ethnicities, and we should look those reasons in the face and do our best to honestly understand them. But understanding those resentments does not mean accepting them; they should be called out for what they are - divisive, destructive, and immoral.
I’m sorry yov, but reading that post just makes my head spin, and it displays an astonishing naivete about racism. Do you honestly believe that the cause of white racism is high crime rates among blacks? No, no, no, a thousand times no. The root of racism in the US is the belief that the white race is superior to the black race, so much so that blacks could be owned as property by whites, and when that was no longer possible that blacks could be denied access to justice, education and the ability to earn a living. That they could be treated as chattel, and dismissed out of hand as nothing more than wild apes at best and criminals at worst. That is where racism in the US comes from.
Can you not see how equating black anger towards whites with racism makes a mockery of the reality that blacks have endured in this country? Yes, even black hate towards whites, even desire for revenge against whites by blacks? When have whites in this country ever been bought and sold as property? When have whites in this country ever been beaten, whipped and hung from trees and left to die just because they were white? Nothing that white people as a race have endured in this country equates to what blacks have endured.
I’m sorry, but I simply refuse to believe that racism is nothing more than hate, and I absolutely, categorically refuse to believe it is hate based on reasonable cause. I refuse to believe that it can be simplified like that. Racism is about belief in the superiority of one race over another, and the desire to act on that belief. And my personal belief, the one that a lot of people vehemently disagree with, is that there is always an element of power involved in racism. To me, racism is a form of oppression, and oppression is never a two way street, there is always an oppressed and an oppressor. The Nazis weren’t racist because they hated the Jewish ownership of banks and newspapers, the Nazis were racist because they believed they were better than Jews, and they acted on that belief, and had the ability to act on it, by stuffing Jews into furnaces and killing them. And you’re going to tell me that a Jew is racist for hating and wanting to destroy Nazis after that? It just boggles my mind.
Let me put it another way - I’ve said that some of Wright’s statements were reprehensible, but nowhere have I seen Rev. Wright suggest that the problems that blacks have faced in the US would be solved if the tables were turned and whites were sold as slaves and beaten and hung from trees. Nowhere have I seen Wright, or James Cone, say that if only blacks could take their rightful place as the rulers of the world and treat whites the same way whites treated them then all would be right with the world. When he says that, then I will call him a racist.