Is racism really that bad? (2 Viewers)

[Name_Taken]

Good people will always do good things, and bad people will do bad things, but it takes religion to make good people do bad things.

No, just no.

 

[VicerExciser]

You're = You are.
Your = Your.

Even the one with Serb Blood can tell you that.

death to the serb

 

[Will Shakespear]

I am both Serbian and Croatian (Serbian born/raised Croatian mother, Serbian-Croatian father), the amount of people who think I must be so hateful I can't stand myself is mindblowing.

I am Serbian and I hate Milosevic. The amount of people who are shocked when i said that.....

tbh they probably don't really think u must hate urself

they're probably just quoting the Wog Boy, farken

[youtube]vmxs4P1-9K8[/youtube]

 

[*Minka*]

tbh they probably don't really think u must hate urself

they're probably just quoting the Wog Boy, farken

[youtube]vmxs4P1-9K8[/youtube]

HAHA, that cracks me up every time.

 

[*Minka*]

death to the serb

I have the perfect response to this, but unlike some, I am not blinded by Ethnic Hatred.

Have a nice day.

 

[HumanDichotomy]

I guess you could say that holding racist views in and of itself is not necessarily innately immoral. But it's the actions they *lead* to that cause people to make such a fuss. And, let's face it, I reckon *everyone* has a little bit of prejudice towards people of other cultures, just because they're different. But we swallow that, or we should. Those who don't are the ones who are the problem.

Same as religion, as far as I can tell. I mean, people's main objection seems to be that religious belief leads to narrow-mindedness, discrimination and unfair treatment of individuals or groups solely on the basis of that belief.

In my opinion, any belief, any 'ism' can become dangerous or negative if that's the sole paradigm within which people view the world. And when a group identifying with a certain 'ism' does something deemed morally unacceptable, that's when people condemn it as a whole. Consider:

Communism under Lenin and Stalin was terrible and it's never really recovered from being tied to their regime.

An extremist Muslim group was behind 9/11, ever since then, views of Islam in general have been largely negative.

And racist views seem to lead to violence and division, therefore, people see holding such views as innately bad, even if people who hold views some might see as racist would never dream of actually hurting anyone from another race.

So, I guess if people hold racist views, but they don't take that out on others, then that's technically OK. I mean, I still don't agree with it, obviously, but I can't stop them holding views that I disagree with.

Also, the point about free speech; I do think it has its limits. When a group or individual is unjustly harmed by the voicing of certain views, or when voicing them could have negative ramifications on that group or individual, I think that's when it should no longer be considered a right. Of course, the problem comes when drawing the line.

 

[SylviaB]

In my opinion, any belief, any 'ism' can become dangerous

like tourism

Communism under Lenin and Stalin was terrible and it's never really recovered from being tied to their regime.

Except, you know, current communist states are terrible.

Also, the point about free speech; I do think it has its limits. When a group or individual is unjustly harmed by the voicing of certain views, or when voicing them could have negative ramifications on that group or individual, I think that's when it should no longer be considered a right. Of course, the problem comes when drawing the line.

Nah fuck that

no line can be drawn

 

[KFunk]

Sure its stupid. But people seem to act like its the worst thing in the world.

In my view its no more irrational than believing on god, or thinking that we should persecute people because they engage in prostitution or enjoy ingesting particular chemicals.

For some reason it is socially acceptable to hold the aforementioned illogical views (along with many other crazy views) but people go batshit insane at the slightest whiff of racism.

Of course I am against racism, but I also think people have a right to free speech, and that most of the people that get really upset about racism are simply "feeding the trolls" and encouraging them.

I'm not suprised given that you make your sacrifices at the shrine of the anarchic god of distributive justice. If you construe justice as being all about property rights then of course racism won't stand out as a central social issue.

Social esteem is of basic value to most people, bar a small minority of loners and autistics. Along with this go related concepts of recognition and respect. To have one's identity despised, disrespected or discounted may cause great suffering. More than this, a certain level of respect/recognition is perhaps necessary for social participation - in public discourse, casual conversation, the workforce, and so on. The liberal desire that all individuals be respected, in the abstract, as loci of rational intelligence and autonomous will is no doubt a beautiful one, but I feel that we ought to go further and offer people recognition in terms of their particularity - that is, in terms of their difference and diversity - and this of course includes race (and culture, and gender identity, and spirituality, and politics, and so on). Insofar as we need to support free speech a certain level of racism must be tolerated, but I certainly think that racism becomes a problem of social justice once it becomes systematic and/or institutionalised.

 

[jennyfromdabloc]

I'm not suprised given that you make your sacrifices at the shrine of the anarchic god of distributive justice. If you construe justice as being all about property rights then of course racism won't stand out as a central social issue.

WRONG SIR, WRONG! I don't think justice is only about property rights. I have other values beyond the libertarian non aggression axiom (I just have the decency not to want to force them on others) and as I already said, I oppose racism.

Defending property rights is the only legitimate reason for which force can be used. That doesn't mean people can't believe in other things, and use non-violent measures to try and evoke positive change.

I'm questioning whether the current approach to trying to discourage racism is effective. As much as I hate racism, I still think people overreact to it. The sorts of hysterical reactions that are common when a famous person makes a racial slur are way over the top. Often these people are just joking, or just made and accidental slip, yet their careers are ruined and they are treated almost like criminals.

The current attitude also means any psycho who wants to make a name for themselves can get a whole lot of free publicity by ranting some racist hate speech.

Personally I would like to see society have more of a sense of humor about racism. Instead of getting angry at racists, we should laugh at them like the fools they are. Instead of being shocked and angry at the use of a word like "nigger," people should use it more often in an ironic sense, and thus rob the word of any power it once had has a derogatory word.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reclaimed_word

Reclaiming racist words is a much better strategy for disarming racists than perpetuating the taboo.

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It's also worth examining what the word "racist" has come to mean. It can mean;

1) Looking down upon people because of their inherent racial characteristics, which is obviously complete idiocy.

But the word racist is also often used to mean

2) Looking down on people because of their cultural practices.

I don't think there is anything wrong with being critical of people's cultural and religious practices, and it is unfair to brand people as racists for doing this.

Social esteem is of basic value to most people, bar a small minority of loners and autistics. Along with this go related concepts of recognition and respect. To have one's identity despised, disrespected or discounted may cause great suffering. More than this, a certain level of respect/recognition is perhaps necessary for social participation - in public discourse, casual conversation, the workforce, and so on. The liberal desire that all individuals be respected, in the abstract, as loci of rational intelligence and autonomous will is no doubt a beautiful one, but I feel that we ought to go further and offer people recognition in terms of their particularity - that is, in terms of their difference and diversity - and this of course includes race (and culture, and gender identity, and spirituality, and politics, and so on). Insofar as we need to support free speech a certain level of racism must be tolerated, but I certainly think that racism becomes a problem of social justice once it becomes systematic and/or institutionalised.

Nice attempt to paint yourself as the compassionate intellectual, and me as the aspie libertarian. What about some compassion for racists? Remember, they are frequently from poor socioeconomic standing and of low intelligence. It is often through no fault of their own that they have been indoctrinated with racist drivel.

Surely if they don't hurt anyone, people who express racist views should also be accorded a basic level of social esteem and respect. As foolish as their views may be, isn't it only more polarizing to treat them as social pariahs?

Our reaction to racism is also a double standard. Sure someone who hates all middle eastern people is a fool. But isn't a fundamentalist Muslim who believes that women have a duty to be subservient to men and should have to cover their body and face in public holding an equally backward and stupid view? Yet in our society, someone who expresses the racist view will looked upon with scorn, while apparently we are compelled to respect the Muslim's crazy view because it is linked with religion and culture.

That's all I'm saying.

 

[Phoenix Fury]

^ pretty well sums up my idea on the issue, I seriously don't get the insane over reactions people have when they are accused of being "a racist".
The are a hell of a lot of worse things you can accuse someone of being imo.

 

[KFunk]

and me as the aspie libertarian.

^ Yes, this.

You keep coming back to racial slurs or the general expression of racist views whilst ignoring more serious problems - for example social exclusion or oppression (a foreigner unable to establish friendship or a social network), racist practices in hiring/retail/trading, denial of political rights (voting, standing for public office, voicing political views, treatment in the legal system), harrassment (be it violent or verbal - whilst isolated slurs appear benign consider the effect of frequent and widespread harrassment on an individual who is told that they are ugly, inferior, and incapable, particularly in the absence of social forces which would help them forge a positive self-identity). Of course racism is 'not that bad' if you restrict yourself to weak or isolated examples. The danger of racism appears when you take on a more synoptic social viewpoint. Worth looking at are anti-colonial perspectives, which lie at the extreme end of the spectrum in terms of the intensity of their experience, such as that voiced by Franz Fanon in Black Skin, White Masks. Also note that racism is as protean as expression itself - it can occur in speech, art, media, legislation, architecture (white bathrooms, black bathrooms), town planning, etc.

Your double standard reading of anti-racist rhetoric is something of a straw man argument. More consistent positions can be, and are, held. The problem of religion is in some ways a matter of politics given that religious groups constitute powerful social units and/or voting blocs. Of course politicians attempt to pander to beliefs which they would otherwise decry (an interesting question is also to what extent this kind of rhetoric then filters out into mainstream culture). There is of course a central problem (and perhaps a double-standard?) of the extent to which we are to be intolerant to intolerance. The difficulty is one of successfully criticising specific practices, say relating to woman in Islam, without demonising the greater cultural entity. Obviously we should respect Islam and try to understand the historical roots and cultural significance of its forms of institutionalised bigotry (an approach which I feel has merit in general), but I nonetheless feel that we can reasonably criticise specific practices in a calm, public manner without resorting to vitriol.

 

[jennyfromdabloc]

, but I nonetheless feel that we can reasonably criticise specific practices in a calm, public manner without resorting to vitriol.

Agreed. So why can't we treat racism as one of these practices and critise it in "calm, public manner without resorting to vitriol"?

Way to ignore everything I said and just rant about something else. In particular you ignore my most important point that hysterical, angry reactions tend to be polarizing and to give racists the public attention they crave. Stop coming back to the thread title "Is racism that bad." I've already admitted that it was a poorly chosen title and explained very clearly that my main point is not that racism is not bad, but that society frequently overreacts to it in a way that is actually counter productive at discouraging racism.

Also, how does any of what I've said make me an aspie?

Also even if I was an aspie why is it relevant, and why are my libertarian views relevant? Why would you try and make the discussion personal?

Your double standard reading of anti-racist rhetoric is something of a straw man argument.

Not really, It would be a straw man if I said you held this view, which I didn't. There is a large chunk of the community that does practice this double standard and that's what I was criticizing.