On the origin of "Black People Can't be Racist"

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Well, I look forward to reading your specific criticisms.
People classify each other using these same crude metrics all the time. What do you think we should do? Just ignore it? That might be fine for those on top of the social order, but not so much for others...

And, concerning the term racism being misunderstood--Sociology didn't do that to confuse anybody. When you strat looking at these social issue in depth, you need more precise definitions.

I've already conceded that the sociological definition is different from the popular definition. Also, I've admitted that, by the popular definition, blacks can be as racist as whites--so would any of my colleagues...

The argument is just a silly semantics game and a distraction from the real issues surrounding race.

See, this is another problem too, and it stems from the fact that we only think in black an white extremes these days...

Just because someone might have a few racist tendencies doesn't mean they're Hitler... It just means they might have a few issues to work out...

Take Archie Bunker--he's a walking pile of micro-aggressions, but he's not an evil guy.



This is the sort of racist that most people are--not evil, just ignorant, misinformed, and a bit clueless.

What makes America GREAT!

This is such a simplistic argument. If you are dead, you have been pretty effectively oppressed. Your rights have been taken away. Have you read Movement for Blacks Lives' manifesto? It argues specifically to discriminate based on race.

You think that only the whites can make people live in fear of death or injury?

People do take these ideas seriously and they are gaining traction, not just by minorities (I suspect that minorities in general just don't subscribe to this decisive BS).

You are almost making out there are no leaders or judges from minorities in positions of responsibility and they have no power of over you. Or there is no other leaders sympathetic to these ideas.

At what point do you admit the tide has changed? Or why can't it go both ways?

The reality is from the 1960s there have been lot of legislation aimed at improving the lives of minorities, there have been money and resources to boot. The policies since Lyndon Johnson still haven't worked, and blaming it all on ordinary folk is just not helpful. It just divides people and the real racists on either side have a field day. Communities themselves still have to take some responsibility.

You think it is easy for deprived white areas to get resources, that is where all grants are going?

Why is it ,given civil right leaders fought so hard to end segregation in education, that we now have protest in favour of segregation in universities? Why is it given that the civil right leader fought hard to end discrimination in housing and accodation, we no have people arguing in favour segregated accommodation in universities?

This is a progressive movement? I think not. It is regressive. It is a step back not forward.

What is solidarity if people are classified and graded, rather than judged on the consent of their character? These methods of classifying people would be tinged with irony, if it wasn't for the fact that there is no intention to achieve equality here, and is really about anger and resentment. There is a clear proletariat and bourgeois in this ideology and race is the main factor.

This argument about internalised prejudice works both ways. You can't judge people based on assumptions. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt first. If they have an idea they have to persuade me.


There are minorities who think that way too, and they don't feel constantly powerless.



So if a black judge or a lawmaker called you these slurs would you still think they are powerless? Or a superior?

Right now we have back president an a party that backed him. There are already race and minority discrimination laws.

Areas like Chicago have no shortage of black and minority leadership yet the social problem persist.

Are you suggesting that an unscrupulous person could not exploit the current climate to target whites based on bigotry? This has never happened?

The law is supposed to be blind. You are saying it isn't, which is fair enough, but that can work both ways. Judges can discriminate against whites.

This reminds be of the very successful educated YouTuber who doesn't mortgage and bought his parents a house off the revenue, implying that a white homeless man still had more power in their skin. This is the problem with the stack it always puts race over everything. In reality these aspect of discrimination are not that fixed.

Like Morgan Freeman said we need to stop making everything about race. These policies don't do that they emphasise race and do anything to lessen that. it is all about what we shout give to one race, and what we should take from another.


Yes but your understanding of power is flawed. Depending on context words can have more or less impact. Also people react differently to words.

There are other ways to be racist besides words.


Has this idea not been reinforced an kept alive in part by political correctness?

If people spend time together, without a climate of treating on eggshell, over time the will accept each other more.

This is precisely why we can't promote the idea that black people can't be racist, it make racism selectively acceptable or less serious coming from a minority. It isn't. The intent is the same, and it is not for you to predispose their power to carry it out before it happens.

We cannot apply the law this way. This is not blind justice or without legal prejudice.


Why to black people use the word then? This is a bad thing right? After all the reason for shed that word was to shed the identity of being lesser or seen as sub-human.

Do you think the word racism doesn't have power? You think calling someone a racist has no impact coming from a minority? There is no power in that association? There are no social consequences to that? You think a racist being able to justify they they are not racist through mental gymnastics you have provided them, being backed up people who do have power and who do appease this movement, is ok?

Last edited by 0_equals_true on 15 Oct 2016, 5:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Moral of the story: what will get you beaten up and by whom matters.

That video is in no way a functional experiment. If it wants an accurate experiment, go to a black neighborhood and ask politely "Do you support all lives matter?" like it did in the white neighborhood. Or go to the white neighborhood and chant "black lives matter". It's changing variables for what it thinks will get a stronger difference.

(Also, scattered comments throughout that video state, as one can only imagine, their desire for genocide, so anyone can be convinced one way or another of whoever is more violent... which is ironic, considering these are people commenting about violence in a non-experiment by promoting violence.)

Semantic distinctions are distinctions of meaning. There is nothing silly about that.

What you have with the "black people can't be racist because racism only means systemic or institutional racism" construction is individual Richard* heads claiming that the sociological concept excuses their own mean spirited individual actions and hate speech.

You get stuff like this, for example:Link to blog making exactly the point that this re-defining of racism is a terrible idea


Helpfully, under the heading "Words Matter-Some Definitions to Consider" (Yeah! Let's hear it for semantics, the foundation of meaningful discourse!) the author of that blog has included this helpful note:

See, "most people" use the word to mean one thing, but anti-racist activists use it to mean something else, at least, that's what they do when they are more interested in feeling special and right than in actually communicating with other people and are thus emulating the lower terminus of the alimentary canal.

Now I am in a semantic quandry: I hate racists and racism of all kinds and whenever possible work against those ideas, but I can't call myself an anti racist if people like the blogger are redefining the word to mean people who insist that racism only means prejudice + power. What to do?

*Or do I mean some other word...? Perhaps a diminutive form of this proper name that is also a vulgar term for a part of the male reproductive system and is commonly used in the vernacular to mean a rude, abrasive, or offensively stupid person. Well, no matter, it's all just semantics, isn't it?

Black people are as racist as white people who are as racist as brown people who are also as racist as yellow people.

Yep.

Grow up.

But ... but ... the Science of Sociology says otherwise, so it can't be so!

OK, I messed up. I will let Wikipedia explain Critical Race Theory:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory

Discuss.

I'm quite late to "the party" (this thread)----so, to those who are familiar with my passion, on this topic, just skip past the all the purple, cuz I'm gonna git redundant.....

LOL My, my, my----it never ceases to amaze me, the people who think they have THEE answer; there are, IMO, very FEW "thee answers".

You said you were "a student of sociology", I don't know if that means you read a BOOK, or you have a DEGREE----but, IMO, it doesn't matter; cuz, as I've said many times "Life ain't IN a book----and, if all books (non-fictional) were all facts, all-the-time, Man would not have had to invent the term "revised edition". Also, if you have a degree, it means next to nothing, in my book (no pun, intended)----lots of people have degrees; myself, included----it means one is LEARNED, it does NOT mean one is SMART.

As for the definition of the word "racism", I can accept the definition you gave----BUT, it depends-on how one defines "power". "Power" can be defined as "capability"----and, by THAT definition, blacks MOST CERTAINLY have power. Power can also be defined as what control others will ALLOW someone to have, over them----blacks can MOST DEFINITELY have power, by this definition, as well, because whites (et al.) ALLOW blacks to have this power----if, in no other way, then by letting blacks make them feel guilty about slavery. Also, you seem to think that there are NO black people in "positions of power" (as in, high-up positions)----that they have not, somehow, been ALLOWED to be in high positions----and, if this is what you're thinking / saying, that just absolutely blows my mind!! Pretty-much ANYBODY in the U.S. can do practically anything they want----blacks, Latinos, gays, Asians, etc.----if they work-hard and EARN it; if they take the attitude: "I don't care what they say / think, I'm goin' for it"----odds are, IMO, they'll ACHIEVE it!!


Ah----well, as a learned man, you would know there's a difference between "institutional racism", and just "plain racism"; and, judging by the OP, and subsequent posts by the author of the OP, I'm thinking he meant "plain racism" (as in, INDIVIDUAL racism).

As for the rest of this quote..... Have you been to EVERY PLACE in America? I'm here to tell ya, that these statements are terribly ignorant----TERRIBLY ignorant----and that, that is NOT "reality", where *I* live. Alot of blacks, in downtown Baltimore, are TERRIBLY racist against ALOT of ethnicities----whites, Hispanic, and Asians, mostly. When I go to Lexington Market, for instance, it just BLOWS MY MIND, how downright CRUEL some blacks are, to the merchants, there.

There's these Greeks that own a bakery----been there, forever-and-a-day----and, I'm often saddened, almost to tears, by the, like, "death" of their spirits. They used to practically do back-flips----being courteous, smiling, friendly, mannerly, respectful----to get / maintain one's custom; now, that they've been so oppressed by black people, they're nearly MUTE. Black people have the power to oppress them (take-away their spirit), because one would almost certainly have to allow it, to stay in business.

Then, there's my favorite Chinese Carry-Out..... That lady that works there, looks like she'd just crumble, if someone said "Boo" to her----also, because I've been going there for so many years, I SEE how her spirit has been broken----I have WITNESSED blacks (SOME, not ALL) being unbelievably rude to her (like, she should kiss their feet)----the look on her face seems to say "I'm just here, filling these styrofoam containers----I don't want no trouble"; again, it just breaks my heart. That "spells" OPPRESSION, to ME----AND, it spells RACISM, IMO----AND, it spells "blacks-have-the-power" (as in, to intimidate, manipulate, "RULE", etc.)! !

Also, some black people are BEYOND RACIST, to their OWN kind..... There's this older black man, down there----whom, every time I see him, I just wanna hug him, to DEATH, cuz I love 'im, so much. He sells fruits and vegetables, and I just wanna buy him a house, or something (I don't even know if he NEEDS a house----it's just an expression), because he could not BE more kind, sweet, respectful, etc.; but, some black people treat him like DOOKEY!! The only thing I can figure, is they think he should get a "real" job, cuz he's makin' them LOOK bad, or something----I don't get it.

I could go on-and-on----but, hopefully SOMEBODY will get the picture----I doubt if YOU will, but.....


If you don't think black people have the power to oppress others, then you are, IMO, unbelievably out-of-touch----AND/or, thinkin' that your books there, are the end-all and BE-all; and, that almost makes me feel sad, for YOU----ALMOST.


I know you had more paragraphs, but I tightened it up, so it wouldn't be so long.

First-of-all, I agree with Adamantium. Black people, generally speaking, have, sort-of, changed the definition of racism, so that THEY can't be blamed for it.

Secondly, YES, I AGREE that "the power to oppress" is often the point people are trying to make----I just think that people are trying to make a DIFFERENT point, than YOU----and, if they're BLACK, it might be different, AGAIN.

Your statement about your not caring LESS, about what people say about you, sort-of proves the point that I, and others, are trying to make, here----that ANYBODY can oppress / have power, if they are ALLOWED to; you're saying you DON'T give them (the people saying it--"non-whites"), power; so, IMO, you're confusing your own statements about what defines "power", and where it comes-from, how people get it, and who can have it. The people SAYING those words, aren't POWERLESS (as in, "not capable" of "stinging" someone)----it's just that their words are powerless, to YOU, because you don't give their words, power.

Lastly, as for blacks not having any words as powerful as the word, n!gger----that's just unbelievably..... I'm gonna say, "mis-informed", IMO. Blacks TOOK-BACK the power of that word, so that it would no longer sting, when someone ELSE used it----or, at least, hopefully, sting LESS----and NOW, they use it on their own KIND, to put THEM down; and, it has the SAME meaning / is as powerful, as when whites use it!!

By THAT definition, YOU are ALSO a racist----against WHITES!! (I know you're white; so, please don't waste my time or yours, telling me that.)

LOLOLOL----LOVE it!!

Yeah, that's why sociologists make the distinction between racism and prejudice.

Racism (prejudice + power)= oppression.
Prejudice (black person saying mean things to a white person)= hurt feelings.

They are both wrong but they are not equal, and that is the bit that makes people upset. They want those two things to be equal, but they just aren't.

That's why you ignored those vids I posted.

If it makes you feel any better, truly powerless whites cannot be racist, but blacks in powerful positions can.There have been plenty of racist black judges and cops.



Okay... I don't really see the problem here. This person is using the terms in their sociological sense and explaining what they mean and the difference. Also, they seem to be condemning both racism and prejudice, which is good and they are explaining their use of the terms so nobody can be confused.

This is great. This is how people of good will start to understand each other and find common ground.





Umm.... NO.

That is how anti-racist activists use the terms WHEN THEY HAVE TAKEN A CLASS IN SOCIOLOGY. Also, as we can see from YOUR OWN QUOTE, those same people EXPLAIN how and why they use the terms the way they do.

Let me quote YOUR QUOTE again, so you don't have to look for it up the page:



Yep, I can guarantee this person took AT LEAST one sociology class! AND, they have enough theory of mind to realize that a lot of folks haven't and might not understand how and why they are using terms the way they are! Hence, they are giving their readers an explanation!! !! !

This seems like a solution, an honest effort to communicate clearly. This is not a problem.






Well, sweetheart you can call yourself whatever you like. If you're doing good, most people will give you a pass. If you want to be Sociologically Correct you'd probably want to call yourself an anti prejudice-ist... maybe...

Let me say again, your whole argument seems to hinge on willful ignorance (or pathological ignorance) of the sociological use of these words.

Most people aren't stupid enough to not grasp these distinctions of terms--especially when they are explained to them.

As for me, I don't just study these things. I use my sociological powers everyday to solve problems and help people suffering from racism, AND prejudice, AND poverty, AND lots of other things.

I work with people who use those terms in the sociological sense and people who use those terms interchangeably. We all work together, get along, and NEVER argue about that s**t, because it really doesn't matter.


I gotta say, I really question the sincerity of anybody who claims to be against racism and prejudice, but can get sidetracked and distracted by this topic.

Yes we all need to understand what the other is saying. In the example you showed, the blogger made every effort to be clear.

I'll work with anybody who is against racism and/or prejudice and I don't care what they call them (I bet I can figure out what they mean after a few minutes of honest conversation).

This is only a problem for people LOOKING for problems so they can block solutions.

Now, that's what I call a dickhead.