Is this racist of me?

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I mean, if people scream racism at things which are not then it weakens all the laws against it, all the good work many have done in the name of equality is just shat on if we scream racist at things which , while they may be offensive and wrong, are not actually racism.

I'm not making a broad judgment about your character, but I'll stand by what I've said.

Part of the problem is that these days being accused of being racist is viewed as such a major moral and social transgression that people lose their s**t over being accused instead of paying attention to why they're receiving the criticism. Among things this leads to people feeling the need to walk on egg shells over certain topics (including ones that might be worth discussing more, not less) and feeling the need to defend comments that might fairly be described as racist as 'nope, totally not racist how dare anyone suggest such a thing', often with 'pssh, racism doesn't even exist these days' or 'pssh everything is racist these days' nonsense in hopes of just drowning the accusation in BS.

Racism still exists.
Racism is still a problem, even if it may be less of a problem in some ways than it may have once been.
Like most other issues, not all racism is of the same importance. Being accused of a trivially racist behaviour shouldn't result in immediate DEFCON 1 status, as though it's the worst possible slander one could imagine; if one accepts the accusation it shouldn't result in debilitating guilt and teeth gnashing.

Racism can't be against the law, people's thoughts are their own. A state can attempt to ban racist behaviours, but that won't address the underlying attitudes. Further, when it comes to banning racist behaviour, common sense has to prevail. In this context I do agree with you about watering the concept down, but that might be an argument to why one needs to understand the difference between actionable and unactionable behaviour. The cops can't ticket your kid because he won't play with the Valyrian kid, but an ongoing campaign of harassment at some point might warrant a response from the school; an adult doing it within the workplace should lose their job, every time, but the state being involved would require something more significant. Basically, it's not the definition of racism that's the problem, it's a question of how severe it needs to be before it's considered actionable in anyway.

This is unrelated to the topic, sorry for the tangent etc., but why did you link the wikipedia page for that quote? Did you think people wouldn't get the reference or understand the meaning, or? Genuinely curious. Because it took effort to go and get that link and I don't understand why you would do it.

Thanks in advance.

I was being pedantic and ensuring the reference was understood. Considering how little effort it took it really wasn't that big of deal. I spend more time re-reading my posts before hitting submit than getting a Wiki link takes, and I'm not one to put much time or effort into proofreading.

Oh I see! Thank you very much for the edifying reply; I like to know why people do things.

I shall leave you to your discussion now and derail the thread no further, though for what it's worth,whatever praises itself but in the deed, devours the deed in the praise.

It doesn't have to be defined the way you said, but, however you define it, you have to be consistent and lack of consistency is the key as to how people manipulate this concept. They first assume that the concept of racism includes benigh things in order to label someone as racist, and then they turn it around and assume that it only includes horrible things in order to say that the person with said label is horrible. Well, you can't have it both ways. If you say the word racist includes benigh things, then fine, most people are racist -- but then its perfectly fine for them to be racist. If, on the other hand, it includes only horrible things, then yes racist will be bad -- but then you can no longer use that term lightly. So if people were to just make up their mind as to how they want to use that term and stick to that, we would have far fewer misunderstandings.

No misunderstanding, it requires what I said to actually be racist, otherwise it's just a social no-no or rude , offensive or even distasteful.
Racism really does require intent and idealology.
The N word being said does not make one racist, it's just a racist term, do you see?

Everyone has an ideology: democrat, republican, etc. Calling someone a democrat or republican doesn't defame them since everyone knows those terms don't mean anything extreme. So if people knew that the term "racist" isn't extreme, then calling someone "racist" won't be any worse than calling them with those other words. But the whole point is that it is taken to be extreme -- and thats why I am saying the problem is consistency. On the one hand people assume the word racist is extreme and on the other hand they are using it lightly.

Democrat and republican are not racial terms though.

This thread is about actual racism and what constitutes racism, check the OP.

People should learn how to laugh at themselves.

British people have friends who are Americans. Americans have friends who are British people.

The British people poke fun at the Americans, and vice versa.

I see this all the time.

I don't think the OP is remotely "racist."

yanks always adding their 2 cents.

The Yankees had better take care of the Astros! (Baseball)

Well, its okay to like certain movies more than others, or certain foods more than others, so I don't see why is it wrong to like certain races more than others. The only thing thats wrong is that PRESUMABLY

a) If you like to hang out with whites more than blacks you are racist
b) if you are racist you want to enslave all blacks

Therefore

c) If you like to hang out with whites more than with blacks you want to enslave all blacks

The obvious fallacy here is that you have to believe either a or b, but not both. The people are trying to make it both by changing the definition of racism along the way, and thats the problem.

Go Leafs Go

I used to follow hockey---not so much any more, though.

I thought you were going to say "Go Celtic!"

In all seriousness: this "culture of offense" has got to go. People have to stop getting offended over every little thing. Anything can seem "offensive" to anybody.

Last edited by kraftiekortie on 16 Oct 2019, 6:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I am indeed a Celtic fan, good call my friend.