{"id":4323,"date":"2018-08-17T05:01:56","date_gmt":"2018-08-17T05:01:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2018\/08\/17\/can-a-black-be-a-racist\/"},"modified":"2018-08-17T05:01:56","modified_gmt":"2018-08-17T05:01:56","slug":"can-a-black-be-a-racist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2018\/08\/17\/can-a-black-be-a-racist\/","title":{"rendered":"Can a Black be a Racist?"},"content":{"rendered":"

More generally, can a non-white be a racist?  It depends on what a racist is. The unfortunate tendency is to bandy the term about undefined. This serves the purposes of those who want an all-purpose verbal cudgel with which to attack their opponents. I will give you my definition, one that ought to appeal to sane and well-intentioned people. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

A racist is a person who harbors an abiding irrational hatred of all or most of the members of one or more other races just because of their racial membership. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Racism is a standing disposition that manifests itself in hateful or contemptuous words and deeds.  These words and deeds are not rational responses to particular provocations but express a blanket, irrational negative attitude to an entire group. This is why "all or most" figures in my definition. Obviously, hatred of a person of a different race needn't be racist: the hater may have good reason to hate the other person. Racism comes into it when the person is hated because of his membership in the other race.<\/span><\/p>\n

On the above definition a black can be a racist, and indeed some are.  And so can Hispanics and Asians, including Sarah Jeong.<\/span><\/p>\n

For the record, I condemn racism as above defined, and you should too. <\/span><\/p>\n

If you don't like my definition, do you have any reason not to like it? Do you have a better definition?<\/span><\/p>\n

Notice that I didn't mention skin color in my definition.  People who should know better regularly conflate skin color with race.  Skin color, however, is at best a phenotypical indicator of race.  Suppose you have two guys, one from India, the other from Africa. Suppose they are dark in color to the same degree. They are both 'blacks' — black in color to the same degree of blackness. But they are of different races. Therefore, race is not the same as skin color.  <\/span><\/p>\n

For the politically correct, however, blacks cannot be racists.  The reason, apparently, is that whites oppress blacks but blacks don't oppress whites.  If so, racism is really about power and oppression, and not about race.<\/span><\/p>\n

If racism is not about race, then why speak of racism as opposed to oppressivism? <\/span><\/p>\n

After all, some whites oppress other whites. White males oppress white females.  White-collar whites oppress blue-collar whites. 'Coastal' whites oppress 'heartland' whites. You could say that the former 'look down' on the latter as they 'fly over' them. And let's not forget the Jews. Are Jews white? <\/a>Assume they are. And yet white goyim oppress them.  <\/span><\/p>\n

White females oppress white females. The good-lookers oppress the plain Janes.  There is a whole lotta oppressin' goin' on.  Or at least the oppressed groups feel oppressed. <\/span><\/p>\n

'Liberal' blacks oppress conservative blacks by calling them Uncle Toms, traitors to their race, etc. Are 'liberal' blacks therefore racists?<\/span><\/p>\n

I am making two main points. <\/span><\/p>\n

First, on a sane definition of 'racism,' proffered above, non-whites can be racists.  <\/span><\/p>\n

Second, if your beef is with the oppression or 'denigration' of one group by another, then  'racism' is not the word you want.<\/span><\/p>\n

Blogging may not be good for me: I am writing like a damned journalist what with these one sentence paragraphs.<\/span><\/p>\n

God help me. Journalists deserve about as much respect today as lawyers and Catholic priests.  I make an exception for journalists who courageously enter war zones to get the story and sometimes don't come home.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More generally, can a non-white be a racist?  It depends on what a racist is. The unfortunate tendency is to bandy the term about undefined. This serves the purposes of those who want an all-purpose verbal cudgel with which to attack their opponents. I will give you my definition, one that ought to appeal to … Continue reading “Can a Black be a Racist?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-language-matters","category-race"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4323\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}