So, ladies and gentlemen, let's have a race, shall we? A racists race, that is who's most racists. Giving two choices, so one could override option. Enjoy.
I think you need to make this more precise. First of all, you need to explain what you mean by "racist". If I hear footsteps behind me on a dark night, turn around, and feel relieved that it's white people behind me, as opposed to Black people, does that make me a "racist"? If I write that one tribe of mankind is, for genetic reasons, more intelligent than another tribe, does tht make me a "racist"? (I'm using 'tribe' here as a more refined category than 'race', but meaning, people who share a lot of DNA among other other that they don't share with others.) And, assuming we have a useful definition of "race", does 'most racist' mean "most racist in its policies or proposed policies", or "has a greater percentage of racists among its supporters"?
Well, like other mainstream usages of the word, it's used in different ways by different people. It's not like the definition of 'dog' or 'addition'. Many words are like this. Anyway, in respect of my two examples, would you say the people who said the first, and wrote the second, were "racist"?
Racism is not constrained to one political group or another. Both have a full spectrum of no to full racist tendencies, but nice bait post. The acknowledgement that someone has darker skin then someone else, is not racism. It's a matter of what that knowledge is used for. You choose to make it that they are lesser of a person because of a physical trait, then yes, you are racist. If it is acknowledge and put aside, that is not racist. If the trait is used as a method of belittling other people, or demanding they have special treatment, then that is racist. Carry on.
I believe the term "racism" is often used when what the person really means is something like "racial oppression" -- that is, being treated unfavorably, because of your race. "Racial oppression" (if you can think of a better term, please supply it; this is the best I can do) can occur for two reasons: (1) The person doing the "oppressing" [although it's possible to act in a "racist" way that is not oppressive] has a more or less conscious theory of the world, in which race plays a central role in explaining things, and the races are ranked according to some hierarchy. If you are the "wrong" race, it literally doesn't really matter to this sort of person how honest you are, how kind you are, or whatever. He might even acknowledge this -- the "good Jew" of the anti-Semites. It's enough that you are of a certain race for this person to treat you differently, because he believes race trumps everything else. (2) What I call "statistical racism". The person doing the oppressing, or treating someone else differently, is aware of average differences among the 'races' in terms of their behavior. [ I prefere the more precise, but more obscure, term "tribes", but this is a minority taste] If they don't know the person of a certain race then they almost automatically act on the basis of this statistical knowledge -- (the 'knowledge' may or may not be true, but it often is). So, everyone in America knows that young Black males commit crimes, including violent crimes, at a much higher rate than whites do. It's just an average, most young Black males do NOT commit violent crimes, but ... this fact is a salient one and influences the behavior of everyone. (On the other hand, young Oriental males do not have this reputation.) So young Blacks get a different reaction from people they don't know than young Chinese or whites do. [Which must be maddening.] It's just a function of our brains' automatically generalizing from experience or reports of other peoples' experience. This same unfavorable generalization applies to questions of IQ and formal educational attainment. On the other hand, we know that Jews are prominent in any field requiring intelligence (and in fact Jewish average IQ is significantly higher than other peoples'), and this influences how we perceive Jews. Different political persuasions differ in terms of how they assign blame or credit for individual charactertistics. At one extreme, we can imagine a political ideology which thinks of human beings as 'blank slates', with their behavior being purely a function of their environment alone. People who adhere to this view would not ascribe an blame (or, in theory, credit) to any person or group (including 'race') for their behavior. So they would not be 'racist' in their official thinking, however much they might act in a 'racist' manner in reality.) If a group has a very high violent crime rate, and poor educational achievements, it's not their fault. If it's anyone's fault, it's "society's" fault for not dealing with the bad environment. At the other extreme, we can imagine a political ideology which rejects any environmental influence as an explanation of behavior. For this ideology, all human behavior is the result of unforced, uninfluenced, pure free will. If a young man who has grown up with a single mother who is a drug-addict and prostitute, who has never known anyone with a job, who has seen nothing but brutality and violence all his life ... if this young man commits a crime, it's entirely his fault. He chose to do so. Adherents of this ideology would find it very easy to generalize to an entire race, perhaps subconsciously, while using the occasional exception to the rule as proof that environment has nothing to do with behavior, because look at the exception. These are thought-experiment extremes. There is probably no actual concrete examples of groups that actually hold these particular beliefs in pure, undiluted form.
The original definition of racism or the cultural-marxist PC revisionist definition of racism which is a loaded word to further a radical leftist political agenda ? Befor cultural-marxism (pre 1920) there was no such word as racism. We can confirm the word racism or racist wasn't a word or was found in Websters Dictionary in 1828.
Segregating any class or race of people apart from the rest of the people kills the progress of the segregated people or makes their growth very slow. Association of races and classes is necessary to destroy racism and classism. Richard Henry Pratt, 1902
Would that be the same Richard Henry Pratt as Brig, Gen. Richard Henry Pratt, "Kill the Indian, and Save the Man" ? Well he sure wasn't promoting diversity was he ? More like forcing assimilation upon those who are different.
Same exact man. He was controversial--not arguing any of that. But his intent was to allow (or force) assimilation into a White macro-culture by claiming that segregation was a dead end to assimilation. That's why he said the kill the Indian in him, but not the man.
Democrats are no doubt the most racist. Democrats are the ones who divide and subdivide us into groups and subgroups. Then arrange campaign activities with this or that group. Hillary did this quite actively. Sanders was quite the opposite in '16. Moi Voted Obama '08 How is racism like farting? The first smeller is the feller.
Exactly. So the word "racist" doesn't have Marxist origins. You often see people quote Marxists use that word (eg Trotsky) but it's far from being the first occurence so it's a very bad argument.
Did Trotsky ever use the word? No matter, because Trotsky, like all Marxists until some time in the 1970s, while recognizing various forms of what they called 'special oppression', were focussed on uniting the working class across the barriers of race, sex, etc. to wage a united class war against the bourgeoisie. The various forms of 'special oppression' they would take up would allow them to mobilize useful auxiliaries in the class war, but they did not see sex, race, sexual orientation, etc as central -- only social class, defined as the relationship to the means of production, was central. What is now called 'identity politics' has nothing to do with Marxism, except in a very general sense: Marxists wanted to overthrow capitalism, and institute a new society based on collective ownership of the means of production, which they believed would result in both a higher quantity and quality of economic growth, and a better world for everyone. That didn't work out. So in the US, where the working class (unlike in Europe and elsewhere) never showed much interest in socialism, they hit on the idea of trying to fracture society along other lines. The fracture line that could really bring things down, if opened up, is the racial/ethnic one. What would come after that they don't really think about. A part of the Left in the 70s/80s did not even pursue trying to split the US on other lines than class. They wrote off the US, at least for the short term, and become the 'Fifth column' for Third World anti-imperialist guerillas: that was the strategy of Weatherman, and two or three similar terrorist groups. That didn't work out either, and some of these people are still in prison, and others -- like the people who formed and led the Weathermen, become college professors, training our teachers, where their destructive impact has been thousands of times greater than any bombs they could have set.
Of course. But the problem is them hijacking and redefining the word racist, not with the word itself.
The radical left have always changed the definition and meaning of words to further their radical leftist political agenda.
I went with.... Commies/Socialists ... partly because many of the actors playing the role of Muslims...... were in fact actually Atheists educated behind the Iron Curtain. They knew the Koran well and knew how to stir up Muslims to behave as ISIS acted over the past decade or so....... The treatment of non-Muslims by Muslims stirred up by Atheists acting like they are Muslims......... is arguably the most racist activity of this past decade. Black slaves of Muslims in 2017..... African migrants sold in Libya 'slave markets', IOM says Africans are being sold at Libyan slave markets. Thanks, Hillary Clinton. Was Yasser Arafat a sincere G-d fearing Muslim??????????? Or really an Atheist acting like he was a true Muslim as taught to him in Romania?????? https://www.tldm.org/news9/russianinfluenceonmideast.htm
Oh come on! If you belong to a party that historically has supported slavery, the KKK, LBJ, and Robert Byrd, and blackface wearing politicos in Virginia, AND which also hypocritically claims everybody ELSE is racist, there's no competition.
I'm sorry ... this doesn't make any sense to me. The OP is asking a question about being "racist". So we first have to define what "racism" is. I'm familiar with the argument that (1) many decades ago, most "racists" were Democrats and that therefore, (2) all current members of that party are "racists". But I think that that argument is just as invalid as the leftist argument that because the USA one condoned slavery, it must still condone slavery It's a positively strange argument -- the underlying assumption is that nothing changes. But if anything can be said to be true of reality, it is that it changes.
If you decided to join the Nazi party in 2019 knowing its history, would it be fair to assume you're a racist? Now you might be a nice Nazi, but still, betting you're a racist is a safe gamble. Same with the Democratic party. Knowing its history of extreme racism, anybody who belongs to it is automatically tagged as racist. On the other hand, the Republican party, with its heroic stands against slavery and for civil rights, conveys that halo to its members.
No, the analogy limps on all legs. The Nazis were founded as an ideological party. American political parties are not analogous to Nazis, or Libertarians, or Socialists at all. Abraham Lincoln's halo does not rest over David Duke. The problem is: Blacks support the Democrats by and large, white racists support the Republicans, by and large. This is embarrassing for Republicans, and rightly so, and so some of them make this ridiculous, spurious argument, which they don't even believe themselves. What's wrong with it is that it convinces no one, and keeps us (I generally support the Republicans) from making real arguments that could win Blacks away from the Democrats. What sort of arguments might those be? Arguments aimed at aspirational Blacks who want to do something about crime in their community, which the Democrats are soft on; who want their children to go to decent schools, which many Democratic politicians can't do anything about because it would offend the Teachers Unions. So we need to work on those issues: charter schools, for example, although charter schools alone are not enough if they still carry on the failed educational policies of the state schools. We've got to make the argument for a much different approach to education than we have now, something similiar to Michaela School in the UK, or the late Marva Collins' school in Chicago, or the approach pioneered by the late Sig Engelmann.
So, we're driving along in the car and I'm agreeing whole heartedly with every word you're saying until this. The brakes come on, we lean forward, and the tires screech and I ask you, "Whaaat?" I'm not sure what it is you believe offends teacher unions. If you mean private and charter schools, I'd say we got some talking to do. We do have serious problems in education today, but I don't think the political trends and media folks have the answers. But all the other stuff? You got that right.
I don't understand the point about teacher unions: I'm for all schools, public or private or charter or whatever, having a certain approach to education, which we have not discussed on this forum at all. In an ideal world, all public schools would have this approach, so there would be no need for charter schools, or for private ones either for that matter. But in reality, the public schools cannot be reformed. So I want a situation where people can set up their own state-funded school, but have it out of the clutches of the educational establishment. (I follow Diane Ravitch's blog and am quite aware of the mediocre quality of many charters). I really want something like the Free Schools of the UK, one of which -- which has the right approach to education -- has just gotten stellar results in the annual exams here. I'm not sure if we disagree on this or not, actually. (Are you actually reading this while driving? Or was that a metaphor?)
Um...huh? All political parties are based on ideologies. Ah, here we go again with David Duke, the one guy who proves Republicans are racists. Except that David Duke was a Democrat until he changed party so he could win office. Except that when Republicans found out he was a racist they kicked him out of the party and he never won again. Now let's compare how Democrats do handle racist reprobates: They reelected Robert Byrd, an ex-KKKlukker, to the senate so many times he died in office in 2010 and they elected JFK even though he had a segregationist as vice president (who later became president) and they've kept two atrocious racists who wore blackface on as leaders in Virginia. Blacks get the lion's share of government cheese, so they keep voting Democratic. Simple self-interest. It may be that white racists support Republicans because even white racists can be patriotic. You have to be heavily bribed or asleep to vote for Democrats who suck up to Commies and any other dictator around. The GOP is the only America-first alternative.
Ha! I like Ravitch's approach as well, but haven't followed her in a while. She supported the teachers back when all the politics got into education. Her position was that the testing was not being used properly and that there was too much top-heavy bureaucracy being placed on the classroom. But one thing she never addressed was the social change that limits a teacher's authority in the classroom. Behavioral expectations are a thing of the past. The local school system where I live has been granted permission to start an experimental five year plan that lets the community decide how the school operates. It's a lot like a community school, and is free from most of the state's programs and requirements. What I like about this is it puts parents back into taking an active part in local academics/education rather than just sports. If there is going to be any real change, I think it has to start at the local level.
