Dave Hartley wrote:
>
> Hi All !
>
> I really prefer to use definitions which are accessible to all, by merely picking up a dictionary.
That's useful, if you or someone writing in your interests wrote the
dictionary. It helps you a lot. Jamaica Kinkaid, in her small gem of a
book called "A Small Place," comments at length about the problem to the
oppressed of letting the oppressor define the terms under which
illegitimate oppression may be said to occur.
>
> Simply LOOK at the word to see the meaning...... race ism.
For me, it is a problem in the myth of (scientific) elegance. There
appears to be a sense that something said simply about a fiercely
consequential social issue somehow makes the issue more understandable
because the language is somehow more transparent. Imo, the core of this
debate is about how, not whether, social and cultural formations derived
from particular appropriations of advantage amid particular,historically
situated material conditions are relations of power.
Would the following confuse you, then? How should we interpret the
statement that World Record and Olympic Gold holder Medal Michael
Johnson is a race ist. Is his consuming passion not to race. It isn't a
trivial problem, Dave. It recalls us to context, and the context of
racism is anything but unambiguous. The Barnhardts' expression: the
belief that one particular "race" is superior to others. Is that the one
you mean?
> If you need to start redefining words to support your arguments we could all become quite creative, but our communication will become useless to any others who stubbornly adhere to commonly held definitions.
Key word here is "stubbornly," I reckon. It appears to me that you are
the one hiding in a definition that doesn't admit any contradictory or
complicating references that obtain in the world in which "Racism" has
meaning in experience.
>
> There appears to be no room in your definition for the racist attitude and activity of blacks against whites to be called racist, yet it is a racist action as defined by standard English.
By YOUR definition of the crime, sure. But that's the point, sir. You
don't get to stipulate a definition the excuses you from criticism, de
facto. There can be assholes, bigots, and cretins in any group. But in
the US at least, and with the possible exception of JC Watts and
Clarence Thomas--who have power to effect the lives of the whole
populace--it would be difficult to point to a Black racist.
> Perhaps the co-opting of language by the "politically correct" but linguistically inventive anti-racists is going a little too far?
I was wondering when this particular allegation would appear. Political
Correctness? Can you stand another "definition?" Here:
Political Correctness, n.p. (noun phrase). The imputation by those
whose former power to stipulate meanings and name differnces is
challenged by those who formerly were defined by those former meanings.
As I said in a previous post, in this thread, I think, WEB DuBois
describes the condition that the attribution of "political correctness"
seeks ot diminish It is rather like a complaint by a bankrupt that those
who had claims of debt against the bankrupt were being greedy by not
letting the bankrupt off the hook for debts owed.
> I believe you are perhaps confusing a concept such as "institutionalized racism" with the plain and simple every day garden variety of personal racism.
There isn't any other kind. There is individual bigotry, and there is
individual complicity in the social practices that comprise racism. But
racism escapes the confinement to individual action, and therefore must
be met by cooperative social practice.
> Your argument, while elegant, is built step by step upon the foundation of the faulty premise that the word racism holds any connotation of relative power.
This is just too naieve a statement to credit. Acts that contribute to
racist social practices could not occur without a structure of discourse
and understanding that permits them to be perpetuated. That is power,
whatsoever you choose to believe.
>
> Does "institutionalized racism" exist?
> I guess, sort of....... although I see it being blurred into the concept of class distinction which I can fully see.......
Classism is also a set of social practices, also devoted to the
perpetuation of inequity and often operating in synchrony with similar
racist practices to assure the outcome that preserves the power to name
and define with the previously privileged.
> Do I benefit from it?
> I don't think so..... no higher education, no credit, no job or skill that I haven't gained with my own two hands-no on the job training ......the grocery store charges me the same as everyone else..... colorful people on Maui, and in L.A. and S.F. have regularly cast the evil whiteman eye at me.......
Apparently not without reason. It would be unusual if one of this kind
of misguided certainty didn't bear their certainty in an obvious and
public way such as to attract the attention of the rest who have not
profited by the hidden advantages you either cannot or will not
recognize. I mean, I understand why you can't or won't recognize it. It
would mean the end of that certainty that whatever you have, you earned
all alone, by yourself, and without anybody's help. It's an illusion, of
sourse, but maybe a necessary one for you. It is difficult to rethink
your own capacities, and threatening to (probably tenuous) individual
self-esteem.
> Really, I'm sick of being called a racist by a bunch of racists.
> It is counterproductive to the effort to undermine those who would pursue dominion over all of humanity to assist them by continuing to create and sustain the myth of racism (as defined by Webster, Macquarie, et al ).
Rather, it is productive to oppression to allow the myth that racism is
a myth to persist without examining in whose interest it remains that
racism should be seen as merely a weakness of individuals, rather thatn
s fixture in the sustaining culture.
> Men are equal or they are not.
Men (and women, of course) are equal before the law, supposedly.
But of course they are not, not even there. As Orwell noted, on the
Animal Farm, some are more equal than others. Who was it--French author,
'50s radical--said that the law, in its majesty, forbids the rich as
well as the poor from sleeping under bridges.
Recognize, describe, oppose, and teach against racist social practices.
Cheery-bye
konopak
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