rolling "Is This Racist?" thread

so absurdly presumptive

Ah, you are a little illiterate.

fuck off limey

what exactly is at stake for you, Matt, with racism ONLY referring to institutional racism or also referring to the concept of judging/stereotyping ppl based on their race? why does the latter become a weasely way for white ppl to imagine racism against them, but the first definition is the legit one?

lol @ asking Matt this and not me when I made the same post with less swearing an hour ago

you should probably answer then. *steams off*

jesus christ ur a wormy motherfucker...

zach so obviously otm. hilarious to see so many shlubby whitetards cry about the ways it may be possible if they can just fly away w their imaginations they can be racised against.

― try again, fascist (Matt P), Friday, January 27, 2012 11:37 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

just because i agree in principle with an idea doesn't mean that i have to see equal merit in every application of that idea. i've tried to articulate a fairly complex response ITT.

the immediate and idiotic recourse to cheap playground shaming isn't worth responding to, so...

Your mistake was not swearing tbh xps

I'm okay with anyone answering it. Also, maybe explain what you see as the meaning of the term 'institutional?' Are all of these things examples of institutional racism?
1. A belief in the racial superiority of people on your own race
2. Not hiring qualified POC bc you believe they aren't as intelligent as non-POC
3. Crafting drug policy that targets particular people of color
4. Beating someone up bc you don't like what race they come from
5. Believing that people have different strengths and weaknesses because they belong to an inherent racial category
etc etc

I think they're all examples of racism, but I don't get necessarily what makes them all institutional. Certainly some might have systemic qualities (particularly #3) but racism is not always an institutional conspiracy, I don't think. Maybe it is -- but what do we gain from believing that?

Kind of remembering the battle between black customers and Korean convenience store/bodega owners documented in early 90s LA that didn't need white people to tell each group how to be racist

but its modern form and the term itself were invented by white ppl, so we feel a somewhat proprietary interest in its definition.

Please direct all your "ask a white man" questions to Aimless.

Does a thread exist for the movie Crash?

eh that's basically every contenderizer post itt?

― try again, fascist (Matt P), Friday, January 27, 2012 11:45 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

horseshit. nowhere in this thread have i made a big, weeping deal about the ability of white people to be racised against. i've gone much farther out of my way to condemn white complaints of "reverse racism".

i feel like i'm being taken to task by an idiot with an axe to grind.

Well, I don't think it has to be a "conspiracy" for it to be institutional (although it certainly can be). I'm sure many of the roots of institutional racism are learned, just as with personal, bigotted racism.

institutional racism = things posted on rolling "Is This Racist?" thread

waiting for deej to show up and call me a fascist again, tbh

I believe the meaning of institutional ____ is that certain beliefs, policies, and prejudices exist at a number of different levels of an institutional structure, and that they often work in tandem to deny the rights of a particular group and privilege another group. But I also believe that there are numerous institutions, some as large as the colonial project of the Western world, some unique to particular governments in particular countries, some corporate cultures, communal cultures, familial cultures. Is racism that primarily exists and is perpetuated within a familial system 'institutional'? Not all of these institutions share the same racist beliefs. In some it is very pronounced, in others it is totally silent + implicit. I think an intelligible discussion of race will account for all these nuances and subtleties, and not try to argue that racism means one particular thing and nothing else.

contenderizer, since you have been taking a very semantically-based approach to this discussion, I defy you to defend your characterization of my speaking one the one hand of a 'tendency' and on the other of an 'affinity' as being "cut-and-dried terms". This is like trying to beat me about the face and head using a cloud for a weapon.

Holy shit guys, the gawker guy getting fired for a racial slur was over half a thread ago!

welcome to ilx, beachville

actually I think I have changed my mind and I'm more in tune with DJP and Matt P

you can't take a semantically-based approach to a semantics argument, you can either make a semantics argument or you can argue about something else entirely

contenderizer is doing #1 everyone else is doing #2

btw frogbs, it might be ok among your friends to crack racist shit and have amateur comedian hour or whatever, but... really, it's a bad idea in the long term. There's only so much you can do with that and talk shit and pretend that you have "real" feelings underneath before your public persona is completely the racist/sexist/homophobic bullshit. If people only see you acting that way, then guess what? That's you.

you can't take a semantically-based approach to a semantics argument
you can't take a semantically-based approach to a semantics argument
you can't take a semantically-based approach to a semantics argument
you can't take a semantically-based approach to a semantics argument

actually I think I have changed my mind and I'm more in tune with DJP and Matt P

― mh, Friday, January 27, 2012 12:02 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

cool, then i'm the one you'll want to be calling a "shlubby whitetard".

a semantics argument is inherently semantically-based xp

I have basically been in agreement with DJP and zach, but I am a little mystified by the severity of Matt P's beef with contenderizer. I don't think contenderizer was ever making an argument form the "white people are victims of racism too" camp. Unless I missed something? This went by quickly, but I only recall seeing a few posts early on that were actually arguing that.

contenderizer must die for frogbs' sins

http://www.seeklogo.com/images/T/tumblr-logo-941B107660-seeklogo.com.gif

I believe the meaning of institutional ____ is that certain beliefs, policies, and prejudices exist at a number of different levels of an institutional structure, and that they often work in tandem to deny the rights of a particular group and privilege another group. But I also believe that there are numerous institutions, some as large as the colonial project of the Western world, some unique to particular governments in particular countries, some corporate cultures, communal cultures, familial cultures. Is racism that primarily exists and is perpetuated within a familial system 'institutional'? Not all of these institutions share the same racist beliefs. In some it is very pronounced, in others it is totally silent + implicit. I think an intelligible discussion of race will account for all these nuances and subtleties, and not try to argue that racism means one particular thing and nothing else.

The "institution" under discussion here as I understand it is American society, which is why pretty much all of these things fall under the umbrella of institutional racism. If you want to make the distinction between, say, society at large and specific businesses/organizations within that society, that's fine I guess, but it misses the point that there are a lot of things that are, if not outright barriers, definitely impediments in the way of a person of color and assumptions about them in our society that an otherwise equivalent white person wouldn't have to deal with.

Like, a good chunk of the things that pop up on this thread can be chalked under "idiot didn't think things through" but that idiot also grew up in a society that never actually made him/her think about those things in the first place.

xp: lol iatee OTM

btw frogbs, it might be ok among your friends to crack racist shit and have amateur comedian hour or whatever, but... really, it's a bad idea in the long term. There's only so much you can do with that and talk shit and pretend that you have "real" feelings underneath before your public persona is completely the racist/sexist/homophobic bullshit. If people only see you acting that way, then guess what? That's you.

I think I understand the value of not making race jokes in public

you can't take a semantically-based approach to a semantics argument because a semantics argument is inherently semantically-based?

unless I am mistaken, this means your approach is required to be semantically-based.

I went to south africa recently and boy are my arms tired

Dan, it'd be useful for someone who does get it to point out how a possible less egregious case of the "idiot didn't think things through" is actually explaining a manifestation of something systemic.

but seriously folks race and racism is pretty crazy in south africa

contenderizer, since you have been taking a very semantically-based approach to this discussion, I defy you to defend your characterization of my speaking one the one hand of a 'tendency' and on the other of an 'affinity' as being "cut-and-dried terms". This is like trying to beat me about the face and head using a cloud for a weapon.

― Aimless, Friday, January 27, 2012 11:58 AM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i meant that describing this discussion in terms of a position that "white ppl tend to go with" in opposition to one that "non-whites have a much stronger affinity for" racializes an otherwise abstract disagreement in very explicit terms. i don't reject your argument, but i'm not sure that it's either true or productive.

http://www.newstatesman.com/200003270024

every car I was in in south africa was playing nikki minaj for some reason

I think I understand the value of not making race jokes in public

I didn't mean in public. I knew people in high school who would never publicly say anything racist or even outrightly prejudiced, but would crack jokes in private around friends all the time. He might not be really seen as racist by people who aren't privy to his line of thought, but his route through life and ideas on politics and ethics are pretty much an outgrowth of the belief that some of these racist or biased ideas are true.

Pretty sure he supports Ron Paul, actually

Mostly I just hurt inside because I can't say the n-word or start a club for just dudes or whites.

Like, a good chunk of the things that pop up on this thread can be chalked under "idiot didn't think things through" but that idiot also grew up in a society that never actually made him/her think about those things in the first place.

You can lead a frog to culture but you can't make him think.

Laurel, I'd assume some of what I said myself or a few others actually fall in the category according to how Dan worded it!

re: aimless and my last post

though, okay, the "tends" and "affinity" language does allow for a lot more subtlety than i was granting. retract the "absurdly presumptive" business with all apologies. was caught up a bit in the heat of the moment.

I think I understand the value of not making race jokes in public

― frogs you are the dumbest asshole (frogbs), Friday, January 27, 2012 8:11 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

You miss the point. It's still not fucking okay to make them in private. You say it's not harmful - it is. You're perpetuating that shit, even if it doesn't leave the walls of your little in-group in overt ways, it does matter, it does count, and you're a fucking prick if you think it doesn't.

what would you guys say the moved fucked up country is re: racism

most

if all of ilx were to go to the mirror once a day, look in it, and say "the racist is me" we would have a different world

I didn't mean in public. I knew people in high school who would never publicly say anything racist or even outrightly prejudiced, but would crack jokes in private around friends all the time.

Was going to say, if someone -- let's say his name is Toad Cowpatty -- says lolsome racist shit when he feels relaxed and "safe" around friends, maybe he's a racist?

I fall into that category, too because lol small town full of white people. But once you start to see the wider picture, you're responsible for trying to keep seeing it, and to see it even more clearly, all the time.