this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2023
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What?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism
Racism is discrimination and prejudice against people based on their race or ethnicity.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnicity
An ethnicity or ethnic group is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of perceived shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include a common nation of origin, or common sets of ancestry, traditions, language, history, society, religion, or social treatment.
It's possible to be racist towards anyone. If you're white go spend a couple of months in China and you'll understand that after being told by multiple people that intelligence varies by skin colour and white people are in the bottom half.
I’m 90% sure they were joking…
I wouldn't be so sure, I've been in arguments with a whole lot of people that were arguing that racism against my nation is impossible because it's mostly white...
They literally compared French people to dogs…
As one rightfully should
I mean, if the baguette fits...
They did not.
They compared the relationship between a thought (racism) and what they believe is a disparate group (French people), to a thought (racism) and a disparate species (dogs).
The key comparison is about the relationship between racism and a group.
They could have said anything for the second example.
There is a conversation to be had about who decided the definition of racism though.
The wikipedia article you listed uses the definition of racism put forth by the UN. The UN is an organization dominated by white European countries and their colonies.
This definition comes into conflict with the definition used by many marginalized communities of colour though, which defines Racism as Prejudice + Power. The implication of this is that you can be prejudice to white people, but not racist. Prejudice is still not good, but white people have historically placed themselves in a position of socioeconomic domination over BIPOC communities, and thus making them unable to experience "Racism" in every context.
To be clear, I mentioned Context because you did, when you mentioned white people in China. This example betrays that the concept of racism is based on societal context
Racism being something that only affects BIPOC people is extremely narrow-minded and as a person from an historically white ethnicity that was under the control of another white nation, someone needs to be extremely hypocritical to not recognize racism just because of the victims skin colour when the same conditions would be considered racism if the victim was BIPOC...
Acadians (or French Canadians in general), the Irish, Bosnians... Heck, what about German Jews under Hitler? You couldn't tell them from another white European in an anonymous crowd...
Remember the definition I provided:
Prejudice + Power
Power as in "Systemic power". The Irish, Bosnians, German Jews in ww2; these people all had systems of oppression using their power to oppress them in their countries. It's not as simple as "LawlSkinColour".
In a majority of situations, the word racism does not apply if you are the dominant socioeconomic ethnic group in the world, which white people are. You have to take context into account though, because life does not exist as a binary. In North America, Jewish and Irish folks can experience Racism. In spite of being largely white presenting, they are ethnicities that have been historically discriminated against.
White people as a blanket "race" though, cannot. Saying "Bill pisses me off because he's Jewish." is racist. Saying "Bill pisses me off because he's white." is an entirely different conversation. Jewish folks are one of the most historically discriminated against groups in the world. White folks have been the most dominant socioeconomic racial group in the world perpetuating oppression. To treat those two groups as if they are the same can only be done if you ignore all historical contexts. That is a wildly intellectually dishonest way to define the world.
Black, brown, Asian, and indigenous folks can, have, and continue to experience racism. The socioeconomic racial group that we call "white people" cannot experience Racism. The individual ethnic groups within said racial group can experience Racism.
Fair enough, I still believe that it's wrong to add power to the mix because it makes it extremely subjective if a message or an attitude are racist or not, whereas the definition I provided is clear, a blanket opinion of a group based on their skin colour or ethnicity is racism.
It's super fucking not, friend. If you define racism as something that doesn't apply to white people specifically, then you have a point, but "racism is when one is prejudiced against someone because of their race" is a much more usable definition than anything that involves socioeconomics, and I struggle to think of a better word to describe hating Bill for his race.
Prejudice + power describes institutional racism very well, but interpersonal racism doesn't necessarily involve power dynamics.