Joe Dees wrote:
> >
> >>Racist:
> >> One who is antagonistic towards someone else based on that
> >> person's race alone.
> >
> >I think this captures a lot of it. But it might not be antagonism - someone
> >who feels friendly contempt, or who feels pity for an "inferior" race, would
> >also be racist. And what if it's based predominantly on the person's race
> >but also on something else?
> >
> >I think it's a term that can do with a lot of careful unpacking whenever it
> >is used in serious intellectual discourse.
> >
> I have already stated that I feel concescension to be a more insidious form of racism than hostility. As for multiple bases for prejudice and discrimination, I do agree that most racists 'bundle' cultural and genetic differences, and make little or no
attempt to distingush between them, or even give the matter much thought. After all, bigotry is a cognitive shortcut for the intellectually lazy; it provides the bigot with a ready-made, cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all opinion of people whom they just m
et, without all the mental hassle of actually interacting with and evaluating them as individuals - kinda like considering all pickup-with-a-gun-rack southerners to be fascist racists or all folks who wish reasonable restrictions placed upon gun ownership
to be commie pinkoes.
While most of your statements here are very laudable, Joe, your last
displays an apples and oranges analogy.
While there is no connection between having a gun rack in your pickup
truck and being a racist (there are plenty of people with gun racks who
are not), advocating a specific, authoritarian-leaning political policy
is totally different from owning an item like a gun rack.
Your phrase about 'folks who wish reasonable restrictions' would only be
consistent if you said something like: "kinda like considering all
southerners who advocate segregation to be racists or all folks who wish
reasonable restrictions placed on gun ownership to be commie pinkoes."
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:40:06 MDT