Can blacks be racist?

[PSOL]

Without providing specific, what can you tell me about the makeup of the leadership of the Youth League?

[PSOL]

Furthermore, on South Africa, it seems that you yourself Laki are a bit ignorant on the AnCap nature of the country, and the vestiges of apartheid that still remain. A significant amount of wealth in the country is in the comprador white capitalists, and most black rich people suck up to them like Herman Mashaba.

Like, the central bank there is mostly private and is led by stakeholders that appoint mostly white and rich individuals, like during Apartheid. It’s a mess of a system rooted in averting civil war in the 90s.

[HisGrace]

Racism is thinking some races are better than others or should be treated as such. That's it. Anyone can be racist. You can even be racist against your own race.

Even if you're going to go with the reverse engineered "prejudice+power" definition it fails at reverse engineering because black people can still be racist under that definition. A black person in HR could refuse to hire whites, a black teacher could give white students worse grades, and on and on and on. On the converse, you might argue that a black person making bigoted comments about whites doesn't really harm anyone, but neither does some redneck going on a racist twitter rant, yet everyone would still call that racist. The individual person's attitude defines if they are racist, not the actual effect of their actions. If a white person shoots a black to steal his wallet and another one shoots a black because he hates black people, only one of those actions is racist even though the effect is the same.

[Santander]

Racism is thinking some races are better than others or should be treated as such. That's it. Anyone can be racist. You can even be racist against your own race.

Or just plain dislike.

[Suburbia]

Racism is thinking some races are better than others or should be treated as such. That's it. Anyone can be racist. You can even be racist against your own race.

Or just plain dislike.

Isn't it about power?

Black people don't have societal power, despite Jay-Z and other Black billionaires.

Black people are prejudiced, very prejudiced. But racist may be a stretch, maybe.

[Suburbia]

Racism is thinking some races are better than others or should be treated as such. That's it. Anyone can be racist. You can even be racist against your own race.

Or just plain dislike.

Isn't dislike prejudice?

Black people are prejudice. Latino people are prejudice....

[Cory]

Of all the people to trot out the elite-university-diversity-consultant personal-dictionary definition of racism and end the unanimity in this thread, I wouldn't have expected bronz. Masterclass in Atlas trolling.

Since when did you become so based? I've been loving the evolution of your posting these last few years.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Of all the people to trot out the elite-university-diversity-consultant personal-dictionary definition of racism and end the unanimity in this thread, I wouldn't have expected bronz. Masterclass in Atlas trolling.

Since when did you become so based? I've been loving the evolution of your posting these last few years.

None of my views have really changed all that much; On The Issues, I'm still the dour religious-left moralizer I was five or ten years ago. What's happened is that the Trump era has made me enormously less patient with people who use real problems as an excuse to advance their bespoke ideological claims, and I've learned that unfortunately there are many such people among my academic-left confrères.

I think I'm also just funnier than I used to be. Go figure.

[kwabbit]

Under the common definition of the word, of course. If a Black person discriminates against someone because of their race, to almost everyone that would be considered racist.

On Instagram over the summer, plastered on the woke girl Instagram stories was a post saying that it was impossible to be racist towards Whites because racism was defined specifically as against a institutionally disadvantaged group. While discrimination against Whites is certainly less harmful, it still struck me as an obvious woke attempt at redefining the word to be convenient for their narrative. What 'racism' means has a specific meaning to each person and that meaning can't be changed from some random Instagram post viewed for 10 seconds.

To a majority of people, Black people can be racist. To a majority of people, racism against Blacks is more harmful than racism against Whites. Bickering over the semantics of the word make little difference.

[LAKISYLVANIA]

The context of this discussion translated with Google translate, so for who-ever wants to know why I brought this up, and why I was angry at the time.




My post on my wall:


Another such thing is the IQ test. Is there anything more discriminating than using an IQ test? An IQ test tries to measure someone's intelligence. It tries to distinguish between intelligent and non-intelligent people, but it fails to measure a person's intellectual potential. It is a very subjective test that measures certain factors of intelligence. And the creators of the IQ tests are of course also 'biased' or not the intellectual perfection. Even if tests are supposed to give an indication of a certain concept, they still fail. An IQ test can be faked, or is something that can be 'trained' on. It is subject to social conditions, culture and even day-to-day fitness. For example, someone who has slept poorly is likely to have a worse outcome. Background noise can be perceived as disturbing. Someone with concentration problems is no more stupid than someone who can concentrate well, but will generally get a lower score.

African-Americans and people with a black skin color are said to have an IQ that is on average 20 points lower than for white / Asian people. Of course that does not mean that those people are therefore less smart. But what it does want to imply is that these people often grow up in disadvantaged regions, have less access to good education (due to discrimination, distance, country of origin), and probably also that as a result less focus is placed in that culture / context. on good education, upbringing and performance. Something that is much more important in Western countries than in "third world countries". Those countries are often still in full development, and it is of course another debate about how to get those countries out of that vicious circle. On the other hand, we can also learn a lot from them about, for example, attitude to life. We have to help each other. It is of course a fact that racist organizations use to 'prove' that black people are effectively an inferior race than whites, but that is absolutely not true and a myth. Just as it is a myth that black people are physically stronger than white people. Life does not discriminate in race. There is nothing that is determined by your skin color, only your skin color itself (and of course also psycho-social circumstances in which you grow up because it is still something that is discriminated against, and racism is something that comes from all sides. whites stronger because we are in the majority, but in South Africa, for example, it is the other way around. It is something that comes from all sides, and from which no one is immune).

If I ever practice the profession of a psychologist, and that chance is there, I will always refuse to take an IQ test. And this on principle. I will always argue why I do this. People can always go to another psychologist who is willing to take this off. That is their choice and every right. But that I would refuse to take it is also my right. I absolutely do not see the point of such a test, and I usually have a good idea of ​​what someone's capabilities and strengths are.

Someone else from my group:
What do you mean with this (shows picture of me saying this: racism is something that comes from all sides. whites stronger because we are in the majority, but in South Africa, for example, it is the other way around. It is something that comes from all sides, and from which no one is immune)

My answer:.
 
No one is immune from being a victim of racism, regardless of skin color. Yes, in practice it is more common in non-white people, especially here in the Western world. But in South Africa, for example, racism comes from both sides, and blacks are also discriminating against whites today. Black supremacy is one of the platforms of the extreme left party Economic Freedom Fighters. And also the largest party ANC (African National Congress) has in its platform, the expropriation of "Africans". It is not that the white man is by definition racist, and that minorities cannot be. To fight racism, you have to tackle both. Without it, you will only polarize, and racism will even increase as one demographic feels disadvantaged over the other. Although it is a very complex debate, of course.

Person 2 and fellow member of my commie group:

The IQ test is a bad meter of "intelligence" because of the bias and a wrong starting point. So I don't understand why you would look at social environment as an explanation for low IQ in black people. Again, the reason is the inadequacy of the IQ test as a yardstick and the fact that it is completely biased.

Racism is also a structural problem. Racist ideology arose from the need for an argument to justify the western colonization of Africa, Asia and America.

Colonialists were a minority in Africa, so your argument that racism and power relations depend on demographic numbers has already been debunked. But I don't understand how someone who is a so-called socialist would think that at all. The working class is also many times larger than the capitalist class. And yet it is the last to exploit the other.

The same for racism. Racism is about systematic exploitation and oppression of entire populations. It cannot come from both sides as there is always an oppressor and an exploited one. There has not been a single moment in modern history where colonized and ethnically marginalized groups had the structural power to dominate white colonial populations.

My answer:


The social environment is partly the explanation for the low IQ in black people. And there is little black people can do about that. This is the result of discrimination against white people against blacks in Western countries, which means that black people do not have every opportunity, comparable to people from a lower class who are less likely to graduate than people from a higher class, and the vicious circle in which those people to sit. And also the consequence of third world countries (especially Africa) where development is still in full swing, due to their systematic oppression in the colonization past.

I have never said that racism is not a structural problem. I think racism may depend on demographic numbers, but as you correctly say, it shouldn't always be. A country with a larger number of soldiers will not always win in a war against a country with a smaller number of soldiers, for example. There are more factors.

But where you do make the mistake of saying that racism cannot come from both sides. You rather rely on groups that systematically suppress each other (and generalize in this), but I am talking about the individual here. An individual can always be racist, regardless of skin color, sometimes even fueled by the racism of the other population group. For example, a black person who has been oppressed by whites all his life may become racist towards whites (and for a reason). Sometimes this also happens for unfounded reasons. Indeed, in the past, it was always the whites who oppressed other populations, often because they felt they were more civilized than those groups. This is how colonialism arose, from imperialism and from this sentiment. The Aztecs had a kind of religion where they sacrificed human hearts to their Gods, and the Spaniards saw this as barbaric, for example. Another reason was that they wanted to spread their religion, Christianity, and see other religions as barbaric or pagan. What the Spanish did next is not correct at all and the Aztec / Pre-Columbian civilizations were on the right side of history in my opinion.

But from their point of view, I can understand why they were seen as inferior or barbaric. But because there was never any interaction between pre-Columbian civilizations and the rest of the world for about 5,000 years at the very least, these arose and evolved quite apart from each other.
Colonialism is no longer relevant for today. There are very few people alive today who are responsible for that. In my example South Africa, it is really the blacks who are exploiting the whites right now, and in that country they do have the structural power to do so. And there are still examples (of all population groups).

I think in order to end racism (and I think we should aim to make racism less frequent for the time being because it will be more realistic), you should include everyone in your story. If you will always point the finger at whites, and then say: "the white man or the Flemish is racist", you will not get that in your story. And I also find such a comment discriminatory. I think you need to be more nuanced and let go of the past. You have to look at contemporary problems and tackle them. But what you do is polarize, and with that you only contribute to racism. Because you still see it too much as white against other colors. And if the PVDA comes up with such a position, they will be a marginalized party because they antagonize all white people and they will not reach the electoral threshold.

I certainly support the fight against racism, but I do not think this is correct.

Another response

We are both anti-racist for sure. But I think our approach is very different. I don't believe in your approach. Because I think that 1) is not correct and 2) because it will not lead to results. For example, the denazification of Germany is a very good example of how to approach it. Germany is one of the most stable countries in the world today, and due to the change in generations and current image, no one can blame their Nazi past. Many people from those generations also did not support the Nazis (will be about 50/50) and were pressured. Others who supported this came to an understanding later (often after the war). But your approach feeds racism. A reaction will always lead to a counter reaction. The life of a white person is not worth much according to your approach, because the white man will always be racist, and is always responsible for what happened, and is still happening. Sometimes it may seem that it is, but in practice it is not all as black and white as it seems. I know a lot of Vlaams Belangers, and in practice I don't think they are racist. They often vote for them for other reasons (often a combination), which can be very different. And part is also anti-Islam, with dislike for that religion, their oppression for human rights and women's rights (sharia law) and also because they are "low information voters", who come into contact with them more and with terrorism / growing crime. no longer tolerate. I don't think these are "racist reasons", even though I don't think the reasoning of those people is correct because they also generalize. By the way, I even know people of a different color who vote for Vlaams Belang, and they have their reasons too. In America, Trump has, despite losing, made gains with people of other colors. It is the losses of white people (mainly suburbs) that ultimately led to a victory for Biden. But yes, from the ground up, Vlaams Belang is racist and many of their voters are too. But not all. And I have also heard stories from people at Open VLD, for example, who were clearly very / extremely racist. It is something that you will inevitably find in every game. Mostly at Vlaams Belang, of course, because they support that themselves.

His response

Gosh I find it really shocking that after your half-baked and reactionary points you still dare to make assumptions about how * I * see and want to tackle anti-racism. While da was not even discussed.
I would very much like to end this discussion with perhaps a sneer. But I know some comrades aren't going to thank me for making racism worse, and always have to be the bigger person and white people like you hold hands and walk them to Anti-Racism.
Ma bon we are both comac'ers and I assume are still in the PVDA so I will do it anyway.
I'm going to ignore your talk of the IQ and the Aztecs and Denazification because 1) I don't really care 2) there are probably other people who are more equipped to either debunk those points or possibly "nuance" those points.
Soit. About the point that colonialism is irrelevant now. Colonialism is literally the foundation on which contemporary capitalism is built. The "emancipation" of the former colonies does not mean that this is now negligible, as they still maintain neo-colonial ties with the west. The world is FAR from decolonized, and I encourage you to read the works of Frantz Fanon and Walter Rodney.
2) White people can certainly have a place in the anti-racist struggle. But this must be one where the historical guilt is recognized, but also a true contemporary racism at all levels and their contribution to it is addressed. Not just recognized, but effectively done with it.
3) Racism is not no discrimination. Saying "dirty white" to someone will not have the same effect as a white person would do the same to persons of color. The white person may have been hurt, but still lives in a world where they have more opportunities for a job / housing / decent education. A world where they should not fear random police violence against them or people who look like them.

My answer yet again:

See, this reaction is proof to me that you don't see me as an 'equal', but as more towards me. Which is very striking for a 'communist'. Soit.
My vision is very clear. I APPROACH people without prejudice to skin color. I don't give a sh**t about skin color, really. I refuse to engage in identity politics, not of white supremacy and not those of the other side. It's not us vs them. It's all about us. I have known a traumatic past, and others always say to me: let it go. You yourself are not directly affected / affected by colonialism. And I am not responsible for it, nor will I apologize for it, because I have never done anything wrong in that area. Moreover, it is Leopold II (in this case) who is most to blame for this, and he is long dead. His relatives can apologize, but have not done it themselves (that genocide).
Constantly pushing yourself into a victim role doesn't arouse sympathy. And yes, you might have some likes, and that's because those people know YOU better than I do. Their right, but if PVDA uses your strategy, we will NOT reach the electoral threshold. Because the people I have convinced to choose PVDA drop out exactly on that point.

This is exactly what bothers me in the modern left, and why we are losing like never before.

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

In this context, doesn't the wording "blacks" sound a bit derogatory? Shouldn't you rather call them "black people" instead? The term "blacks" sounds a bit like 60's white people slang. 🙅🏻‍♂️

[Ferguson97]

If you believe that racism is prejudice + power, then no.

If you believe that racism is synonymous with prejudice, then yes.

Very few who believe the latter would disagree with the idea that white people have institutional power over Black people.

So ultimately, it's a semantics question.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I think of the big challenges of the "racism requires entrenched power" hypothesis is it is very reliant on a simple, literally white and black discourse. What if we ignore white people entirely? If an African-American makes an insulting remark to an African immigrant are they not being racist? What about if a Hispanic child makes a slur against an Asian schoolmate? Who has the "entrenched power" there? As America becomes less white, these questions become far less hypothetical (and they aren't hypothetical now, which is why in practice most people operate under the same understanding of racism that has was taught since the concept was first born).

In the UK the situation is particularly thorny: issues like widespread dislike of Roma in minority areas, and conflicts between Hindus and Muslims are not uncommon.

[Frozen Sky Ever Why]

[juulze68]

Yes.
Case and point, Robert Mugabe.

[HisGrace]

Yes.
Case and point, Robert Mugabe.

Robert Mugabe was punching up so everything he did was 100% fine /s

[The Mikado]

I think part of the problem is that people like Ibram Kendi are leeching onto the already very morally powerful word "racism" with their reinterpretation that racism is fundamentally structural bias and that bigotry against someone of another race (what everyone already thought of as racism) isn't racism without that structural component. It's good marketing, but if he wanted to be intellectually honest, they really should've picked a new word besides "racism" for his structural bias topic. (Which is a real and important thing, it's just not what we think of intuitively when we hear racism!)

If we have to use this structural definition of racism as the only definition of the term, I support John McWhorter's idea of reviving the word "prejudice" for "the individual bigotry one person has towards someone else of a different race" which everyone of any group can exercise. The problem is conflating structural stuff with day to day bigotry, and using the same word for both can lead to really, really stupid outcomes.

[HisGrace]

I think part of the problem is that people like Ibram Kendi are leeching onto the already very morally powerful word "racism" with their reinterpretation that racism is fundamentally structural bias and that bigotry against someone of another race (what everyone already thought of as racism) isn't racism without that structural component. It's good marketing, but if he wanted to be intellectually honest, they really should've picked a new word besides "racism" for his structural bias topic. (Which is a real and important thing, it's just not what we think of intuitively when we hear racism!)

The purpose of this is to give people a pass for being bigoted (and racist) against white men so picking another word wouldn't do the job.

[TheReckoning]

I think part of the problem is that people like Ibram Kendi are leeching onto the already very morally powerful word "racism" with their reinterpretation that racism is fundamentally structural bias and that bigotry against someone of another race (what everyone already thought of as racism) isn't racism without that structural component. It's good marketing, but if he wanted to be intellectually honest, they really should've picked a new word besides "racism" for his structural bias topic. (Which is a real and important thing, it's just not what we think of intuitively when we hear racism!)

If we have to use this structural definition of racism as the only definition of the term, I support John McWhorter's idea of reviving the word "prejudice" for "the individual bigotry one person has towards someone else of a different race" which everyone of any group can exercise. The problem is conflating structural stuff with day to day bigotry, and using the same word for both can lead to really, really stupid outcomes.

If you actually read Kendi’s book, “How To Be An Antiracist”, he actually says in it he believes that black people CAN be racist against white people. I thought this was interesting because of how it does kind of go against a lot of current progressive/leftist thought.

But I agree that the understanding the distinction between structural racism and individual racism is extremely important if we actually want to solve these issue.

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

https://torontosun.com/2017/02/11/black-lives-matter-co-founder-appears-to-label-white-people-defects

Yusra Khogali, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter Toronto, argued that white people are “recessive genetic defects” and purportedly mused about how the race could be “wiped out,” according to a post on what appears to be her Facebook page.
[...]
Only last week during a protest in front of the US consulate Khogali shouted into a microphone that “Justin Trudeau is a white supremacist terrorist” and urged the crowd to “rise up and fight back.”
[...]
She also faced controversy in the news for a tweet posted a year ago stating: “Plz Allah give me strength to not cuss/kill these men and white folks out here today.”
While these remarks alarmed many Canadians, they pale in comparison to a statement numerous sources forwarded to the Sun that Khogali appears to have posted on Facebook in late 2015.

“Whiteness is not humxness,” the statement begins. “infact, white skin is sub-humxn.” The post goes on to present a genetics-based argument centred on melanin and enzyme.
“White ppl are recessive genetic defects. this is factual,” the post reads towards the end. “white ppl need white supremacy as a mechanism to protect their survival as a people because all they can do is produce themselves. black ppl simply through their dominant genes can literally wipe out the white race if we had the power to.”

[Associate Justice PiT]

Pleasantly surprised by Atlas' response to this so far.

     Agreed. I remember five years ago when it was impossible to posit the notion without getting a wave of lefties shouting you down with "racism = prejudice + power!". Few things have galled me quite so much as seeing that talking point come up in a thread about a disabled white man being attacked by a group of black teens, as if that was in any way an appropriate response to the crime that was perpetrated. It is nice to see that folks are at least getting better on this point.

[Dr. MB]

Pleasantly surprised by Atlas' response to this so far.

     Agreed. I remember five years ago when it was impossible to posit the notion without getting a wave of lefties shouting you down with "racism = prejudice + power!". Few things have galled me quite so much as seeing that talking point come up in a thread about a disabled white man being attacked by a group of black teens, as if that was in any way an appropriate response to the crime that was perpetrated. It is nice to see that folks are at least getting better on this point.

Weird. I'd think that sentiment would've increased in the past 5 years instead of decreased.

[Real Texan Politics]

Yes, and I'm impressed at how the liberals here have more common sense than the leftists on twitter who think "muh white = racist"

[Associate Justice PiT]

Pleasantly surprised by Atlas' response to this so far.

     Agreed. I remember five years ago when it was impossible to posit the notion without getting a wave of lefties shouting you down with "racism = prejudice + power!". Few things have galled me quite so much as seeing that talking point come up in a thread about a disabled white man being attacked by a group of black teens, as if that was in any way an appropriate response to the crime that was perpetrated. It is nice to see that folks are at least getting better on this point.

Weird. I'd think that sentiment would've increased in the past 5 years instead of decreased.

     Same here. You take the victories you get though.

[ingemann]

If you believe that racism is prejudice + power, then no.

If you believe that racism is synonymous with prejudice, then yes.

Very few who believe the latter would disagree with the idea that white people have institutional power over Black people.

So ultimately, it's a semantics question.

Seeing that that the generic White person don't have institutional power as a individual, clearly White people can't be racist. If we define racism as institutional power only institutions can be racist.

We can also just recognize that racism is just bigotry toward a racial, ethnic or ethno-religious group and you can be racist no matter whether you're White, Black or some other groups.

We can also recognize that all people unless they suffer from some defect are racist, being racist is part of the human experience, of course it doesn't necessary always follow the same pattern as some people see each other as part of the same group one place, while people sharing the same traits may see each other as very distinct another place.