Peter, your clarification makes it clear to me that you don't actually understand what racism is well enough to keep from filling the board with it. I sincerely hope I'm wrong.
To accuse someone of being a Nazi, as you did in the thread-that-shall-not-be-named, is a pretty hefty charge, and baseless unless they are actually Nazis (or at least neo-Nazis). Nazis can be identified by, among other things, a particular kind of racist and fascist ideology that advances white, Christian (or at least non-Jewish), non-immigrant heterosexuals as innately superior, other people as innately inferior (more prone to committing crimes, less intelligent, etc) and proposes the solution to societal problems is the removal of inferior people by some means--notably in the 1940s rounding them up into camps and eventually gassing them to death. Book-burning is not a way to identify a Nazi unless accompanied by the above.
Racism, on the other hand, is not defined as hating people with different skin color to the point that you wish to kill them, no matter that we white people may wish it was as simple as that. That kind of hatred is the result of racism, which is a structure of ideas embedded in all industrial societies at present that serves to give white people more opportunities than people who are not white. It maintains itself by excusing the misdeeds of white people against people of color as justified, or as harmless pranks, whereas the misdeeds of individual people of color it holds up as evidence against all people of color. It operates through stereotypes and prejudice. It defends itself against attack by many means, chief among them by disguising itself so that even the people who are enabling the operation of racism often do not know they are doing it. If it is allowed to continue, it might result in hatred, killing, riots, economic violence, colonialism, maybe eventual genocide.
When I recognize that my words or actions contribute to racism, I have the power to own up to it, apologize, and stop doing it. So long as I identify racism as something only practiced by people in white hoods, I can't make any headway against the real problem. Likewise, to tell someone that their speech is supportive of a racist power structure is to give them the power to make a change and help to dismantle it instead. I hope whenever I am unconsciously racist, my friends will have the courage and the generosity to tell me so, because being racist is not something I want to do, and ending racism is something I do want to do. And if it takes harsh words to get through to me, then harsh words are what I need to hear. Like the proverbial staff of the Zen priest across the shoulders of the student, it's a mark of grandmotherly kindness. You don't have to agree, but doing this "I'm not a racist! Look at my white hood! You can't see it! Because I'm not a racist!" dance is not helping your case as much as you might think. |
