Racism

[tussock]

Everyone agrees "racism" is bad, the cops in Ferguson will tell you how bad "racism" is while explaining how they're not racist because the black people there really are all sub-human dangerous criminals, and anyone who says otherwise is just racist against white people.

Which, Orion, is why white people talking about the racism they face is generally a bullshit distraction tactic from all the actual racism out there, for themselves as much as anyone else. How they can pretend it doesn't matter because it happens to everyone anyway, and other such delusions. The sexist morons who always bring up old child custody laws, or prison rape, or men's rights over women's bodies, whenever you try to have a conversation about any form of sexism or abuse against women. Those people are making it worse.

Like, try some youtube comments, this is how the real world is right now.

[*] Feminists are stupid, why can't they help the women being oppressed in the middle east?
Cause there's no fucking oppression over here...
[*] we cant deny that there is oppression and actual rape here in the US, were not as pure as we think we are. But in a way that's the biggest problem with feminists. there are real problems in the world and no time for people to go creating their own just so they can complain. its stupid and ignorant and actually generates more anger and sexism in men
[*] Why doesn't Sarkeesian, easily the douchewoman of the century, bark on about the actual popular culture?
Whether she likes it or not, men dominate gaming scene. It's a simple fact. And the whole supply and demand thing kicks in. More men play games = make more games that will
[*] Why cant we depict real world scenarios anymore without it being determined sexist? You cant just close your eyes and sex trafficking and strip clubs wont exist. Plus in watch dogs, your being the hero by STOPPING a sex trafficking rink. Yes they are portrayed as objects because thats how sex trafficking usually is, you don't go to buy a sex slave as a companion for tea time.
[*] In all honesty, any feminists in places where there are rights for women (I.e. USA) are the ONES THAT harass. They are the sexist people. Think about it: in the USA women and men alike have had rights for awhile. Let's think about it like racism. You can't simply make racism go away, there is going to be those idiots who think people are bad for how they're born. So does it go for sexism: men who generally hate women, and feminists hate men. Simple. But

I'm not kidding at all. It's all about how if don't like the real problems of racism, you're the real racist for ignoring white people's problems. If you don't like the real problems with sexism, you're the real sexist, for ignoring important men's issues, like you're the one causing the problem, why aren't you talking about .... Those people are the problem right now. And there's a bunch of ideas like that right in this thread. I see them all the time out of the old colonial countries. It's how the racism and sexism is currently being supported at large.

Twitter full of people telling each other they're not really sexist or racist, it's just those crazy women and black people gettin' all uppity. Ignoring our problems, how life isn't quite perfect every single moment for this one guy I heard about.

[Occluded Sun]

Everyone agrees "racism" is bad

No, we don't. It's not nearly that simple.

[Chamomile]

I dunno, I think the idea which academics use "-ism" to refer to -- the harmful effects of a pervasive system of discrimination which is backed up by state or corporate power and enacted by people who may have no personal animus -- is an important concept.

It is, but it is also important to keep that concept distinct from the related concept of prejudice based or race (or sex or whatever) in general. The attempt to define racism as racial prejudice backed by state or corporate power is almost always a prelude to the justification of prejudice against whatever race or sex or what-have-you happens to be favored by the current regime, to avoid accusations of hypocrisy by playing word games.

[icyshadowlord]

Holy shit Tussock, are you fucking serious?

Are you really saying EVERY problem in the world is caused by heterosexual white men?

And like Occluded Sun already said about that "racism" part, things aren't as simple as you're making them out to be.

There are a great deal of issues on both sides, for men and women, and prejudices against certain races are a thing as well.

But don't you go fucking putting everyone in the same box when it comes to finding a culprit, since history has proven that's never a good idea.

[DSMatticus]

icyshadowlord, this is the second time you've jumped into a discussion about this sort of shit and said something that left me genuinely baffled as to whether or not you are a master of satire or a total shitbag. You're riding the line between incredible stupidity and unbelievable stupidity, and I can't tell whether I'm supposed to be laughing at you or laughing with you.

"Oh, so everything is the fault of heterosexual white guys? Get real, man. It's like Occluded Sun said, racism isn't all bad. It's complicated, okay?"

That has all the ingredients of parody; accusatory non-sequitur, shoutout to a monstrous douchebag, handwaving away racism as justified... but where's the fucking tell? You either need to end that post with a winky face or preface it with "I am a shitty person."

[icyshadowlord]

I'm not taking this too seriously, but I honestly found Tussock's post rather ridiculous. You can draw your conclusions from that.

[erik]

Damn. It's the latter. I was thinking it was satire as well. Who sides with fucking Occluded Sun other than as a joke? Especially when he flagwaves to remind you that he's a horrible person and proud racist (or as I theorize, trolling by pretending to be an even more horrible person than he actually is).

[icyshadowlord]

I probably should clarify a few things then.

1) I didn't know Occluded Sun is that much of an asshole. Had I seen more of his posts on the topic than the few I glanced through, I probably wouldn't have sided with him on that one part.

2) Due to being the son of an immigrant (as well as being jewish) in a country that isn't exactly very tolerant of foreigners, I've been a target of racism quite often. I would never take a stance that is pro-racist in any measure.

3) If Occluded Sun meant to say "not all racism is bad", then I wouldn't have agreed with him. He said "it isn't that simple", which I tend to say applies to a lot of things.
So chances are I just misunderstood his message on that part, which made me look like an asshole as well.

[Kaelik]

icy:

Tussock says "everyone agrees that racism is bad, but people disagree about what is and isn't racism also a bunch of stupid stuff because I am tussock, but way less than usual."

Occluded Sun quotes "Everyone agrees racism is bad" and says "no we don't, it isn't that simple."

The only possible interpretation is that he believes there is some kind or amount of racism that isn't bad.

You then associated with his statement. There is literally no other way to interpret what he said.

[icyshadowlord]

Then I simply misread. Again, I would not side with such shit unless I was an asshole, which I am not.

[Orion]

The attempt to define racism as racial prejudice backed by state or corporate power is almost always a prelude to the justification of prejudice against whatever race or sex or what-have-you happens to be favored by the current regime, to avoid accusations of hypocrisy by playing word games.

This has not been my experience. That happens, sure, but no more than 10% of the time this concept is invoked. 90% of the time, people bust out what I'm going to call "structural racism" to explain how minorities can be the victims of pervasive racism even when most people don't personally hate minorities. Take Ferguson, as an example. Yeah, they got a couple of cops sending racist emails, but I believe those guys have been fired, and in any case it was only a couple guys. Meanwhile, Ferguson is a dystopian hellscape where a literal majority of residents are wanted criminals and pedestrians can be arrested and charged for "manner of walking" and "failure to obey." Do all the cops hate and fear black folk? Probably many of them do, sure. A lot more than the number who were sending those emails. But there are probably a fair number, especially the rookies, who do these militarized extortion racket shakedowns just because that's how policing is done in Ferguson and that's how they were trained to operate. That apalling police strategy was allowed to continue because black folk in Missouri don't have much political influence, and they were inherited from leaders who were almost certainly consciously and openly racist, but today, getting into an argument about whether the cops are personally prejudiced is almost beside the point.

white people talking about the racism they face is generally a bullshit distraction tactic from all the actual racism out there. . . .The sexist morons who always bring up old child custody laws, or prison rape, or men's rights over women's bodies, whenever you try to have a conversation about any form of sexism or abuse against women. Those people are making it worse.

You should be focusing on the best case scenario rather than the worst case scenario. It's unambiguously true that in 90% of internet conversations, men complaining about anti-male sexism are anti-feminists derailing the conversation. Probably in 99% of internet conversations, white people complaining about anti-white racism are making shit up. If you're proposing to forbid the use of "-ism" to refer to "prejudicial personal attitudes or behavior which are not endorsed or affirmed by law or social convention," then you need to think about that 10% and also about offline conversations. For instance: my Korean-American friend complained that she can't introduce her Japanese-American boyfriend to her family because her grandparents are racist. Should I have told her, "actually, your grandparents can't be racist because Koreans are a minority in America and they have no institutional power to discriminate against the Japanese"? Or should I have done what I did, and said "that sucks bro."

Is that cheating because I invoked a minority and not a white man? Okay, let's go with a white man. I would guess that virtually every white man in America will, by the time he is 30, either have dealt a woman who was personally biased against men, or have encountered one of the few disadvantages men in America have, such as difficulty getting hired as babysitters. If they jump into comments on a feminist blog, derail a policy conversation, use it as an excuse to harass women, or engage in excessive self-pity, then sure, you've got to shut that shit down. That's when you have to tell them that the sexism they experienced is nothing like the sexism women face in degree or in kind, and that they had the opportunity to move on from that one-off bad experience because our institutions didn't back up the malefactor. I simply think that we should use the language I just did: sexism against men is rarer, less violent, less legal, and less sanctioned than sexism against women. Trying to tell men that they can't suffer from "sexism" will just make them defensive for no substantive benefit.

[Chamomile]

90% of the time, people bust out what I'm going to call "structural racism" to explain how minorities can be the victims of pervasive racism even when most people don't personally hate minorities.

How exactly does this have anything to do with people trying to redefine the word "racism" such that white people by definition cannot ever be the victims of it, even when they are murdered specifically for being white? Never mind that this almost never happens, on those occasions it does it is still racism and people who want to talk about Ferguson do not benefit from trying to convince anyone otherwise. If they're trying to change definitions we can safely conclude that they aren't actually trying to talk to you about Ferguson, at least not in the moment they're talking to you about those definitions, because changing the definition of racism to exclude white victims does not actually facilitate that conversation at all.

[icyshadowlord]

...wait, who is trying to redefine racism to exclude whites?

[Kaelik]

Take Ferguson, as an example. Yeah, they got a couple of cops sending racist emails, but I believe those guys have been fired, and in any case it was only a couple guys.

Not even close. It was many people, and all of them currently have their jobs.

[Dean]

Yeah don't defend the Ferguson PD for any reason. There have been no firings, there has been illegal protection of a murderer, there is a systemic racism being openly communicated within the departments and no action taken to fix or even address that.

The cops there are personally prejudiced and the system is prejudiced. The Ferguson PD is a Matroyshka doll of bigotry where investigators open new layers each time they perform a new hate crime.

[icyshadowlord]

Speaking of Ferguson, what is the current situation there, or has there been no real change thus far?

Edit: I read a few days ago that a cop was shot there, but I don't know if that was a fake thing or actually legitimate news.

[MGuy]

Only thing I've heard about it is Fox news claiming that every testimony other than the officer's was 'proven false' and them expecting/demanding an apology over it.

[erik]

Take Ferguson, as an example. Yeah, they got a couple of cops sending racist emails, but I believe those guys have been fired, and in any case it was only a couple guys.

Not even close. It was many people, and all of them currently have their jobs.

I think Orion was meaning "only a couple guys" lost their jobs, not "only a couple guys" were participating in an unethical process of racism and widespread corruption of judicial and executive law enforcement.

And as for them all currently having their jobs, well, not quite. Some have left their jobs, but most were not fired.

The police officer who killed an unarmed civilian resigned, losing his pension.
And more people began resigning after the Justice Department's report was released. Following that report:

• The chief of the Ferguson PD has resigned (with a year's severance pay)
• The municipal judge has resigned
• The city manager has resigned
• Two additional police officers responsible for racist emails resigned (as Orion noted, except they weren't fired)
• The "top court clerk" was fired for racist emails. So far as I know, this is the only person fired so far.

I read a few days ago that a cop was shot there, but I don't know if that was a fake thing or actually legitimate news.

I'm guessing you're referring to the two police officers who were shot during a protest/party following the resignation of the chief of police. Both officers thankfully survived and incidentally were not actually members of the Ferguson PD. There is someone charged and arrested for the shooting now.

[edit: I forgot to add this item:
The guy who allegedly shot the cops admitted to opening fire from his car, but denied he had been targeting the officers. Court documents and the press conference following the arrest indicate the man arrested had told investigators that he had fired the shots at individuals with whom he had a dispute unrelated to the protest.

[Dean]

The police officer who killed an unarmed civilian resigned, losing his pension.

But gained between half a million and a million dollars from racists around the country for committing the murder. If I got a million dollars I'd probably resign from my day job too.

Incidentally I'm pretty stoked people starting shooting at the officers. That's not just me being polemic for fun. It's a fact of history that nonviolent protest doesn't do shit against violent administrations. A healthy dose of violence sprinkled throughout is good for protests. Sociopathic entities and organizations act on rewards and punishments and fear of reprisal is one of the few things they understand.

[Whipstitch]

...wait, who is trying to redefine racism to exclude whites?

Useful idiots, mostly. More seriously, a lot of the angst on the topic stems from people taking issue with the perceived hypocrisy of minority advocacy groups. There's a fair chunk of people in the Fox News set who think it's a "Gotcha" moment when you insist that the NAACP's preoccupation with black people isn't really the same thing as systemic racism.

[erik]

The police officer who killed an unarmed civilian resigned, losing his pension.

But gained between half a million and a million dollars from racists around the country for committing the murder. If I got a million dollars I'd probably resign from my day job too.

Even without that it's still the smart move to quit since there's assholes out there who believe the following:

Incidentally I'm pretty stoked people starting shooting at the officers. That's not just me being polemic for fun. It's a fact of history that nonviolent protest doesn't do shit against violent administrations. A healthy dose of violence sprinkled throughout is good for protests. Sociopathic entities and organizations act on rewards and punishments and fear of reprisal is one of the few things they understand.

[Dean]

I'm aware that you've been given propaganda your entire life that nonviolent protest is some kind of mystical power source that the good guys use to win but the ugly truth is that's bullshit that you've been fed specifically because it's not true.

Pacifism is an unsupportable position. It does not and has never accomplished anything in the face of violent resistance. It is a truth of every civil rights battle that has ever occurred that violence is necessary to defeat unjust violent authorities. The examples you think you know of successful nonviolent protests are literal lies. Any investigation or reading into the Indian independence movement or the black civil rights movement is actual proof against the concept of nonviolent resistance. It is precisely because nonviolent resistance is ineffective that it is taught in American schools as being the most noble and good kind of rebellion. You are taught that factual lie for the same reason you were made to swear allegiance to the flag every day and read about how George Washington never lied: Because it benefits the institution teaching it to you. The hard real world truth about fighting authoritarian overreach is you actually do have to fight.

Nonviolent resistance does not work in the face of violence. Both you and I as Americans were taught that this was not the case and that Ghandi and MLK were basically saints who's method of resistance freed their people. If you actually read on those events you will find out that that is the opposite of true. Ghandi led movements of nonviolent protest for decades which the British basically told him to shove up his ass. When he was about 80 he stopped being directly involved in the independence movement which then got violent and succeeded immediately. Ghandi was gunned down which then caused an even greater surge of violence which once and for all made India a sovereign nation. Ghandi's life is proof of the ineffectual nature of nonviolent protest, not for it. Ghandi's nonviolent protest and the movement that grew around it failed, inarguably, and did so for 30 years. The violent resistance that followed delivered Indian independence in 3 years. There's a reason you are told the government toppling form of resistance is unvirtuous by your government.

MLK inspired a nation with his eloquence and passion and, in general, called for nonviolent protest. Malcolm X and the original Black Panthers decided that violence, when necessary, was a more reasonable response than bravely letting yourselves be murdered when your oppressor felt like doing so. How can one know whose ideas were right? American education speaks constantly about the virtues of MLK and almost none about Malcolm or the the Black Panthers so one would assume that MLK must have been right; Yet we know otherwise. You see the government, in the interest of transparency, has a policy of making public the high level discussions of official meetings once enough decades have past beyond them, and since it's been 50 years or so since the black civil rights movement we can now just read the conversations that were being had at the time. It is a historical truth, documented and known, that both the black civil rights movement and the protests against Vietnam both succeeded because of the violent elements within them. There are defense council meetings fully documented available for your reading where the Defense Secretary says that continuing to fight violent protest around the country is taking up too many resources and not giving in to demands would endanger American power at home. That is also the reason we withdrew from Vietnam, we have it on record from the assembly of Generals at the time that they desired to continue the Vietnam war with a new surge of soldiers but could not because they needed those troops at home due to violent protest, so they pulled out. The protests of the 50's, 60's, and 70's are on record as only having been effective at causing policy changes as a result of violence. The reason the American government teaches you that nonviolent resistance is noble and good is because the American government has no fear of nonviolent resistance.

These things are known, they are facts, they just aren't in highschool textbooks because it's directly against the interest of the organization making those textbooks. The reason American institutions tell you nonviolent protest is inherently spiritually good is because it benefits those institutions for you to believe those things. You should be deeply suspicious of any nationwide belief. Know that every effective institution preaches peace and practices war simultaneously because every enemy you can get to lay down their arms is another enemy you've defeated.

[DSMatticus]

The reason MLK and Gandhi were valuable to their respective movements is not because of the inherent superiority of their methodology (if you already have ALL THE TANKS!!1!, those will do the job just fine, nonviolence not needed), but because it's easier to find legitimacy within the existing institutions (the ones against which you are fighting) when you agree to play by their rules. That's it. And it's actually incredibly important, because it meant MLK and Gandhi were capable of serving as public figureheads who could withstand public scrutiny and come out palatable to an uncaring or even slightly racist observer in a way many of their contemporaries could not have. It also meant that their respective assassinations were correctly interpreted by their followers to mean "even if you play by our rules we will still kill you if you start winning," which is perhaps the most solid basis for a call to arms any civil rights movement could ever have.

But yes, of course violent unrest is fucking justifiable. No one really thinks that the Warsaw ghetto uprising was a tragedy, and if you do, fuck you. If you want to be an asshole we can sit here and quibble about how racist the institution sending men with guns and badges after you has to be before you're ethically justified in violent resistance, but the fact is the Ferguson Police Department is a blatantly racist institution and it is destroying (and in many cases outright ending) the lives of African Americans in a completely unnecessary and wholly unavoidable way and then laughing about it in private correspondence.

Not every police officer in the world is a bigoted asshole. And not everyone who ever fought for Germany in WW2 was a bigoted asshole. Being a police officer is just a job. Being a soldier is just a job; sometimes one you're conscripted into. Ordinary people do those jobs, and the job doesn't magically turn them all into terrible people just because. But the institutions are still racist and harmful and need torn the fuck down, and the only real question is "what amount and form of violence, if any, can help do that?" Because the African American community of Ferguson is no under obligation to sit there and watch the police murder more of their friends and family while "we sort that shit out." The fact that that's literally what they are doing isn't noble (though it is also kind of that). It's just a depressing statement about how fucked the world is that people are expected to and actually do deal with this shit.

EDIT: Yes, it is better when problems are solved and no one dies in the process. No, this isn't about an eye for an eye. The Ferguson Police Department is dangerously racist and needs to be prevented from exercising its authority. In a perfect world, the state and federal government would work together to disband it or massively restructure it while keeping order using other available means. But no matter how obviously that needs to happen, it is even more obvious that it isn't going to. The smoking gun has been found, presented to the world, and nothing's changed. This isn't the time to remember MLK's death, it's the time to remember the riots that followed. The looming threat of violent disobedience in the face of blatant injustice might actually get something done.

[Mistborn]

Wow what the hell are you smoking. The riots following MLKs death didn't advance the cause of civil rights a single inch, they were a massive fucking setback from which the cause of equality has yet to fully recover. The major victories that we associate with the civil rights movement had all already happened by then, and they happened because the racist establishment was delegitimized in the eyes of the public when it responded to nonviolent protest with brutal violence.

The Riots of the 60's and 70's were what allowed the racist establishment to once more put on a veil of legitimacy with the "law and order/tough on crime" bullshit that we're still dealing with today.

It's still the same shit today. When the Ferguson PD show up to a peaceful demonstration in full military gear people lose their fucking minds, and that's completely appropriate. When people actually are shooting at them that effect is lost, because it's no longer clear who is undermining civil society

[erik]

Put shortly:
The problem of racism isn't just the blatant klan members it is the silent majority unaware of the problems and injustices who allow the status quo to persist. Nonviolent protests can bring that silent majority to your side and be far more effective than violence. Violent reaction can alienate an otherwise powerful force for reform.