Quote:
Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield
I won't defend everything Harris says, but I am comfortable stating that his work taken in aggregate does not demonstrate a racist bent. And certainly his comment on Maher regarding Islam does not (even if one allows for the inaccurate characterization of Islam as a race).
The distinction is huge and important. If I say I hate Asians, I'm a racist. If I say I hate Catholics, I'm a religious bigot. And I'd say the former is far worse than the latter as the Asian has no choice but to be what he is. The Catholic has taken some step which can be undone. Both are odious forms of hatred, but one is more cruel and arbitrary than the other.
And in the US, with our legacy of slavery, and jailing of Japanese in internment camps, racism is a word with very unique meaning. I don't think it should be casually expanded to grant unwarranted heft to arguments of the more reckless advocates on the Left.
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There are two issues in here, one a philosophical one: if we begin by saying race is a social construct, what variety of social construct is it? Is racism bigotry based on skin tone? Based on hair color (Blond! Aryan!) Based on other features (big noses, height, eye shape, head shape)? How is the choice of features related to cultural or historical differences? Thus, the debate on the US census about whether to list people from MENA or Hispanics as separate races or "adjuncts" of other races.
The other is a broader one: how do various bigotries reinforce each other. You don't often find someone who is just a racist without being full of all kinds of other form of bigotry. The KKK's list of people they hated and why was impressive, and by no means limited to race. These bigotries tend to reinforce each other.
