Quote:
Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall
I think we've had this conversation before.
Racism exists because people treat people of color differently than they treat white people. It's built-in to our society, and it's systemic, institutional, cultural. Having a goal of a color-blind society makes no sense until there is no racism. And if there is no racism, there is no need for color-blindness because people will be treated equally.
Since there is racism (and there will always be racism), what I'm telling you is that most white people use the idea of being blind-to-color as a shield to protect themselves from acknowledging, understanding, and dealing with their own racism. "I'm colorblind, therefore I'm a good person. And only bad people are racist. End of discussion."
That's how it works.
TM
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There will always be racism during our lives, but I do not think there will always be racism. If the environment doesn't do us in as a species in the meantime, eventually we will become so interconnected globally that both culturally and physically differences underpinning the notion of "race" will fade away.
Is a tenet of that book's point that all people in this country are racist to some extent? That people start out racist because we live in a system that's racist? Is racism a sort of original sin with which we're all born?
I ask that because if that's the case, then that same logic would apply to sexism.
And you see how this would preclude, necessarily, an argument that racism or sexism are acts of free will. It would make an argument that the individual is automatically freighted with decisions of the society into which he was born. But if this is the case, I assume one can reject racism and by doing so remove himself from that group indictment. In this regard, racism would still have an intent element to it. Only, rather than intending to engage in it, one is born into it and makes an intentional decision to reject it.
