Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop
You can take a bunch of screwed-up inputs and process them in a way that is entirely logical, and you will end up with a bunch of screwed-up outputs.
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What I said is entirely logical. The reason TM and I talk past each other is that we define concepts differently. I do not agree with the definition of racism having nothing to do with intent. He then says I do not know what I’m talking about. That is incorrect. He is not in possession of the final definition of racism. He may say he is all he likes, but all he will be in possession of is an emerging definition of it that competes with past intent-based definitions of it.
Unsurprisingly, using his definition, any comment that does not agree almost 100% with what he says he deems invalid and illogical. And then the clown car of pile-on comments pulls up and dumps a bunch of crap on the board.
And the truly crazy thing is I often agree with him. Where he tends to become frustrated is, as he noted, where I talk around the issue, at the periphery. It’s mere intellectual curiosity on my part. The argument that racism has no element of intent, and that to focus on intent undermines serious discussion of racism, is not axiomatic. It’s not even close to that. It’s something worth testing, even if only gently tested initially, at the periphery.
I’ll read the recommended book. But like any book, I very much doubt I’ll buy all of it. It’ll enlighten me, I’m sure. But it won’t stop me from questioning. The reason for that simple: Nothing is beyond critique. And telling me I’m ducking an issue while I’m talking about it with you isn’t proving otherwise.
