Quote:
Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski
This book he's talking about splashed biggest with the thought that white people who think they are the most woke are actually maybe the biggest part of the problem. That is, people with no conscious intent often do real harm- you seem to be having a fight about a definition, again- what if we created a new definition- say "book problem harm," instead of racism? No one is attacking you, and the piling on is odd, as implicit in what I understand this issue to include is the fact that at least most of the piler-ons are guilty of book problem harm. It goes beyond intent- as I understand book problem harm you likely do it if you notice a black person and then form pretty much any conclusion, good or bad, because you are likely to treat them other than you would a white person? I admit to doing book problem harm, even though I try like hell to minimize it.
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If you act differently around a black person than a white person is that racism? Of course the answer to that is, it depends.
Is the effect of acting differently around a black person perpetuating racism? Again, it depends.
If you act differently around women than men, are you sexist? It depends.
The existence of pervasive racism, and whether any individual white person is racist, are two different concepts. Racism is unquestionably pervasive and its impacts are often unnoticed, and a big part of it is unintentional acts by, as you note, white people who think they are woke.
Where things go off the rails a bit is when people argue that most or all whites are racist because they're born into a racist system and indoctrinated, even subconsciously, with racism. There is of course some truth to that. But as a simple matter of logic and statistical probability, it can never be the case that because whites are born into a racist society most or all of them to some extent racist.
Maybe that's not what's being asserted. Perhaps I have it wrong. But it seems to me that there's an emerging definition of racism asserting that because society is flooded with racism, anyone born into that society is to some extent racist. The idea sounds logical, except that it's not. It's arguing that the society into which you are born determines your thinking whether you like it or not. If that's true for racism, it's true for almost anything. People would be almost fractal mini-representations of the society into which they were born. That logic doesn't work for me.
