Quote:
Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield
I could not possibly call you a racist for this incident, or anything like it. The proper description that fits is "Person who had a racist thought."
This gets to the meat of semantic and logical problems with loose and lazy use of the term, "racist." It cheaply trades in absolutes where an argument of degree is appropriate. Having a single racist thought, or a racist thought every four or five days, or when you're in a certain part of town, does not make you a racist. It makes you a person who's had some racist thoughts.
Odd example, but fitting... I was watching a Bond flick the other night. Gert Frobe, who most know as Goldfinger, was a Nazi for a few years in the 30s. He left the movement before the war and became a staunch liberal, living an admirable life. However, for a period of time far longer than any moment of racist fear you've had, Gert Frobe was a National Socialist. Does this mean that forever he is a Nazi?
Of course it does not. That's an absurd position to take. As absurd as the position that because one is born into a system, he is automatically guilty of the sins of that system. This is akin to original sin, and original sin is a silly religious fiction.
It's logically and semantically lazy and counterproductive to assert "everyone is racist." The accurate statement is, "everybody in the US lives in a racist system." This is fair. Because unlike you, Hank, who may have a passing racist thought every once in a blue moon, many of the systems in this country are discriminatory all the time.
Torturing language is never an effective way to make a point. This board, which leans left, may accept expansions of definitions, but the general public does not. When you define a word so broadly that a person such as Adder can argue that everyone fits into that category, you trifle with rendering the term utterly meaningless. That result would be a huge shame. Because few words are as important as this one.
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Ten years ago i learned the secret to successful dieting. I was on a diet where I did not eat sweets. Then my daughter made me a cake and I ate a piece. I woke up the next day bummed about it. My prior beliefs would be that I am no longer on the diet. But then I had a revelation- I had done "wrong" but I can start over again. I was not 100% bad.
When adder says we are all racists, it doesn't mean he thinks you might as well have gone to Charlottesville- instead he means let's all recognize we can improve (I think that is what he means)
But let's flip it to your def: how far will I have to move to be racist? Like if I'm afraid of a black man in a suit in downtown Birmingham Mi is that enough? Do I need to have thoughts once an hour? Can you define your limit?
The heart of this is you seem to believe someone who is a racist should be shunned and the rest of these socks believe it just means em has work to do (and gets to folks that should be shunned).
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