Comment 60590

By moylek (registered) - website | Posted March 02, 2011 at 14:45:24 in reply to Comment 60581

Man, I hate to be the one to do it, but I'm going to play the D-card ...

From the Merriam-Webster dictionary:

Racism 1: a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race 2: racial prejudice or discrimination

Racism is a belief - it might lead to racist public talk, or action, or neither.

One can even be a benign or even a very kind racist - my family is Southern and I'm related to a few lovely racists who are kind to everyone, regardless of race. And of course, someone can be a bigoted jerk without being a racist.

I'm not out to score pedantry points by challenging undustrial on his definition. It's just that racism is a special and odious kind of prejudice based on race, not just "really bad bigotry against an identifiable group" or "bigotry + action".

Let us take bigotry and obnoxious buffoonery for what it is: denouncing it as racism just makes us feel smugly superior. Besides, racists, in general, are immune to argument.

But bigots of various stripes and shades are all around us - we know them, they are our neighbours and family and co-workers. And the less stripy and shady can, in fact, be reasoned with. Though we must beware that sometimes we will discover through reasoned discussion that their negative prejudices are not entirely unfair.

Comment edited by moylek on 2011-03-02 15:01:37

-- Kenneth Moyle Hamilton, Ontario

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