As a semantic point I think you mean 'prejudiced,' at worst 'edgy' not 'racist'
A racist is not someone who makes a racist joke or gives special treatment to an ethnicity
Someone being a racist does not mean that they are a neo-nazi running on the street beating black people. Someone being a racist does not mean they are literally Hitler. All neo-nazis who beat black people on the streets are racists, but not all racists are neo-nazis beating black people on the street.
As opposed to neo-nazis who beat white people on the streets being anti-racists? Assuming of course that neo-nazi is synonymous with white people
You'll pardon the useless nitpicking I used here in order to bring up an important question that gets tossed around, since modern progressive monologue from the Americas about racism defines racism not as a belief, but by an action expressed by an oppressor vs the oppressed, that is not covered by the other marxist dialectics. Thus black people who beat up white people for their whiteness are not racist, because racism = prejudice + institutional power
Moreover US progressive monologue does not deal with the complexities of racism because it has very loose racial categories in discussion. It is funny when people try to redress historical issues with people without historical identities, it simply cannot work. On a more practical level in contemporary analysis, it fails to account for mixed raced individuals and issues of self-identity
I posit that "racist" has not become a bogeyman. I posit that "racist" was a bogeyman, and is now nothing more than a bad word white people use to insult one another, so overused and wrongly used it has become as meaningless as the word "literally," or "epic."
The word itself "racism" does not "invariably" evoke images of ethnic warfare, and is indicative of how discourse on racism is dominated per discussion by one sole narrative, each one obliquely ignoring the other in order to maintain ideological purity :<
When a boss of a company has two equally qualified candidates and he or she hires the person of his or her own ethnicity simply because they are of their own ethnicity, that is not racist under law as long as the ethnicity in question is a protected characteristic
When a teacher gives special attention to people of different ethnicity they are adjusting for cultural differences that could cause some students to fall behind their peers
When Frankie Boyle makes a racist joke he is a comedian
When you make the definition of racist become the vast majority of the population, you feed into the god awful smug mess that has occurred in the West. You get a crack core of elite liberals who believe they are the enlightened anti-racists out on a mission to correct the rest of the world from their racism. This legitimizes their arrogance and egotism, whilst removing any weight to the word racism - when it's everything, it's pointless. It was as if we applied the "fringe" label to views held by majorities.
We don't live in a cartoon world where people wake up in the morning twisting their moustaches and thinking of ways of how they can discriminate against others today. It is depressing this needs pointing out. The problem of racism is not solved by vilifying and insulting racists. The problem of prejudice is unsolvable. If we use your common definition of racism and call out what is defined as a common thing held by the majority of the world's people, it becomes pointless, its usage as a
petty insult cannot be changed, especially as it will only ever be a descriptor of socially unacceptable behaviour.
It is a chance of introspection; a chance to learn and a possibility to become a better, more well-rounded person.
I think a person being on their own, having a good sense of patience - most importantly, having a strong introspective ability will do much more to help someone examine themself than to have everyone else call them racist. Personally, I also do not want introspection to be drawn further into identity politics, I am completely jaded by whites who refuse introspection because they don't want to culturally appropriate eastern virtues; I believe they just don't want to place themselves up against any standard of usefulness. Oh shit, look at me there making judgements on a race based off of my interactions with its members in one geographical location, thus applied to a global category! Hence why I don't like the black and white (literally) labels, the broader and cruder the generalizations get the more offensive the racism becomes.
Really, my one piece of constructive advice on this rambling tangent is that one will not become a well-rounded person by downloading political wank into your brain, one will become utterly consumed by neuroses trying to eradicate all traces of moral transgression until all that is left is the eternal Swede. Go outside, meet new people, go abroad, meet new peoples, study ancient philosophy, study your religion, study your acquaintances religions, judge yourself every day, take the judgements of others and learn and develop. Don't be your own critic just to mitigate your own criticism, and for gods sakes actually have practical skills in your hands with some actual work ethic. You can't give someone a chance at introspection with that one word, there are only three words in the English language capable of inducing even
a little introspection.
GOD, FOOD, FUCK.
Imagine a child with a large birthmark in your face. Now imagine that during their whole chilhood they heard constant jokes about it. No matter how lighthearted those jokes might be, no matter that the intention behind them might not be to hurt the child, it IS GOING TO HAVE A TREMENDOUS EFFECT ON THAT CHILD AND THEIR DEVELOPMENT. That isn't to say only children are affected by it. Sure, you might be more thick-skinned and therefore not affected by racist or sexist jokes, even if you are the target of them, but that does not mean that they affect no one. And before anyone says that people need to grow thicker skin; you did not decide to become thick-skinned. It is a matter almost entirely beyond your control so saying people need to learn it is missing the point.
How do you become a more well rounded individual by going through life in a "safe space"? Individuals raised in this manner are all the more useless for it, and oh boy it is going to have a tremendous effect on a child that reaches adulthood having never experienced humour, criticism, or such fundamental human emotions as anger or hatred.
"You did not decide to become thick-skinned."
Yes, I very much did. The only things in my life that I have no choice in whether I'm offended by them or not are vomit, fungus and faeces :
P
We all are guilty of discrimination of some sort. No one is perfect, but that isn't the point. We can only try our best and I urge everyone to observe and think about their words and actions, because we cannot fix our problems if we do not acknowledge them.
This is my original sin, but I am forgiven, for I follow the progressive creed e.t.c.
I'm sure we all can do a little more to make this world a kinder place for everyone.
This is hardly the only "little more" way to make this world a kinder place - if it isn't making the world
worse.Definitely agree with points in your post. This is mainly just a PTW as there's no serious discussion yet.
I like to think about that episode of Fairly Oddparents where everyone is turned into grey blobs to eliminate differences between people, and so everyone's "equal". Naturally, every character that got turned into a grey blob started claiming subtle differences, and using those perceived ( and likely nonexistent ) differences to make themselves feel superior.
Rather sad to think that if there was a truly "equal" world where everybody was on even, good footing, nobody would like that. Deep down, everybody wants to think themselves better than everyone else.
Don't rush into the other end of the extreme where you deny that we're different, race is a social construct, genes don't care what we think about them. Equality is not about making everyone into a neutered useless grey blob devoid of individuality, and it is disturbing how sameness has become the target where equality once was.
This allows me to segway into what I think of racism: It is the belief that humans can be separated into racial groups, and that these racial groups express common and exclusive characteristics. Disproven in modern times since the common characteristics turned out to not be common within the prescribed races and the exclusive characteristics turned out to not be exclusive within the prescribed races.
Fuck all people with light blond, black or red hair. Fuck people with curly hair. Dark blond straight hair master race! ....is how racists always sound to me. Sense, it makes none.
How many racists have you talked to, sounds like awesome story time
Anyways that's just my rant over