Comment by Miner49er | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Miner49er | Hacker News Reader

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Well, I said "most". I was a bit wrong. It's not just benefiting from racism that makes you racist by the definition, it's being a part of one of the systems that props up racism.

Here's a definition from the ADL for systemic racism.

"A combination of systems, institutions and factors that advantage white people and for people of color, cause widespread harm and disadvantages in access and opportunity. One person or even one group of people did not create systemic racism, rather it: (1) is grounded in the history of our laws and institutions which were created on a foundation of white supremacy;* (2) exists in the institutions and policies that advantage white people and disadvantage people of color; and (3) takes places in interpersonal communication and behavior (e.g., slurs, bullying, offensive language) that maintains and supports systemic inequities and systemic racism." [1]

So if you support one of the "systems, institutions and factors", you are by this definition, racist. I just said most white people probably are, by this definition.

[1] https://www.adl.org/racism

Don't you think that the definition of racism from a organisation that profits of fighting racism is a little bit biased?

Yes, that's my entire point. They are working with a different definition then most people.

So you agree that this definition is biased and we shouldn't use it?

I think it would be better if there was more understanding of what people were talking about when they said "racism". I personally think that this definition of "racism", is more useful, but it clearly causes misunderstanding.

I personally don't think individual racists are that big of a deal anymore. Systemic racism is much more harmful.

I even think that a little bit of the prejudice-type racism can help people overcome racism. More on that: https://qz.com/398723/slavoj-zizek-thinks-political-correctn...

Could you give me an example what constitutes systemic racism from your point of view?

It's just systemic things that end up, on large scale, hurting minorities more. For example, the judicial and prison system. Black people aren't incarcerated at such a high rate [1] because the judicial system and the police are full of KKK members or anything. It's due to a bunch of systemic problems and America's history of racism and slavery. It's a result of when America was clearly straight-forwardly racist. Like when black people couldn't buy houses in white neighborhoods. Now they have on average 10x less wealth than the average white family [2] and have access to worse schools, etc. This of course will lead more black people to turn to crime, because they have less good options, because they are on average, poorer and less educated. All the old laws and our history going back to slavery still has effects today that are compounding and allow the problem to continue to exist.

[1] https://www.prisonpolicy.org/graphs/raceinc.html

[2] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/racial-wealth-gap-costs-economy...

[3] https://www.brookings.edu/articles/unequal-opportunity-race-...

> It's due to a bunch of systemic problems and America's history of racism and slavery.

How do you explain then, that asian-americans (on average) outearn whites, have a higher SAT score and are less likly to be in prison? They have been impacted by racist policies too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_America...

> This of course will lead more black people to turn to crime, because they have less good options, because they are on average, poorer and less educated. All the old laws and our history going back to slavery still has effects today that are compounding and allow the problem to continue to exist.

poverty and education dont explain those numbers, but there is (at least partly) the growing number of fatherless homes that correlate with many factors influence positive outcome. https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2017/06/18/533062607/poverty... https://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/line/107-children-in-s... You want black people to get out of this cycle? Dont be a criminal, comply with police, educate yourself, help others do the same. But somehow this is called "acting white".

> How do you explain then, that asian-americans (on average) outearn whites, have a higher SAT score and are less likly to be in prison? They have been impacted by racist policies too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_America...

It's ridiculous to say that Asian Americans have experienced anything near the racism that black people have in the United States. I don't think they should even be included in the conversion when talking about racism. The racism they experience is mostly prejudice-type racism, not systemic.

> the growing number of fatherless homes that correlate with many factors influence positive outcome.

Well yeah, that's another systemic problem, that's partially caused by fathers being in prison and such.

> You want black people to get out of this cycle? Dont be a criminal, comply with police, educate yourself, help others do the same. But somehow this is called "acting white".

I don't follow your logic. If it's so easy for black people to get out of the cycle, why don't they? Why is it that so many black people are in the cycle vs. white people? Are you saying that black people are inherently worse?

Of course it causes misunderstanding (and so is not useful after all), because "racism" simply means something else. Use the word "complicit" maybe, but redefining words at a whim is counterproductive. Dangerous even, in the case of highly charged words like this one.

I mean, if you are using a wildly different definition than what most people understand what the word means, then it seems like you are the one making a mistake.

You should pick a different word, to describe this, since you are mostly just confusing people with the new definition that you are using.

> I think it would be better if there was more understanding of what people were talking about when they said "racism"

You do realize that one of the main reasons for redefining words is to cause confusion?

As in, we'll take this word with narrow meaning and then massively expand the meaning in order to fight our cause?

As in, nobody wants to be accused of being racist so if we reuse the word "racist" for something else we'll be able to manipulate the discourse?

If they actually used the words as they mean, people would realize that they're complaining about nothing.

Well, about real things. But using the wrong words, perhaps out of frustration.

The other unfair argument is to refute a minor point and claim there's nothing left to discuss. Like you did right there.

It's a bit troubling that the definition of racism specifies what colors the actors must be to meet the definition. That fact alone makes the definition suspect.

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