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Originally Posted by Ibby
I'd basically define racism as "not struggling every day to erase insidious colonialist/imperialist/racist cultural values from your life and actions" which is about as broad a definition as it's possible to construe, because the PoC who suffer from the effects of racism and know way better than i do what racism IS say so, and to assume that white people know better about racism than they do is completely fucked up.
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I disagree completely. That view limits discussion and forces an issue to be viewed from a limited perspective, and not independent of perspective as it should be.
People of color obviously have a perspective that we can never obtain, but it needs to be realized that no single perspective tells the entire story. Therefore, it is ridiculous to state that a single perspective can "correctly" define racism or any other social doctrine. In reality, how racism works is independent of perspective and should be viewed without any biased.
In my opinion, trying to define racism from our current situation is hopeless because our current situation is so complex. I feel it is easier to create simple hypothetical scenarios and expand from there. That way, it is much easier to test your hypothesis with all available perspectives and experiences, not just cherry picking perspectives to that work with a certain world view.
For example, I believe that society and social narratives should be viewed as a group of individuals that more or less are working in unison. Since that is what society actually is, a group of individuals. From there, we can conclude that most people have some prejudice and every single individual came to these prejudices from different life experiences. However, since people can pick up on similar trends or have similar interests, these prejudices can become aligned in the form of social narrative. As a note, that does not mean every person in the society has to follow this narrative. If the people holding these prejudice have the power to enforce these prejudice, a power structure appears. Since people in power tend to want to stay in power, this power structure is reinforced through policies and culture and a racist/sexist/homophobic/etc. society is formed.
I believe this is the easiest way to define and explain racism. It is general, devoid of biased, and in my opinion, can explain almost any type of racist/sexist/homophobic/etc behavior. What I find so interesting is that once a power structure is formed, it can be reinforced with no bad intentions at all.
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Originally Posted by Classicman
PH45 thanks for the adult answer, but I'll play with him on my own...
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I'm not here to impose, I am just leading up to a point. But I am going to impose anyway because it is a free country!
As for the racism affecting views on Obama question, it can't be viewed as black and white (
). Some people do disagree with Obama because of his skin color. Some people tend to focus on other perceived negative attributes more because of skin color. Some people are influenced by racists but not for racial reasons. Some people just legitimately disagree with his policies.
Have fun trying to quantify it!