Danish far-right party calling for Muslim deportation to stand in election

I will point out that I made virtually no specific assertions about "modalities and qualities" of racism faced by Muslims in continental Europe. I simply asserted that Muslims are racialized in Europe and that they face discrimination, a point you now insist you do not disagree with. I am still left wondering what your actual disagreement is.
The issue is not whether you can claim technical correctness in some marginal way, the issue is whether your perspective involves severe misapplication.
The concrete issue with that is your lack of appreciation for the particular experience various Europeans majority Muslim communities.

I have also already told you why that is. To put it very bluntly: You are underappreciating the issues regarding class and nationality relevant to said communities because they are less relevant to the dialogue in your country.
I can already hear your "buts"...
So let me preemptively interrupt you: Yes, many of those things are true in theory but somewhere between those things and spanning a grandious arc of "theory" between the Pakistani British and the Kurdish Germans you begin to sound like Hillary Clinton does when she's allowed to talk about African Americans for too long in one go.
Why do you refer to germans as "Kartoffels" (potatoes)?

2nd edit:

It seems to be an insult used against ethnic germans by turks. If the implication is that Turks, who are mainly muslim, can be racist against ethnic germans why is assuming the reverse happens some sort of anglo projection?
No.

I do it because it's funny, and because we among ourselves have some significant concerned dialogue about relevant terminology.
We find the terms you guys would use in our place highly problematic, at best.
Well, and also because a bunch of the charges tied to the term are pretty fair.
It's not exactly super rare for Kartoffels to refer to themselves as such for that reason.
The latter one.
the vast exploitation of Muslim and especially Turkish immigrant workers during the postwar rebuilding period?
Not to discredit the work ethics of Turkish Germans, but rather to lament their lackluster access to time machines: The commonly accepted core of the postwar rebuilding period wasn't in the '70s.

I think you have just implicitly slighted a whole bunch of people, too.
I might argue that islamophobic racism is even a German invention, seeing as it has its roots in the crusades.
Erm... there still is a major country with a crusader flag, you appreciate that?
Maybe they could change the flag to curb Islamophobia.
The Islamophobes there seem to be quite keen to use the flag to make their point.
So maybe it'd work. :hmm: :)


Anyway, in summary...
... we need plane tickets for Lexicus and ITSD and Cloud.
So they can come over here.
And talk to some Kurdish Germans, Turkish Germans, Tatar Germans, Albanian Germans, Bosnian Germans and some others.
So Lexicus and ITSD and Cloud can tell them about their grand theory on Islamophobia...
...and how supposedly they are "racialised".
...and how supposedly they are "persons of color".
...and how supposedly they are "non-white".
...and how supposedly they are "not Europeans".
...and how supposedly they are "from Asia".
...and how supposedly most of them are "broadly Arab".

:popcorn:
The SDs are campaigning on a bunch of other areas. The red block (yes, that's the right term) does have concrete suggestions between its parties. They promise a bunch of different things which I could list, but like, there are five parties atm, whose concrete suggestions would require some work to put together beyond my scope of participation here on CFC. But I should probably do that anyways for the sake of this thread. I'll give myself a deadline by Sunday, and if it's not there then, poke me.

That said, the majority of concrete propositions are exactly due to political, economic and moral failings on the side of the right. Because they're rollbacks or fundamental restructurings of initiatives and cuts already done by the right.
Oh, don't get yourself into some huge work on my account.
I mean, you can if you want to. :)
One big point of the SD is that recently, the big state media conglomorate known as Denmark's Radio was heavily cut to the degree that it had to do away with major sections of its production. Like, a 20% cut in budget. That causes chaos. For example, they used to sport around 200 radio drama series if I remember correctly (I might not, but it's not below 100) and they all disappeared during that major cut by the right since the last election. This was largely unpopular, as Denmark's Radio (DR) actually produces a lot of high-quality stuff with a reasonably high degree of journalistic integrity, its bias being effectively neutral to the Danish standard of politics although sometimes caving in to somewhat unimportant news for the sake of viewership. And for the more silly stuff they produce, people care about that. The right doesn't like the Danish status quo, as our state-influenced market economy and tax system is a quite red shade of capitalism, and as such has called DR "de røde lejesvende" or "the red mercenaries" as part of their spin. DR wasn't the only thing to be cut here, they've also heavily went into the budgeting of public transportation and higher education (and education in general). So this is one of SD's suggestions, to get the budget of DR back up to where it used to be, among other things, funded through a tax increase. On immigration, SD is actually near the same side as Venstre (Liberals) and beyond. They also concretely want to increase foreign aid (which has been heavily cut by the right) as a part of their plan to decrease immigration to Denmark, reinvest money into hospitals that the right has cut, etc.
Do the blue folks have concrete examples of supposed public radio bias that they go on and on and on about?
Or is it just some diffuse "Hmm... we don't like this... it feels too nice, almost as if everybody deserves consideration. That's soft and we don't like it."
I feel there's a sense of rhetoric among people, that they want to get Denmark back into shape by voting left of centre, Making Denmark Great Again, so to speak.
That's rather similar to the Schulz fans' playbook from '17.
There was extensive memage to that effect too.
Mega: Make Europe Great Again.
It worked... for about three weeks. Then people remembered how distant the ideal was from the reality of the SPD.
And, well, you know the rest of the story...
Also, btw, the right is expected to land about 39% of the votes according to the latest metric I've read. It's abysmal for their standards and is largely caused by people's abhorrence at stuff like the asylum centres, the burqa ban, the island deportation proposition and the lowering of subsidies to immigrants. Petty stuff, even insignificant stuff like making your police confiscate jewelry from immigrants upon arrival does count in conjuction with people's sense of moralit. At the same time, the right is being radicalized and yes stuff like Stram Kurs is stealing votes from the Danish People's Party.
Hmm... good thing Bavarians are not that good with languages. If they learn Danish we're both in trouble. :mischief:
 
I have also already told you why that is. To put it very bluntly: You are underappreciating the issues regarding class and nationality relevant to said communities because they are less relevant to the dialogue in your country.

What are these issues?

So let me preemptively interrupt you: Yes, many of those things are true in theory but somewhere between those things and spanning a grandious arc of "theory" between the Pakistani British and the Kurdish Germans you begin to sound like Hillary Clinton does when she's allowed to talk about African Americans for too long in one go.

Projecting a caricature confirmed
 
Not to discredit the work ethics of Turkish Germans, but rather to lament their lackluster access to time machines: The commonly accepted core of the postwar rebuilding period wasn't in the '70s.

Obviously not, but that’s not when the guest worker program began. Turks have been coming to Germany to be exploited as cheap labor since the early 60s. And it’s terribly naive or at least misinformed to think the economic miracle could have gone on through the 60s without them. Without cheap labor it likely would have stagnated swiftly into the decade.

I think you have just implicitly slighted a whole bunch of people, too.

What is meant here?

Erm... there still is a major country with a crusader flag, you appreciate that?
Maybe they could change the flag to curb Islamophobia.
The Islamophobes there seem to be quite keen to use the flag to make their point.
So maybe it'd work. :hmm: :)

The English flag? Yeah burn it, idc. But an interesting tactic to deflect from the assertion that it was Germany that originated the Crusades. Seriously I become more and more convinced you’re some sort of nationalist in disguise.

Anyway, in summary...
... we need plane tickets for Lexicus and ITSD and Cloud.
So they can come over here.
And talk to some Kurdish Germans, Turkish Germans, Tatar Germans, Albanian Germans, Bosnian Germans and some others.
So Lexicus and ITSD and Cloud can tell them about their grand theory on Islamophobia...
...and how supposedly they are "racialised".
...and how supposedly they are "persons of color".
...and how supposedly they are "non-white".
...and how supposedly they are "not Europeans".
...and how supposedly they are "from Asia".
...and how supposedly most of them are "broadly Arab".

Keep fighting those ghosts, man. No clue what you’re arguing against, still. I don’t know how I’ve managed to create German racist islamophobia all the way over here in San Diego.
 
The English flag? Yeah burn it, idc. But an interesting tactic to deflect from the assertion that it was Germany that originated the Crusades. Seriously I become more and more convinced you’re some sort of nationalist in disguise.

And, as far as I know, it's biggest usage today is at World Cup Football games.
 
Keep fighting those ghosts, man. No clue what you’re arguing against, still. I don’t know how I’ve managed to create German racist islamophobia all the way over here in San Diego.

I'll accept my share of responsibility for arguing some silly things in the past but like...continually implying we are hive-mind caricatures from the most ridiculous corners of the internet is just...wearing
 
@Angst
I hope you can tolerate all this business going on here. I suppose there's time until June 5th and at least the thread stays afloat, so there's collateral benefit.
Anyway, feel free to interupt the lot of us at any point, particularly if you want to tell us about actual Muslims in actual Denmark. :)

What you guys are saying in this thread - your speech, not some tumblr of lore i once found - is problematic.
Take what you have written (let alone the other two) and try to contemplate how - to pick the arguably most poignant example - that fits the experience of a Kurdish German person.

What is meant here?
You are equivocating, probably unintentionally due to lack of actual familiarity with the subject.
You can claim that Turkish Gastarbeiters worked diligently for the benefit of the Republic;
you can claim they were often enough not treated the way you or i would deem proper.

The claim you made however is incorrect and problematic.
The operative term of your claim was "Turkish immigrant workers during the postwar rebuilding period".
And that's not consistent with reality unless you employ very warped definitions, or a dubious perception of, well, numbers.

The Gastarbeiter programs had precursers but if we are to put a date on them beginning in earnest it would be 1955. The hiring freeze occured in 1973.
Within that timeframe Turkish Gastarbeiters heavily leaned towards the last portion of that timeframe. And the numbers of Turks arriving after '73 are quite significant, to say the least.

Point being: They arrived in a country that was pretty much already rebuilt. In making this historically improper claim you are being unjust on both ends:
1. You are implicitly reattributing the achievements of the actual country-rebuilding Gastarbeiters (for no fault of theirs other than habitually not being Muslims).
2. You are misrepresenting the Germany that Turkish German immigrants arrived in and the experience they faced.
I.e. the very "exploitation" that you refered to is obscurred in your mistelling of history.
The others were called.
And then they were needed and wanted.
Then they were called.
And then they were not all that needed. And unwanted.​
And they worked quite hard in an economy marked by rising structural unemployment, not labor shortages.
And they had to suffer a number of insults and injustices.

And you have erased this their story in your comment, marked by superficiality and convenience.
The English flag? Yeah burn it, idc.
And, as far as I know, it's biggest usage today is at World Cup Football games.
Ok. :popcorn:

What terms are those if i may ask?
Well, there are different norms here in terms of political correctness in speech.
(Note that i wrote "different". I meant that.
If i meant "better" i'd have no qualms about writing that; i suppose you know that.)

E.g. in the context you were refering to Aglospherians would be somewhat comfortable with refering to themselves as "white".
That's... not going to fly here.
It's debatable whether it's even offensive; primarilly it sounds martian, or high, or both.
We'd still find it weird to refer to "white" British persons as a class (in most cases).
For an individual it might do, if there is a clear demand via context.
Being "white" as a group or class is something that largely occurs in Americans, South Africans, Namibians etc.
("Blackness" would be a different matter - that's closer to usage in English - but we're not really getting anywhere with "whiteness").
"Ethnic German" won't do.
An insufficient term that is slightly past its prime is "of German descent".
That used to be a barely acceptable... whenever.
In offhand political conversation a tongue-in-cheek-ish yet very popular term is "biodeutsch".
"Bio-" is the prefix we use for anything and everything that would be called "organic" in Anglo-American retail. I suppose the underlying motif is a notion of non-interference, by whom or what would be unclear and would - upon inspection - obviously become combustible in no time at all.
In any event we mostly just hope that "German" is read about five different ways depending on context. It's very disorderly business.

Well, you may think we could just roll all that up from the other end: We just find the term for [the other class], invert that term, and we're home free.
Sounds like a plan, right?
Well, the correct term would be "humans with a background of flight and migration".
That can be altered to "fellow citizens with a background of flight and migration", as applicable.
(We mean that as a soft "and", could mean "or" if necessary, but let's not pull loose threads...)
That's a term that sure looks deliberate enough, as i am sure you will agree.
So we invert that... and...oh...no.
I hope you understand how that's actually a very bad idea.

Obviously Kartoffel is not a term fit for professional usage. But the reappropriation isn't exactly new and usually conveys the opposite of what you initially suspected.
It's self-depricative and used by folks who feel their identity is quite solid and unthreatened by immigration.

There's more political correctness going on here.
E.g. i am specifically using that other clunky term in this thread, basically because you guys have annoyed me enough so that i am unwilling to step on Dunja Hayali's sneakers for your reading comfort.
Or for another: My non-cooperation here escalated specifically because ITSD asked about the "state" and i decided at that point that ITSD had not qualified for me enacting the labor of having a yuge conversation up to and including Rechtsstaat vs. Unrechtsstaat.
 
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Couldn't you use the term native German or indigenous? Or is that still too problematic?

I collected post stamps as kid. Helped increasing (a bit) the collection of my grandfather and father. "Germany" was a mess for the older post stamps of before the "unification" of 1871. A lot of "City-States" and "Free-Cities"
Today you could think there was a Germany you can relate to with words like native or indigenous.
But was there ever "a Germany" ???

At the end of the 18th century the Holy Roman Empire consists out of hundreds of independent states.
The only thing that "formally" bound them together was the emperor, who was also called "The emperor of all Germanies"
Do note: not of Germans, but of Germanies.
You could also say that "old" Germany was the land area between the other "countries".

Between 1800 and 1945, or 1989, the final demarcation of the borders of today's Germany takes place. And what a mess that gave with ever changing borders (Napoleon "helping" a bit).
And the cultural differences between the current states and areas of Germany are still huge.

To use Germans ?
From which Germany ?

To use Germanic people ?
Quite problematic !

To use German language ?
If you take today as date for speaking German you can add Austria, part of Switzerland, and more... if you take a century ago as date for speaking German it is again quite problematic !
 
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I get that there are complexities that arise due to the way that germany was fragmented in the form of various principalities and kingdoms, but surely you can infer from the words that i am refering to the native born inhabitants of what is now germany? Didn't alot of the baltic germans move over to mainland germany after ww2? Would the austrians even consider themselves german or is it a case like in the uk where there are distinct countries but with a shared history?
 
I get that there are complexities that arise due to the way that germany was fragmented in the form of various principalities and kingdoms, but surely you can infer from the words that i am refering to the native born inhabitants of what is now germany? Didn't alot of the baltic germans move over to mainland germany after ww2? Would the austrians even consider themselves german or is it a case like in the uk where there are distinct countries but with a shared history?

I try to answer as someone living in the neigboring country the Netherlands :)

Germany has not only a totally fragmented history until fairly recently (my post you react upon).
(and the existence of today's Germany as a whole can very well be defined as the land area between the neigboring countries (imo !))

But you could also say, or add, (imo) that today's Germany is a nation state with a hole at the very heart of it's being.

If I compare to the US.
You cannot miss the US flag. In my Dutch eyes, the US is completely polluted with that flag. That flag is everywhere. Schools, houses, public office desks, chest pins of every politician and his dog.
Completely polluted.

Why ?

IDK that... but what I do think to see is that that flag is a symbol for the US, for "what the US stands for" which can ofc be again different for all the many citizens of the US... but somehow that flag is for most USians part of being the US and being an USian.

Now... let's apply that to Germany and Germans:
(to mainstream "Germans")

I think that it is only during the last 10-20 years that the taboo on using that German flag started to disappear.
Anybody using that flag earlier in time was seen as related to a neo-nazi, or not respecting that it could be seen that way. Only if it was part of some very official happening that flag was used.
When there were national football championship matches (tournaments European, World) I always wore an orange tie when travelling around in Germany and my desks in Germany (several locations) had some orange lions and vanes etc. Just to tease, provoke them (football matches between the Netherlands and Germany are (at least) for Dutch people always a very big thing).
And I asked my German colleagues: "when do you guys finally start stopping this endless frustration and just use that flag at least with football games"
But no... that flag was too much of an historical baggage too much linked to neo-nazis.
And most of the cases I saw that flag (bigger companies, etc), it was besides the company flag, between the regional State flag and the European flag.
In many cases just the company flag and the regional State flag.

How much national identity is there, can be there, when even your national flag is such a struggle ?

That German national identity is like a kind of underdog. It's there, but kept low, and mainstream Germans will shy away from national symbols.
That national identity feeling is partially the common black WW2 history ("brainwashed" into young children at school) and partially other, much more normal things, like football, good "Made in Germany" quality products, cars, etc.
Kartoffel a very good example for such an "identity".

Kartoffel BTW meaning potato, and from there: many people fleeing (away from the Red Army) to the allied zones of Germany during the endphase and directly after WW2 came from Pommern. Pommern is potato land.
On those Austrians: distinct countries with a shared history of their nobilities but not of the people.
Austrians are Austrians, and the very idea that they, the heartland of the Habsburgians, would be part of Germany would greatly upset them.
It would also turn the world upside down. The Habsburgians were 400 years Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire. With the Prussians and Bismarck (1871), the gravity of power had shifted to the North.
And more towards today: many Austrians live in rural areas, and big mouth Germans, and their own capital Vienna as well for other reasons, are alien.

And towards neo-nazis and otherwise emerging nationalism in Germany.
My guess is that in the 20th century a normal healthy national identity was so much surpressed (also by hammering that black WW2 page in the minds of their children), that part of that emerging now is the undesired negative side effect of that surpression.
Also the reason that I teased my German colleagues with the good intended advice to stop that circus of self-torturing.
 
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Such a bizarre position that racism is uniquely Anglo... so, what, were the other colonial powers just color blind religious bigots? Even American (continent) racism was originated in the Latin colonial world.

Beyond that, I mean as a German... like, you know that Germany, France, Italy, and Russia all conducted colonial campaigns, right? Have you ever heard of a little giant historical process called the scramble for Africa? More contemporary, the vast exploitation of Muslim and especially Turkish immigrant workers during the postwar rebuilding period? Especially in Germany itself? I might argue that islamophobic racism is even a German invention, seeing as it has its roots in the crusades. Truly a bizarre belief.

colonialism is not equal to racism though, we have to be careful. colonialist powers were all racist, and Europeans (in the 19th, and first half of the 20th century) were also all definitely racist in meaningfully different ways. German racism is even kind of an outlier, since it is a mixture of scientific racism and völkisch ideology (aryans, "homeland" and all that bs).

metatron is right in one and only one thing: racism still dominates public medial, academic and cultural discourse in the Anglosphere while in Europe it seems to have mostly vanished, that is where the culturalization of race comes in, the point many people have tried to make throughout the thread.

racism is also not the only form of discrimination based on skin color / skull shape / genetic makeup, and should be used as a specific word, because that's what it is. Turkish hatred of Kurds for example is not really racist, neither is the Chinese feeling of han superiority. they're different kinds of hierarchical discrimination based on outward appearance, ancestry and culture.

Erm... it would be helpful if you were to find the person you are arguing with.
And their actual position to argue against.
Right now you look like that man at the bus stop ranting at some empty patch of air.

at least he has contributed something to the thread that isn't passive aggressiveness or obscurantist rants. I get most of your points actually, and some I agree on, but you're making it infinitely hard on yourself both by being so combative and being so incredibly averse to using clearn, concise language, for whatever heckin' reason :)

but just to be clear.

1) I don't think you're racist

2) I don't think you're trying to downplay racism (but you are)

3) I do get your point about racism in public discourse and it is actually a valid point. racism as in "there are black folk and white folk" is not something popular in the European consciousness. our (conscious) identities are completely different from those in the anglosphere, more focussed on "partisan regionalism" than anything else. many "white" Europeans (me included) would not self-identify as white. however racism as a subconscious ideology is very much present, and it is as black and white as the anglospherian racism is.

spoiler: I've had people say the abbreviation "WOC" like 10 times this weekend and I'm really tired. I hope this "of colour" thing doesn't pull through, it sounds dumb as quark.

This is the part of your message that none of the Americans ITT managed to grasp, and it really hurts me, because being a germ myself it's so incredibly obvious. Our discourse is different.. Obviously. I don't see how it couldn't.
 
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And it's not even uniquely White. Look at how some Asian and Middle-Eastern cultures treat other races - even White people, some to this day - and my point will be made.

There is racism in Asia and the Middle east, sure, but dislike of, prejudice or hatred against a specific "out group" is not the same as racism. We will utterly muddle all discussion if we don't use specific definitions. Racism is dislike of outgroups based on race classification. That is all there is to it.

Imperialism? Against Germany? Now I’ve heard it all.

are you genuinely suggesting that America is NOT trying to culturally imperalize other nations with their highly specific notion of liberalism and identity politics? (or their products, advertisements, pop culture, food and literally anything else). Because they definitely are, and they are highly successful at it. controlling public discourse is one thing I reckon is extremely high on many important people's agenda :)

I don't often agree with metatron, but I think for almost any European this is clear as the sky. And it's not even unilateral. Europeans have been trying, since America was brought into existance, to export their specific brand of continental philosophy to America.

Why do you refer to germans as "Kartoffels" (potatoes)?

I often call myself a Kartoffel. I love Kartoffeln. I think it is genuinely the nicest word there has ever been for germs, even though it might have originated as an insult. it was probably more of a reaction however, since turks were often called "Kümmel" by racists. food names are fun.

also, it's self-deprecating. which all Germans are to some degree, understandably. you wouldn't know how it feels to be part of literally the worst people to ever grace this earth.

honestly, if there were two peoples worth of collective scorn and hatred, it would be the Germans and the Brits (and their obese cousins, the worse Brits). humans are inherently destructive and terrible, but those two are the worst of the worst.
 
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I think that it is only during the last 10-20 years that the taboo on using that German flag started to disappear.
Anybody using that flag earlier in time was seen as related to a neo-nazi, or not respecting that it could be seen that way. Only if it was part of some very official happening that flag was used.
When there were national football championship matches (tournaments European, World) I always wore an orange tie when travelling around in Germany and my desks in Germany (several locations) had some orange lions and vanes etc. Just to tease, provoke them (football matches between the Netherlands and Germany are (at least) for Dutch people always a very big thing).
And I asked my German colleagues: "when do you guys finally start stopping this endless frustration and just use that flag at least with football games"
But no... that flag was too much of an historical baggage too much linked to neo-nazis.
And most of the cases I saw that flag (bigger companies, etc), it was besides the company flag, between the regional State flag and the European flag.
In many cases just the company flag and the regional State flag.

How much national identity is there, can be there, when even your national flag is such a struggle ?

That German national identity is like a kind of underdog. It's there, but kept low, and mainstream Germans will shy away from national symbols.
That national identity feeling is partially the common black WW2 history ("brainwashed" into young children at school) and partially other, much more normal things, like football, good "Made in Germany" quality products, cars, etc.
Kartoffel a very good example for such an "identity".

Kartoffel BTW meaning potato, and from there: many people fleeing (away from the Red Army) to the allied zones of Germany during the endphase and directly after WW2 came from Pommern. Pommern is potato land.
On those Austrians: distinct countries with a shared history of their nobilities but not of the people.
Austrians are Austrians, and the very idea that they, the heartland of the Habsburgians, would be part of Germany would greatly upset them.
It would also turn the world upside down. The Habsburgians were 400 years Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire. With the Prussians and Bismarck (1871), the gravity of power had shifted to the North.
And more towards today: many Austrians live in rural areas, and big mouth Germans, and their own capital Vienna as well for other reasons, are alien.

And towards neo-nazis and otherwise emerging nationalism in Germany.
My guess is that in the 20th century a normal healthy national identity was so much surpressed (also by hammering that black WW2 page in the minds of their children), that part of that emerging now is the undesired negative side effect of that surpression.
Also the reason that I teased my German colleagues with the good intended advice to stop that circus of self-torturing.

as always you're pretty damn smart about topics you shouldn't even know that much about. you're entirely spot on, if anything you haven't gone too far.

you are still today seen as a Nazi if you're hissing a German flag. unless it's soccer related. even I see people hissing the German flag with extreme scepticism and kind of stamp them as right wing trash (for no good reason). many Germans don't even self-identify as Germans (mostly the younger generation going to college now)-

German national identity was not so much actively surpressed as it was willingly surpressed and questioned. and for good reason, too. in the next few decades national identities will be completely abandoned anyway, we are just ahead of the curve.
 
There is racism in Asia and the Middle east, sure, but dislike of, prejudice or hatred against a specific "out group" is not the same as racism. We will utterly muddle all discussion if we don't use specific definitions. Racism is dislike of outgroups based on race classification. That is all there is to it.

Have you actually read any of the pompous and imperious tracts by the Ming Dynasty Chinese Court about the "vassal peoples of the empire, barbarian tributaries and enemies of Heaven beyond their borders, and their first greetings to Europeans sailing to Guangdong before they even had a chance to do anything." If so, I'd like you to tell me that ISN'T racism and explain, in a rational, sensible way, how that is (inexplicably) so. I don't buy, at all, that racism is something only Europeans have been guilty of. That strikes me as the very bad of today, across socio-political thinking, that various fundamental flaws of humanity as a whole of numerous sorts are now being declared by various vocal groups as only being sins of certain demographic or socio-political groups to promote socio-political agendas and distort public perceptions for ulterior motives.
 
Have you actually read any of the pompous and imperious tracts by the Ming Dynasty Chinese Court about the "vassal peoples of the empire, barbarian tributaries and enemies of Heaven beyond their borders, and their first greetings to Europeans sailing to Guangdong before they even had a chance to do anything." If so, I'd like you to tell me that ISN'T racism and explain, in a rational, sensible way, how that is (inexplicably) so. I don't buy, at all, that racism is something only Europeans have been guilty of. That strikes me as the very bad of today, across socio-political thinking, that various fundamental flaws of humanity as a whole of numerous sorts are now being declared by various vocal groups as only being sins of certain demographic or socio-political groups to promote socio-political agendas and distort public perceptions for ulterior motives.

were the chinese thinking in terms of race? do they have a word that is equivalent to race, aka grouping humans exclusively by skin color and facial structure? if the answer is yes, then that is definitely racist. if the answer is no then it is not. it's really that simple. racism is not a uniquely European phenomenon, as I've pointed out repedeatly, even though race science has its origins in Europe and European mentality :)
 
were the chinese thinking in terms of race? do they have a word that is equivalent to race, aka grouping humans exclusively by skin color and facial structure? if the answer is yes, then that is definitely racist. if the answer is no then it is not. it's really that simple. racism is not a uniquely European phenomenon, as I've pointed out repedeatly, even though race science has its origins in Europe and European mentality :)

The Medieval Arabs and Jews had some very disparaging opinions, and even policies, grow toward racial Africans and East Indians (and Europeans, for that matter) in their days. And a fair amount of the directly translated wording mentions skin colour and hair and eye qualities. Isn't THAT racism?
 
were the chinese thinking in terms of race? do they have a word that is equivalent to race, aka grouping humans exclusively by skin color and facial structure? if the answer is yes, then that is definitely racist. if the answer is no then it is not. it's really that simple. racism is not a uniquely European phenomenon, as I've pointed out repedeatly, even though race science has its origins in Europe and European mentality :)

And, you see, what's the real problem with strict, clear definitions and "blame" in this particular issues, is that it's counter-productive and ignores the core problem. Clearly and definitively defining, in a strict way, what is, and is not, racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, ethnocentrism, antisemiticism, antiziganism, classism, ageism, nationalist exclusionism, and what have you, and marking clear, segregated lines between, and tallies of is who more to blame for each, is not helping the core problem - in fact it's only making it worse. ALL of these xenophobic tendencies and viewpoints originate from the same GENERAL, generic, base, core, primal social, emotional, and psychological patterns of thought and behaviour that EVERY society, ethnicity, nation, and religion has indulged in at some point, for some justification or other, and all human beings are susceptible to falling to if they're not very target. The specific demographic targets and constructed (and contrived) justifications vary WIDELY, but the central HUMAN drive behind is the same. Separating them so strictly and sternly, and saying they're all completely different problems and must be dealt with completely separately and never conflated, leads to an endless, and futile game of "whack-a-mole" for a societies as a whole, and leads many social crusaders (even greatly respected ones) who rally with vigor and conviction against one or more such xenophobic movements to feel justified, right, and comfortable in indulging others without feeling guilt.
 
The Medieval Arabs and Jews had some very disparaging opinions, and even policies, grow toward racial Africans and East Indians (and Europeans, for that matter) in their days. And a fair amount of the directly translated wording mentions skin colour and hair and eye qualities. Isn't THAT racism?

yes, that is racism in my opinion.

it isn't race science, but one can easily believe in a system of racial categorization without going the step of institutionalizing it in education. it is fundamentally the same kind of thought pattern, as you said, grouping people by generalizing physical features.

And, you see, what's the real problem with strict, clear definitions and "blame" in this particular issues, is that it's counter-productive and ignores the core problem. Clearly and definitively defining, in a strict way, what is, and is not, racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, ethnocentrism, antisemiticism, antiziganism, classism, ageism, nationalist exclusionism, and what have you, and marking clear, segregated lines between, and tallies of is who more to blame for each, is not helping the core problem - in fact it's only making it worse. ALL of these xenophobic tendencies and viewpoints originate from the same GENERAL, generic, base, core, primal social, emotional, and psychological patterns of thought and behaviour that EVERY society, ethnicity, nation, and religion has indulged in at some point, for some justification or other, and all human beings are susceptible to falling to if they're not very target. The specific demographic targets and constructed (and contrived) justifications vary WIDELY, but the central HUMAN drive behind is the same. Separating them so strictly and sternly, and saying they're all completely different problems and must be dealt with completely separately and never conflated, leads to an endless, and futile game of "whack-a-mole" for a societies as a whole, and leads many social crusaders (even greatly respected ones) who rally with vigor and conviction against one or more such xenophobic movements to feel justified, right, and comfortable in indulging others without feeling guilt.

you're making assumptions about my position that simply aren't true. I agree with you that seperating the fight against all kinds of discrimination does not help in dealing with them at all. if anything it creates an unneeded split, more fractured identities, it helps the formation of specific interest lobbies, instead of dealing with what you call the "psychological patterns of thought and behavior" that are at fault. I think however if we want to have an objective, scientific discussion that is a different matter and clear definitions help with that.

I also disagree with your general stance that these "patterns of thought and behavior" are always identical in all forms of discrimination. fat-shaming, anti-semitism and sexism are all kinds of discrimination, but the underlying psychological mechanisms and justification strategies are very complex and different for each case. I'm no expert and don't feel like armchairing, but discrimination is such a wide reaching phenomenon, and just because it can be broken down to "in groups vs out group" or "self vs other" doesn't mean all kinds of bias must have the same psychological root :)

if we want to deal with racism as a phenomenon, in an abstract discussion, we also need the proper terminology. however if we want to deal with the underlying issues of racism, the actual societal force and toxic behavior that is happening in the real world, you should take a different approach.
 
metatron is right in one and only one thing: racism still dominates public medial, academic and cultural discourse in the Anglosphere while in Europe it seems to have mostly vanished, that is where the culturalization of race comes in, the point many people have tried to make throughout the thread.
I haven't even made that claim.
And, i'm not sure i agree with the exact nature of the claim.
I'm not wholly opposed to it, but i get hung up on "vanished". Like something happened there beyond there being the thing and there being some empty square yardage of kitchen countertop where the thing used to be.
I.e. You later talk about "racism as an ideology" supposedly being "very much present".

I'd set that all up a bit differently, but i appreciate the sentiment.
at least he has contributed something to the thread
Uh-huh.
both by being so combative and being so incredibly averse to using clearn, concise language, for whatever heckin' reason :)
Often you appear to have little patience.
Both in writing and in reading.
spoiler: I've had people say the abbreviation "WOC" like 10 times this weekend and I'm really tired. I hope this "of colour" thing doesn't pull through, it sounds dumb as quark.
1. Most of them don't know what quark is.
2. Are people using this "WOC" as a word? Like, spoken?
If so... with a djerman W and everything?
Like the cooking/racing implement?
Or with a longer O?
3. If my memory serves that tree house lady with the blonde dreads said "RWE-Aufsichtsratsmitglieder*Innen"; i have since developed a very zen attitude with regard to these things. :)

@Cloud_Strife
I intend to get to your question. I apologise for being slow.
 
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