The Internet's 'Misogyny Problem' - real or imagined?

[cardgame]

Indeed that is a good point.

However, it strikes me as far more classist than anything else, at least for the UK example.

The more proactive crack/cocaine enforcement is obviously a targeted strike against black people with that context, but things like property rights seem much more normal, and established as a good thing – and while racism and sexism may have prevented minorities from gaining access to property in the past, it's no longer the case (I would hope), and the current situation of over-proportional representation/protection is more of an unfortunate coincidence of past policy than a direct attack.

 

[Senethro]

I guess that would be fine if we lived in societies where income inequality was decreasing.

 

[Camikaze]

I don't think we have to say that property rights in themselves are bad, to recognise that the outcomes currently favour a particular group. As I understand it, all we're talking about here is that a particular group, or particular groups, are advantaged, not that such an advantage derives from a direct attack on other groups. I think the original point is that it's structural, not that the law necessarily directly attacks particular groups. Saying that people have theoretically equal access to property doesn't take into account pre-existing inequalities which make equal access an uphill battle to fight (to re-purpose the quote in my last post, the rich and poor alike can purchase real estate; there's also inheritance/succession to consider).

I'd agree that it is largely or historically more a class thing (even for the US, who inherited English property law), but 'rich white men' contains three variables, each of which can be significant. If you're a rich white non-man, a rich non-white man or a non-rich white man, then you're unlikely to be experiencing the same privilege as a rich white man. The variables may have differing significance, but they're all operative to some extent. In most places, the content of the law is very conscious of the white factor, reasonably conscious of the man factor, but barely conscious of the rich factor (the operation of the law, however, is another matter, in which the first factor in particular plays a huge role, particularly in the US it seems). So the fact that richness and whiteness might be significant elements, isn't to say that maleness isn't also.

I'd subscribe to something said earlier in the thread about not all racisms or sexisms being equal, or some not comparing to others. That's not to say that the racism experienced by a white person, for instance, is personally insignificant, or that it's not problematic. It's simply to say that racism on such an individual level isn't what people are talking about when they're discussing racism experienced by a black person, for example. It's of a fundamentally different character; individual racism isn't structural.

 

[aelf]

The question was specifically about legislation, not social mores.

And that question arose from someone suggesting that institutionalised racism is based on legislation.

 

[sophie]

Indeed that is a good point.

However, it strikes me as far more classist than anything else, at least for the UK example.

The more proactive crack/cocaine enforcement is obviously a targeted strike against black people with that context, but things like property rights seem much more normal, and established as a good thing – and while racism and sexism may have prevented minorities from gaining access to property in the past, it's no longer the case (I would hope), and the current situation of over-proportional representation/protection is more of an unfortunate coincidence of past policy than a direct attack.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Sterling#Discrimination_lawsuits

As Camikaze said, most of the laws on the books are not a targeted strike against black people (notable voting rights laws excepted). The problems are more a result of the nature of the system being created by and for white people and the effect that causes. Black people are more likely to get pulled over by police, more likely to get arrested for drug offenses. They are restricted ghettos in inner-cities (now suburbs too) which are virtually impossible to get out of: schools are underfunded so many don't make it through school. Jobs without education pay nothing. People are forced to turn to crime or other unsavory things to make ends meet. Moreover systems like payday loans exist to exploit poor, desperate, uneducated people who are trying to make ends meet, capturing them in a neverending spiral of debt. The inner cities have poor access to fresh or healthy food, forcing many to turn to junk/fast food or simple unhealthy foods because they have no other option, leading to rampant unhealthiness. The system may not have been designed to tear down the black man, but that is precisely what it does. You need look no further than Rodney King and Michael Brown to see that. When a white man goes into a store with a gun people just identify him as "one of those crazy 2nd-amendment guys" and pay him no mind. When a black man walks into a store with a gun he usually ends up getting shot or arrested.

Some educational material: very NSFW

Spoiler :

Link to video.


Link to video.


Link to video.


Link to video.


Link to video.

 

[Hygro]

Almost reads like that racist "you can't be racist against white people" nonsense.

You can be racially discriminated against as white but it's not "racism against white people", racism being an institution and it is not against white people. At least not anywhere I know of.

 

[Farm Boy]

Are we going back down the usage of the word "racism" must mean "institutional racism" rabbit-hole? Was the conversation on re-wordsmithing that rewarding?

 

[Hygro]

Are we going back down the usage of the word "racism" must mean "institutional racism" rabbit-hole? Was the conversation on re-wordsmithing that rewarding?

That wasn't an event?

 

[Commodore]

As Camikaze said, most of the laws on the books are not a targeted strike against black people (notable voting rights laws excepted). The problems are more a result of the nature of the system being created by and for white people and the effect that causes. Black people are more likely to get pulled over by police, more likely to get arrested for drug offenses. They are restricted ghettos in inner-cities (now suburbs too) which are virtually impossible to get out of: schools are underfunded so many don't make it through school. Jobs without education pay nothing. People are forced to turn to crime or other unsavory things to make ends meet. Moreover systems like payday loans exist to exploit poor, desperate, uneducated people who are trying to make ends meet, capturing them in a neverending spiral of debt. The inner cities have poor access to fresh or healthy food, forcing many to turn to junk/fast food or simple unhealthy foods because they have no other option, leading to rampant unhealthiness. The system may not have been designed to tear down the black man, but that is precisely what it does. You need look no further than Rodney King and Michael Brown to see that. When a white man goes into a store with a gun people just identify him as "one of those crazy 2nd-amendment guys" and pay him no mind. When a black man walks into a store with a gun he usually ends up getting shot or arrested.

None of those problems are uniquely "black" problems though, so you can't reasonably say the system is specifically tearing down black people. Hell, most of those problems aren't even unique to minorities in general. All of those problems you just described affect all poor people the same way regardless of their skin color.

 

[luiz]

racism being an institution.

Says who?

 

[Farm Boy]

Here we go H-man.

 

[luiz]

I really don't get who gave Marxists the right to redefine everything along the lines of their beloved "social institutions" mambo-jambo. There's no reason we must accept their definitions and argue in their terms. Let they debate in their echo chambers among themselves.

Racism is racial discrimination. Sexism is gender discrimination. The end.

Make up your own words if you want them to have new meanings, commies. Don't hijack ours.

 

[Hygro]

Says who?

Says the field of study that defines racism and why it matters.

It wouldn't matter if people didn't use the false-equating of "racism against" as a way maintaining racist status quos, so thats why we have to bother to make the distinction.

 

[Farm Boy]

Apparently it was rewarding. Care to break down 'institution' as you are using it to redefine things?

 

[luiz]

Says the field of study that defines racism and why it matters.

It wouldn't matter if people didn't use the false-equating of "racism against" as a way maintaining racist status quos, so thats why we have to bother to make the distinction.

The dictionary, Britannica and Wikipedia all say that racism is racial discrimination or the belief in a racial hierarchy. In other words, anyone can be racist, and anyone can be a victim of racism.

That's what the word means for 99.99% of the population, and what it has always meant. No field of study gets to define what racism means. That's ridiculously arrogant and authoritarian. Something right out of Orwell.

 

[Hygro]

Apparently it was rewarding. Care to break down 'institution' as you are using it to redefine things?

You keep saying "redefine" so, no. It's not a redefining.

"racism is first attested 1936 (from French racisme, 1935), originally in the context of Nazi theories." so yes it's an academic and institutional thing.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=racism&searchmode=none

The dictionary, Britannica and Wikipedia all say that racism is racial discrimination or the belief in a racial hierarchy. In other words, anyone can be racist, and anyone can be a victim of racism.

That's what the word means for 99.99% of the population, and what it has always meant. No field of study gets to define what racism means. That's ridiculously arrogant and authoritarian. Something right out of Orwell.

Dictionaries by definition use the colloquial terms. Following the original line of discussion, warpus was calling people who said "there can't be racism against white people" dumb. But according to any useful and formal definition of racism, that's historically true based on power structures aligning to race. So we work with the reality we have and the terms to describe what actually exists.

Yes, anyone can be a victim of racism. But "reverse-racism" is just an expression of a reaction to racism, so it's just part of racism (i.e., colloquially, racism against black people/non-whites). This could all be different in 200 years.

 

[luiz]

Dictionaries by definition use the colloquial terms. Following the original line of discussion, warpus was calling people who said "there can't be racism against white people" dumb. But according to any useful and formal definition of racism, that's historically true based on power structures aligning to race. So we work with the reality we have and the terms to describe what actually exists.

Yes, anyone can be a victim of racism. But "reverse-racism" is just an expression of a reaction to racism, so it's just part of racism (i.e., colloquially, racism against black people/non-whites). This could all be different in 200 years.

No, warpus was right. White people can be victims of racism, even if it were true that we lived in a society where whites controlled the "structures of power" (whatever that means). As I said, it was possible that a Jew was a racist in Nazi Germany, even though he was the oppressed, not the oppressor. And in theory a German could have been a victim of racism at the height of the Third Reich.

This is what racism has always been understood as. I'm not using just the colloquial definition, I'm using the encyclopedia definition. The correct definition. Instutitional racism is one form of racism, not the only one, which is why it needs a qualifier first.

 

[Gori the Grey]

OED's got a witness from as early as 1903, and defines racism as fundamentally a belief

The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races. Hence: prejudice and antagonism towards people of other races, esp. those felt to be a threat to one's cultural or racial integrity or economic well-being; the expression of such prejudice in words or actions. Also occas. in extended use, with reference to people of other nationalities. Cf. racialism n.

1903 Proc. 20th Ann. Meeting Lake Mohonk Conf. Friends of Indian 1902 134 Segregating any class or race of people..kills the progress of the segregated people... Association of races and classes is necessary in order to destroy racism and classism.

 

[Hygro]

No, warpus was right. White people can be victims of racism, even if it were true that we lived in a society where whites controlled the "structures of power" (whatever that means). As I said, it was possible that a Jew was a racist in Nazi Germany, even though he was the oppressed, not the oppressor. And in theory a German could have been a victom of racism at the height of the Third Reich.

This is what racism has always been understood at.

This is like watching someone calling through a closed bedroom door "I know you're in there" while you've been outside standing behind him for a good 30 seconds.

Yes, everything you said is literally true. Now how could that be so without contradicting anything I said?

 

[luiz]

OED's got a witness from as early as 1903, and defines racism as fundamentally a belief

Good catch. Clearly racism has meant racial discrimination since it was first used. A handful of academics don't get to hijack the meaning of the word as understood by everybody else.

People hijacking the meaning of words and then arguing that everybody else is ignorant has got be one of the creepiest things out there. It genuinely scares me.