The 'racism' card seems to get played left, right and centre these days on the lightest of whims. It seems to me that if any individual is the slightest bit offended by anything about their 'race' then they feel the need to shout 'racism'.
The Oxford dictionary defines racism thus:
Prejudice, discrimination, or
antagonism directed against someone of
a different race based on the belief that
one's own race is superior.Prejudice and discrimination are pretty heavy concepts, but antagonism 'can' be a far lighter touch. If one individual claims to be 'antagonised' by something is that sufficient to define it as racism? In August 2009 an opinion piece in
The Guardian newspaper accused the Compare the Meerkat advert series of racism for mocking
Eastern European accents, but there was no hate, malice or superiority displayed there? The adverts are very popular and no individual (other than the writer) has ever complained to the Advertising Standards Authority.
Personally, I do not feel offended when people 'take the piss' out of the English. It happens all the time on Family Guy for example, and I find it funny. Making fun of people of a particular race in humour is usually classed as racism, although it more often than not doesn't fall into the above definition.
Any thoughts on the current state of the word 'Racism'?
Comments
Actual racism is never cool and those being racist deserve to be called out on it but too often it seems to be a smokescreen.
I could be way off though
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But... you've implied that prejudice and discrimination are heavy ... but these are REALLY broad in reality... think about any time you've put on a accent to imply someone was thick or stupid, or whatever... you've on at least the most basic level assumed that the nation of that accent is less bright than your own - there is no malice and no conscious superiority complex, but on a purely fundamental or literal level it ticks a box for the definition. I mean discrimination is literally about differences - accents are an easy to spot
On the topic of the term "Racism" yes, it's over used, but then a lot of people think that patriotism is good (even though it has to pre-suppose that your race is better... meaning the others are inferior... how is that not the very root of racism?)
And opinion pieces are only an opinion...
Having said that, there are clearly still major issues with institutional racism. For instance 12-13% of the population of the USA is black, but they make up 40% of the prison population, which is more than white people who make up 64% of the population. Black people make up 80% of those on death row, and 95% of prosecutors in states which have the death penalty are white.
I guess for whatever reason we like to be around people who are "like us", or like the people we grew up with, and that extends to professional background, class, race, religion etc. so we all need to make an effort not to be racist.
US crime stats are fucking shocking of you break them down-young black males are massively overrepresented in the crime committing charts, a lot of that is down to the fact that they're massively overrepresented in the "being poor" charts, but I'm not sure if that's down to institutionalised racism.
When words like institutionalised racism or sexism are uttered, I'm often sceptical as it's largely an unprovable concept one way and it can be shown to be untrue in many concrete ways-that is people's rights are enshrined in legislation, which for me is how I'd describe "institutionalised"-that is you can discriminate openly on the basis of colour, creed, gender etc, there will always be racists/bigots/sexists/classists who don't want to promote a guy because he's black, too female, not Jewish, white, from the wrong school, wears brown shoes to an interview, but to be caught out doing so means an expensive legal bill and social stigma, which to me points away from an institutionalised concept of racism, quite the opposite.
There are plenty of examples in the uk and us where legislation actively discriminates against white males too, not one against ethnic minorities or females.
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Fucking knobber.
Manchester based original indie band Random White:
https://www.facebook.com/RandomWhite
https://twitter.com/randomwhite1
Manchester based original indie band Random White:
https://www.facebook.com/RandomWhite
https://twitter.com/randomwhite1
My feedback thread is here.
What is the percentage of the USA that is Japanese, and what is the percentage of Japanese people in prison? Can we do the same sum for eskimos as well? Seems like we should cover all bases.
https://medium.com/@limitedsoftware/google-banned-our-game-satirizing-blacklivesmatter-for-hate-speech-except-all-the-speech-is-from-81e927a417e5#.nn2b7hjv6
I have no idea what Propensity To Stop potential criminals means, could you explain?
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