“You say it’s racism, well, I tell you it’s not. It’s absolutely not. We have been hanging people in effigy when George Bush was President. I would have hanged him no problem. It wouldn’t have been a problem at all.”
Rodney Nelsonsays
This display shows that many of Obama’s opponents’ objection to him is not that he’s a fascist socialist Muslim atheist but that he’s Black.
magistramarlasays
Sickening, but not surprising.
This is why I don’t like the southern states.
No One, the top photo in the news story you linked to says it was taken in Jacksonville, Florida. Looks like it is same effigy. It has been traveling for months now.
This is one scary photograph – whether you’re black or white, Republican or Democrat, American or from Timbuktu. It’s scary because it is so damnably stupid. Hanging effigies should be saved for serious bastards. Not presidents – and especially not in a country that has a record of killing (or trying to kill) its presidents.
Phipps says he’s protesting the murders of family members by local law enforcement. He says that a cover-up has successfully prevented him from getting justice for his family.
“All we want is what Trayvon Martin’s family wants. Justice,” Phipps says in a video on his YouTube channel.
The quote is from the Buzzfeed article about him. His family members were killed in 1995. Why did he start doing this 3 years ago? & what could President Obama do about it?
Here’s the VR Phipps’ blog; Patriot Times
kantalopesays
“You say it’s racism, well, I tell you it’s not. It’s absolutely not. We have been hanging people in effigy when George Bush was President. I would have hanged him no problem. It wouldn’t have been a problem at all.”
“…You see but I didn’t hang GW because he had all the pigments that I agrees with.”
I don’t think that the hanging in effigy is the problem…it was just for a long time in the south the hanging of certain people wasn’t effigy-ey.
razzlefrogsays
Woooooooooooooooow. Oh. Bloody. God. I’m embarrassed to live.
Who is he getting talking-points from (by phone) around 3:00 in the first video?
Still watching, but so far I don’t see anything crooked.
ChasCPetersonsays
For the record, this display actually has little or nothing to do with the election and even less with racism. For one thing, there are at least seven other hung effigies on the same truck, and they all appear to depict palefaces. You can see one of them–wearing what looks like judge’s robes–in the pic shown in the OP.
But go ahead and keep on jerkin’ yer knees about it.
Svensays
@#8
Done watching Video 1. I still have seen neither “harassment” nor “corruption”….
Oh look Chas came on to complain about those knee jerk liberals. Chas, since Pharyngula bugs you so much let me give you some advice, see that big [X] in the upper right corner?
ravensays
AP Nov 2, 2012:
The Willamette Week newspaper reported the election worker filled in Republican bubbles on ballots where preferences had been left empty by voters in the county, which primarily comprises Portland suburbs.
A person with knowledge of the investigation said Willamette Week accurately described the incident.
Interesting?
Somewhere between dismal and frightening is more like it. Far as I’m concerned, Romney will set the USA back 50 years if we are lucky.
This guy in Oregon was just filling in people’s ballots for them after they were submitted. Which is a clear felony.
There have been a lot of reports of voter registration fraud and voter fraud already. The best known is the GOP company throwing away Democratic voter registrations in Florida and Virginia.
The vast majority of those reports of fraud involved the Tea Party/GOP. They really don’t much like democracy. One wonders just how much GOP fraud is ongoing that hasn’t been caught.
Jeebus. This guy has a problem with the world, and Obama’s just a part of it.
Race is still a huge problem in this country, but when we call *anything* against Obama racist, it just dilutes the impact of the people who are actually being racist.
chigau (棒や石)says
From the article at NonStampCollector’s link:
An unidentified bald man was photographed inside the rally wearing a t-shirt with the slogan “Put The White Back in the White House”.
Above the slogan, the man had added a Romney/Ryan logo.
…
Conservative commentator Robert Stacy McCain hit back, claiming that the man in the photo “is not in fact a Republican, but rather is a plant sent out by the Democrats as a dirty trick.”
Jeebus. This guy has a problem with the world, and Obama’s just a part of it.
Race is still a huge problem in this country, but when we call *anything* against Obama racist, it just dilutes the impact of the people who are actually being racist.
Look I don’t mind people correcting the story at all, in fact they should obviously. But treating that seeing this as racist upon first glance is some out of control knee jerk irrational reaction is just fucking stupid.
chigau (棒や石)says
The earlier editions of Phipps’s lynch wagon don’t include an Obama effigy.
Phipps says he’s protesting the murders of family members by local law enforcement. He says that a cover-up has successfully prevented him from getting justice for his family.
“All we want is what Trayvon Martin’s family wants. Justice,” Phipps says in a video on his YouTube channel.
The quote is from the Buzzfeed article about him. His family members were killed in 1995. Why did he start doing this 3 years ago? & what could President Obama do about it?
I seriously question how anyone could be so fucking stupid as to honestly want that and believe that making themselves look like the most incredulous, frantic, hysterical, fanatical, no nothing, hick is the best way to do that.
Why does anyone think that this is a valid course of action to achieving your goal.
gregorylynnsays
The wingnut response on Wednesday is going to be EPIC.
mildlymagnificentsays
“The wingnut response on Wednesday is going to be EPIC.”
otoh, the USA has many talented people who could write terrific music with only We. Wuz. Robbed. as lyrics.
(Note, I am going with the Nate Silver prediction at the moment, despite him being
…a man of very small stature, a thin and effeminate man with a soft-sounding voice that sounds almost exactly like the “Mr. New Castrati” voice used by Rush Limbaugh on his program.
The wingnut response on Wednesday is going to be EPIC.
Officially, they appear ready to blame Sandy. Unofficially, I’m dying to see how much crazier the conspiracy theories can get than they were for the President’s first four years.
On the original topic, I gotta hand it to the guy, that’s a darn good likeness*. Usually effigies look like a stolen scarecrow or something made of papier-mache by a 2nd grade class that’s jacked up on Pixy Stix and Kool Aid.
*Except for the leather vest. WTF is up with that?
michaelpowerssays
Why is it that conservatives think that doing or saying something overtly racist is OK, as long as they tack a disclaimer on the end, saying that they’re not a racist. It’s like saying, “Well, sure I took all the money from the teller at gunpoint, but I’m not a bank robber.”
It’s not cognitive dissonance anymore. It’s mental illness.
DLCsays
I really feel like I’m living the ancient Chinese Curse – – “May you live in interesting times. ” With hundreds of millions being spent by PACs trying to buy the elections, and with the far right “Tea Party” goons putting hard-right wankers on the ballot. It’s as if the choice is vote democrat or go back to some wild inverted Dickensian dystopia, where everyone who isn’t rich is Tom Cratchett or Oliver Twist.
innocentinfidellsays
Poor old USA, the rest of the world is watching and shaking it’s head.
It amazing that the choice between the two candidates even rates a discussion. Vote for a man who is rational, accepts and acknowledges science and scientist, has softened the blow of what could have been a much worse economic recession (you guys have no idea how much he helped you dodge a bigger bullet) he has done his damn best for his country considering the huge amount of cock blocking he copped from the republicans…AND the other choice is a guy who thinks his God lives out in space on planet Kolob and who would drop his pants at a moments notice to appease his tea party right wing theorcratic nutjobs?
Not that hard a choice people.
mildlymagnificentsays
Come to think of it, this bloke reminds me of a lot of the people who used to ring us up. Magnificentmr was on the phone roster for a civil liberties association. Because most of the membership were lawyers, ‘they’ ran a legal services contact number – which ended up being our private phone for months at a time. It was quick and easy when the cops were banging on someone’s door – we just looked up the number of the on-duty solicitor. Done and dusted.
And then there were the folks who rang us only after they’d exhausted every legal avenue, every social service pursuing something that had happened a long, sometimes a very long, time ago. 20+ years ago for one of them. There was absolutely nothing that anyone could do for them. They strongly resisted any personal or family counselling no matter how indirectly or tactfully we guided them. (It probably would have required them facing the fact that it was all over.)
Mrm came up with the notion that it was like dealing with characters in a sci fi novel. These people were “stopped” in a profound way.
Whether the event was a death or a financial dispute or some other catastrophe, it was as though they’d been under a cartoon-style deluge of something sticky and inescapable. And some of them looked to carry this unbearable burden for the rest of their lives.
glodsonsays
The sad thing is that this didn’t really shock me. I guess the way that the overt racism of many in this country has been exposed in the past four years has left me somewhat desensitized. It is a stupid and hateful display. And sadly, I expect it out of some places.
I just wish I could figure out what could have possibly been the catalyst for this coming out so strongly over the past four years. One of life’s mysteries, I suppose.
The sad thing is that this didn’t really shock me.
Nor me.
What did shock me was an accidental visit to the vile depths of American Stinker just before the last election. I’d followed an educational discussion and then clicked on a couple of items. What a mistake! I will not repeat the disgusting racial slurs I found there, but no-one would have been surprised to see the same things said in the 1950s or earlier.
Shiroferettosays
RELUCTANTLY:
I don’t know the full story. I reckon I could look it up. The video clearly shows that the original truck was full of white people, the people he had on large signs were white people. Obama was probably added to give it some ‘oomph.
If you’ve got 7 white people hanging from nooses and one black one hanging from a noose, I’m going to go out on a limb (get it?) and say it isn’t racism.
He may be a southern redneck dumbass (not all southerners are dumbasses or rednecks), but in this case, I do not see him displaying racism.
Maybe the intent wasn’t racist, but the result sure as hell is.
clastum3says
Poor old USA, the rest of the world is watching and shaking it’s head.
It amazing that the choice between the two candidates even rates a discussion.
Your right, – there’s something more important than the choice between the two candidates, and that’s the long-term trend towards increased public spending.
In Europe, it’s led to a situation where the viability of whole nations and democracy are being compromised because there are so many people who stand to benefit from increased public spending that no party stands a chance of being elected unless it promises to keep the largesse flowing. Want evidence?: Greece, Portugal, Spain, and or come to that, virtually ever W. European nation to a greater or lesser degree.
And how many round here stand to benefit from public money? My guess is that, in line with Marxist theory, the whole collective pharyngulite consciousness is influenced by the thought that there’ll be more coming from Obama.
Want evidence?: Greece, Portugal, Spain, and or come to that, virtually ever W. European nation to a greater or lesser degree.
You don’t really follow Greece nad Spain, do you? FFS, Greece was caused by right wingers destroying the civil service and pilfering EU Aid money.
And how many round here stand to benefit from public money? My guess is that, in line with Marxist theory, the whole collective pharyngulite consciousness is influenced by the thought that there’ll be more coming from Obama.
If you think Obama is at all marxist, you are so far off from reality that it’s sending you post-cards.
Race is still a huge problem in this country, but when we call *anything* against Obama racist, it just dilutes the impact of the people who are actually being racist.
Considering that he gets more harshly criticized than a white dude for doing the same thing, and has his race called into question quite frequently, racism is a sound default conclusion.
It’s a fucking noose. On a black man. In fucking Florida. Have some fucking sense. Even if it’s on white people too, it is still racist, because black people have kind of a fucking history with nooses in the USA, especially in fucking florida.
Louissays
clastum3,
And how many round here stand to benefit from public money? My guess is that, in line with Marxist theory, the whole collective pharyngulite consciousness is influenced by the thought that there’ll be more coming from Obama.
Tell me, as a citizen of the UK who is in work and never taken a day’s benefits in his life (although no doubt I have benefited from public works like roads, schools, blah blah blah) precisely how is this “more coming from Obama” going to reach me? Where’s my cheque?
Also, this “whole collective pharyngulite consciousness” thing, how does this work, and where does one get involved? I agree with some Pharyngula regulars about some things, with some others about some other things, and with some others about apparently very little. How can one be incorporated into this collective consciousness and does it result in getting the lovely, lovely big, fat, Obama-cash at some point?
Enquiring minds want to know. No. Really. It’s not like your comment is a mockable huff of delusional drivel. Please enlighten us.
Louis
Nick Gotts (formerly KG)says
In Europe, it’s led to a situation where the viability of whole nations and democracy are being compromised – clastum3
Nope. What’s threatening viability and compromising democracy most immediately is the idiotic insistence of European governments, particularly that in Germany, on southern European Eurozone members slashing spending and wages in the midst of a serious recession – plus widespread tax evasion and corruption in Greece and Italy. Beyond that, it’s the Euro itself – more precisely, currency union without economic and political union, which has left southern European countries unable to devalue to restore competitiveness; and far right scum like you.
Louissays
Nick,
But surely you must know that Europe is a wasteland because of Teh Socialisms?
I mean I have to scrape by day to day on my State Bread Scrap and occasionally go to the Ministry of Propaganda for Reprogramming.*
I get a bit shirty when the banter between those of us lucky enough to live in a proper and our benighted Colonial Cousins Who Worship Burgers drifts into ignorant insults based on nothing more than jingoistic agitprop. Can’t they understand that WE are better than THEM?**
Louis
*Sadly it wasn’t too far away, in time or space, that these things were true for many. Well, true-ish. Well, at least truthy.
**I am now worried that this piece of satire will be too subtle for some. Nahhhh. Surely not.
My guess is that, in line with Marxist theory, the whole collective pharyngulite consciousness is influenced by the thought that there’ll be more coming from Obama.
That’s one of the problems with guessing, which is a nice way to confirm what you already believe without waiting for any pesky facts that might tell you you’re wrong.
Did you know that, according to IRS and census bureau figures, it’s the “red” states that are most likely to receive more federal aid than they pay for? The notion that conservatives are more self-reliant is bunk.
Nick Gotts (formerly KG)says
My guess is that, in line with Marxist theory, the whole collective pharyngulite consciousness is influenced by the thought that there’ll be more coming from Obama – clastum3
(For clarity, I’m not a Marxist, but I object to fuckwitted jackasses spouting off about things they know nothing about.)
ChasCPetersonsays
The effect, if racist, was caused by the people who took the photograph of a single effigy, in one version cropped further to improve the illusion, and tweeted it or flickered it or instagrammed it or tumblrd it or blogged it representing it as something it’s not–not just intended not, but actually not.
G**gle-image ‘hung effigy’ and find a truly racist example (that asshole Terry Jones), plus that totally sexist one of Sarah Palin from 4 years ago, and also a chair and various white guys.
dancabansays
FFS I thought I’d seen it all.
Nick Gotts (formerly KG)says
The effect, if racist, was caused by the people who took the photograph of a single effigy, in one version cropped further to improve the illusion, and tweeted it or flickered it or instagrammed it or tumblrd it or blogged it representing it as something it’s not–not just intended not, but actually not. – ChasCPeterson
You really do come across as stupid sometimes, Chas. As several people have already pointed out, there is a long history of black people, particularly “uppity” ones, being lynched in the southern states. That means that whatever the intent, and whatever the context, displaying an effigy of a black person being hanged has a hugely different effect from displaying an effigy of a white person being hanged.
The racist effect was caused by the history of white US people hanging black men frequently and with great enthusiasm.
sambargesays
Wow, Chas. You really upped the bar there with your willful ignorance about racism and historical expressions of racism in the US.
carliesays
My guess is that, in line with Marxist theory, the whole collective pharyngulite consciousness is influenced by the thought that there’ll be more coming from Obama.
How could I? I have a good full-time job, full medical, vision, dental, and mental health benefits, and my kids are in great schools. Or maybe you mean “more coming” in the way of “fewer people around me obviously dying of lack of those things”. Yeah, I’d vote for that.
Nick Gotts (formerly KG)says
Or maybe you mean “more coming” in the way of “fewer people around me obviously dying of lack of those things”. Yeah, I’d vote for that. – carlie
The internet was invented by the government.
Get off of it before you are corrupted by Evil Marxist Forces.
– – –
On a related note, I have been turning a possibly stupid question over in my little mind, and wanted to toss it out in front of a bunch of people better educated than myself (which, truth to tell, is almost anyone, but them’s the breaks):
With the (arguable) exception of anti-Communism, have social conservatives ever been right about any issue, in the long-term?
Slavery.
Voting rights.
Civil rights.
Marriage equality.
Etc.
I can’t think of anything (possible exception noted) that US social conservatives have really gotten right over the last… let’s say 200 years or so. Am I missing something obvious?
McC2lhu doesn't want to know what you did there.says
Anri:
The Jeebus makes them think they’re right. God wouldn’t have given them the goofy ideas if they weren’t the right ideas, after all.
Oh well. I’m sure on election day Obama will hang in there. Ohhhh…let me rephrase that, no need to be so high strung…DAMN! I did it aga… Okay, one last try. I’m sure he will be in the White House for us to put continued pressure on to do the right thing. Rmoney and the GOP/TeaBaggers/Randbots wouldn’t even register what we were saying.
vaiytsays
And how many round here stand to benefit from public money? My guess is that, in line with Marxist theory, the whole collective pharyngulite consciousness is influenced by the thought that there’ll be more coming from Obama.
Coming from a country where actual Marxists regularly run for president, I can vouch that Obama (or the Democractic Party) doesn’t resemble Marxism in the slightest.
The rest is typical sheltered American ignorance. In other parts of the world, government social programs and safety nets aren’t “Socialism”; they’re merely sensible policy. Even our most right-wing parties don’t dare dream of dismantling our federal health system (which can give people access to things that are progressively more difficult for Americans, with less than one tenth of the budget).
No what made it racist was someone doing that without racist intention, looking over it and ignoring how it looked. Its passive (maybe) rather than active. Callous jackassery over malicious.
Ogvorbis: broken and cynicalsays
This election scares me. Both ways. If rMoney wins, we see the destruction of everything the federal government has accomplished since Hoover. If Obama wins, we may see bloodshed. I know of two otherwise normal right wingers who are stocking up on massive amounts of ammunition, high-powered rifles, military semi-automatics, bulletproof vests.
For one day, there was a sign along my commute: “If Obama Steals Again? 2nd Amendment Solution!” It showed up and then came back down.
And then there are all the people I know who are sitting out the election because the system is broken. I keep telling them that the system is broken because on party decided to break the system so they could retain/gain power.
Whether the lynching-in-effigy is a personal problem with the police or a political statement is, to me, immaterial. Obama has been lynched in effigy multiple times in the last four years (one was not too far from here in northeast Pennsyltucky). And I don’t remember this being done to any sitting President in my lifetime. I may be wrong (usually am), but were the Bush’s, Clinton, Reagan, Carter, Ford or Nixon publicly lynched in effigy?
mildlymagnificentsays
Even our most right-wing parties don’t dare dream of dismantling our federal health system (which can give people access to things that are progressively more difficult for Americans, with less than one tenth of the budget).
But they can do some truly dopey things. Our Oz conservatives a few years ago changed the rules so private health insurance got some seriously generous tax benefits. Now it’s one of the biggest, least effective expenditures in our health budget. And it’s near impossible to kill – despite it’s negative impact on budgets and on health outcomes.
Don’t tell me conservatives don’t like big government spending. They love it, when it privatises profits (and benefits for that matter) and socialises losses.
Nick Gotts (formerly KG)says
The internet was invented by the government. – Anri
Not only that – so, in effect, was the entire modern industrial system. The US army, working from ideas pioneered (again by government) in France, spent 50 years in the nineteenth century developing machine tools, because no human worker could make parts for weapons so precisely measured they could be interchanged. Clastum3 should insist on using only hand-crafted products.
diannesays
there are at least seven other hung effigies on the same truck, and they all appear to depict palefaces.
Lynching white “race traitor” allies in the civil rights movement is hardly unknown. I also note that the truck in the picture talks a lot about how evil Obama is, suggesting that he is the primary person who is being lynched in effigy and the others are supporters.
sc_752b70b3a045665cf8f531d89e15d3f4says
Look I don’t mind people correcting the story at all, in fact they should obviously. But treating that seeing this as racist upon first glance is some out of control knee jerk irrational reaction is just fucking stupid.
Well, it is an out of control knee jerk irrational reaction, dipshit. I saw the picture and immediately wondered at the larger context, seeing as how there are obviously a couple of other effigies cropped out of the frame. It took me all of two minutes to figure out the truth of the story, all from clicking links included in the fucking post. I didn’t have to do a whole lot of thinking of investigation to figure out that the story wasn’t as labeled, all because I avoided jerking my knee when I saw the post. How fucking stupid of me.
kemist, Dark Lord of the Sithsays
And how many round here stand to benefit from public money? My guess is that, in line with Marxist theory, the whole collective pharyngulite consciousness is influenced by the thought that there’ll be more coming from Obama.
1) Some of us aren’t even american (yes, we actually exist)
2) None of us, to the best of my knowledge, is a stakeholder in the auto or banking industry.
Remember that bailout thing? That was a metric fuckton of money your government gave there, without any fucking question. And guess to whom they gave it? That’s right, the very filthy rich assholes who tanked your economy for short term profit. The same assholes who are so very fond of the “sink or swim” mentality – well, when it doesn’t apply to them.
But, given the amount of money they spend promoting the hilarious collection of nutbags that is the Tea Party, it’s not especially surprising, even if saddening, to often meet self-appointed defenders of a system intent to transform them into corporate serfs, high on the kool-aid of the american dream and the implicit promise that yes, they’ll also be rich someday.
Nick Gotts (formerly KG)says
How fucking stupid of me. – sc_drivel.
I can only agree.
clastum3says
# 43 : Ah, liar Gotts again.
Care to tell us whether your sociological claptrap is funded at the expense of the poor of Europe?
For the far left, of course it’s always the wrong time to cut spending. The alternative (in Europe ) is for Germany to carry all the burden of left-profligacy, which quite understandably, the average voter is not going to put up with for much longer.
kemist, Dark Lord of the Sithsays
The internet was invented by the government.
In some places, its core infrastructure (the major fiber optics arteries and packet switches), and the connection of more faraway places, is maintained and bought by government-funded organisms, whether at the federal or regional level. Those organisms were pushing for the development of the core fiber optics network that supports the internet in the 1980’s, before anyone had even heard the word “internet”.
In quebec for instance we have the RISQ core network (provincial) and the CANARIE network (federal). They cross each other in my city.
Ah, clastrum’s deciding to be a dumbass again I see. After showing that he doesn’t care about women and doesn’t know about science, he’s decided to spout off about economics and politics. Is there anything that he doesn’t “know”? He’s a Jackass of All Trades!
Nick Gotts (formerly KG)says
He’s a Jackass of All Trades! – anteprepro
Consider that stolen!
mdsays
but when its a Republican, its okay.
Rev. BigDumbChimpsays
but when its a Republican, its okay.
Thank you md for reminding us of your historical myopia.
Demonstrate one single instance where I’ve lied, scumbag. I recall you’ve tired before, and just made a fool of yourself, so I look forward to a repeat.
For the far left, of course it’s always the wrong time to cut spending.
No, I’m very much in favour of cutting unproductive spending – the grossly excessive on the military in both the US and the UK, for example. In a time of economic expansion, it would make good sense to cut this so sharply the effect would be an overall cut in state spending. What I don’t want cut, if it can possibly be avoided, is spending that actually reduces human suffering and broadens opportunities – but of course you’re all in favour of human suffering as long as it’s not yours.
The alternative (in Europe ) is for Germany to carry all the burden of left-profligacy, which quite understandably, the average voter is not going to put up with for much longer.
You’re even more of a fucking idiot than I remembered. Germany is now in danger of going into recession, because its industries’ customers in southern Europe can no longer afford to buy. Meanwhile, among the EU countries doing best at present are Sweden and Finland, which also have very high rates of state spending (over 50% of GDP). We also see that, despite its inadequate size and Republican attempts at sabotage, the stimulus Obama applied to US economy is generating jobs, while in austerity-hit southern Europe, jobs are vanishing – and youth unemployment over 50% is a real danger to democracy.
antepreprosays
Because we all know the horrible history in this country of capturing old white rich men and burning them to death. It was happening just 40 or 50 years ago, and yet people have forgotten. No one remembers the violent persecution of the rich white men, and how the government shrugged its shoulders and said “we aren’t rich white people, why do we care what happens to those sub-humans?”. No one cares to remember, but it happened. Read your Texas BOE-approved history books, people!
Would all of these assholes saying that its totally not racist stop for half a second and empathize with what black people must feel when they see this shit going on? Or is racism totally divorced from how people *actually subject to it* experience it?
White people don’t really have a history of being burned alive, so it’s not really racist, no. You *could* try arguing against it on a pacifist front, but you’re not really going to do that successfully. You, personally, that is, MD.
The effect, if racist, was caused by the people who took the photograph of a single effigy, in one version cropped further to improve the illusion, and tweeted it or flickered it or instagrammed it or tumblrd it or blogged it representing it as something it’s not–not just intended not, but actually not.
No. No, that is not what creates the racism, you stupid tit. The past 400 years of racial jackassery in the USA created the racism.
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
The alternative (in Europe ) is for Germany to carry all the burden of left-profligacy, which quite understandably, the average voter is not going to put up with for much longer.
Or is racism totally divorced from how people *actually subject to it* experience it?
*Snark*
Haven’t you heard? Just like when discussing sexism, the only opinion of racism that counts is that of teh rich white menz. Anything else is totally commie-nazi-misandrist-reverse-racism oppression of the historically persecuted social group of rich white doodz, long the victims of the feminazi black-tocracy that has ruled all Western civilisation for centuries.
Just ask Chas, sc_752b70b3a045665cf8f531d89e15d3f4 or md, I am sure they would happily explain it to you…
*/Snark*
It is stuff like this lynching in effigy (and its apologists) that makes me hate people.
Do you know what it means for something to have a history?
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
Do you know what it means for something to have a history?\
MD is liberturd/RWA troll. It knows nothing but slogans. Real evidence? Forget that.
antepreprosays
Wow md. Two news stories from 2009 and 2012 is not only totally on par with the history of lynching black people, but is sufficient to make burning effigies of George Bush years prior “racist”. In retrospect. Somehow.
Troll harder.
clastum3says
Gotts: yes, the last time I noted your lies was here:
didn’t mention that the little boy was killed because he hadn’t learnt enough of the Koran by heart.
Less incidentally, news like this finds little, if any, reflection in pharyngula, and if so, only so that people can position themselves as the most fervent anti-islamophobe going.
Pharyngula’s claim to be a part of the secular, anti-religious movement is very threadbare.
And yes, cutting defence spending will help the coming apocalypse along, which the far left sees as its way, finally, to power.
bradleybettssays
In the interest of fairness, I feel duty-bound to point out that that appears to be a white guy hanging next to him…
No, but as an adjective it is, by pretty much any definition of the word!
No, it isn’t.
‘Insensitive’, ‘crass’ or ‘offensive’ are clearly appropriate descriptions. Racism refers to the state of mind and opinions of the subject.
Not really. It refers to their effects on society, unless you have mind reading technology that will let you look into the heart of hearts of everyone you meet.
Shame to see this line of argument on an atheist website; the one group of people who should really know better….
I’m certainly not going to disagree with you that atheists are more, not less, racist than the norm of their culture, most of the time.
antepreprosays
Ahahaha. Clastum yells at us for being ignorant of the Real News and cites The Daily Mail to back himself up. Fucking priceless.
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
And yes, cutting defence spending will help the coming apocalypse along, which the far left sees as its way, finally, to power.
“I’M THE KING OF THE (burnt-over, smoking, bereft-of-infrastructure) WORLD!”
You are really dumb. For rill.
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
APOCALYPSE SHOCK-HORROR! LABOUR MPS IN END-OF-DAYS SEX ROMP AS REANIMATED BIN LADEN DECLARES FATWA ON BANGERS AND MASH!
antepreprosays
And yes, cutting defence spending will help the coming apocalypse along, which the far left sees as its way, finally, to power.
Holy shit. When I said he was a Jackass of All Trades, I didn’t think I would be quite this accurate.
mdsays
Is it good for society to have two (or more) sets of behavorial parameters for its peoples, based on historical claims where in nearly all cases neither the victim nor perpetrator is still alive?
Or can we just call some shit crass and get on with it?
chigau (棒や石)says
Racism refers to the state of mind and opinions of the subject.
Well. That’s a new one.
Matt Penfoldsays
APOCALYPSE SHOCK-HORROR! LABOUR MPS IN END-OF-DAYS SEX ROMP AS REANIMATED BIN LADEN DECLARES FATWA ON BANGERS AND MASH!
If that is supposed to be Daily Mail headling, it is missing gypsies and house-prices, preferably with former being to blame for the latter falling.
Gregory Greenwoodsays
Josh, Official SpokesGay @ 94;
APOCALYPSE SHOCK-HORROR! LABOUR MPS IN END-OF-DAYS SEX ROMP AS REANIMATED BIN LADEN DECLARES FATWA ON BANGERS AND MASH!
I think this sniny internets is yours…
That said, you had best watch out – the Daily Mail might take you seriously…
glendonsays
No, it isn’t.
…
Oh well, that told me! A working definition that you use would be nice…
The effects of racism are distinct from racism, which is simply holding the belief that human races are real, and that races have meaningful differences.
You are quite correct that you can never know that someone is a racist, just as you can never know that someone loves you. In many cases, it is an acceptable inference from the evidence.
Gregory Greenwoodsays
Gah! Ninja’d by Matt Penfold @ 98. Curse you Penfold! *Shakes fist*
glendonsays
Well. That’s a new one.
Indeed, only 100 years old in my dictionary.
Matt Penfoldsays
The effects of racism are distinct from racism, which is simply holding the belief that human races are real, and that races have meaningful differences
That is an incredibly bad definition since it ignores the entire concept of institutional racism.
antepreprosays
Is it good for society to have two (or more) sets of behavorial parameters for its peoples, based on historical claims where in nearly all cases neither the victim nor perpetrator is still alive?
Freeze Peachers now want Freedom from History as well. Sad because people don’t buy it when you insist that Confederate Flags are about Southern Pride and Nazi flags are about Blond-Hair Blue-Eye Pride?
chigau (棒や石)says
The effects of racism are distinct from racism
That actually made me laugh.
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
If that is supposed to be Daily Mail headling, it is missing gypsies and house-prices, preferably with former being to blame for the latter falling.
BWAHAHAH! So true. So sick and so true.
glendonsays
That is an incredibly bad definition since it ignores the entire concept of institutional racism.
True, and I would maintain that institutional racism is a poor term for the concept for precisely that reason; it is meaningless.
Obviously the concept is real and important, but it the effect is racial discrimination rather than racism.
diannesays
LABOUR MPS IN END-OF-DAYS SEX ROMP AS REANIMATED BIN LADEN DECLARES FATWA ON BANGERS AND MASH!
So…a happy ending for humanity then?
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
but it the effect is racial discrimination rather than racism.
Please don’t insist on splitting semantic hairs, especially when it involves idiosyncratic definitions we know will only help regressives in such conversations. This hurts the discourse. Please stop it.
antepreprosays
but it the effect is racial discrimination rather than racism .
Ahahaha. So this is what your pedantry has come to, eh?
Racism refers to the state of mind and opinions of the subject.
incorrect. it refers to a race-discriminatory effect
Matt Penfoldsays
True, and I would maintain that institutional racism is a poor term for the concept for precisely that reason; it is meaningless.
Obviously the concept is real and important, but it the effect is racial discrimination rather than racism.
Racial discrimination is simply the manifestation of racism.
Gregory Greenwoodsays
md @ 96;
Is it good for society to have two (or more) sets of behavorial parameters for its peoples…
Historical context does matter. When dealing with white and black people, only one group has a long and well documented history of being the victims of lynchings and other forms of systemic and often violent racial oppression in the Western world, and it isn’t we of the pasty skin.
…based on historical claims where in nearly all cases neither the victim nor perpetrator is still alive?
You are seriously going with the well worn non-argument (much beloved of creationists) of “well, were you there?” as a response? You do understand that such things as the Jim Crowe laws are a matter of public record, and that the historical evidence for widespread lynching is overwhelming? Not to mention the fact that such things as the Civil Rights Movement occurred well within living memory.
You don’t really believe that it is all some kind of grand conspiracy by revisionist black historians, do you?
Or can we just call some shit crass and get on with it?
I find the sight of an effigy of the lynching of the first Black President of the US to be rather more disturbing that the label ‘crass’ conveys.
Also, get on with what, exactly? This thread is about the racism in modern day America, discussing that issue could hardly be more on topic. If the discussion doesn’t interest you, why are you still commenting on this thread at all?
Nick Gotts (formerly KG)says
Here’s what the astoundingly stupid liar clastum3 is referring to @85:
There’s an unwritten pact of silence on the left in regard to these events, and when confronted with the facts the reactions range from indifference to passive acquiescence. – clastum3
Well when you lie about people, as you do here once again, they do tend to resent it. Live with it, shitbag. – me
76 : KG or Nick Gotts, but ever a potty-mouth :
Even with my rudimentary internet skills, it only took a minute to find a couple of impeccably left-wing sources for my contention:
http://www.petertatchell.net/multiculturalism/democratiya8.htm
“Paralysed by the fear of being branded racist, imperialist or Islamophobic, large sections of liberal and left opinion have, in effect, gone soft on their commitment to universal human rights.”
So clastum3 finds left-wing sources which are very obviously not part of any such “unwritten pact of silence on the left”, thus neatly disproving his own contention that there is one, and neatly proving that he is indeed a liar, as I said.
Nick Gotts (formerly KG)says
Blockquote fail repost:
Here’s what the astoundingly stupid liar clastum3 is referring to @85:
There’s an unwritten pact of silence on the left in regard to these events, and when confronted with the facts the reactions range from indifference to passive acquiescence. – clastum3
Well when you lie about people, as you do here once again, they do tend to resent it. Live with it, shitbag. – me
76 : KG or Nick Gotts, but ever a potty-mouth :
Even with my rudimentary internet skills, it only took a minute to find a couple of impeccably left-wing sources for my contention:
http://www.petertatchell.net/multiculturalism/democratiya8.htm
“Paralysed by the fear of being branded racist, imperialist or Islamophobic, large sections of liberal and left opinion have, in effect, gone soft on their commitment to universal human rights.”
So clastum3 finds left-wing sources which are very obviously not part of any such “unwritten pact of silence on the left”, thus neatly disproving his own contention that there is one, and neatly proving that he is indeed a liar, as I said.
which is simply holding the belief that human races are real, and that races have meaningful differences
lol, no. that has never been the definition of racism, and it’s not even the definition of racial prejudice. you’re thinking of racialism
glendonsays
Racial discrimination is simply the manifestation of racism.
Often but not always. Racial discrimination can also be an unforeseen consequence.
Nick Gotts (formerly KG)says
Incidentally, I urge everyone to read Peter Tatchell’s article and, as he advocates, support organizations such as Southall Black Sisters and Women Against Fundamentalism.
Matt Penfoldsays
Often but not always. Racial discrimination can also be an unforeseen consequence.
No, unforeseen consequences are covered by institutional racism. And unforeseen is not really the best word. All too often the effects were foreseeable and just ignored. In other cases the effects were not foreseen only because no one bothered to think about the consequences. People and organisations do not escape being racist because they are too stupid or lazy to think.
glendonsays
no. the effects of racism are what racism is, since we don’t have mind-reading technology.
Ok, so just for the purpose of this discussion, let’s say that I hold the belief that the Karankawa were, as a people (and as individuals) lazy and untrustworthy. In every other respect I believe that no racial differences exist. I keep my beliefs private, and obviously it would have no effect on my interactions with people.
You would argue that I was not racist?
Nick Gotts (formerly KG)says
And yes, cutting defence spending will help the coming apocalypse along, which the far left sees as its way, finally, to power. – clastum3
You really are breathtaking stupid. But go on, spell out for us how cutting military spending will “help the coming apocalypse along”. I could do with a good laugh.
Matt Penfoldsays
Ok, so just for the purpose of this discussion, let’s say that I hold the belief that the Karankawa were, as a people (and as individuals) lazy and untrustworthy. In every other respect I believe that no racial differences exist. I keep my beliefs private, and obviously it would have no effect on my interactions with people.
You would argue that I was not racist?
Are you being deliberately stupid ? If not, can you explain why you asked such an idiotic question ?
mdsays
Missing my point, Greg.
Burning or hanging a President in effigy is crass. Doesnt matter if he’s black or white or half white.
Doesnt matter if the perp is white or black or blue. Crass is crass. Or it should be, I argue. If we’re really going to achieve some sort of equality.
I don’t in any way question the history of Jim Crow and all the rest. I question the validity of calling people who did not participate in Jim Crow, racist, because of of a crass joke/political statement whatever + the history of Jim Crow, especially when other crass statements about white republicans pass all the time unncommented on.
Its similar to the Islam/Mormon humor divide. We can make fun of Mormons, have a play about their underwear, all the rest. But making fun of Muslims = racist. Two sets of behavoir (or more) for people will ensure they remain divided, not heal some historical wounds.
You don’t really believe that it is all some kind of grand conspiracy by revisionist black historians, do you?
No, he’s pretending history is irrelevant because the black people of Jim Crow are dead (Which they’re not, but whatever).
You are quite correct that you can never know that someone is a racist, just as you can never know that someone loves you. In many cases, it is an acceptable inference from the evidence.
Sure I can. Everyone’s fucking racist. No exceptions. Now, if you mean ‘moreso than normal’, I only have to go with just how actively they spread racist bullshit, or how happy they are to let such institutions continue.
I just don’t know whether they’re racist because in their heart of hearts, they just fucking love hating non-white people or not. And I don’t fucking care about that, because it’s irrelevant.
glendonsays
No, unforeseen consequences are covered by institutional racism. And unforeseen is not really the best word. All too often the effects were foreseeable and just ignored. In other cases the effects were not foreseen only because no one bothered to think about the consequences. People and organisations do not escape being racist because they are too stupid or lazy to think.
OK, if that is what you use as a definition, then I can’t really argue. Personally, I think that is a diminution of the word ‘racist’ and deeply unhelpful to a much more sinister state of mind. But, I don’t own the language, so we’ll just have to disagree.
if you’re not having racist effects on the world, then no, for all intents and purposes you’re not racist.
of course, it’s not possible for someone to have racial biases and not occasionally act on them. the reason racism isn’t synonymous with racial bias or racial prejudice though is because the opposite doesn’t hold true: you CAN produce racist effects without holding racial prejudice.
and then of course there’s the SJ working definition, which requires prejudice to be coupled with social power before it becomes actual racism, but that’s probably too advanced a concept for you.
Nick Gotts (formerly KG)says
glendon,
Try to get this through the concrete: “racist” applies primarily to behaviour (including use of language) that reinforces existing injustices based on racial or ethnic categories; and secondarily, to people who routinely behave in such ways. If your private prejudice genuinely has no effect on your behaviour then no, it’s not racist, and nor are you.
Ok, so just for the purpose of this discussion, let’s say that I hold the belief that the Karankawa were, as a people (and as individuals) lazy and untrustworthy. In every other respect I believe that no racial differences exist. I keep my beliefs private, and obviously it would have no effect on my interactions with people.
I fucking hate how the first retreat of the pedant is a bullshit hypothetical that bears no relevance to the world as it is. None of this shit is possible.
glendonsays
“Are you being deliberately stupid ? If not, can you explain why you asked such an idiotic question ?”
Because one school of thought (it has been suggested) equates racism with nothing more than a discriminatory outcome, for the given reason that it is not possible to know another’s mind. If that were so, then a private belief in racial superiority, would not be racist.
I would suggest that that is ‘stupid’.
kemist, Dark Lord of the Sithsays
And yes, cutting defence spending will help the coming apocalypse along, which the far left sees as its way, finally, to power.
Ah, yes.
In Tea Party bizarro fractured logic, the government can’t possibly manage social programs that stave off the worse excesses of greed, but can totally be trusted to be the only thing maintaining the integrity of the world with an overblown military.
And of course all the wars the aforementionned military fights are totally justified, and the humongous amount of money it siphons off the country’s limited resources and that could be spent on bettering the living conditions at home are absolutely necessary. Examining the contracts it makes with shady contractors is only so much red tape.
After all, collusion, intensive lobbying and corruption of governments by private contractors is totally unheard of.
Also, the less destructive power different countries invest in, the closer we are to “apocalypse”.
Everyone knows “world peace” is just another name for the evil New World Order, headed by the OWG. That has its seat in either the rebuilt Babylon or the inside of a dead volcano, depending on the flavor of the nuts you’re talking to.
If that were so, then a private belief in racial superiority, would not be racist.
except for the part that such a “private” belief would never not lead to actions. people simply don’t work like that. however, whether [action] is performed because of genuinely held prejudice against a person of a certain race, or because of stupidity, or because that’s how social structures are designed is not really changing the outcome and effect of [action], and can therefore not be the determinant of whether it’s racist or not.
…at least not if “racist” is supposed to be a useful word
sharculesesays
Is it good for society to have two (or more) sets of behavorial parameters for its peoples, based on historical claims where in nearly all cases neither the victim nor perpetrator is still alive?
Well, no, which is why we have to work harder to dismantle the privilege that protects entitled, historically ignorant whiners like you.
Jesus, md’s ‘I’M COLORBLIND’ bullshit (which is what it is, in effect) would be hilarious if it wasn’t pathetic.
Matt Penfoldsays
Because one school of thought (it has been suggested) equates racism with nothing more than a discriminatory outcome, for the given reason that it is not possible to know another’s mind. If that were so, then a private belief in racial superiority, would not be racist.
I would suggest that that is ‘stupid’.
What is stupid is asking idiotic hypothetical questions.
How do you think people in your hypothetical would know your views ?
glendonsays
OK, I get it.
Effectively it’s a sociological use of the word which divorces it from the words original meaning.
Fine, but I still think that the sociologists should do what the rest of us have to do when we encounter a concept that has not yet been described; create new terms.
If nothing else, it would avoid the confusion that I (and apparently a few others) had when we read the original post.
Janine: Hallucinating Liarsays
Its similar to the Islam/Mormon humor divide. We can make fun of Mormons, have a play about their underwear, all the rest. But making fun of Muslims = racist. Two sets of behavoir (or more) for people will ensure they remain divided, not heal some historical wounds.
Md, most people who are serious in their criticism of the Mormon faith really do not bother with the underwear. It is the social policies that is under consideration and criticism. Just as the theocratic states that Islam forms are under consideration and criticism.
As it stand, some white christians in the US tend to think of any person who has swarthy skin coloring as automatically being a terrorist jihadist.
But thank you for playing the game of conflation and false equivalency.
sharculesesays
Burning or hanging a President in effigy is crass. Doesnt matter if he’s black or white or half white.
Doesnt matter if the perp is white or black or blue. Crass is crass. Or it should be, I argue. If we’re really going to achieve some sort of equality.
Oh it’s crass? That’s the problem? It is super neat that you are so insulated from the consequences of prejudice that you can sit there despondently, pinky firmly extended, and just sigh at the tedium of it all, but that is pretty much point number one against taking what you have to say on the subject seriously.
Fine, but I still think that the sociologists should do what the rest of us have to do when we encounter a concept that has not yet been described; create new terms.
who the fuck is “the rest of us”, and do you know what “competent” means in geology, or “community” means in ecology?
glendonsays
“How do you think people in your hypothetical would know your views ”
They wouldn’t, but I would. Perhaps I might undertake a detailed self-examination of what I believed. Guess if I did, I would be totally off the hook.
Effectively it’s a sociological use of the word which divorces it from the words original meaning.
Madogodess above, honkies do complain about this. This isn’t a ‘divorce from the original meaning’. It’s actually really fucking close to the original meaning. It’s not identical, but it’s not some world apart where you can’t understand it.
Stupid assholes like you just get less room to wheedle, and hem, and haw, while those of us who deal with this bullshit suffer.
Matt Penfoldsays
They wouldn’t, but I would. Perhaps I might undertake a detailed self-examination of what I believed. Guess if I did, I would be totally off the hook.
But you obviously think they could, otherwise why ask the question ?
glendonsays
“who the fuck is “the rest of us”, and do you know what “competent” means in geology, or “community” means in ecology?”
I do. I have even written a few popular articles based on my research. Where ambiguous terms exist (i.e. those where the technical definition is different from the popular definition), I will always either leave out the technical term or state it explicitly. Clearly a blog post is a popular medium.
glendonsays
“But you obviously think they could, otherwise why ask the question ?”
In every other respect I believe that no racial differences exist. I keep my beliefs private, and obviously it would have no effect on my interactions with people.
this has never happened, ever. The only way i can picture this happening is if you are prejudiced against a group that you will literally never be able to encounter. You can’t delete your racist ideas from the way you perceive people of that race any more than you can delete other aspects of a person for convenience. How we regard and treat each other does not typically come from a place of careful reasoning. We all form impressions of others based on our own intuition constantly, and if your intuition is informed by bullshit (like racism) you’re going to make negative judgments about others that are unfounded and act accordingly. You’re trying to say you can load people up with data that is total garbage but they will act like they have nothing but perfect knowledge. Try harder.
glendonsays
“The only way i can picture this happening is if you are prejudiced against a group that you will literally never be able to encounter.”
Yes, hence the hypothetical that I posted…
Matt Penfoldsays
i.e. if nobody knows your racist, you aren’t!
I disagree with the premise.
No, in that if no one else can know, so the question is meaningless.
It is telling that you had to resort to a meaningless hypothetical question.
so you knew you were bullshitting when you claimed other disciplines invent new words for new concepts instead of using the ones that already exist, but with altered meanings(and that’s entirely aside from the part where racism as effect is not a new concept, nor an altered definition; discrimination has always been part of the definition of racism)
Clearly a blog post is a popular medium.
a blogpost is a private personal log, actually. Also, the definition of racism as racially-differential effects rather than some nebulous personal belief is not limited to sociology; it’s not jargon or a “technical term”.
Effectively it’s a sociological use of the word which divorces it from the words original meaning.
Fine, but I still think that the sociologists should do what the rest of us have to do when we encounter a concept that has not yet been described; create new terms.
yeah and “theory” should really be changed to mean something different in science because it confuses creationists too much!
I’m not even in agreement that the sociological use of the word is so different from the practical usage in the first place, but if you want to complain about this kind of use of language you could start with every technical field *ever*, since they all borrow regular words to make a highly specialized meaning. Its only offensive if you’re unwilling to learn new meanings for words.
if your racism is magical and thus has no effects, what use is it to call it racist? where’s the usefulness of a word that describes such impossible hypotheticals, but not reality?
Gregory Greenwoodsays
md @ 124;
Burning or hanging a President in effigy is crass. Doesnt matter if he’s black or white or half white.
Given the very specific history of African Americans with regard to lynching, I would argue that it goes beyond merely crass when the Prtesident in question is the first Black Premier of the US.
Doesnt matter if the perp is white or black or blue. Crass is crass. Or it should be, I argue. If we’re really going to achieve some sort of equality.
You can’t just wipe away the context of the situation and the resonance of the action with a particular group. Making jokes about smallpox contaimated linen with regard to a white person is crass, making the same joke with regard to a Native American person has a very different significance that goes beyond the territory of crass and into that of racism. ‘Colour blindness’ that wilfully ignores the history and experiences of historically oppressed groups is not the same thing as equality.
I don’t in any way question the history of Jim Crow and all the rest. I question the validity of calling people who did not participate in Jim Crow, racist, because of of a crass joke/political statement whatever + the history of Jim Crow, especially when other crass statements about white republicans pass all the time unncommented on.
The fact that the Jim Crow laws existed, along with all the other manifestations of the long and bitter history of institutionalised racism in the US, creates a very specific context around actions such as creating an effigy of the lynching of a Black person. The perpetrators of this action almost certainly knew this, and even if they were somehow so utterly ignorant of their own society’s history that they were genuinely unaware of the toxic symbolism of their actions, that still doesn’t alter the fact that the public display of such an effigy contributes to the ongoing racism that blights US culture. Intent is not magical.
With regard to you point about White Republicans, I would argue that there is no parity of experience, social status or privilege between White Republicans as a group and African Americans as a group. Also, mocking the political opinions of Republicans (White or otherwise) is not the same as creating an image that references acts of racial violence motivated by the fact of the skin colour of African Americans. You are comparing apples and pears.
Its similar to the Islam/Mormon humor divide. We can make fun of Mormons, have a play about their underwear, all the rest. But making fun of Muslims = racist. Two sets of behavoir (or more) for people will ensure they remain divided, not heal some historical wounds.
Mocking both Moromons and Muslims for their irrational and harmful beliefs is not racist at all, but the term ‘Muslim’ in many quarters has been bound up with specific racial groups and ethnic identities. There are plenty of White Muslims, but many people who rail against ‘Muslims’ specifically reference stereotypes about the dark skinned Arab/Persian/Pakistani foreign Muslim ‘other’. When criticisng ‘Muslims’ becomes code for promoting racist stereotypes about the supposed primitive, blood-thirsty barbarism of dark skinned foreigners, then the racist component becomes clear. It is what is sometimes referred to as a racist ‘dog whistle’ – a code phrase that is not obviously racist on the surface, but is loaded with bigoted stereotypes and tropes. The situations with Mormonism is in no way comparable to this. On balance, Moromons tend to come from the more affluent and privileged end of society, and while they are predominantly White, criticism of their beliefs does not usually focus on their skin colour, but rather on the extreme (and, incidentally, highly racist, misogynistic and homophobic) character of those beliefs themselves.
glendonsays
if your racism is magical and thus has no effects, what use is it to call it racist? where’s the usefulness of a word that describes such impossible hypotheticals, but not reality?
Magical? Strictly speaking it would have no external effects.
The beauty of language is that it can capture abstract, or even imaginary concepts in a way that lets us understand reality more precisely. Now, I’m tempted to agree that the discussion on semantics is a little distracting, though I really feel sorry for anyone who doesn’t believe that definition is important in language.
It is interesting that the criticisms of my position/ have focussed on the unknowability of the mind of the (alleged) racist.
An alternative position (outlined at least once above); that the racism is the product of the mind that experiences it is subject to exactly the same weakness.
Personally I think that either objection is unfounded, but the 2nd does seem rather more open to abuse. (see how easily the religious ‘take offence’)
The argument that racism is a description of the effects, is slightly less objectionable, but we have terms that describe those adequately already. Racism was originally a term that described adherents to theories of racial superiority. In other words, it was always about the ideas, not the consequences.
Ze Madmaxsays
glendon @ #121
I keep my beliefs private, and obviously it would have no effect on my interactions with people.
You’re obviously wrong. There’s a good thirty years on implicit attitudes and their impact on behavior that suggests that even if you consciously try to appear unbiased, the fact that you endorse certain beliefs will unconsciously affect your behavior.
Hell, even if you don’t personally hold these beliefs, as long as they are part of the broader culture, they will impact you. Hence why you see studies that show that people’s level of explicit and implicit racism do not seem to influence racially-motivated avoidant/aversive attitudes and behaviors.
glendonsays
There’s a good thirty years on implicit attitudes and their impact on behavior that suggests that even if you consciously try to appear unbiased, the fact that you endorse certain beliefs will unconsciously affect your behavior.
OK, and the chances of me sitting in front of a Karankawa job applicant is what exactly?
Janine: Hallucinating Liarsays
My Little Effigy: Intent Is Magic
Because this crazed man’s traveling lynching display is not meant as a racist display, all of the racists out there seeing this display and wishing for a similar fate for an uppity colored man like Barack Hussein Obama will not see the lynched effigy as being racist. They will know the intent of the crazed man.
Magical? Strictly speaking it would have no external effects.
yes, that’s what makes it magical, since real racial prejudice doesn’t work like that.
The beauty of language is that it can capture abstract, or even imaginary concepts in a way that lets us understand reality more precisely.
there’s a difference between abstract and imaginary concepts, and inconsequent ones. “god” is both imaginary; “race” is both imaginary and abstract”; both of which are concepts that are meaningful because their existence in people’s minds has effects on reality. your concept of racism on the other hand doesn’t, if it only exists in the brain of one person and never leaves.
(see how easily the religious ‘take offence’)
and? are they taking offense at actual discriminatory effects? no? then it’s irrelevant.
Racism was originally a term that described adherents to theories of racial superiority. In other words, it was always about the ideas, not the consequences.
oh, sure because those ideas didn’t have consequences [/sarc]
sorry to disappoint, but racism always meant effects. because racialist ideas never didn’t come with actions and therefore consequences
OK, and the chances of me sitting in front of a Karankawa job applicant is what exactly?
your quaint assumption that racist effects can only ever be direct has been duly noted and dismissed with laughter at your ignorance.
Tony–Queer Duck Overlord of The Bronze–says
clastum3 @85:
Pharyngula’s claim to be a part of the secular, anti-religious movement is very threadbare.
Why?
Because PZ doesn’t post about the things you want him to?
Because the commenters don’t discuss issues of importance to you?
It couldn’t be because it’s impossible to follow all stories about religion in the news, could it? If you’ve read Pharyngula for any length of time (you need more than a day or two), you’d see how thoroughly wrong you are.
****
glendon @100:
The effects of racism are distinct from racism, which is simply holding the belief that human races are real, and that races have meaningful differences.
No. That is *not* what racism is.
Racism is the belief that a particular race is superior or inferior to another, that a person’s social and moral traits are predetermined by his or her inborn biological characteristics. http://www.adl.org/hate-patrol/racism.asp
incidentally, what point is an impossible hypothetical that assumes racial prejudice is ever specific? someone who’s prejudiced against an extinct Indian culture is in reality not likely to not harbor similar prejudices against existing ones. Usually in fact the former would have come about as a consequence of the latter.
again: what good is a word that only deals with things that don’t exist like that in reality?
glendonsays
#160
You are arguing that your own mind is not ‘reality’ unless it affects the wider world. Your own inner dialogue is meaningless unless you communicate it?
are they taking offense at actual discriminatory effects? no? then it’s irrelevant.
I agree; that is my point!
oh, sure because those ideas didn’t have consequences [/sarc]
sorry to disappoint, but racism always meant effects. because racialist ideas never didn’t come with actions and therefore consequences
Indeed, we certainly wouldn’t having this argument if they didn’t. However, we still retain two separate words for them: ’cause’ and ‘effect’.
jefrirsays
So, glendon, you are arguing that calling a hypothetical person with racial prejudices that are entirely undetectable and have no external effects a racist would be fine, and not in any way “a diminution of the word ‘racist’”, but using the same term for someone who holds no such biases but causes massive harm to racial minorities simply because they don’t give a shit about the consequences of their actions wouldn’t be?
Because I’m pretty damn certain who is actually the bigger problem of the two.
Neither of them, by the way, actually exists – no human is entirely free of prejudice, and we are not capable of holding prejudiced thoughts and having our behaviour entirely unaffected by them.
You are arguing that your own mind is not ‘reality’ unless it affects the wider world. Your own inner dialogue is meaningless unless you communicate it?
goddamn you’re stupid. no, that isn’t even close to what I’m arguing. try again.
I agree; that is my point!
I highly doubt that, given your whining about how effects aren’t racism earlier on.
However, we still retain two separate words for them: ’cause’ and ‘effect’.
yup; and it’s the EFFECT that’s racism. not the cause, because the causes of racism are extremely varied. it’s only folks who want to feel good about themselves who wish to exempt themselves from racism based on their belief that they hold no racial prejudices
Indeed, that is exactly what I was saying. What I did not say was that racist ideas (as distinct to their consequences) were in any way more important.
The diminution in this case is purely linguistic. It is the ability to discuss the more important concepts that suffers as a result. That is why it is important.
chigau (棒や石)says
dammit, jefrir
Now glendon is going to explain what “prejudice” really means.
glendonsays
yup; and it’s the EFFECT that’s racism. not the cause.
No, racism causes racial discrimination.
i.e. theories of racial superiority cause people to behave in ways that discriminate based on perceptions of race. This is not the only cause of racial discrimination, and is why we have two separate terms.
What I did not say was that racist ideas (as distinct to their consequences) were in any way more important.
irrelevant, as no one claimed otherwise. nonetheless, either you’re contradicting yourself, or you somehow think psychological effects are not effects.
The diminution in this case is purely linguistic.
and as jefrir accurately pointed out, it is you who’s perpetrating this diminution, by insisting on a useless definition of racist
It is the ability to discuss the more important concepts that suffers as a result.
the “more important concept” is your imaginary, unreal form of racism that’s somehow magically hyperspecific and confined to one’s mind?
lol.
in reality of course, racist refers to effects specifically because it is the effects that are important not some nebulous unknowable states-of-mind. something is racist if it has race-differential effects because it’s the effects that are harmful, regardless of cause. this is the only useful definition of racism and racist
you can repeat this until you’re blue in the face, it won’t become turer as a result of that.
racism is an effect. any other definition is derived from that, primarily because of the Fundamental Attribution Error. and insisting on not calling racism racism because of a lack of a specific intent is an attempt at rendering the word useless.
I would offer the OED definition as a starting point.
oh, let’s, shall we?
1936 L. DENNIS Coming Amer. Fascism 109 If..it be assumed that one of our values should be a type of racism which excludes certain races from citizenship, then the plan of execution should provide for the annihilation, deportation, or sterilization of the excluded races. 1938 E. & C. PAUL tr. Hirschfeld’s Racism xx. 260 The apostles and energumens of racism can in all good faith give free rein to impulses of which they would be ashamed did they realise their true nature. 1940 R. BENEDICT Race: Science & Politics i. 7 Racism is an ism to which everyone in the world today is exposed. 1952 M. BERGER Equality by Statute 236 Racism, tension in industrial, urban areas. 1952 Theology LV. 283 The idolatry of our timeits setting up of nationalism, racism, vulgar materialism. 1960 New Left Rev. Jan./Feb. 21/2 George Rogers saw fit to kow-tow to the incipient racism of his electorate by including a line about getting rid of �undesirable elements�. 1964 GOULD & KOLB Dict. Social Sci. 571/2 Racism is a newer term for the word racialism… There is virtual agreement that it refers to a doctrine of racial supremacy. 1971 Ceylon Daily News (Colombo) 18 Sept. 8/5 Mr. Seneviratne is welcome to his ideal of inter-racial marriages as panacea for Racism. 1972 J. L. DILLARD Black English iii. 90 In the British sailors’ reactions to the slaves.., the very early existence of racism is as well documented as the difference in language. 1974 M. FIDO R. Kipling 50/2 In The Story of Muhammad Din he wrote one of the most economical and bitter attacks on British racism ever penned. 1976 Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio) 4 Mar. A2/4 The Vatican radio said,..�Racism might have different faces but it will always be reprehensible.� 1977 M. WALKER National Front vi. 155 A strike of the Asian workers against racism in the factory.
yup. it’s always defined as racist effects, except where it has come to be used to mean “racialism”, which is the older, more accurate definition of a belief in race as a biological category.
1936 L. DENNIS Coming Amer. Fascism 109 If..it be assumed that one of our values should be a type of racism which excludes certain races from citizenship, then the plan of execution should provide for the annihilation, deportation, or sterilization of the excluded races. 1938 E. & C. PAUL tr. Hirschfeld’s Racism xx. 260 The apostles and energumens of racism can in all good faith give free rein to impulses of which they would be ashamed did they realise their true nature. 1940 R. BENEDICT Race: Science & Politics i. 7 Racism is an ism to which everyone in the world today is exposed. 1952 M. BERGER Equality by Statute 236 Racism, tension in industrial, urban areas. 1952 Theology LV. 283 The idolatry of our timeits setting up of nationalism, racism, vulgar materialism. 1960 New Left Rev. Jan./Feb. 21/2 George Rogers saw fit to kow-tow to the incipient racism of his electorate by including a line about getting rid of �undesirable elements�. 1964 GOULD & KOLB Dict. Social Sci. 571/2 Racism is a newer term for the word racialism… There is virtual agreement that it refers to a doctrine of racial supremacy. 1971 Ceylon Daily News (Colombo) 18 Sept. 8/5 Mr. Seneviratne is welcome to his ideal of inter-racial marriages as panacea for Racism. 1972 J. L. DILLARD Black English iii. 90 In the British sailors’ reactions to the slaves.., the very early existence of racism is as well documented as the difference in language. 1974 M. FIDO R. Kipling 50/2 In The Story of Muhammad Din he wrote one of the most economical and bitter attacks on British racism ever penned. 1976 Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio) 4 Mar. A2/4 The Vatican radio said,..�Racism might have different faces but it will always be reprehensible.� 1977 M. WALKER National Front vi. 155 A strike of the Asian workers against racism in the factory.
anyway, yeah. the word racism is never used for prejudice alone, except where people started using it to replace the actual word for racial prejudice, “racialism”. IOW, argument from “that’s how it used to be used” is a fail on your account, darling.
OED says racialism is the word for prejudice, racism is the word for action, usually from prejudice
Dictionaries record word-use and are always behind current use.
oh, glendon already knows they lost the “current use” argument; they’re trying the “but that’s not what it originally meant” argument; and failing, since the original word for racial prejudice is not racism but racialism, just as I said eariler
glendonsays
No it doesn’t, read that quote more closely.
e.g. “our values should be a type of racism”
also: ” There is virtual agreement that it refers to a doctrine of racial supremacy”
In other words, racism requires a belief in racial superiority. The actions are a consequence of the belief. It would not be possible (under that definition) to be inadvertently or carelessly racist. Racial discrimination or bias does not require that.
jefrirsays
You know, whenever we get one of these “that’s not what the dictionary says!”, I know that they don’t have any real background in languages or linguistics. Because no-one can spend significant amounts of time actually using dictionaries and retain the belief that they are some sort of ultimate arbiter of human language.
They’re not quite as fuckwittedly ignorant as the people who think they can learn a foreign language from a dictionary, but they do tend to be more harmful and obnoxious.
thanks for finally admitting that a belief in racial superiority is one cause of racism, not racism. took you long enough.
It would not be possible (under that definition) to be inadvertently or carelessly racist.
yes, as I already explained, the original definition, the one that defined racism as prejudice+action, the one I just quoted, is one that assumes the actions require prejudice based on the Fundamental Attribution error.
That doesn’t disagree with my point however, since the action is the defining feature, not the prejudice, and no valuable meaning is lost when the FAE is removed from a more accurate current definition.
OTOH, your re-definition, which attempts to instead remove the action and insist that racism=prejudice, makes the definition less accurate and less useful.
pretty quotemine. the full line of course says
“our values should be a type of racism which excludes”. again, the action defines the values, not the other way round. what makes a value racist is that it has racist effects, not the other way round.
Because no-one can spend significant amounts of time actually using dictionaries and retain the belief that they are some sort of ultimate arbiter of human language.
true enough, but amusingly, glendon is losing evne on their self-chosen territory. which makes their incompetence kind of hilarious (or it would, if they weren’t effectively arguing for a redefinition that would render a very necessary concept useless, which in turn makes their argument harmful)
Fucking honky pedant. It already admitted it has nothing but a lame attempt at semantic hairsplitting to beginw ith, can’t even defend that, and it won’t shut up or go away.
glendonsays
Well fine, take what you want from it; it fact I would even concede the point if you will agree that, given that requirement, one could not call (or at least know) that the actions of the subject of this blog post were racist.
That the author can (apparently without any sense of irony) write what he wrote at the top of the page and not attract criticism seems a shame to me. Particularly when the photo that it was based on was such an obviously ham-fisted crop of what was clearly a more complex display.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
That the author can (apparently without any sense of irony) write what he wrote at the top of the page and not attract criticism seems a shame to me.
Finally, the real complaint, after trying to make it sound like it couldn’t be a possible racist. Why bother with all the sophistry, other than self-delusion?
glendonsays
That was always my complaint. I responded to those that were still trying to make the charge stick after the criticism was made. Language is important…
I’ve read them and pretty much agree with most of what you’ve written. I still wouldn’t go as far as calling it racist, but as far as the rest of your analysis goes, there is no argument from me.
jefrirsays
true enough, but amusingly, glendon is losing evne on their self-chosen territory.
They generally do. The tendency to quote dictionary definitions as the main evidence for your point tends to go along with a difficulty in understanding what said definitions actually mean, and with grasping the idea that words can have multiple meanings.
Strangely, it is never specialist dictionaries that they quote.
And glendon, you are valuing stupid windbaggery about what a purported racist really thinks over their real and demonstrable effects on the world. Stop it. It is ridiculous.
glendonsays
Only to those trying to twist it…
Quite, and that is why it should matter to everyone.
Quite, and that is why it should matter to everyone.
Language matters, which is why you’re trying to strangle it rather than let it be useful? Yeah, no, you’re just another fucking useless, racist honkey trying to preserve his feelings than live in the world that is.
And that should be “It bothers you, doesn’t it? But you’d rather hem and haw than fix it, wouldn’t you?”. Ah well.
glendonsays
That Merika is a racist nation? It bothers you that this is true, but you’d rather hem and haw here than fix it, doesn’t it? Asshat.
Don’t know, never been to the USA; no real desire to either.
I’m sure that there are racists in America, and that many of them are in the USA. Whether the USA is a ‘racist nation’ is s quite different question.
glendonsays
When the author makes the assertion that the USA is a racist nation, evidenced by the actions of a single (seemingly insane) man, then I think it is worth pointing out the irony.
I know that it is only a blog, and it was an off the cuff response to a photo that he did not make. I certainly don’t think the worse of him for it, but the comments bit is for discussion is it not?
jefrirsays
Don’t know, never been to the USA; no real desire to either.
I’m sure that there are racists in America, and that many of them are in the USA. Whether the USA is a ‘racist nation’ is s quite different question.
If you know so little about race relations in the US, maybe you should do some research into the background before pontificating.
glendonsays
If you know so little about race relations in the US, maybe you should do some research into the background before pontificating.
You will notice that I have said nothing about race relations in the US.
Janine: Hallucinating Liarsays
When the author makes the assertion that the USA is a racist nation, evidenced by the actions of a single (seemingly insane) man, then I think it is worth pointing out the irony.
The facts are this. The US was and remains a deeply racist nation, even if many people are working at ending that.
This display does not prove that the US is a racist nation.
While the motives of this crazed man may not be racist, it does not mean that racist people will not be attracted to the image.
I WANT MY COUNTRY BACK!
chigau (棒や石)says
I am curious to know where glendon lives.
It must be a nice place if you need to go to a dictionary to find out about racism. or even “racism”.
Janine: Hallucinating Liarsays
If you know so little about race relations in the US, maybe you should do some research into the background before pontificating.
But it is so much fun to pull out the OED when lecturing about racism in the US.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
Glendon, a mild example of the racist “separate but equal”.
jenniferherringsays
Despite the vitriol reserved for those who prefer clear use of the English language, it needs to be stated that people are misuing the word ‘lynch.’ Case in point, I had an applicant for a job last week who was denied because she was convicted of lynching back in 2007. She also happened to be African -American. Lynching technically refers to mob ‘justice’ in an attempt to intimidate a group of pepole. While it’s true that these crimes were historically perpetrated against blacks by whites, hanging a black man or hanging an effigy of a black man is not lynching in and of itself, and in fact, lynching in today’s criminal courts(at least in those states where the crime is still on the books) typically refers to a crime where a group of people ‘jump’ another person regardless of their reasoning for doing so. In short, unless you can prove that a group of people(not just the lone wacko interviewed) hung this dummy and/or drug it to its current location, this is not a lynching.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
Ah, legal versus common definition. Guess which one we are using precisely.
jenniferherringsays
Even using the historical definition, a mob of people is required for it to be a lynching.
chigau (棒や石)says
Anyone have a definition of “sockpuppet”?
silomowbraysays
jennifer @ 205
In short, unless you can prove that a group of people(not just the lone wacko interviewed) hung this dummy and/or drug it to its current location, this is not a lynching.
Since PedantMode=TRUE, I believe it’s “hanged” not “hung”. People (and effigies) are hanged.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
Even using the historical definition, a mob of people is required for it to be a lynching.
Nope, just 2 or more. And an attitude to put somebody “in their place”. So, why not give up sockpuppet?
jenniferherringsays
I don’t frequently visit non-theological fundamendalist sites such as this one, so I’m not sure what your slang terms for dissenters mean. I’m just pointing out that neither hanging, nor any other violent act perpetrated against an African-American necessarily equates to lynching, and in fact, the interview seems to prove that this couldn’t fall under lynching, since only one man is taking credit.
Janine: Hallucinating Liarsays
It takes a village to lynch an effigy.
glendonsays
The facts are this. The US was and remains a deeply racist nation, even if many people are working at ending that.
This display does not prove that the US is a racist nation.
While the motives of this crazed man may not be racist, it does not mean that racist people will not be attracted to the image.
No argument with that. That is pretty much in line with what I was saying.
Incidentally (for whoever asked) I live in Scotland. I wouldn’t say that there is no racism here, though it is of a relatively benign form compared to some other parts of the UK. In any case, I have personal, though mild, experience of racism as part of a minority group, so I don’t need any lectures about the language, even if I don’t have direct experience of the more serious effects that those in the USA might have experienced.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
I’m just pointing out that neither hanging, nor any other violent act perpetrated against an African-American necessarily equates to lynching, and in fact, the interview seems to prove that this couldn’t fall under lynching, since only one man is taking credit.
Actual one man can lynch, providing he outsizes his victim, like an adult attacking a young adolescent. In this country, we called that a lynching. Keep that in mind.
glendonsays
Whilst I was driving home just now, all around me in their back gardens and public parks people were burning effigies of a 17th century catholic in an annual celebration that’s predominant cultural legacy was one of violent sectarianism and religious persecution. One that caused many Catholics to seek sanctuary in the N American colonies, but that has now (for most people at least) lost all of these religious and political connotations. That said, it is certainly true that there are many people here who find these displays genuinely distressing because of the cultural connotations.
After thinking about all I’ve read here, I still couldn’t think of these people as sectarianists, despite what they were doing. I guess, to me at least, intent really is a crucial distinction.
consciousness razorsays
I keep my beliefs private, and obviously it would have no effect on my interactions with people.
What happens in racist stays in racist. Makes sense.
Actually, no, fuck that. It’s bullshit all the way down.
The only way i can picture this happening is if you are prejudiced against a group that you will literally never be able to encounter.
Not even then. It’s never just about one group. If you think of any group that way, you’ll do the same with others which you do interact with, including your own. Even if you only ever interact with the group you identify with, you’ll treat it as having special properties (almost always “positive” ones, which isn’t to say that’s a good thing). Even if you were raised by wolves and never interact with another human being, there are still the fucking wolves to be biased toward, probably somewhat differently for the male and female wolves. But it doesn’t need to be a bias relative to the way you’d think about and treat others,* it could just be biased with respect to how they are in reality by themselves.
*I stress “and” because it’s a package deal.
glendonsays
#216
Sure. We’ve already established that it was a hypothetical example and that hypotheticals aren’t welcome round these parts. I thought it was relevant, but hey; who am I to argue?
consciousness razorsays
We’ve already established that it was a hypothetical example and that hypotheticals aren’t welcome round these parts.
They’re welcome, but bullshit isn’t.
I thought it was relevant, but hey; who am I to argue?
You are arguing, so are you asking me who you are?
glendonsays
It was intended as an illustration of the division between the belief and the action that is a consequence of the belief, for the purposes of defining a linguistic distinction.
To argue that the cause is never present without the effect misses the point. i.e. that conceptually the effect is always distinct from the cause (fairly basic philosophy of science stuff). I’ve said over and over why I think that matters in this case, so I won’t bore you by repeating myself again.
it fact I would even concede the point if you will agree that, given that requirement, one could not call (or at least know) that the actions of the subject of this blog post were racist.
you’ve not understood a damn thing I wrote in my previous comment, I see.
When the author makes the assertion that the USA is a racist nation, evidenced by the actions of a single (seemingly insane) man, then I think it is worth pointing out the irony.
you are confused by the fact that it’s in fact not “evidenced by”, but “exemplified by”. That America is a racist nation is already established, this is merely anexample of it.
No argument with that. That is pretty much in line with what I was saying.
lol. no it isn’t, since you deny that racism can exist without racist intent, while the comment you think you’re agreeing with is saying that racism is present regardless of racist intent.
so I don’t need any lectures about the language
you don’t want such lectures, but it’s pretty ovious you do need them.
After thinking about all I’ve read here, I still couldn’t think of these people as sectarianists, despite what they were doing
and yet, Guy Fawkes day is nonetheless a display of the continued sectarianism in the UK, as mild and nigh inconsequential as it has become at this point.
Your unwillingness to use “bad” words to describe people you prefer to think of as “not-bad” is tedious and is making language useless. Intent is simply not relevant when the topic is the kyriarchy
I guess, to me at least, intent really is a crucial distinction.
the concept of microaggressions would blow your empty mind.
We’ve already established that it was a hypothetical example and that hypotheticals aren’t welcome round these parts.
I’d accuse you of lying, but that would be overestimating your reading comprehension.
But who knows, maybe you do know the difference between useful, realistic hypotheticals and useless, unrealistic ones.
It was intended as an illustration of the division between the belief and the action that is a consequence of the belief, for the purposes of defining a linguistic distinction.
and it failed, because it presented something that doesn’t and can’t exist (a hyperspecific bias that has no external effects), while the word “racist” and “racism” refer to things that do exist. hypotheticals that require impossible premises merely serve to demonstrate the uselessness of the idea they’re used to demonstrate.
To argue that the cause is never present without the effect misses the point.
except that’s not the argument, it’s simply the reason why your idiotic hypothetical is useless.
that conceptually the effect is always distinct from the cause
no, REALLY?!
idiot.
as if anyone argued that. however, since racism is the effect, not as you claim the cause, you are still wrong. you are the one who insists on not just committing the FAE, but on making that error the defining feature of racism, thus rendering the word useless.
consciousness razorsays
To argue that the cause is never present without the effect misses the point. i.e. that conceptually the effect is always distinct from the cause (fairly basic philosophy of science stuff).
Then let’s do some more fairly basic philosophy of science stuff.
i.e. if nobody knows your [sic] racist, you aren’t!
If no effect of X can be observed, how could anyone say X exists, much less anything else about it? Instead of “there is a racist,” you may as well say “there is a ghost.” How can anyone know that?
By your own definition (because you insist it’s the right one), this thing you’ve defined (at least by all appearances) doesn’t exist. So what’s the use of your definition? Is it to talk about things which do exist, to talk about things which don’t, to stop talking about them?
glendonsays
lol. no it isn’t, since you deny that racism can exist without racist intent, while the comment you think you’re agreeing with is saying that racism is present regardless of racist intent.
No it doesn’t, it says that racist people may be attracted to the image, which is quite a quite different claim. An image, incidentally, that’s production was apparently (according to your definition) itself a racist act, given that the cropped image appears more racist than the original.
I’m quite happy to leave that sort of reasoning to you.
I’m quite happy to leave that sort of reasoning to you.
and the world will be better for it, too, given the quality of “reasoning” you present. just what do you imagine it means to say “racist people will be attracted” to the image?
that’s production was apparently (according to your definition) itself a racist act
oh? what racially differential effect did the cropping have that the effigy itself doesn’t? I’m quite curious whether you can actually justify that claim.
jefrirsays
We’ve already established that it was a hypothetical example and that hypotheticals aren’t welcome round these parts.
The problem wasn’t that it was a hypothetical. The problem was that it was a stupid hypothetical.
glendonsays
you are the one who insists on not just committing the FAE, but on making that error the defining feature of racism, thus rendering the word useless.
Not true, I have made no claim about the origin of the belief. I have certainly not claimed that racism is intrinsic.
glendonsays
oh? what racially differential effect did the cropping have that the effigy itself doesn’t? I’m quite curious whether you can actually justify that claim.
That the image of a single black man hanging from a noose carries very different cultural connotations to the image of a lorry full of senior officials hanging from nooses. The image would not have been produced otherwise.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
The problem wasn’t that it was a hypothetical. The problem was that it was a stupid hypothetical.
QFT.
Most hypotheticals do tend to be stupid hypotheticals. Which is why hypotheticals don’t go over well here.
Not true, I have made no claim about the origin of the belief. I have certainly not claimed that racism is intrinsic.
jesus fuck, you’re dumb.
let me try again, in smaller steps, since you lack even the most basic ability to follow a condensed argument
1)the definition of racism as prejudice+action, as shown in the OED, is based on the fundamental attribution error which assumes that an action must be caused by a disposition rather than cisrumstances
2)removing the FAE from the definition leaves the action alone, and does no effective damage to the meaning of the word. i is in fact more useful now, since it can now describe racism where no intent can be determined
3)you OTOH are doing the opposite. not only are you yourself insisting that racism can only be based on something internal to the actor, rather than on something external, you’re attempting to enshrine that error in the definition of racism by leaving only the erroneous assumption of racist internal motivation, while removing the actual thing described, which is the racist action.
That the image of a single black man hanging from a noose carries very different cultural connotations to the image of a lorry full of senior officials hanging from nooses.
does it? given that you just admitted not to know shit about US culture, how confident are you in this claim?
Besides, I asked you for effects.
glendonsays
1)the definition of racism as prejudice+action, as shown in the OED, is based on the fundamental attribution error which assumes that an action must be caused by a disposition rather than cisrumstances
No, it refers to a state of mind or belief. For it to be a fundamental attribution error it would have to further claim that the attitude was a result of disposition or nature. It doesn’t, so it isn’t!
glendonsays
does it? given that you just admitted not to know shit about US culture, how confident are you in this claim?
Besides, I asked you for effects.
Well it’s pretty hard to live anywhere on the planet and know nothing about US culture. I was exaggerating a little perhaps. In any case, the cultural impact of such an image and it’s effects on those who might feel threatened by it were detailed further up. Indeed, they were fundamental to the assertion that it was the effect of the image rather than the intent of the display that should inform how we view the action.
repeating a disproved claim does not make it true. I’ve already shown that the ?OED definition is one for prejudice+action, your denial of that basic fact and of the fact that the OED conveniently gives the word for prejudice-only (“racialism”) notwithstanding
For it to be a fundamental attribution error it would have to further claim that the attitude was a result of disposition or nature. It doesn’t, so it isn’t!
incorrect. the FOE lies in ascribing an internal cause to the act of racism, hence the prejudice+action definition.
glendonsays
incorrect. the FOE lies in ascribing an internal cause to the act of racism, hence the prejudice+action definition.
Only if the internal cause is dispositional. There is nothing to prevent a belief being situational (indeed, most are).
In any case, the cultural impact of such an image and it’s effects on those who might feel threatened by it were detailed further up
again, what makes you so certain the cultural connotations of the whole assemblage is sufficiently different than that of the cropped image to produce different effects?
You’re actually going to have to argue that point, not merely assert it, if you want me to take your claim seriously.
effects on those who might feel threatened by it
incidentally not the only way that the effigies are racist
Indeed, they were fundamental to the assertion that it was the effect of the image rather than the intent of the display that should inform how we view the action.
well no, they’re not fundamental to that definition, they’re simply one way in which the effigies are racist. another one is the one you’re ignoring(or failing to recognize?) is the effect on “racists”
consciousness razorsays
glendon, how do you know there are racists?
I’m guessing it’s not probably by reading their definition.
Only if the internal cause is dispositional. There is nothing to prevent a belief being situational (indeed, most are).
a belief is not an action (it is however part of a disposition). the FAE deals with misattribution of actions, not beliefs.
glendonsays
again, what makes you so certain the cultural connotations of the whole assemblage is sufficiently different than that of the cropped image to produce different effects?
I’m by no means certain, but I guess that since someone went to the effort of cropping the image, the impact of the two were different. Do you think that they carry different impacts? (genuine question as I presume that you are from the US)
well no, they’re not fundamental to that definition, they’re simply one way in which the effigies are racist. another one is the one you’re ignoring(or failing to recognize?) is the effect on “racists”
Actually I’m happy to acknowledge that they might have such effects, and I’m happy to acknowledge that the display should not have been for that reason. I just don’t acknowledge that that makes the display racist of itself.
daniellavinesays
@glendon:
1
: a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race
2
: racial prejudice or discrimination
I guess both are acceptable. So why are you wasting everyone’s time?
glendonsays
glendon, how do you know there are racists?
In the same way that I know (to use a clichéd example) that my wife loves me; I can see their actions and I can read and hear their words. Their motives I can infer. We can have the debate about gnosticism if you want, but if you thought the semantic discussions were navel-gazing…
I don’t. A figure black man hung in effigy will produce the same effect whether surrounded by a bunch of white figures or not, for a whole host of reasons (for example, interpreting them as”race-traitor” hangings would leave the context the same). the only way the effect could be different is if a person failed to notice the black figure, which is at least a possibility in a larger photograph if not paying attention, but not possible in the closeup.
glendonsays
a belief is not an action (it is however part of a disposition). the FAE deals with misattribution of actions, not beliefs.
It can be but it doesn’t have to be. Disposition has a slightly tighter definition than that. Regardless, I don’t think that FAE has very much to do with this discussion.
I just don’t acknowledge that that makes the display racist of itself.
and we’re back to “intent is magic”
your definition is functionally useless, and will therefore not be used here or anywhere else that actually wishes to do something about racism.
daniellavinesays
@glendon:
You’ve contributed nothing of any value to this conversation, but you have neatly derailed into onto the subject of how fucking stupid you are.
How does your concern trolling help address racism? You know, the real problem real people in the real world really face? As opposed to the way racism works in your ridiculous hypothetical scenario?
glendonsays
I don’t. A figure black man hung in effigy will produce the same effect whether surrounded by a bunch of white figures or not, for a whole host of reasons (for example, interpreting them as”race-traitor” hangings would leave the context the same)
Fine, like I said, I’m sure that you are a better judge than me, and it doesn’t affect how I view the act (as opposed to the consequences).
In any case I am still a little suspicious of the motives of whoever made the image, particularly the removal of all context, though perhaps this was not a concious effort by any one person. Do you agree that the contextual information would affect how you viewed the picture?
Disposition has a slightly tighter definition than that.
ture enough; but irrelevant, since “disposition” and “belief” are actually both internal causes, and the Fundamental Attribution Error deals with internal vs external causes, not specifically with disposition alone.
And again, it deals with the ascription of internal causes to behaviors, not to other internal factors
Regardless, I don’t think that FAE has very much to do with this discussion.
yeah, it’s already been noticed that following a line of reasoning is not your strong suit
daniellavinesays
@glendon:
Something other than nitpicky concern trolling please. You’re being tedious.
In any case I am still a little suspicious of the motives of whoever made the image, particularly the removal of all context, though perhaps this was not a concious effort by any one person.
and what use is such suspicion of motive, since you’re not going to get an answer?
glendonsays
and we’re back to “intent is magic”
No, intent is latent. I work with lots of datasets which do not directly measure the co-variate that I’m actually interested in. In some cases the co-variates themselves do not relate to any meaningful biological concept. That does not mean that they are irrelevant or that I cannot define them and use them to address real-world problems.
Ichthyicsays
It simply doesn’t matter whether the guy who made the Obama hanging in effigy thing was himself racist or not.
it wouldn’t have played UNLESS he figured a good portion of the audience seeing it was.
…and brother don’t you EVER try and tell me there aren’t racists in Florida.
Do you agree that the contextual information would affect how you viewed the picture?
I wonder why you think this will get a different answer than the one I’ve already given you to the functionally similar question in #238?
Or are you asking me “in general”? because if so, the answer is of course “it depends”, since some forms of context removal change the message received, and some don’t.
consciousness razorsays
In the same way that I know (to use a clichéd example) that my wife loves me; I can see their actions and I can read and hear their words. Their motives I can infer.
If there is no action, you can’t make an inference. So, you’d have no reason to say someone is a racist without there being an action. So your definition would make it impossible to be reasonable about calling someone racist.
But really, the point isn’t that the person is racist (or bad in some other way), so we need to get rid of them (or whatever). Their actions are the sort of things we’re worried about, and those are what we need to get rid of. It doesn’t do any good to tell someone, “stop being the sort of person you are, which I can’t even describe because that sort of thing has no observable effects anyway.” But you can make a difference if you say, “stop this thing you’re doing which is bad, and here is why it’s bad, and here’s what you can do.”
Is none of that relevant?
We can have the debate about gnosticism if you want, but if you thought the semantic discussions were navel-gazing…
If I thought that, then what? Do you think this is what making an argument is like?
vaiytsays
Racism is the popular, general term for racist attitudes. It makes sense to adopt the term as an useful descriptor, because it doesn’t give an out for people to argue “it’s not really racism” ad infinitum. Racism as intent is not an useful descriptor, because we can’t read minds. If Zimmerman, or Kanazawa, or [insert racist jackass of your choice here] says that in their heart of hearts they aren’t racist, how can we disprove them, if not by their actions?
That the image of a single black man hanging from a noose carries very different cultural connotations to the image of a lorry full of senior officials hanging from nooses.
White senior officials don’t belong to a group that was historically subject to extended torture followed by hanging.
Lynching technically refers to mob ‘justice’ in an attempt to intimidate a group of pepole.
“Mob justice” lynchings happened a lot around these parts, and I still think you’re full of shit. In America, lynching gained the specific cultural meaning of “hanging uppity blacks”. Do you think you can go to American society and demand they give your word back?
glendonsays
it wouldn’t have played UNLESS he figured a good portion of the audience seeing it was.
It seems to me, that it has ‘played’ pretty well amongst ant-racists too. Who exactly would have heard of this loon if it wasn’t for twitter and blog posts like this.
daniellavinesays
@glendon:
Care to address the fact that the dictionary lists two definitions, one of which is the one you are using and one of which is the one being used here? What’s your problem with acceptable usage? Why do you hate dictionaries?
It seems to me, that it has ‘played’ pretty well amongst ant-racists too. Who exactly would have heard of this loon if it wasn’t for twitter and blog posts like this.
Great, is this the part where you reveal your conspiracy theories concerning the coming race war? *gets popcorn*
amazingly enough, that actually doesn’t contradict what I said
I work with lots of datasets which do not directly measure the co-variate that I’m actually interested in.
except that the co-variate we’re interested in is not intent, it’s effect, since intent (especially the only kind we can reasonably learn about, i.e. explicit intent) doesn’t correlate with harm, and harm is the only meaningful reason to talk about racism. racism as intent* is a useless concept.
In some cases the co-variates themselves do not relate to any meaningful biological concept.
what a complete non sequitur
– – – – – –
*and since I’m on the topic, which intent? implicit or explicit? does it only count if one is explicitly racially biased? because if implicit bias counts, then the discussion is moot; everyone is implicitly racist, and thus actions once again become the only meaningful distinction
glendonsays
If there is no action, you can’t make an inference. So, you’d have no reason to say someone is a racist without there being an action. So your definition would make it impossible to be reasonable about calling someone racist.
No, I would call them a racist if one could infer from their actions or words that they held racist beliefs. I would further allow that there was, at least, a possibility that someone could be racist without anyone ever knowing.
Nick Gotts (formerly KG)says
Despite the vitriol reserved for those who prefer clear use of the English language, it needs to be stated that people are misuing the word ‘lynch.’ – jenniferherring
No, you’re wrong there: it doesn’t; are you sure your first name is really “Jennifer” and not “Red”? By the way, what is “misuing”?
vaiytsays
No, I would call them a racist if one could infer from their actions or words that they held racist beliefs.
Such an inference would be little more than a guess, making the word useless. Why do you think “I’m not racist but” exists? It’s precisely an attempt to dissociate intent from action.
a possibility that someone could be racist without anyone ever knowing.
what is the use of a definition of “racist” that makes things/people/acts thusly described indistinguishable from “non-racist”?
glendonsays
what a complete non sequitur
Of course, that was sloppy, replace ‘relate’ with ‘correspond’.
except that the co-variate we’re interested in is not intent, it’s effect, since intent (especially the only kind we can reasonably learn about, i.e. explicit intent) doesn’t correlate with harm, and harm is the only meaningful reason to talk about racism. racism as intent* is a useless concept.
Well, obviously I can’t speak for you, but I would view the effect, the harm caused by racism, as the response. It is a consequence of the belief not synonymous with it. You will not succeed in controlling racism without controlling racism as an attitude.
Of course, that was sloppy, replace ‘relate’ with ‘correspond’.
that doesn’t render your ramblings about biology any less of a non sequitur
consciousness razorsays
No, I would call them a racist if one could infer from their actions or words that they held racist beliefs.
So you’re taking this stuff back, then?
Because one school of thought (it has been suggested) equates racism with nothing more than a discriminatory outcome, for the given reason that it is not possible to know another’s mind. If that were so, then a private belief in racial superiority, would not be racist.
I would suggest that that is ‘stupid’.
i.e. if nobody knows your racist, you aren’t!
I disagree with the premise.
Or is it that even though this isn’t your approach, you expect other people to call someone racist when it’s impossible for them to know that?
glendonsays
that doesn’t render your ramblings about biology any less of a non sequitur
Well it illustrates that even a quantity that cannot be measured or defined can be shown to be part of a real functional relationship.
except that it isn’t. sometimes it’s the opposite(the belief is caused by the actions), and most of the time (at least if we’re talking about explicit attitudes) racially differential outcomes are entirely independent of personal biases. that’s why focusing on the biases is so worthless.
You will not succeed in controlling racism without controlling racism as an attitude.
incorrect. if the structures aren’t removed first, racial attitudes will continue forming because of structural racism. OTOH if social structures foster anti-racist action, the attitudes shaped from them will be non- or anti-racist.
Elimination of racism means eliminating race-differential social outcomes. given what we know of psychology, this will result in eventual elimination of bias, but bias prevented by structure from having powerful effects is unimportant
glendonsays
Or is it that even though this isn’t your approach, you expect other people to call someone racist when it’s impossible for them to know that?
No, I allow for the possibility that racism as a concept is distinct but related to the evidence for racism and its consequences. I have been fairly consistent on this.
Well it illustrates that even a quantity that cannot be measured or defined can be shown to be part of a real functional relationship
I am beginning to get quite curious what you imagine the relevance of this to be
vaiytsays
I would further allow that there was, at least, a possibility that someone could be racist without anyone ever knowing.
The question is not whether it gets known (ffs nobody thinks a sneaky racist is not racist), but whether it has consequences in the external world.
If there is some magical person who has racist intentions that never manifest in any way, how would you ever know they’re racist at all? You yourself said the only way to tell someone is racist is by their actions, so why not cut the nebulous middleman and just call the actions themselves racist?
glendonsays
incorrect. if the structures aren’t removed first, racial attitudes will continue forming because of structural racism. OTOH if social structures foster anti-racist action, the attitudes shaped from them will be non- or anti-racist.
Elimination of racism means eliminating race-differential social outcomes. given what we know of psychology, this will result in eventual elimination of bias, but bias prevented by structure from having powerful effects is unimportant
Indeed, but I did not claim that racism was dispositional; I believe quite the opposite. What you describe is a very good way of controlling the attitude.
why not cut the nebulous middleman and just call the actions themselves racist?
because intent is magic. latent magic.
vaiytsays
No, I allow for the possibility that racism as a concept is distinct but related to the evidence for racism and its consequences.
I’m just going to quote myself again.
Racism/racist is the popular, general term for racist attitudes. It makes sense to adopt the term as an useful descriptor, because it doesn’t give an out for people to argue “it’s not really racism” ad infinitum. Racism as intent is not an useful descriptor, because we can’t read minds. If [insert racist jackass of your choice here] says that in their heart of hearts they aren’t racist, how can we disprove them, if not by their actions?
Indeed, but I did not claim that racism was dispositional;
irrelevant, since we’re not discussing disposition.
What you describe is a very good way of controlling the attitude.
congratulations on missing the point. controlling attitude is a side-effect, and mostly irrelevant to fighting racism
glendonsays
I am beginning to get quite curious what you imagine the relevance of this to be
Simply that one of the objections to my position is that under the definition I am using racism cannot be directly observed or known. As such, I am told, why not cut out the middle-man and use a related, observable definition.
My point is that, in my work, if I did that, I would get the wrong answer.
Clearly I am not arguing for a mathematical treatment of racism, but the principle stands that simply being unobservable does not make a concept useless.
glendonsays
congratulations on missing the point. controlling attitude is a side-effect, and mostly irrelevant to fighting racism
In your experience perhaps. I would say it has been a very effective method here. Again, perhaps we are back to cultural differences.
Simply that one of the objections to my position is that under the definition I am using racism cannot be directly observed or known.
no, that’s false. by your definition, it also cannot be indirectly observed or known, since you claimed that racism can exist without producing effects.
things that don’t produce any measurable effect, direct or indirect, are functionally non-existent; in addition, there actually isn’t such a thing as an attitude that doesn’t produce externalized effects, so your definition also applies to something that’s actually non-existent.
consequently, it’s a useless definition
but the principle stands that simply being unobservable does not make a concept useless.
on gthe other hand, being indistinguishable from its opposite, as well as not actually existing, does render a definition useless.
*sigh* Florida. Why is it always Florida? What- what is it, something in the water there that turns people stupid? Is it the heat? Why are these people stuck 60 years in the past? What the hell is wrong with people?!
Scotland. the land to which social and psychological theories of humanity don’t apply, because something something.
lololol
consciousness razorsays
My point is that, in my work, if I did that, I would get the wrong answer.
What’s your line of work? Ghost hunting? Theology?
I guess you don’t have to be too specific, but if you’re going to rely on an analogy to make your point, it would help to know what it is.
glendonsays
by your definition, it also cannot be indirectly observed or known, since you claimed that racism can exist without producing effects.
things that don’t produce any measurable effect, direct or indirect, are
I was fairly explicit that in the real-world it was generally associated with discriminatory behaviour. That is not the same as saying that it was synonymous with the the behaviour.
glendonsays
What’s your line of work? Ghost hunting? Theology?
Or maybe Scotland is populated entirely by azi, and they’ve simply all had new deepteach tapes that reconstructed their attitudes so that their actions would be different. that’s a possibility. of course.
I apologize, I was not aware Scotland was on Cyteen.
I was fairly explicit that in the real-world it was generally associated with discriminatory behaviour.
irrelevant, unless you want to backtrack your hypothetical and acknowledge that a definition of racism that allows for such a scenario is useless.
Ichthyicsays
It seems to me, that it has ‘played’ pretty well amongst ant-racists too. Who exactly would have heard of this loon if it wasn’t for twitter and blog posts like this.
I was fairly explicit that in the real-world it was generally associated with discriminatory behaviour.
actually, that’s not just irrelevant to the function of your definition, it’s also wrong. if we’re talking about implicit bias, then it’s meaningless to say it’s associated with discriminatory behavior, since everyone has implicit racial bias and thus everyone who participates in discriminatory behavior does; and if we’re talking about explicit bias, then discriminatory behavior is independent of it, and in fact is often done by people without explicit bias, especially in the case of microaggressions
glendonsays
irrelevant, unless you want to backtrack your hypothetical and acknowledge that a definition of racism that allows for such a scenario is useless
Not particularly.
Anyway, this isn’t really going anywhere, I don’t find your arguments particularly persuasive, and I guess that you can say the same for me. Besides, its late, and I’m back at work tomorrow.
Thank you for your responses, they were certainly interesting to read even if I haven’t changed my own views significantly. I will come back to them later.
That is not the same as saying that it was synonymous with the the behaviour.
another curious sentence. nobody claimed that prejudice is synonymous with behavior, nor is anyone accusing glendon of making that claim. and yet, here and in previous statements, glendon keeps on mentioning it as if it were relevant.
wonder whether he’s confusing “included together” with “synonymous”?
Anrisays
You are arguing that your own mind is not ‘reality’ unless it affects the wider world. Your own inner dialogue is meaningless unless you communicate it?
Late to the party as usual, but…
If I dislike Xenomorphs, am I a racist?
How about Kzinti? They seem right bastards.
Anrisays
(I would have made a Pony reference, but Janine got there first, and better!)
antepreprosays
glendon, you are profoundly tedious. Your hands have been wrung so thoroughly that I am convinced that they should be no more than flaps of flesh and powdered bone by now.
StevoRsays
Meh. If you go beyond the original – and misleading, argaubly cherry-picked – picture this turns out to have nothing to do with racism and very little to do with Obama and the election at all.
Just one man’s strange and rather imaginative albeit provocative protest vehicle (literally!) against powerful people he thinks have done him and his family a horrendous wrong. He could even be right.
Creative, eye-catching, odd protest method against an apparent injustice. Something I think most of us would usually support in the abstract if not in this specific case which I think very few of us know enough about to really judge.
There are plenty of white effigy “corpses” swinging alongside Obama. If seven hanged whites and one hanged black is evidence of racism of any kind then it’d seem more like racism directed at whites than blacks.
Obama was only added to the truck of executed wrongdoers because in this person’s view he has failed to investigate a murder and cover up by the authorities and thus denying him justice.
Meaning as Martin Luther King’s could have famous described it : Obama here is not being judged by the colour of his skin but rather by his (in)action. Equally with and alongside other powerful white people who this protester thinks has done him great injustice.
Its not a racist threat or imagined vision of lynching but rather an imagined execution scene presumably following a proper trial. Plenty of people of all “races” have been executed over the centuries and all over the planet for various reasons almost always good.
Nothing to do with the election, nothing to do with race.
There is plenty of real racism out there, sadly. More than enough to note that this blog and those on it should avoid cherry picking and making a hugely misleading thing out of something that a bit of research quickly reveals isn’t what its being claimed to be.
Guess I’m now going t o be flamed for calmly and rationally pointing this out?
StevoRsays
@7 & # 8. No One : Thanks for those clips giving us the actual story here or at least a lot more of it.
@38.Shiroferetto :
RELUCTANTLY:
I don’t know the full story. I reckon I could look it up. The video clearly shows that the original truck was full of white people, the people he had on large signs were white people. Obama was probably added to give it some ‘oomph.
If you’ve got 7 white people hanging from nooses and one black one hanging from a noose, I’m going to go out on a limb (get it?) and say it isn’t racism.He may be a southern redneck dumbass (not all southerners are dumbasses or rednecks), but in this case, I do not see him displaying racism.
&
@47.ChasCPeterson :
The effect, if racist, was caused by the people who took the photograph of a single effigy, in one version cropped further to improve the illusion, and tweeted it or flickered it or instagrammed it or tumblrd it or blogged it representing it as something it’s not–not just intended not, but actually not.
G**gle-image ‘hung effigy’ and find a truly racist example (that asshole Terry Jones), plus that totally sexist one of Sarah Palin from 4 years ago, and also a chair and various white guys.
Guess I’m now going t o be flamed for calmly and rationally pointing this out?
You just tried to “calmly and rationally” explain away a grotesque depiction of violence, you asshole.
Nick Gotts (formerly KG)says
StevoR shows once again what a lackwit he is.
vaiytsays
@glendon
Simply that one of the objections to my position is that under the definition I am using racism cannot be directly observed or known. As such, I am told, why not cut out the middle-man and use a related, observable definition.
My point is that, in my work, if I did that, I would get the wrong answer.
This isn’t your work, in case you haven’t already noticed. We’re talking about people’s thoughts. As far as we’re concerned, thought that has no external consequences is none of our business. It’s not like we can even know it exists.
You’re exhibiting the hallmark of crackpot philosophers: deciding on an idiosyncractic definition of words nobody else uses, then arguing against the common definition using your definition.
I have to ask you. Suppose we all decide to use your definition of racism. Let’s say we call the manifestation of racist attitudes “pflergpxx”. So what? What changes? It’s still just as deplorable.
You don’t get to muddle the discourse with “it’s not Racism, it’s pflergpxx”. If this is called pflergpxx, it’s that we’re fighting against.
America is a pflergpxxist nation, and that’s fucking terrible.
@StevoR:
Way to barge in the thread, jackass. You basically rehashed yet again what other people have already said, ignoring the counter-arguments.
antepreprosays
Way to barge in the thread, jackass. You basically rehashed yet again what other people have already said, ignoring the counter-arguments.
P.Z., not sure about the provenance on this one. An alternate story here:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/man-travels-the-country-in-trucks-hanging-obama-fr
Not that this version is any better.
Geee, nothing racist at all there. How could anyone ever say such a thing? *sigh* But the guy behind these things says he is not a racist in this article:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/man-travels-the-country-in-trucks-hanging-obama-fr
This display shows that many of Obama’s opponents’ objection to him is not that he’s a fascist socialist Muslim atheist but that he’s Black.
Sickening, but not surprising.
This is why I don’t like the southern states.
Damn, beaten to the punch.
No One, the top photo in the news story you linked to says it was taken in Jacksonville, Florida. Looks like it is same effigy. It has been traveling for months now.
And:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uM804ybqGCE&list=UU6Gp2cjYMmyt8jegOCII6rA&index=2&feature=plcp
And:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46xq1ig8dAk&feature=relmfu
This guy is gone.
At the Sherrifs dept:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3M6Xl79C7Uo&feature=relmfu
This is one scary photograph – whether you’re black or white, Republican or Democrat, American or from Timbuktu. It’s scary because it is so damnably stupid. Hanging effigies should be saved for serious bastards. Not presidents – and especially not in a country that has a record of killing (or trying to kill) its presidents.
Phipps says he’s protesting the murders of family members by local law enforcement. He says that a cover-up has successfully prevented him from getting justice for his family.
“All we want is what Trayvon Martin’s family wants. Justice,” Phipps says in a video on his YouTube channel.
The quote is from the Buzzfeed article about him. His family members were killed in 1995. Why did he start doing this 3 years ago? & what could President Obama do about it?
Here’s the VR Phipps’ blog; Patriot Times
“You say it’s racism, well, I tell you it’s not. It’s absolutely not. We have been hanging people in effigy when George Bush was President. I would have hanged him no problem. It wouldn’t have been a problem at all.”
“…You see but I didn’t hang GW because he had all the pigments that I agrees with.”
I don’t think that the hanging in effigy is the problem…it was just for a long time in the south the hanging of certain people wasn’t effigy-ey.
Woooooooooooooooow. Oh. Bloody. God. I’m embarrassed to live.
They all have the same story.
https://proxy.freethought.online/crommunist/2012/09/26/no-noose-is-good-noose/
@#8
Love the way he pronounces “law-yerrs”
Who is he getting talking-points from (by phone) around 3:00 in the first video?
Still watching, but so far I don’t see anything crooked.
For the record, this display actually has little or nothing to do with the election and even less with racism. For one thing, there are at least seven other hung effigies on the same truck, and they all appear to depict palefaces. You can see one of them–wearing what looks like judge’s robes–in the pic shown in the OP.
But go ahead and keep on jerkin’ yer knees about it.
@#8
Done watching Video 1. I still have seen neither “harassment” nor “corruption”….
Oh look Chas came on to complain about those knee jerk liberals. Chas, since Pharyngula bugs you so much let me give you some advice, see that big [X] in the upper right corner?
Interesting?
Somewhere between dismal and frightening is more like it. Far as I’m concerned, Romney will set the USA back 50 years if we are lucky.
This guy in Oregon was just filling in people’s ballots for them after they were submitted. Which is a clear felony.
There have been a lot of reports of voter registration fraud and voter fraud already. The best known is the GOP company throwing away Democratic voter registrations in Florida and Virginia.
The vast majority of those reports of fraud involved the Tea Party/GOP. They really don’t much like democracy. One wonders just how much GOP fraud is ongoing that hasn’t been caught.
Here’s another nice touch:
http://www.news.com.au/world/offensive-put-the-white-back-in-the-white-house-t-shirt-spotted-at-romney-rally/story-fndir2ev-1226496014036
Jeebus. This guy has a problem with the world, and Obama’s just a part of it.
Race is still a huge problem in this country, but when we call *anything* against Obama racist, it just dilutes the impact of the people who are actually being racist.
From the article at NonStampCollector’s link:
Wow, ChasC, you sure told us! Care to wash your hands now?
fuckin hell.
and I thought those damned chairs in nooses after the republican convention was bad…
You know, I’d forgotten that there’s no historical context to black men and nooses in the US…
Look I don’t mind people correcting the story at all, in fact they should obviously. But treating that seeing this as racist upon first glance is some out of control knee jerk irrational reaction is just fucking stupid.
The earlier editions of Phipps’s lynch wagon don’t include an Obama effigy.
I seriously question how anyone could be so fucking stupid as to honestly want that and believe that making themselves look like the most incredulous, frantic, hysterical, fanatical, no nothing, hick is the best way to do that.
Why does anyone think that this is a valid course of action to achieving your goal.
The wingnut response on Wednesday is going to be EPIC.
“The wingnut response on Wednesday is going to be EPIC.”
otoh, the USA has many talented people who could write terrific music with only We. Wuz. Robbed. as lyrics.
(Note, I am going with the Nate Silver prediction at the moment, despite him being
http://www.examiner.com/article/the-far-left-turns-to-nate-silver-for-wisdom-on-the-polls?cid=db_articles)
Officially, they appear ready to blame Sandy. Unofficially, I’m dying to see how much crazier the conspiracy theories can get than they were for the President’s first four years.
On the original topic, I gotta hand it to the guy, that’s a darn good likeness*. Usually effigies look like a stolen scarecrow or something made of papier-mache by a 2nd grade class that’s jacked up on Pixy Stix and Kool Aid.
*Except for the leather vest. WTF is up with that?
Why is it that conservatives think that doing or saying something overtly racist is OK, as long as they tack a disclaimer on the end, saying that they’re not a racist. It’s like saying, “Well, sure I took all the money from the teller at gunpoint, but I’m not a bank robber.”
It’s not cognitive dissonance anymore. It’s mental illness.
I really feel like I’m living the ancient Chinese Curse – – “May you live in interesting times. ” With hundreds of millions being spent by PACs trying to buy the elections, and with the far right “Tea Party” goons putting hard-right wankers on the ballot. It’s as if the choice is vote democrat or go back to some wild inverted Dickensian dystopia, where everyone who isn’t rich is Tom Cratchett or Oliver Twist.
Poor old USA, the rest of the world is watching and shaking it’s head.
It amazing that the choice between the two candidates even rates a discussion. Vote for a man who is rational, accepts and acknowledges science and scientist, has softened the blow of what could have been a much worse economic recession (you guys have no idea how much he helped you dodge a bigger bullet) he has done his damn best for his country considering the huge amount of cock blocking he copped from the republicans…AND the other choice is a guy who thinks his God lives out in space on planet Kolob and who would drop his pants at a moments notice to appease his tea party right wing theorcratic nutjobs?
Not that hard a choice people.
Come to think of it, this bloke reminds me of a lot of the people who used to ring us up. Magnificentmr was on the phone roster for a civil liberties association. Because most of the membership were lawyers, ‘they’ ran a legal services contact number – which ended up being our private phone for months at a time. It was quick and easy when the cops were banging on someone’s door – we just looked up the number of the on-duty solicitor. Done and dusted.
And then there were the folks who rang us only after they’d exhausted every legal avenue, every social service pursuing something that had happened a long, sometimes a very long, time ago. 20+ years ago for one of them. There was absolutely nothing that anyone could do for them. They strongly resisted any personal or family counselling no matter how indirectly or tactfully we guided them. (It probably would have required them facing the fact that it was all over.)
Mrm came up with the notion that it was like dealing with characters in a sci fi novel. These people were “stopped” in a profound way.
Whether the event was a death or a financial dispute or some other catastrophe, it was as though they’d been under a cartoon-style deluge of something sticky and inescapable. And some of them looked to carry this unbearable burden for the rest of their lives.
The sad thing is that this didn’t really shock me. I guess the way that the overt racism of many in this country has been exposed in the past four years has left me somewhat desensitized. It is a stupid and hateful display. And sadly, I expect it out of some places.
I just wish I could figure out what could have possibly been the catalyst for this coming out so strongly over the past four years. One of life’s mysteries, I suppose.
That’s fucking scary
Nor me.
What did shock me was an accidental visit to the vile depths of American Stinker just before the last election. I’d followed an educational discussion and then clicked on a couple of items. What a mistake! I will not repeat the disgusting racial slurs I found there, but no-one would have been surprised to see the same things said in the 1950s or earlier.
RELUCTANTLY:
I don’t know the full story. I reckon I could look it up. The video clearly shows that the original truck was full of white people, the people he had on large signs were white people. Obama was probably added to give it some ‘oomph.
If you’ve got 7 white people hanging from nooses and one black one hanging from a noose, I’m going to go out on a limb (get it?) and say it isn’t racism.
He may be a southern redneck dumbass (not all southerners are dumbasses or rednecks), but in this case, I do not see him displaying racism.
Chas,
Maybe the intent wasn’t racist, but the result sure as hell is.
Your right, – there’s something more important than the choice between the two candidates, and that’s the long-term trend towards increased public spending.
In Europe, it’s led to a situation where the viability of whole nations and democracy are being compromised because there are so many people who stand to benefit from increased public spending that no party stands a chance of being elected unless it promises to keep the largesse flowing. Want evidence?: Greece, Portugal, Spain, and or come to that, virtually ever W. European nation to a greater or lesser degree.
And how many round here stand to benefit from public money? My guess is that, in line with Marxist theory, the whole collective pharyngulite consciousness is influenced by the thought that there’ll be more coming from Obama.
You don’t really follow Greece nad Spain, do you? FFS, Greece was caused by right wingers destroying the civil service and pilfering EU Aid money.
If you think Obama is at all marxist, you are so far off from reality that it’s sending you post-cards.
Considering that he gets more harshly criticized than a white dude for doing the same thing, and has his race called into question quite frequently, racism is a sound default conclusion.
It’s a fucking noose. On a black man. In fucking Florida. Have some fucking sense. Even if it’s on white people too, it is still racist, because black people have kind of a fucking history with nooses in the USA, especially in fucking florida.
clastum3,
Tell me, as a citizen of the UK who is in work and never taken a day’s benefits in his life (although no doubt I have benefited from public works like roads, schools, blah blah blah) precisely how is this “more coming from Obama” going to reach me? Where’s my cheque?
Also, this “whole collective pharyngulite consciousness” thing, how does this work, and where does one get involved? I agree with some Pharyngula regulars about some things, with some others about some other things, and with some others about apparently very little. How can one be incorporated into this collective consciousness and does it result in getting the lovely, lovely big, fat, Obama-cash at some point?
Enquiring minds want to know. No. Really. It’s not like your comment is a mockable huff of delusional drivel. Please enlighten us.
Louis
Nope. What’s threatening viability and compromising democracy most immediately is the idiotic insistence of European governments, particularly that in Germany, on southern European Eurozone members slashing spending and wages in the midst of a serious recession – plus widespread tax evasion and corruption in Greece and Italy. Beyond that, it’s the Euro itself – more precisely, currency union without economic and political union, which has left southern European countries unable to devalue to restore competitiveness; and far right scum like you.
Nick,
But surely you must know that Europe is a wasteland because of Teh Socialisms?
I mean I have to scrape by day to day on my State Bread Scrap and occasionally go to the Ministry of Propaganda for Reprogramming.*
I get a bit shirty when the banter between those of us lucky enough to live in a proper and our benighted Colonial Cousins Who Worship Burgers drifts into ignorant insults based on nothing more than jingoistic agitprop. Can’t they understand that WE are better than THEM?**
Louis
*Sadly it wasn’t too far away, in time or space, that these things were true for many. Well, true-ish. Well, at least truthy.
**I am now worried that this piece of satire will be too subtle for some. Nahhhh. Surely not.
That’s one of the problems with guessing, which is a nice way to confirm what you already believe without waiting for any pesky facts that might tell you you’re wrong.
Did you know that, according to IRS and census bureau figures, it’s the “red” states that are most likely to receive more federal aid than they pay for? The notion that conservatives are more self-reliant is bunk.
My guess is that what you know about Marxist theory would fit into a nematode’s brain, with plenty of room to spare. You might start your reading with this elementary wikipedia article on false consciousness.
(For clarity, I’m not a Marxist, but I object to fuckwitted jackasses spouting off about things they know nothing about.)
The effect, if racist, was caused by the people who took the photograph of a single effigy, in one version cropped further to improve the illusion, and tweeted it or flickered it or instagrammed it or tumblrd it or blogged it representing it as something it’s not–not just intended not, but actually not.
G**gle-image ‘hung effigy’ and find a truly racist example (that asshole Terry Jones), plus that totally sexist one of Sarah Palin from 4 years ago, and also a chair and various white guys.
FFS I thought I’d seen it all.
You really do come across as stupid sometimes, Chas. As several people have already pointed out, there is a long history of black people, particularly “uppity” ones, being lynched in the southern states. That means that whatever the intent, and whatever the context, displaying an effigy of a black person being hanged has a hugely different effect from displaying an effigy of a white person being hanged.
Chas,
The racist effect was caused by the history of white US people hanging black men frequently and with great enthusiasm.
Wow, Chas. You really upped the bar there with your willful ignorance about racism and historical expressions of racism in the US.
My guess is that, in line with Marxist theory, the whole collective pharyngulite consciousness is influenced by the thought that there’ll be more coming from Obama.
How could I? I have a good full-time job, full medical, vision, dental, and mental health benefits, and my kids are in great schools. Or maybe you mean “more coming” in the way of “fewer people around me obviously dying of lack of those things”. Yeah, I’d vote for that.
Whereas clustum3 would obviously vote against it.
Racist or not, it’s still freakin’ psychotic.
clastum3,
The internet was invented by the government.
Get off of it before you are corrupted by Evil Marxist Forces.
– – –
On a related note, I have been turning a possibly stupid question over in my little mind, and wanted to toss it out in front of a bunch of people better educated than myself (which, truth to tell, is almost anyone, but them’s the breaks):
With the (arguable) exception of anti-Communism, have social conservatives ever been right about any issue, in the long-term?
Slavery.
Voting rights.
Civil rights.
Marriage equality.
Etc.
I can’t think of anything (possible exception noted) that US social conservatives have really gotten right over the last… let’s say 200 years or so. Am I missing something obvious?
Anri:
The Jeebus makes them think they’re right. God wouldn’t have given them the goofy ideas if they weren’t the right ideas, after all.
Oh well. I’m sure on election day Obama will hang in there. Ohhhh…let me rephrase that, no need to be so high strung…DAMN! I did it aga… Okay, one last try. I’m sure he will be in the White House for us to put continued pressure on to do the right thing. Rmoney and the GOP/TeaBaggers/Randbots wouldn’t even register what we were saying.
Coming from a country where actual Marxists regularly run for president, I can vouch that Obama (or the Democractic Party) doesn’t resemble Marxism in the slightest.
The rest is typical sheltered American ignorance. In other parts of the world, government social programs and safety nets aren’t “Socialism”; they’re merely sensible policy. Even our most right-wing parties don’t dare dream of dismantling our federal health system (which can give people access to things that are progressively more difficult for Americans, with less than one tenth of the budget).
@Chas
No what made it racist was someone doing that without racist intention, looking over it and ignoring how it looked. Its passive (maybe) rather than active. Callous jackassery over malicious.
This election scares me. Both ways. If rMoney wins, we see the destruction of everything the federal government has accomplished since Hoover. If Obama wins, we may see bloodshed. I know of two otherwise normal right wingers who are stocking up on massive amounts of ammunition, high-powered rifles, military semi-automatics, bulletproof vests.
For one day, there was a sign along my commute: “If Obama Steals Again? 2nd Amendment Solution!” It showed up and then came back down.
And then there are all the people I know who are sitting out the election because the system is broken. I keep telling them that the system is broken because on party decided to break the system so they could retain/gain power.
Whether the lynching-in-effigy is a personal problem with the police or a political statement is, to me, immaterial. Obama has been lynched in effigy multiple times in the last four years (one was not too far from here in northeast Pennsyltucky). And I don’t remember this being done to any sitting President in my lifetime. I may be wrong (usually am), but were the Bush’s, Clinton, Reagan, Carter, Ford or Nixon publicly lynched in effigy?
But they can do some truly dopey things. Our Oz conservatives a few years ago changed the rules so private health insurance got some seriously generous tax benefits. Now it’s one of the biggest, least effective expenditures in our health budget. And it’s near impossible to kill – despite it’s negative impact on budgets and on health outcomes.
Don’t tell me conservatives don’t like big government spending. They love it, when it privatises profits (and benefits for that matter) and socialises losses.
Not only that – so, in effect, was the entire modern industrial system. The US army, working from ideas pioneered (again by government) in France, spent 50 years in the nineteenth century developing machine tools, because no human worker could make parts for weapons so precisely measured they could be interchanged. Clastum3 should insist on using only hand-crafted products.
there are at least seven other hung effigies on the same truck, and they all appear to depict palefaces.
Lynching white “race traitor” allies in the civil rights movement is hardly unknown. I also note that the truck in the picture talks a lot about how evil Obama is, suggesting that he is the primary person who is being lynched in effigy and the others are supporters.
Look I don’t mind people correcting the story at all, in fact they should obviously. But treating that seeing this as racist upon first glance is some out of control knee jerk irrational reaction is just fucking stupid.
Well, it is an out of control knee jerk irrational reaction, dipshit. I saw the picture and immediately wondered at the larger context, seeing as how there are obviously a couple of other effigies cropped out of the frame. It took me all of two minutes to figure out the truth of the story, all from clicking links included in the fucking post. I didn’t have to do a whole lot of thinking of investigation to figure out that the story wasn’t as labeled, all because I avoided jerking my knee when I saw the post. How fucking stupid of me.
1) Some of us aren’t even american (yes, we actually exist)
2) None of us, to the best of my knowledge, is a stakeholder in the auto or banking industry.
Remember that bailout thing? That was a metric fuckton of money your government gave there, without any fucking question. And guess to whom they gave it? That’s right, the very filthy rich assholes who tanked your economy for short term profit. The same assholes who are so very fond of the “sink or swim” mentality – well, when it doesn’t apply to them.
But, given the amount of money they spend promoting the hilarious collection of nutbags that is the Tea Party, it’s not especially surprising, even if saddening, to often meet self-appointed defenders of a system intent to transform them into corporate serfs, high on the kool-aid of the american dream and the implicit promise that yes, they’ll also be rich someday.
I can only agree.
# 43 : Ah, liar Gotts again.
Care to tell us whether your sociological claptrap is funded at the expense of the poor of Europe?
For the far left, of course it’s always the wrong time to cut spending. The alternative (in Europe ) is for Germany to carry all the burden of left-profligacy, which quite understandably, the average voter is not going to put up with for much longer.
In some places, its core infrastructure (the major fiber optics arteries and packet switches), and the connection of more faraway places, is maintained and bought by government-funded organisms, whether at the federal or regional level. Those organisms were pushing for the development of the core fiber optics network that supports the internet in the 1980’s, before anyone had even heard the word “internet”.
In quebec for instance we have the RISQ core network (provincial) and the CANARIE network (federal). They cross each other in my city.
This is what we have in SE MN:
http://postbulletin.com/news/stories/display.php?id=1513792&query=%22chair%22
Ah, clastrum’s deciding to be a dumbass again I see. After showing that he doesn’t care about women and doesn’t know about science, he’s decided to spout off about economics and politics. Is there anything that he doesn’t “know”? He’s a Jackass of All Trades!
Consider that stolen!
but when its a Republican, its okay.
Thank you md for reminding us of your historical myopia.
The man with the lynch-wagon
http://patriotphipps.blogspot.ca/
–
a neighbours view
http://creamcatapiller.blogspot.ca/2011/01/patriot-phipps.html
Demonstrate one single instance where I’ve lied, scumbag. I recall you’ve tired before, and just made a fool of yourself, so I look forward to a repeat.
No, I’m very much in favour of cutting unproductive spending – the grossly excessive on the military in both the US and the UK, for example. In a time of economic expansion, it would make good sense to cut this so sharply the effect would be an overall cut in state spending. What I don’t want cut, if it can possibly be avoided, is spending that actually reduces human suffering and broadens opportunities – but of course you’re all in favour of human suffering as long as it’s not yours.
You’re even more of a fucking idiot than I remembered. Germany is now in danger of going into recession, because its industries’ customers in southern Europe can no longer afford to buy. Meanwhile, among the EU countries doing best at present are Sweden and Finland, which also have very high rates of state spending (over 50% of GDP). We also see that, despite its inadequate size and Republican attempts at sabotage, the stimulus Obama applied to US economy is generating jobs, while in austerity-hit southern Europe, jobs are vanishing – and youth unemployment over 50% is a real danger to democracy.
Because we all know the horrible history in this country of capturing old white rich men and burning them to death. It was happening just 40 or 50 years ago, and yet people have forgotten. No one remembers the violent persecution of the rich white men, and how the government shrugged its shoulders and said “we aren’t rich white people, why do we care what happens to those sub-humans?”. No one cares to remember, but it happened. Read your Texas BOE-approved history books, people!
Would all of these assholes saying that its totally not racist stop for half a second and empathize with what black people must feel when they see this shit going on? Or is racism totally divorced from how people *actually subject to it* experience it?
White people don’t really have a history of being burned alive, so it’s not really racist, no. You *could* try arguing against it on a pacifist front, but you’re not really going to do that successfully. You, personally, that is, MD.
No. No, that is not what creates the racism, you stupid tit. The past 400 years of racial jackassery in the USA created the racism.
Damn right. They need lebensraum.
nah, the history is more recent.
http://www.ksee24.com/news/video/Boy-Set-on-Fire-141694043.html
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/michaelbrewer/
Josh,
Oh who doesn’t, darling!
Louis
skeptifem @ 76;
*Snark*
Haven’t you heard? Just like when discussing sexism, the only opinion of racism that counts is that of teh rich white menz. Anything else is totally commie-nazi-misandrist-reverse-racism oppression of the historically persecuted social group of rich white doodz, long the victims of the feminazi black-tocracy that has ruled all Western civilisation for centuries.
Just ask Chas, sc_752b70b3a045665cf8f531d89e15d3f4 or md, I am sure they would happily explain it to you…
*/Snark*
It is stuff like this lynching in effigy (and its apologists) that makes me hate people.
‘nonexistent’ is a better word.
Do you know what it means for something to have a history?
MD is liberturd/RWA troll. It knows nothing but slogans. Real evidence? Forget that.
Wow md. Two news stories from 2009 and 2012 is not only totally on par with the history of lynching black people, but is sufficient to make burning effigies of George Bush years prior “racist”. In retrospect. Somehow.
Troll harder.
Gotts: yes, the last time I noted your lies was here:
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2012/09/12/tom-holland-is-censored/
And incidentally, further evidence for my point then was easy to find yesterday, when someone noted that the BBC in its report on this
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2226408/Sara-Ege-beat-son-Yaseen-death-set-body-struggled-learn-Koran-heart.html
didn’t mention that the little boy was killed because he hadn’t learnt enough of the Koran by heart.
Less incidentally, news like this finds little, if any, reflection in pharyngula, and if so, only so that people can position themselves as the most fervent anti-islamophobe going.
Pharyngula’s claim to be a part of the secular, anti-religious movement is very threadbare.
And yes, cutting defence spending will help the coming apocalypse along, which the far left sees as its way, finally, to power.
In the interest of fairness, I feel duty-bound to point out that that appears to be a white guy hanging next to him…
Yes the left are all evil villians trying to get into power.
Ffs.
‘Parent beats child to death for failure to learn religious script’ is by no means unique to Islamic parents.
Oh don’t I fucking wish.
You’re a loon.
clastum3, your paranoia is showing. Keep it zippered up.
No, but as an adjective it is, by pretty much any definition of the word!
‘Insensitive’, ‘crass’ or ‘offensive’ are clearly appropriate descriptions. Racism refers to the state of mind and opinions of the subject.
Shame to see this line of argument on an atheist website; the one group of people who should really know better….
No, it isn’t.
Not really. It refers to their effects on society, unless you have mind reading technology that will let you look into the heart of hearts of everyone you meet.
I’m certainly not going to disagree with you that atheists are more, not less, racist than the norm of their culture, most of the time.
Ahahaha. Clastum yells at us for being ignorant of the Real News and cites The Daily Mail to back himself up. Fucking priceless.
“I’M THE KING OF THE (burnt-over, smoking, bereft-of-infrastructure) WORLD!”
You are really dumb. For rill.
APOCALYPSE SHOCK-HORROR! LABOUR MPS IN END-OF-DAYS SEX ROMP AS REANIMATED BIN LADEN DECLARES FATWA ON BANGERS AND MASH!
Holy shit. When I said he was a Jackass of All Trades, I didn’t think I would be quite this accurate.
Is it good for society to have two (or more) sets of behavorial parameters for its peoples, based on historical claims where in nearly all cases neither the victim nor perpetrator is still alive?
Or can we just call some shit crass and get on with it?
Well. That’s a new one.
If that is supposed to be Daily Mail headling, it is missing gypsies and house-prices, preferably with former being to blame for the latter falling.
Josh, Official SpokesGay @ 94;
I think this sniny internets is yours…
That said, you had best watch out – the Daily Mail might take you seriously…
Oh well, that told me! A working definition that you use would be nice…
The effects of racism are distinct from racism, which is simply holding the belief that human races are real, and that races have meaningful differences.
You are quite correct that you can never know that someone is a racist, just as you can never know that someone loves you. In many cases, it is an acceptable inference from the evidence.
Gah! Ninja’d by Matt Penfold @ 98. Curse you Penfold! *Shakes fist*
Indeed, only 100 years old in my dictionary.
That is an incredibly bad definition since it ignores the entire concept of institutional racism.
Freeze Peachers now want Freedom from History as well. Sad because people don’t buy it when you insist that Confederate Flags are about Southern Pride and Nazi flags are about Blond-Hair Blue-Eye Pride?
That actually made me laugh.
BWAHAHAH! So true. So sick and so true.
True, and I would maintain that institutional racism is a poor term for the concept for precisely that reason; it is meaningless.
Obviously the concept is real and important, but it the effect is racial discrimination rather than racism.
LABOUR MPS IN END-OF-DAYS SEX ROMP AS REANIMATED BIN LADEN DECLARES FATWA ON BANGERS AND MASH!
So…a happy ending for humanity then?
Please don’t insist on splitting semantic hairs, especially when it involves idiosyncratic definitions we know will only help regressives in such conversations. This hurts the discourse. Please stop it.
Ahahaha. So this is what your pedantry has come to, eh?
incorrect. it refers to a race-discriminatory effect
Racial discrimination is simply the manifestation of racism.
md @ 96;
Historical context does matter. When dealing with white and black people, only one group has a long and well documented history of being the victims of lynchings and other forms of systemic and often violent racial oppression in the Western world, and it isn’t we of the pasty skin.
You are seriously going with the well worn non-argument (much beloved of creationists) of “well, were you there?” as a response? You do understand that such things as the Jim Crowe laws are a matter of public record, and that the historical evidence for widespread lynching is overwhelming? Not to mention the fact that such things as the Civil Rights Movement occurred well within living memory.
You don’t really believe that it is all some kind of grand conspiracy by revisionist black historians, do you?
I find the sight of an effigy of the lynching of the first Black President of the US to be rather more disturbing that the label ‘crass’ conveys.
Also, get on with what, exactly? This thread is about the racism in modern day America, discussing that issue could hardly be more on topic. If the discussion doesn’t interest you, why are you still commenting on this thread at all?
Here’s what the astoundingly stupid liar clastum3 is referring to @85:
Well when you lie about people, as you do here once again, they do tend to resent it. Live with it, shitbag. – me
76 : KG or Nick Gotts, but ever a potty-mouth :
Even with my rudimentary internet skills, it only took a minute to find a couple of impeccably left-wing sources for my contention:
http://www.petertatchell.net/multiculturalism/democratiya8.htm
“Paralysed by the fear of being branded racist, imperialist or Islamophobic, large sections of liberal and left opinion have, in effect, gone soft on their commitment to universal human rights.”
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/politics/2012/08/left-cannot-remain-silent-over-honour-killings
So clastum3 finds left-wing sources which are very obviously not part of any such “unwritten pact of silence on the left”, thus neatly disproving his own contention that there is one, and neatly proving that he is indeed a liar, as I said.
Blockquote fail repost:
Here’s what the astoundingly stupid liar clastum3 is referring to @85:
So clastum3 finds left-wing sources which are very obviously not part of any such “unwritten pact of silence on the left”, thus neatly disproving his own contention that there is one, and neatly proving that he is indeed a liar, as I said.
no. the effects of racism are what racism is, since we don’t have mind-reading technology.
lol, no. that has never been the definition of racism, and it’s not even the definition of racial prejudice. you’re thinking of racialism
Often but not always. Racial discrimination can also be an unforeseen consequence.
Incidentally, I urge everyone to read Peter Tatchell’s article and, as he advocates, support organizations such as Southall Black Sisters and Women Against Fundamentalism.
No, unforeseen consequences are covered by institutional racism. And unforeseen is not really the best word. All too often the effects were foreseeable and just ignored. In other cases the effects were not foreseen only because no one bothered to think about the consequences. People and organisations do not escape being racist because they are too stupid or lazy to think.
Ok, so just for the purpose of this discussion, let’s say that I hold the belief that the Karankawa were, as a people (and as individuals) lazy and untrustworthy. In every other respect I believe that no racial differences exist. I keep my beliefs private, and obviously it would have no effect on my interactions with people.
You would argue that I was not racist?
You really are breathtaking stupid. But go on, spell out for us how cutting military spending will “help the coming apocalypse along”. I could do with a good laugh.
Are you being deliberately stupid ? If not, can you explain why you asked such an idiotic question ?
Missing my point, Greg.
Burning or hanging a President in effigy is crass. Doesnt matter if he’s black or white or half white.
Doesnt matter if the perp is white or black or blue. Crass is crass. Or it should be, I argue. If we’re really going to achieve some sort of equality.
I don’t in any way question the history of Jim Crow and all the rest. I question the validity of calling people who did not participate in Jim Crow, racist, because of of a crass joke/political statement whatever + the history of Jim Crow, especially when other crass statements about white republicans pass all the time unncommented on.
Its similar to the Islam/Mormon humor divide. We can make fun of Mormons, have a play about their underwear, all the rest. But making fun of Muslims = racist. Two sets of behavoir (or more) for people will ensure they remain divided, not heal some historical wounds.
What makes the pot melt?
No, he’s pretending history is irrelevant because the black people of Jim Crow are dead (Which they’re not, but whatever).
Sure I can. Everyone’s fucking racist. No exceptions. Now, if you mean ‘moreso than normal’, I only have to go with just how actively they spread racist bullshit, or how happy they are to let such institutions continue.
I just don’t know whether they’re racist because in their heart of hearts, they just fucking love hating non-white people or not. And I don’t fucking care about that, because it’s irrelevant.
OK, if that is what you use as a definition, then I can’t really argue. Personally, I think that is a diminution of the word ‘racist’ and deeply unhelpful to a much more sinister state of mind. But, I don’t own the language, so we’ll just have to disagree.
if you’re not having racist effects on the world, then no, for all intents and purposes you’re not racist.
of course, it’s not possible for someone to have racial biases and not occasionally act on them. the reason racism isn’t synonymous with racial bias or racial prejudice though is because the opposite doesn’t hold true: you CAN produce racist effects without holding racial prejudice.
and then of course there’s the SJ working definition, which requires prejudice to be coupled with social power before it becomes actual racism, but that’s probably too advanced a concept for you.
glendon,
Try to get this through the concrete: “racist” applies primarily to behaviour (including use of language) that reinforces existing injustices based on racial or ethnic categories; and secondarily, to people who routinely behave in such ways. If your private prejudice genuinely has no effect on your behaviour then no, it’s not racist, and nor are you.
I fucking hate how the first retreat of the pedant is a bullshit hypothetical that bears no relevance to the world as it is. None of this shit is possible.
“Are you being deliberately stupid ? If not, can you explain why you asked such an idiotic question ?”
Because one school of thought (it has been suggested) equates racism with nothing more than a discriminatory outcome, for the given reason that it is not possible to know another’s mind. If that were so, then a private belief in racial superiority, would not be racist.
I would suggest that that is ‘stupid’.
Ah, yes.
In Tea Party bizarro fractured logic, the government can’t possibly manage social programs that stave off the worse excesses of greed, but can totally be trusted to be the only thing maintaining the integrity of the world with an overblown military.
And of course all the wars the aforementionned military fights are totally justified, and the humongous amount of money it siphons off the country’s limited resources and that could be spent on bettering the living conditions at home are absolutely necessary. Examining the contracts it makes with shady contractors is only so much red tape.
After all, collusion, intensive lobbying and corruption of governments by private contractors is totally unheard of.
Also, the less destructive power different countries invest in, the closer we are to “apocalypse”.
Everyone knows “world peace” is just another name for the evil New World Order, headed by the OWG. That has its seat in either the rebuilt Babylon or the inside of a dead volcano, depending on the flavor of the nuts you’re talking to.
except for the part that such a “private” belief would never not lead to actions. people simply don’t work like that. however, whether [action] is performed because of genuinely held prejudice against a person of a certain race, or because of stupidity, or because that’s how social structures are designed is not really changing the outcome and effect of [action], and can therefore not be the determinant of whether it’s racist or not.
…at least not if “racist” is supposed to be a useful word
Well, no, which is why we have to work harder to dismantle the privilege that protects entitled, historically ignorant whiners like you.
Jesus, md’s ‘I’M COLORBLIND’ bullshit (which is what it is, in effect) would be hilarious if it wasn’t pathetic.
What is stupid is asking idiotic hypothetical questions.
How do you think people in your hypothetical would know your views ?
OK, I get it.
Effectively it’s a sociological use of the word which divorces it from the words original meaning.
Fine, but I still think that the sociologists should do what the rest of us have to do when we encounter a concept that has not yet been described; create new terms.
If nothing else, it would avoid the confusion that I (and apparently a few others) had when we read the original post.
Md, most people who are serious in their criticism of the Mormon faith really do not bother with the underwear. It is the social policies that is under consideration and criticism. Just as the theocratic states that Islam forms are under consideration and criticism.
As it stand, some white christians in the US tend to think of any person who has swarthy skin coloring as automatically being a terrorist jihadist.
But thank you for playing the game of conflation and false equivalency.
Oh it’s crass? That’s the problem? It is super neat that you are so insulated from the consequences of prejudice that you can sit there despondently, pinky firmly extended, and just sigh at the tedium of it all, but that is pretty much point number one against taking what you have to say on the subject seriously.
who the fuck is “the rest of us”, and do you know what “competent” means in geology, or “community” means in ecology?
“How do you think people in your hypothetical would know your views ”
They wouldn’t, but I would. Perhaps I might undertake a detailed self-examination of what I believed. Guess if I did, I would be totally off the hook.
also, SJ != sociology
Madogodess above, honkies do complain about this. This isn’t a ‘divorce from the original meaning’. It’s actually really fucking close to the original meaning. It’s not identical, but it’s not some world apart where you can’t understand it.
Stupid assholes like you just get less room to wheedle, and hem, and haw, while those of us who deal with this bullshit suffer.
But you obviously think they could, otherwise why ask the question ?
“who the fuck is “the rest of us”, and do you know what “competent” means in geology, or “community” means in ecology?”
I do. I have even written a few popular articles based on my research. Where ambiguous terms exist (i.e. those where the technical definition is different from the popular definition), I will always either leave out the technical term or state it explicitly. Clearly a blog post is a popular medium.
“But you obviously think they could, otherwise why ask the question ?”
i.e. if nobody knows your racist, you aren’t!
I disagree with the premise.
this has never happened, ever. The only way i can picture this happening is if you are prejudiced against a group that you will literally never be able to encounter. You can’t delete your racist ideas from the way you perceive people of that race any more than you can delete other aspects of a person for convenience. How we regard and treat each other does not typically come from a place of careful reasoning. We all form impressions of others based on our own intuition constantly, and if your intuition is informed by bullshit (like racism) you’re going to make negative judgments about others that are unfounded and act accordingly. You’re trying to say you can load people up with data that is total garbage but they will act like they have nothing but perfect knowledge. Try harder.
“The only way i can picture this happening is if you are prejudiced against a group that you will literally never be able to encounter.”
Yes, hence the hypothetical that I posted…
No, in that if no one else can know, so the question is meaningless.
It is telling that you had to resort to a meaningless hypothetical question.
so you knew you were bullshitting when you claimed other disciplines invent new words for new concepts instead of using the ones that already exist, but with altered meanings(and that’s entirely aside from the part where racism as effect is not a new concept, nor an altered definition; discrimination has always been part of the definition of racism)
a blogpost is a private personal log, actually. Also, the definition of racism as racially-differential effects rather than some nebulous personal belief is not limited to sociology; it’s not jargon or a “technical term”.
also, learn to quote
yeah and “theory” should really be changed to mean something different in science because it confuses creationists too much!
I’m not even in agreement that the sociological use of the word is so different from the practical usage in the first place, but if you want to complain about this kind of use of language you could start with every technical field *ever*, since they all borrow regular words to make a highly specialized meaning. Its only offensive if you’re unwilling to learn new meanings for words.
@148
you picked a hypothetical that does not demonstrate anything. am I supposed to be impressed?
if your racism is magical and thus has no effects, what use is it to call it racist? where’s the usefulness of a word that describes such impossible hypotheticals, but not reality?
md @ 124;
Given the very specific history of African Americans with regard to lynching, I would argue that it goes beyond merely crass when the Prtesident in question is the first Black Premier of the US.
You can’t just wipe away the context of the situation and the resonance of the action with a particular group. Making jokes about smallpox contaimated linen with regard to a white person is crass, making the same joke with regard to a Native American person has a very different significance that goes beyond the territory of crass and into that of racism. ‘Colour blindness’ that wilfully ignores the history and experiences of historically oppressed groups is not the same thing as equality.
The fact that the Jim Crow laws existed, along with all the other manifestations of the long and bitter history of institutionalised racism in the US, creates a very specific context around actions such as creating an effigy of the lynching of a Black person. The perpetrators of this action almost certainly knew this, and even if they were somehow so utterly ignorant of their own society’s history that they were genuinely unaware of the toxic symbolism of their actions, that still doesn’t alter the fact that the public display of such an effigy contributes to the ongoing racism that blights US culture. Intent is not magical.
With regard to you point about White Republicans, I would argue that there is no parity of experience, social status or privilege between White Republicans as a group and African Americans as a group. Also, mocking the political opinions of Republicans (White or otherwise) is not the same as creating an image that references acts of racial violence motivated by the fact of the skin colour of African Americans. You are comparing apples and pears.
Mocking both Moromons and Muslims for their irrational and harmful beliefs is not racist at all, but the term ‘Muslim’ in many quarters has been bound up with specific racial groups and ethnic identities. There are plenty of White Muslims, but many people who rail against ‘Muslims’ specifically reference stereotypes about the dark skinned Arab/Persian/Pakistani foreign Muslim ‘other’. When criticisng ‘Muslims’ becomes code for promoting racist stereotypes about the supposed primitive, blood-thirsty barbarism of dark skinned foreigners, then the racist component becomes clear. It is what is sometimes referred to as a racist ‘dog whistle’ – a code phrase that is not obviously racist on the surface, but is loaded with bigoted stereotypes and tropes. The situations with Mormonism is in no way comparable to this. On balance, Moromons tend to come from the more affluent and privileged end of society, and while they are predominantly White, criticism of their beliefs does not usually focus on their skin colour, but rather on the extreme (and, incidentally, highly racist, misogynistic and homophobic) character of those beliefs themselves.
Magical? Strictly speaking it would have no external effects.
The beauty of language is that it can capture abstract, or even imaginary concepts in a way that lets us understand reality more precisely. Now, I’m tempted to agree that the discussion on semantics is a little distracting, though I really feel sorry for anyone who doesn’t believe that definition is important in language.
It is interesting that the criticisms of my position/ have focussed on the unknowability of the mind of the (alleged) racist.
An alternative position (outlined at least once above); that the racism is the product of the mind that experiences it is subject to exactly the same weakness.
Personally I think that either objection is unfounded, but the 2nd does seem rather more open to abuse. (see how easily the religious ‘take offence’)
The argument that racism is a description of the effects, is slightly less objectionable, but we have terms that describe those adequately already. Racism was originally a term that described adherents to theories of racial superiority. In other words, it was always about the ideas, not the consequences.
glendon @ #121
You’re obviously wrong. There’s a good thirty years on implicit attitudes and their impact on behavior that suggests that even if you consciously try to appear unbiased, the fact that you endorse certain beliefs will unconsciously affect your behavior.
Hell, even if you don’t personally hold these beliefs, as long as they are part of the broader culture, they will impact you. Hence why you see studies that show that people’s level of explicit and implicit racism do not seem to influence racially-motivated avoidant/aversive attitudes and behaviors.
OK, and the chances of me sitting in front of a Karankawa job applicant is what exactly?
My Little Effigy: Intent Is Magic
Because this crazed man’s traveling lynching display is not meant as a racist display, all of the racists out there seeing this display and wishing for a similar fate for an uppity colored man like Barack Hussein Obama will not see the lynched effigy as being racist. They will know the intent of the crazed man.
yes, that’s what makes it magical, since real racial prejudice doesn’t work like that.
there’s a difference between abstract and imaginary concepts, and inconsequent ones. “god” is both imaginary; “race” is both imaginary and abstract”; both of which are concepts that are meaningful because their existence in people’s minds has effects on reality. your concept of racism on the other hand doesn’t, if it only exists in the brain of one person and never leaves.
and? are they taking offense at actual discriminatory effects? no? then it’s irrelevant.
oh, sure because those ideas didn’t have consequences [/sarc]
sorry to disappoint, but racism always meant effects. because racialist ideas never didn’t come with actions and therefore consequences
your quaint assumption that racist effects can only ever be direct has been duly noted and dismissed with laughter at your ignorance.
clastum3 @85:
Why?
Because PZ doesn’t post about the things you want him to?
Because the commenters don’t discuss issues of importance to you?
It couldn’t be because it’s impossible to follow all stories about religion in the news, could it? If you’ve read Pharyngula for any length of time (you need more than a day or two), you’d see how thoroughly wrong you are.
****
glendon @100:
No. That is *not* what racism is.
incidentally, what point is an impossible hypothetical that assumes racial prejudice is ever specific? someone who’s prejudiced against an extinct Indian culture is in reality not likely to not harbor similar prejudices against existing ones. Usually in fact the former would have come about as a consequence of the latter.
again: what good is a word that only deals with things that don’t exist like that in reality?
#160
You are arguing that your own mind is not ‘reality’ unless it affects the wider world. Your own inner dialogue is meaningless unless you communicate it?
I agree; that is my point!
Indeed, we certainly wouldn’t having this argument if they didn’t. However, we still retain two separate words for them: ’cause’ and ‘effect’.
So, glendon, you are arguing that calling a hypothetical person with racial prejudices that are entirely undetectable and have no external effects a racist would be fine, and not in any way “a diminution of the word ‘racist’”, but using the same term for someone who holds no such biases but causes massive harm to racial minorities simply because they don’t give a shit about the consequences of their actions wouldn’t be?
Because I’m pretty damn certain who is actually the bigger problem of the two.
Neither of them, by the way, actually exists – no human is entirely free of prejudice, and we are not capable of holding prejudiced thoughts and having our behaviour entirely unaffected by them.
goddamn you’re stupid. no, that isn’t even close to what I’m arguing. try again.
I highly doubt that, given your whining about how effects aren’t racism earlier on.
yup; and it’s the EFFECT that’s racism. not the cause, because the causes of racism are extremely varied. it’s only folks who want to feel good about themselves who wish to exempt themselves from racism based on their belief that they hold no racial prejudices
heh
Win, win, win, win, win, win, win, sparkle-pony win.
#165
Indeed, that is exactly what I was saying. What I did not say was that racist ideas (as distinct to their consequences) were in any way more important.
The diminution in this case is purely linguistic. It is the ability to discuss the more important concepts that suffers as a result. That is why it is important.
dammit, jefrir
Now glendon is going to explain what “prejudice” really means.
No, racism causes racial discrimination.
i.e. theories of racial superiority cause people to behave in ways that discriminate based on perceptions of race. This is not the only cause of racial discrimination, and is why we have two separate terms.
irrelevant, as no one claimed otherwise. nonetheless, either you’re contradicting yourself, or you somehow think psychological effects are not effects.
and as jefrir accurately pointed out, it is you who’s perpetrating this diminution, by insisting on a useless definition of racist
the “more important concept” is your imaginary, unreal form of racism that’s somehow magically hyperspecific and confined to one’s mind?
lol.
in reality of course, racist refers to effects specifically because it is the effects that are important not some nebulous unknowable states-of-mind. something is racist if it has race-differential effects because it’s the effects that are harmful, regardless of cause. this is the only useful definition of racism and racist
you can repeat this until you’re blue in the face, it won’t become turer as a result of that.
racism is an effect. any other definition is derived from that, primarily because of the Fundamental Attribution Error. and insisting on not calling racism racism because of a lack of a specific intent is an attempt at rendering the word useless.
the terms are racial prejudice/bias and racism.
#73
As I’m sure can you! I would offer the OED definition as a starting point.
Dictionaries record word-use and are always behind current use.
oh, let’s, shall we?
yup. it’s always defined as racist effects, except where it has come to be used to mean “racialism”, which is the older, more accurate definition of a belief in race as a biological category.
Shocking; the OED agrees with me.
oops, bolding fail
anyway, yeah. the word racism is never used for prejudice alone, except where people started using it to replace the actual word for racial prejudice, “racialism”. IOW, argument from “that’s how it used to be used” is a fail on your account, darling.
OED says racialism is the word for prejudice, racism is the word for action, usually from prejudice
oh, glendon already knows they lost the “current use” argument; they’re trying the “but that’s not what it originally meant” argument; and failing, since the original word for racial prejudice is not racism but racialism, just as I said eariler
No it doesn’t, read that quote more closely.
e.g. “our values should be a type of racism”
also: ” There is virtual agreement that it refers to a doctrine of racial supremacy”
In other words, racism requires a belief in racial superiority. The actions are a consequence of the belief. It would not be possible (under that definition) to be inadvertently or carelessly racist. Racial discrimination or bias does not require that.
You know, whenever we get one of these “that’s not what the dictionary says!”, I know that they don’t have any real background in languages or linguistics. Because no-one can spend significant amounts of time actually using dictionaries and retain the belief that they are some sort of ultimate arbiter of human language.
They’re not quite as fuckwittedly ignorant as the people who think they can learn a foreign language from a dictionary, but they do tend to be more harmful and obnoxious.
thanks for finally admitting that a belief in racial superiority is one cause of racism, not racism. took you long enough.
yes, as I already explained, the original definition, the one that defined racism as prejudice+action, the one I just quoted, is one that assumes the actions require prejudice based on the Fundamental Attribution error.
That doesn’t disagree with my point however, since the action is the defining feature, not the prejudice, and no valuable meaning is lost when the FAE is removed from a more accurate current definition.
OTOH, your re-definition, which attempts to instead remove the action and insist that racism=prejudice, makes the definition less accurate and less useful.
Also, your goalpost shifting has been noted.
pretty quotemine. the full line of course says
“our values should be a type of racism which excludes”. again, the action defines the values, not the other way round. what makes a value racist is that it has racist effects, not the other way round.
true enough, but amusingly, glendon is losing evne on their self-chosen territory. which makes their incompetence kind of hilarious (or it would, if they weren’t effectively arguing for a redefinition that would render a very necessary concept useless, which in turn makes their argument harmful)
Fucking honky pedant. It already admitted it has nothing but a lame attempt at semantic hairsplitting to beginw ith, can’t even defend that, and it won’t shut up or go away.
Well fine, take what you want from it; it fact I would even concede the point if you will agree that, given that requirement, one could not call (or at least know) that the actions of the subject of this blog post were racist.
That the author can (apparently without any sense of irony) write what he wrote at the top of the page and not attract criticism seems a shame to me. Particularly when the photo that it was based on was such an obviously ham-fisted crop of what was clearly a more complex display.
Finally, the real complaint, after trying to make it sound like it couldn’t be a possible racist. Why bother with all the sophistry, other than self-delusion?
That was always my complaint. I responded to those that were still trying to make the charge stick after the criticism was made. Language is important…
@186
Checl my comment.
You should really read all the comments.
Only to those trying to twist it…
#189
Which one?
I’ve read them and pretty much agree with most of what you’ve written. I still wouldn’t go as far as calling it racist, but as far as the rest of your analysis goes, there is no argument from me.
They generally do. The tendency to quote dictionary definitions as the main evidence for your point tends to go along with a difficulty in understanding what said definitions actually mean, and with grasping the idea that words can have multiple meanings.
Strangely, it is never specialist dictionaries that they quote.
And glendon, you are valuing stupid windbaggery about what a purported racist really thinks over their real and demonstrable effects on the world. Stop it. It is ridiculous.
Quite, and that is why it should matter to everyone.
That Merika is a racist nation? It bothers you that this is true, but you’d rather hem and haw here than fix it, doesn’t it? Asshat.
Language matters, which is why you’re trying to strangle it rather than let it be useful? Yeah, no, you’re just another fucking useless, racist honkey trying to preserve his feelings than live in the world that is.
And that should be “It bothers you, doesn’t it? But you’d rather hem and haw than fix it, wouldn’t you?”. Ah well.
Don’t know, never been to the USA; no real desire to either.
I’m sure that there are racists in America, and that many of them are in the USA. Whether the USA is a ‘racist nation’ is s quite different question.
When the author makes the assertion that the USA is a racist nation, evidenced by the actions of a single (seemingly insane) man, then I think it is worth pointing out the irony.
I know that it is only a blog, and it was an off the cuff response to a photo that he did not make. I certainly don’t think the worse of him for it, but the comments bit is for discussion is it not?
If you know so little about race relations in the US, maybe you should do some research into the background before pontificating.
You will notice that I have said nothing about race relations in the US.
The facts are this. The US was and remains a deeply racist nation, even if many people are working at ending that.
This display does not prove that the US is a racist nation.
While the motives of this crazed man may not be racist, it does not mean that racist people will not be attracted to the image.
I am curious to know where glendon lives.
It must be a nice place if you need to go to a dictionary to find out about racism. or even “racism”.
But it is so much fun to pull out the OED when lecturing about racism in the US.
Glendon, a mild example of the racist “separate but equal”.
Despite the vitriol reserved for those who prefer clear use of the English language, it needs to be stated that people are misuing the word ‘lynch.’ Case in point, I had an applicant for a job last week who was denied because she was convicted of lynching back in 2007. She also happened to be African -American. Lynching technically refers to mob ‘justice’ in an attempt to intimidate a group of pepole. While it’s true that these crimes were historically perpetrated against blacks by whites, hanging a black man or hanging an effigy of a black man is not lynching in and of itself, and in fact, lynching in today’s criminal courts(at least in those states where the crime is still on the books) typically refers to a crime where a group of people ‘jump’ another person regardless of their reasoning for doing so. In short, unless you can prove that a group of people(not just the lone wacko interviewed) hung this dummy and/or drug it to its current location, this is not a lynching.
Ah, legal versus common definition. Guess which one we are using precisely.
Even using the historical definition, a mob of people is required for it to be a lynching.
Anyone have a definition of “sockpuppet”?
jennifer @ 205
Since PedantMode=TRUE, I believe it’s “hanged” not “hung”. People (and effigies) are hanged.
Nope, just 2 or more. And an attitude to put somebody “in their place”. So, why not give up sockpuppet?
I don’t frequently visit non-theological fundamendalist sites such as this one, so I’m not sure what your slang terms for dissenters mean. I’m just pointing out that neither hanging, nor any other violent act perpetrated against an African-American necessarily equates to lynching, and in fact, the interview seems to prove that this couldn’t fall under lynching, since only one man is taking credit.
It takes a village to lynch an effigy.
No argument with that. That is pretty much in line with what I was saying.
Incidentally (for whoever asked) I live in Scotland. I wouldn’t say that there is no racism here, though it is of a relatively benign form compared to some other parts of the UK. In any case, I have personal, though mild, experience of racism as part of a minority group, so I don’t need any lectures about the language, even if I don’t have direct experience of the more serious effects that those in the USA might have experienced.
Actual one man can lynch, providing he outsizes his victim, like an adult attacking a young adolescent. In this country, we called that a lynching. Keep that in mind.
Whilst I was driving home just now, all around me in their back gardens and public parks people were burning effigies of a 17th century catholic in an annual celebration that’s predominant cultural legacy was one of violent sectarianism and religious persecution. One that caused many Catholics to seek sanctuary in the N American colonies, but that has now (for most people at least) lost all of these religious and political connotations. That said, it is certainly true that there are many people here who find these displays genuinely distressing because of the cultural connotations.
After thinking about all I’ve read here, I still couldn’t think of these people as sectarianists, despite what they were doing. I guess, to me at least, intent really is a crucial distinction.
What happens in racist stays in racist. Makes sense.
Actually, no, fuck that. It’s bullshit all the way down.
Not even then. It’s never just about one group. If you think of any group that way, you’ll do the same with others which you do interact with, including your own. Even if you only ever interact with the group you identify with, you’ll treat it as having special properties (almost always “positive” ones, which isn’t to say that’s a good thing). Even if you were raised by wolves and never interact with another human being, there are still the fucking wolves to be biased toward, probably somewhat differently for the male and female wolves. But it doesn’t need to be a bias relative to the way you’d think about and treat others,* it could just be biased with respect to how they are in reality by themselves.
*I stress “and” because it’s a package deal.
#216
Sure. We’ve already established that it was a hypothetical example and that hypotheticals aren’t welcome round these parts. I thought it was relevant, but hey; who am I to argue?
They’re welcome, but bullshit isn’t.
You are arguing, so are you asking me who you are?
It was intended as an illustration of the division between the belief and the action that is a consequence of the belief, for the purposes of defining a linguistic distinction.
To argue that the cause is never present without the effect misses the point. i.e. that conceptually the effect is always distinct from the cause (fairly basic philosophy of science stuff). I’ve said over and over why I think that matters in this case, so I won’t bore you by repeating myself again.
you’ve not understood a damn thing I wrote in my previous comment, I see.
you are confused by the fact that it’s in fact not “evidenced by”, but “exemplified by”. That America is a racist nation is already established, this is merely anexample of it.
lol. no it isn’t, since you deny that racism can exist without racist intent, while the comment you think you’re agreeing with is saying that racism is present regardless of racist intent.
you don’t want such lectures, but it’s pretty ovious you do need them.
and yet, Guy Fawkes day is nonetheless a display of the continued sectarianism in the UK, as mild and nigh inconsequential as it has become at this point.
Your unwillingness to use “bad” words to describe people you prefer to think of as “not-bad” is tedious and is making language useless. Intent is simply not relevant when the topic is the kyriarchy
the concept of microaggressions would blow your empty mind.
I’d accuse you of lying, but that would be overestimating your reading comprehension.
But who knows, maybe you do know the difference between useful, realistic hypotheticals and useless, unrealistic ones.
and it failed, because it presented something that doesn’t and can’t exist (a hyperspecific bias that has no external effects), while the word “racist” and “racism” refer to things that do exist. hypotheticals that require impossible premises merely serve to demonstrate the uselessness of the idea they’re used to demonstrate.
except that’s not the argument, it’s simply the reason why your idiotic hypothetical is useless.
no, REALLY?!
idiot.
as if anyone argued that. however, since racism is the effect, not as you claim the cause, you are still wrong. you are the one who insists on not just committing the FAE, but on making that error the defining feature of racism, thus rendering the word useless.
Then let’s do some more fairly basic philosophy of science stuff.
If no effect of X can be observed, how could anyone say X exists, much less anything else about it? Instead of “there is a racist,” you may as well say “there is a ghost.” How can anyone know that?
By your own definition (because you insist it’s the right one), this thing you’ve defined (at least by all appearances) doesn’t exist. So what’s the use of your definition? Is it to talk about things which do exist, to talk about things which don’t, to stop talking about them?
No it doesn’t, it says that racist people may be attracted to the image, which is quite a quite different claim. An image, incidentally, that’s production was apparently (according to your definition) itself a racist act, given that the cropped image appears more racist than the original.
I’m quite happy to leave that sort of reasoning to you.
and the world will be better for it, too, given the quality of “reasoning” you present. just what do you imagine it means to say “racist people will be attracted” to the image?
oh? what racially differential effect did the cropping have that the effigy itself doesn’t? I’m quite curious whether you can actually justify that claim.
The problem wasn’t that it was a hypothetical. The problem was that it was a stupid hypothetical.
Not true, I have made no claim about the origin of the belief. I have certainly not claimed that racism is intrinsic.
That the image of a single black man hanging from a noose carries very different cultural connotations to the image of a lorry full of senior officials hanging from nooses. The image would not have been produced otherwise.
QFT.
Most hypotheticals do tend to be stupid hypotheticals. Which is why hypotheticals don’t go over well here.
jesus fuck, you’re dumb.
let me try again, in smaller steps, since you lack even the most basic ability to follow a condensed argument
1)the definition of racism as prejudice+action, as shown in the OED, is based on the fundamental attribution error which assumes that an action must be caused by a disposition rather than cisrumstances
2)removing the FAE from the definition leaves the action alone, and does no effective damage to the meaning of the word. i is in fact more useful now, since it can now describe racism where no intent can be determined
3)you OTOH are doing the opposite. not only are you yourself insisting that racism can only be based on something internal to the actor, rather than on something external, you’re attempting to enshrine that error in the definition of racism by leaving only the erroneous assumption of racist internal motivation, while removing the actual thing described, which is the racist action.
does it? given that you just admitted not to know shit about US culture, how confident are you in this claim?
Besides, I asked you for effects.
1)the definition of racism as prejudice+action, as shown in the OED, is based on the fundamental attribution error which assumes that an action must be caused by a disposition rather than cisrumstances
No, it refers to a state of mind or belief. For it to be a fundamental attribution error it would have to further claim that the attitude was a result of disposition or nature. It doesn’t, so it isn’t!
Well it’s pretty hard to live anywhere on the planet and know nothing about US culture. I was exaggerating a little perhaps. In any case, the cultural impact of such an image and it’s effects on those who might feel threatened by it were detailed further up. Indeed, they were fundamental to the assertion that it was the effect of the image rather than the intent of the display that should inform how we view the action.
repeating a disproved claim does not make it true. I’ve already shown that the ?OED definition is one for prejudice+action, your denial of that basic fact and of the fact that the OED conveniently gives the word for prejudice-only (“racialism”) notwithstanding
incorrect. the FOE lies in ascribing an internal cause to the act of racism, hence the prejudice+action definition.
Only if the internal cause is dispositional. There is nothing to prevent a belief being situational (indeed, most are).
again, what makes you so certain the cultural connotations of the whole assemblage is sufficiently different than that of the cropped image to produce different effects?
You’re actually going to have to argue that point, not merely assert it, if you want me to take your claim seriously.
incidentally not the only way that the effigies are racist
well no, they’re not fundamental to that definition, they’re simply one way in which the effigies are racist. another one is the one you’re ignoring(or failing to recognize?) is the effect on “racists”
glendon, how do you know there are racists?
I’m guessing it’s not probably by reading their definition.
a belief is not an action (it is however part of a disposition). the FAE deals with misattribution of actions, not beliefs.
I’m by no means certain, but I guess that since someone went to the effort of cropping the image, the impact of the two were different. Do you think that they carry different impacts? (genuine question as I presume that you are from the US)
Actually I’m happy to acknowledge that they might have such effects, and I’m happy to acknowledge that the display should not have been for that reason. I just don’t acknowledge that that makes the display racist of itself.
@glendon:
I guess both are acceptable. So why are you wasting everyone’s time?
In the same way that I know (to use a clichéd example) that my wife loves me; I can see their actions and I can read and hear their words. Their motives I can infer. We can have the debate about gnosticism if you want, but if you thought the semantic discussions were navel-gazing…
I don’t. A figure black man hung in effigy will produce the same effect whether surrounded by a bunch of white figures or not, for a whole host of reasons (for example, interpreting them as”race-traitor” hangings would leave the context the same). the only way the effect could be different is if a person failed to notice the black figure, which is at least a possibility in a larger photograph if not paying attention, but not possible in the closeup.
It can be but it doesn’t have to be. Disposition has a slightly tighter definition than that. Regardless, I don’t think that FAE has very much to do with this discussion.
and we’re back to “intent is magic”
your definition is functionally useless, and will therefore not be used here or anywhere else that actually wishes to do something about racism.
@glendon:
You’ve contributed nothing of any value to this conversation, but you have neatly derailed into onto the subject of how fucking stupid you are.
How does your concern trolling help address racism? You know, the real problem real people in the real world really face? As opposed to the way racism works in your ridiculous hypothetical scenario?
Fine, like I said, I’m sure that you are a better judge than me, and it doesn’t affect how I view the act (as opposed to the consequences).
In any case I am still a little suspicious of the motives of whoever made the image, particularly the removal of all context, though perhaps this was not a concious effort by any one person. Do you agree that the contextual information would affect how you viewed the picture?
ture enough; but irrelevant, since “disposition” and “belief” are actually both internal causes, and the Fundamental Attribution Error deals with internal vs external causes, not specifically with disposition alone.
And again, it deals with the ascription of internal causes to behaviors, not to other internal factors
yeah, it’s already been noticed that following a line of reasoning is not your strong suit
@glendon:
Something other than nitpicky concern trolling please. You’re being tedious.
and what use is such suspicion of motive, since you’re not going to get an answer?
No, intent is latent. I work with lots of datasets which do not directly measure the co-variate that I’m actually interested in. In some cases the co-variates themselves do not relate to any meaningful biological concept. That does not mean that they are irrelevant or that I cannot define them and use them to address real-world problems.
It simply doesn’t matter whether the guy who made the Obama hanging in effigy thing was himself racist or not.
it wouldn’t have played UNLESS he figured a good portion of the audience seeing it was.
…and brother don’t you EVER try and tell me there aren’t racists in Florida.
I wonder why you think this will get a different answer than the one I’ve already given you to the functionally similar question in #238?
Or are you asking me “in general”? because if so, the answer is of course “it depends”, since some forms of context removal change the message received, and some don’t.
If there is no action, you can’t make an inference. So, you’d have no reason to say someone is a racist without there being an action. So your definition would make it impossible to be reasonable about calling someone racist.
But really, the point isn’t that the person is racist (or bad in some other way), so we need to get rid of them (or whatever). Their actions are the sort of things we’re worried about, and those are what we need to get rid of. It doesn’t do any good to tell someone, “stop being the sort of person you are, which I can’t even describe because that sort of thing has no observable effects anyway.” But you can make a difference if you say, “stop this thing you’re doing which is bad, and here is why it’s bad, and here’s what you can do.”
Is none of that relevant?
If I thought that, then what? Do you think this is what making an argument is like?
Racism is the popular, general term for racist attitudes. It makes sense to adopt the term as an useful descriptor, because it doesn’t give an out for people to argue “it’s not really racism” ad infinitum. Racism as intent is not an useful descriptor, because we can’t read minds. If Zimmerman, or Kanazawa, or [insert racist jackass of your choice here] says that in their heart of hearts they aren’t racist, how can we disprove them, if not by their actions?
White senior officials don’t belong to a group that was historically subject to extended torture followed by hanging.
“Mob justice” lynchings happened a lot around these parts, and I still think you’re full of shit. In America, lynching gained the specific cultural meaning of “hanging uppity blacks”. Do you think you can go to American society and demand they give your word back?
It seems to me, that it has ‘played’ pretty well amongst ant-racists too. Who exactly would have heard of this loon if it wasn’t for twitter and blog posts like this.
@glendon:
Care to address the fact that the dictionary lists two definitions, one of which is the one you are using and one of which is the one being used here? What’s your problem with acceptable usage? Why do you hate dictionaries?
Great, is this the part where you reveal your conspiracy theories concerning the coming race war? *gets popcorn*
amazingly enough, that actually doesn’t contradict what I said
except that the co-variate we’re interested in is not intent, it’s effect, since intent (especially the only kind we can reasonably learn about, i.e. explicit intent) doesn’t correlate with harm, and harm is the only meaningful reason to talk about racism. racism as intent* is a useless concept.
what a complete non sequitur
– – – – – –
*and since I’m on the topic, which intent? implicit or explicit? does it only count if one is explicitly racially biased? because if implicit bias counts, then the discussion is moot; everyone is implicitly racist, and thus actions once again become the only meaningful distinction
No, I would call them a racist if one could infer from their actions or words that they held racist beliefs. I would further allow that there was, at least, a possibility that someone could be racist without anyone ever knowing.
No, you’re wrong there: it doesn’t; are you sure your first name is really “Jennifer” and not “Red”? By the way, what is “misuing”?
Such an inference would be little more than a guess, making the word useless. Why do you think “I’m not racist but” exists? It’s precisely an attempt to dissociate intent from action.
what is the use of a definition of “racist” that makes things/people/acts thusly described indistinguishable from “non-racist”?
Of course, that was sloppy, replace ‘relate’ with ‘correspond’.
“This election is going to be interesting”, in stark contrast to fool white people trying to pretend they understand what racism means.
that doesn’t render your ramblings about biology any less of a non sequitur
So you’re taking this stuff back, then?
Or is it that even though this isn’t your approach, you expect other people to call someone racist when it’s impossible for them to know that?
Well it illustrates that even a quantity that cannot be measured or defined can be shown to be part of a real functional relationship.
except that it isn’t. sometimes it’s the opposite(the belief is caused by the actions), and most of the time (at least if we’re talking about explicit attitudes) racially differential outcomes are entirely independent of personal biases. that’s why focusing on the biases is so worthless.
incorrect. if the structures aren’t removed first, racial attitudes will continue forming because of structural racism. OTOH if social structures foster anti-racist action, the attitudes shaped from them will be non- or anti-racist.
Elimination of racism means eliminating race-differential social outcomes. given what we know of psychology, this will result in eventual elimination of bias, but bias prevented by structure from having powerful effects is unimportant
No, I allow for the possibility that racism as a concept is distinct but related to the evidence for racism and its consequences. I have been fairly consistent on this.
I am beginning to get quite curious what you imagine the relevance of this to be
The question is not whether it gets known (ffs nobody thinks a sneaky racist is not racist), but whether it has consequences in the external world.
If there is some magical person who has racist intentions that never manifest in any way, how would you ever know they’re racist at all? You yourself said the only way to tell someone is racist is by their actions, so why not cut the nebulous middleman and just call the actions themselves racist?
Indeed, but I did not claim that racism was dispositional; I believe quite the opposite. What you describe is a very good way of controlling the attitude.
because intent is magic. latent magic.
I’m just going to quote myself again.
irrelevant, since we’re not discussing disposition.
congratulations on missing the point. controlling attitude is a side-effect, and mostly irrelevant to fighting racism
Simply that one of the objections to my position is that under the definition I am using racism cannot be directly observed or known. As such, I am told, why not cut out the middle-man and use a related, observable definition.
My point is that, in my work, if I did that, I would get the wrong answer.
Clearly I am not arguing for a mathematical treatment of racism, but the principle stands that simply being unobservable does not make a concept useless.
In your experience perhaps. I would say it has been a very effective method here. Again, perhaps we are back to cultural differences.
no, that’s false. by your definition, it also cannot be indirectly observed or known, since you claimed that racism can exist without producing effects.
things that don’t produce any measurable effect, direct or indirect, are functionally non-existent; in addition, there actually isn’t such a thing as an attitude that doesn’t produce externalized effects, so your definition also applies to something that’s actually non-existent.
consequently, it’s a useless definition
on gthe other hand, being indistinguishable from its opposite, as well as not actually existing, does render a definition useless.
FIFM
*sigh* Florida. Why is it always Florida? What- what is it, something in the water there that turns people stupid? Is it the heat? Why are these people stuck 60 years in the past? What the hell is wrong with people?!
lol
Scotland. the land to which social and psychological theories of humanity don’t apply, because something something.
lololol
What’s your line of work? Ghost hunting? Theology?
I guess you don’t have to be too specific, but if you’re going to rely on an analogy to make your point, it would help to know what it is.
I was fairly explicit that in the real-world it was generally associated with discriminatory behaviour. That is not the same as saying that it was synonymous with the the behaviour.
I’m a statistical geneticist.
Or maybe Scotland is populated entirely by azi, and they’ve simply all had new deepteach tapes that reconstructed their attitudes so that their actions would be different. that’s a possibility. of course.
I apologize, I was not aware Scotland was on Cyteen.
irrelevant, unless you want to backtrack your hypothetical and acknowledge that a definition of racism that allows for such a scenario is useless.
It seems to me, that it has ‘played’ pretty well amongst ant-racists too. Who exactly would have heard of this loon if it wasn’t for twitter and blog posts like this.
ok, you’re a shithead. I get it.
actually, that’s not just irrelevant to the function of your definition, it’s also wrong. if we’re talking about implicit bias, then it’s meaningless to say it’s associated with discriminatory behavior, since everyone has implicit racial bias and thus everyone who participates in discriminatory behavior does; and if we’re talking about explicit bias, then discriminatory behavior is independent of it, and in fact is often done by people without explicit bias, especially in the case of microaggressions
Not particularly.
Anyway, this isn’t really going anywhere, I don’t find your arguments particularly persuasive, and I guess that you can say the same for me. Besides, its late, and I’m back at work tomorrow.
Thank you for your responses, they were certainly interesting to read even if I haven’t changed my own views significantly. I will come back to them later.
Goodnight.
I’m glad you admit to the irrelevance of that response
The election, it is nigh.
(Wait just a bit, and one can apply hindsight to it)
hm. did glendon slip up and finally use the useful definition of racism, or is that sentence a mere tautology?
another curious sentence. nobody claimed that prejudice is synonymous with behavior, nor is anyone accusing glendon of making that claim. and yet, here and in previous statements, glendon keeps on mentioning it as if it were relevant.
wonder whether he’s confusing “included together” with “synonymous”?
Late to the party as usual, but…
If I dislike Xenomorphs, am I a racist?
How about Kzinti? They seem right bastards.
(I would have made a Pony reference, but Janine got there first, and better!)
glendon, you are profoundly tedious. Your hands have been wrung so thoroughly that I am convinced that they should be no more than flaps of flesh and powdered bone by now.
Meh. If you go beyond the original – and misleading, argaubly cherry-picked – picture this turns out to have nothing to do with racism and very little to do with Obama and the election at all.
Just one man’s strange and rather imaginative albeit provocative protest vehicle (literally!) against powerful people he thinks have done him and his family a horrendous wrong. He could even be right.
Creative, eye-catching, odd protest method against an apparent injustice. Something I think most of us would usually support in the abstract if not in this specific case which I think very few of us know enough about to really judge.
There are plenty of white effigy “corpses” swinging alongside Obama. If seven hanged whites and one hanged black is evidence of racism of any kind then it’d seem more like racism directed at whites than blacks.
Obama was only added to the truck of executed wrongdoers because in this person’s view he has failed to investigate a murder and cover up by the authorities and thus denying him justice.
Meaning as Martin Luther King’s could have famous described it : Obama here is not being judged by the colour of his skin but rather by his (in)action. Equally with and alongside other powerful white people who this protester thinks has done him great injustice.
Its not a racist threat or imagined vision of lynching but rather an imagined execution scene presumably following a proper trial. Plenty of people of all “races” have been executed over the centuries and all over the planet for various reasons almost always good.
Nothing to do with the election, nothing to do with race.
There is plenty of real racism out there, sadly. More than enough to note that this blog and those on it should avoid cherry picking and making a hugely misleading thing out of something that a bit of research quickly reveals isn’t what its being claimed to be.
Guess I’m now going t o be flamed for calmly and rationally pointing this out?
@7 & # 8. No One : Thanks for those clips giving us the actual story here or at least a lot more of it.
@38.Shiroferetto :
&
@47.ChasCPeterson :
Exactly. Quoted for truth.
You just tried to “calmly and rationally” explain away a grotesque depiction of violence, you asshole.
StevoR shows once again what a lackwit he is.
@glendon
This isn’t your work, in case you haven’t already noticed. We’re talking about people’s thoughts. As far as we’re concerned, thought that has no external consequences is none of our business. It’s not like we can even know it exists.
You’re exhibiting the hallmark of crackpot philosophers: deciding on an idiosyncractic definition of words nobody else uses, then arguing against the common definition using your definition.
I have to ask you. Suppose we all decide to use your definition of racism. Let’s say we call the manifestation of racist attitudes “pflergpxx”. So what? What changes? It’s still just as deplorable.
You don’t get to muddle the discourse with “it’s not Racism, it’s pflergpxx”. If this is called pflergpxx, it’s that we’re fighting against.
America is a pflergpxxist nation, and that’s fucking terrible.
@StevoR:
Way to barge in the thread, jackass. You basically rehashed yet again what other people have already said, ignoring the counter-arguments.
Thaaaaat’s StevoR.
[Cue laugh track]