Etymology of "Racism"

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I think this paragraph is indicative of why this continues to be a widespread problem where sides have a hard time agreeing on the fundamental axioms as the basis for the talks.

I personally believe that your statement of “I can assure you it is impossible to be racist against white people” doesn’t even agree with the link you provided. I also find it silly as a premise to think that racism has an implied direction, and that the contrarian view is “reverse-racism”.

The link you provided says (paraphrased of course) is that you can’t be racist toward white people because of the power dynamic. In my opinion, It’s non-sensical to believe that in all cases that a white person holds the cards in the power dynamics of all other races. That sort of absolutism makes a great literary pamphlet, or a discussion topic for a liberal arts course, but in reality, just doesn’t make practical sense. Even in the most racist areas of the USA, the Irish and Italians were also thought to be second class citizens, are Irish and Italian people considered “white”, wasn’t their an entire genocide based on race where people that would qualify as “white” were murdered?

Now, how does this apply to FRC and the behavior experienced by people? There are some number of cases, where there is a case of misunderstanding or outright ignorance where a “microaggression” was observed but it was not done with malice, or even mal-intent. There are an equal or greater number of cases where the FRC students and mentors are men/boys that are on or near the spectrum, or socially awkward at best, that fundamentally don’t understand how to associate and talk to members of the opposite sex. Then there are an equal or greater number of cases where the FRC students and mentors are men/boys who really are complete misogynists and are jerks.

A large problem in our society today, is trying to figure which of the three categories the offense resides in, because it’s not always clear or easy to see which.

I do believe that we all can do better to make life more inclusive, for anyone and everyone. The torture that ANY person feels when they feel like they don’t belong is unnecessary in a decent society. We should all be doing our part to make society decent through kindness, accepting people where they are, no matter where that is, and trying to make the world around us a better place.

I am also a contrarian in the world here, because I can’t control your perception. My act of what I think is kindness, can be received by another person as a “micro-aggression”. Here are two anecdotes from my life, that happened within a few weeks of each other (semi-recently). I was in a gas station very early in the morning, and a person that appeared to be homeless was counting the change he had and was trying to buy some breakfast foods. He was short on cash and asked me for some money to cover it. I had no cash at the time, but I told the cashier to give him all his money back and that I’d just add his food to my tab and I paid with my credit card. He said “Thanks man”, smiled and walked away. Similarly at a grocery store, there was a person in front of me that was trying to buy a couple of essentials (half a gallon of milk, some eggs, etc). Their debit/credit card was not working (it was being declined), and the person didn’t have any cash. I told the person and the cashier that they could just swipe my card to pay for it so they could have their stuff. The person looked at me and yelled, “I don’t need nuthin’ from you.” and walked away empty handed.

I don’t share that for any other reason then I believe that my motivations in both cases were identical, but one of them received the action with gratitude and the other categorized it as an offensive action. I can’t control how people receive me, my words, or my actions. I can only control doing my best to be a kind and decent person in the world around me…the rest will work itself out.

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I think you are missing the point of this article. It explicitly says at the beginning:

While assumptions and stereotypes about white people do exist, this is considered racial prejudice, not racism. Racial prejudice refers to a set of discriminatory or derogatory attitudes based on assumptions derived from perceptions about race and/or skin colour. Thus, racial prejudice can indeed be directed at white people (e.g., “White people can’t dance”) but is not considered racism because of the systemic relationship to power. When backed with power, prejudice results in acts of discrimination and oppression against groups or individuals.

It defines racism as the systemic oppression and societal injustices. A single person, without any backing, cannot make any sort of significant differences. A person individually may have bias and prejudices based on race, but power dynamics are what allow racism. If any of this is wrong, please correct me, as I am a white person.

An unrelated tangent Is something that greatly bothered me at FIN events. At the first event I attended the team 6956, SHAM-ROCK-BOTICS, hosted a LGBTQ+ event, in which the president of FIN attended. One of the major complaints was that there was no gender neutral bathrooms, so she promised that there would be gender neutral bathrooms at events going further and their locations would be announced at the opening ceremonies. the announcement of the bathrooms never occurred and at the second event I attended, they never had gender neutral bathrooms. The district champs also had the gender neutral bathrooms tucked away in an alcove away from the main area, with no further signage to indicate their location. In fact, I only found them on the third day of the event.

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I don’t think I am.

I read the article, and I think that I gave three examples of “white” people that were systematically oppressed, experienced societal injustices, even to the point of genocide. Irish and Italian people had a hard time acquiring land, and in some cases in the American south it was outright illegal for them to be landowners. Jews were outright killed in the holocaust.

All three of those categories of races are white. What they experienced was racism, in any logically consistent definition of racism.

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It is not racism, since it is not based on race. Race is the artificial contruct that separates people by their skin’s color. The examples you listed, in the case of anti-irsh and anti-italian discrimination is based in xenophobia and discrimnation by ethnicity. The Holocaust and other anti-semetic movements are based on not on race, but ethnicity and religion. In addition, it is worth noting that Jewish people were not the only ones oppressed and killed during the Holocaust. It included other groups like gay and trans people, in addition to other religious minorities like Jehovah’s Witnesses. To me, it seems like you are presenting any form of discrimination as racism, not realizing the other potential causes.

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If all you see is bickering about what the word racism means, I can’t control that.

It does go back to the overarching point that I made earlier, which anyone is free to go back and reference why it’s important, and germane to this conversation here. Agreeing on the axioms is a massively important step in dealing with it.

As I said previously, people that feel they were wronged, maybe were legitimately wronged by malevolent people, could be an awkward misunderstanding, or they could be in a situation where the other person’s intent was benevolent and the receipt of the benevolence is being misconstrued.

The only way to know what category it may be is to agree on the axioms. Whether it applies or not, who knows, the original article was put in by someone who was wronged, so it must apply on some level.

Edit to add: Since there was a follow-on comment to my comment.

See how the mind has to bend to make this particular racism argument valid? That is my point about the need to agree on the axioms. There are plenty of ethnicities by the tenor of the above comment that absolutely see themselves as a separate race, and maybe vice versa. I mean, if you think for a minute that the motivation of exterminating the Jews was not something based on race you’re officially in crazy town. They killed people based on their lineage, not on their religious or ethnic practices. The Nazis were very clear they thought the Jews were a race, and an inferior one at that…

All that being said, like I said before, I can’t control anyone’s perceptions of my actions. I do my best to be a good person and let the chips fall where they may. I wish everyone had that same attitude whether it be race, religion, sexual orientation, or other.

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Can a mod please split off the pointless definitional dispute about racism into another thread, or else can we get back to the actual topic? I can’t imagine bickering about what the word “racism” means helps anyone who has been wronged…

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I apologize if this comes across as off topic and distracting to you. However, I think it is important that not only people share their experiences regarding incidents of discrimination, but also be aware of what discrimination consists of to avoid making false accusations and ensuring that people are educated in the subject so they can support others and not deny the reality of their experiences.

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You’re still wording your posts as if you are the final arbiter on what the word “discrimination” means. This is both patronizing and distracting, and also won’t actually convince anyone of the thing you’re trying to convince them of (which probably isn’t the definition of a word…).

I suggest you read this.

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Ok, if you want to call it racism rather then antisemitism, ok. (There may well be valid points against that assertion, but not from me.) At the very least we’ve just agreed it isn’t anti-white racism; it’s anti-Jewish, anti-Italian, anti-Irish, etc. racism.

People who are white can certainly experience systemic discrimination — be they white women, white LGBTQ+, white Jews, etc. But they’re not experiencing it because they’re white. Similarly I am a cisgender person who experiences sexism, not because I’m cisgender, but because I’m female.

Society can systemically discriminate against people of majority-power characteristics, but you can’t be systemically discriminated against because of a majority characteristic, because that’s within the definition of the societal system.

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I belive that although you can’t be racist to someone solely based off the fact they are white, you can certainly discriminate against them.

Feel free to disagree, just my thoughts on this. Also not trying to assert my opinion on this

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I am sorry if my writing comes off as definitive. It is most certainly not my intent to claim that I, as a freshman in high school, am a great person that knows what is right. Do you have any advice that could be used to help avoid appearing patronizing? (I did read the blog post you linked). I truly hope that this can be a fruitful conversation and do not mean to stifle debate my coming off as an expert in this matter.

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Also, could this be moved out of the chit-chat category, mods? I know it is not the intent in naming the category, but it feels unsuitable for serious but not FRC related discussions like this.

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This is a minor thing, and I know you meant no offense by it, but I would discourage you from using the term “cisgendered”. “Cisgendered” and “transgendered” imply that your gender is something that is done to you, rather than just being part of who you are. Going forward, I would suggest using “cisgender” and “transgender” to avoid this. Again, no hard feelings, just giving some friendly advice.

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I don’t even know how this really applies. The claim made by the original poster (not me, the one that posted the article I responded to) said that it was “impossible to be racist against white people”.

I was just pointing out that there are absolutely white people that have been the target of racism, so the claim made in that article doesn’t make any sense to me. Seems like you and I agree on the fact that whatever label you want to put on it, white people certainly can be the target of racism.

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The point that people are making is not that white people haven’t been discriminated agnist, but does not fit the within the definition of racism, according to my opinion. It seems to me that you are conflating racism and other forms of bigotry.

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I don’t think you’re fully following what I’m saying, well actually I think you’re following what I’m saying but not following the overall point that started all this talk. The point I’m making is the claim derived from the article linked is fatally flawed based on their definition of racism.

I’m not conflating racism and bigotry. That article defined racism. I simply applied a couple of scenarios where white people experienced racism, as they defined it. Essentially, just an inductive generalization that shows the claims derived from the article aren’t on solid ground.

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I think you bring up a great point of how race is a social construct and how systematic oppression benefits people seen as “white” to discriminate those seen as “not white.” There was a time when Italians were not considered white, and consequently experienced the discrimination you refer to. Now, most people won’t think twice to categorize an Italian person as white and similarly, we don’t really hear anti-Italian rhetoric in main-stream media unlike other populations. The nuance of this further confirms the arbitrariness of whiteness - someone who would discriminate against Italians probably also doesn’t view them as white.

If it weren’t hours of work for me, I’d love to share with you a semester’s worth of required reading about racism and how whiteness has been used for centuries in the US to justify treating non-whites poorly.

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I did not know this was a thing. Thank you, edited.

I agree that white-presenting people can be the target of systemic discrimination for reasons other than being white-presenting (if they have those other minority characteristics). You seen to be having a semantic argument about what characteristics should be classified as race versus e.g. ethnicity, which I don’t find to be a meaningful argument, so I pleaded no contest on the point. In don’t personally identify those characteristics as race, no. But I don’t care.

The only point of importance I see is getting agreement that majority-power characteristics within a society cannot by definition be a basis of systemic discrimination. Call it what you will, but my mother cannot face systemic discrimination for being white. She can (and does) face it for being a woman; my father can (and did) face it for being Indian and non-Christan; other relations can and do face it for being LGBTQ+, differently-abled, etc. If you agree with that I don’t think you’ll find maybe people to argue with.

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Jews were exterminated by Nazis because they were Jews. What are the “minority characteristics” you speak of here?

It most definitely wasn’t because of their religious practice, because both practicing and non-practicing Jews were killed. It most definitely was because they were declared an inferior race by the Nazis.

I just don’t understand what motivates the idea to not call the Holocaust of all things racist? It’s a topsy-turvy world for me when people are going out of their way with verbal gymnastics to avoid saying the Holocaust was racist.

The weirdest part about it for me is trying to figure out what is the benefit? There are entire wikipedia sections with sources that prove beyond any sort of doubt that the Jews were classified by race.

I would think it logically follows for everyone to agree that killing someone based on their race (or the inferiority thereof), is just about the pinnacle of racism. This doesn’t invalidate other things that are deemed racist…it’s just insane to me that accepting the fact that the Holocaust was a racist act by the Nazi regime is questionable, or needs to be re-classified as anti-semitic racism, and not just racism.

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Siri said no such thing. Please re-read her comments.

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