Talk:Prejudice plus power

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[edit] Looking at this article, it seems pretty biased, and not in a good way.

To the writer of this article, I intend no offense but it seems like a rant. This line sets of my "Anti-sj" radar in particular (aside from the something-something white tower arglebargle social justice. -Ad homienum argument much?)".

"While the usual definition of "racism" is something like "prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race",[4][5] some academics reject this definition and require an additional condition of "...by someone in a position of power over them". Obviously, the majority of sexism is still against women by men, and the majority of racism in the US is against minorities by whites,[6] but this definition makes the converse categorically impossible, rather than just less frequent."

How is it impossible by the P+P theory of privilege that internalized isms would be theoretically impossible? I thought this wiki had better editing and sourcing standards (The daily mail, really?). It also kinda sounds like a "But POC CAN be racist against white people!11!" On another note, dictionary definitions are usually over fifteen years old and no longer culturally or academically relevant. I also find an appeal from authority in the article, the statement that paraphrased, is essentially "most academics don't support this theory therefore it is moonbattery by association," (is there any proof from a reliable source? Who are the academics?). Even if this is proven to be true, that the majority of academics do not support this theory, how does the lack of institutional support in itself disprove the theory? I'm also suspect of the refutation of the P+P theory by Prof. Dave Pilgrim. He is one academic and is not representative of all academics, so how does he show the consensus of opinion on this theory? A significant number of people more concise and generally smarter than me pointed out the *many* floors of this article. It seems like privilege denial, not a work of academic writing.

Again I feel pretty passionately about this and I don't mean to cause offense. This just doesn't seem to be up to a particularly good standard and comes off very biased. (But REALLY, linking the daily mail as a source... For anything that is a crap idea.) This needs a rewrite PRONTO. Please tell me how this theory of oppression is fallacious because I'm not seeing any particular fallacy. I TL;DR at walls of text, sorry. Notnicenonny (talk) 10:34, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, it's a shitty article. If you can improve it, please go ahead. WèàšèìòìďWeaselly.jpgMethinks it is a Weasel 10:43, 20 September 2014 (UTC)
First I would encourage you to read the talk page as this is not the first time this argument we're having has occurred here. Alsto003 (talk) 05:12, 21 September 2014 (UTC) Alex
To answer your first question. Since it is argued that minorities in the USA don't have power the prejudice plus power definition is used to argue that members of minorities cannot be racist. Here's an example, <http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/08/01/760770/--black-people-cannot-be-racist-the-difference-between-prejudice-and-racism#>, of some one who argues that black people can't be racist, which in the words of Wehpudicabok "is absurd and amounts to arguing over semantics rather than combating genuine social ills."
I have various different concerns about this definition. I am also aware that it is common in academia. The p+p definition is used to say that oppressed groups can't be racist. What is somewhat ambiguous is the exact relationship between the unprivileged and the oppressed. From the perspective of someone generally considered privileged in practice the unprivileged are categorized as being oppressed without exception. Because minority racial groups in this country are viewed as being broadly unprivileged and oppressed, and because of the fact that "Racist" is a loaded word, saying that oppressed groups cannot be racist is viewed by people like NoBody and most of the American public as in effect protecting bigoted people who are members of a minority groups from the accusation of racism since there hatred (even if it is distinctly racial) is merely described as prejudice, which in practice is considered less horrible than racism. Indeed there is a tenancy to categorize all non-white, non-western people as being unprivileged and therefore oppressed. For instance according to this common check you privilege quiz on tumblr <http://awakentemptation.tumblr.com/post/33696564670/how-privileged-are-you> , I (a western white middle class Jewish kid) am more privileged than Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia <http://www.forbes.com/profile/prince-alwaleed-bin-talal-alsaud/>. This underlies the tenancy of the people who use this definition to underplay to the point of completely ignoring the effect that economic class has on someone’s privilege. Now one can argue that the quiz was merely pointing out that I am more privileged than the one of the richest men in the world, but not as powerful as him. There are two problems with that claim, firstly it ignores the fact that privilege and power are frequently conflated to mean the same thing, and secondly asserting that I am more privileged than he is denies the simple fact that how much money your family has or you have is by far the most important part in determining how privileged you are, period. In any case the fact of the matter remains that this definition was thought up by people at a time when racism already had an accepted definition. Before that prejudice plus power was simply referred to as institutional racism. Aside from ambiguities with regards to the relationship between power and privilege I find this definition hard to accept for the reason NoBody laid out and also because of some thoughts I had after reading the last part KnightofTL:DR's comment "the article seems more to be the deranged babblings of somebody upset that they were called a cracker and doesn't understand they were literally being called the demographic that cracked the slave-owning whip over blacks, a position of stolen power." To which I wrote back responding that according to this logic the Muslims offended by the film The Innocence of Muslims are just upset that they were called ignorant fanatics who follow the teachings of a deranged madman (according to the film). They don't understand that they were literally being called: the followers of a religion which gave Coptic Christians second class status in their own country for nearly fourteen hundred years, a position of stolen power. Basically my view of this definition is similar to Professor Pilgrim's, who says “Certainly, not all racism is hate-driven, but to ignore the connection between racial hate and racism is to reduce the concept of racism to a useless theoretical abstraction.” Alsto003 (talk) 04:44, 21 September 2014 (UTC) Alex
I'd like to state my stance on Professor Pilgrim's opinion. Presumably he is factoring in the connotations, and his own interpretation is that you do the connotations of the term "racism" a disservice by disassociating it from hatred. Apparently he means, for instance, using its powerful connotations for some minor embarrassing incident regarding a stereotype that wasn't intended maliciously is devaluing it compared to actual prejudiced incidents that lead to huge amounts of harm done. This is understandable, but somewhat naive. It is naive because I would assume it would work under the premise that some of the most famous institutions in history that are generally considered racist were predicated on malice. Apparently apartheid as conjured up by Hendrik Verwoerd was intended to be a "progressive, anti-colonialist" ideology with the intent to have blacks govern themselves. Slavery also was done more out of economic convenience than hatred. Whites didn't enslave blacks out of hatred, but because it was convenient and the generally assumed view at the time was that they were inferior and that it was the natural order. It was fundamentally that banal. To include malice in the definition of racism would imply that apartheid and slavery were not fundamentally racist at least on a policy level. -Nobody 1 October 2014

Whether or not you accept this definition of racism, it is one that is backed up with a certain amount of social theory about power dynamics within society and how they perpetuate division, othering, oppression & prejudice. The article doesn't engage with this theoretical framework at all; it just engages is dictionary-thumping, focuses all attention on forms of prejudice which would not be counted as racist under this definition (an argument from adverse consequences), and makes the totally unfounded suggestion that this definition was cooked up specifically in order to exonerate these forms of prejudice. If this is what passes for analyzing and refuting, standards are low. WẽãšẽĩõĩďWeaselly.jpgMethinks it is a Weasel 16:29, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

In the end, the debate is over which stipulative definition should be in wide use.
  • Everyone knows, I suppose, that any given person can have prejudices regarding other races. Such prejudices, especially in their more extreme form, are what were originally known as "racism".
  • In social theory, evidently (don't know the subject myself), such prejudices are of secondary importance. What is essential is whether the prejudices come with a power difference. Thus, they use "racism" only to refer to this situation.
Now, of course, there is no real "refuting" of a stipulative definition, but we can ask whether one stipulative definition is more useful than another. The argument here is that the former definition is better because we do, indeed, need a term to describe racial prejudice in all its forms, and because, historically and etymologically, the word "racism" serves that purpose.
I'm not too sure what the alternative argument is. As you can see, I have a bias towards the more inclusive definition of "racism". I can't help but think that redefining the term to exclude the possibility of racist underprivileged classes is simply confusing at best, and grossly misleading (almost intentionally so) at worst. Phiwum (talk) 14:28, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

The crux of the issue is semantics and why it was decided to redefine racism rather than just use "institutional racism" (apparently institutional racism is not equivalent to "prejudice+power" according to some people) or "systematic racism", which is the term I would favor. The issue is not whether "prejudice+power" is a valid distinction to make, I am inclined to agree it is. It would just seem logical to me that if I was an academic and I reached the conclusion to need to differentiate between generic racism and this "prejudice+power" type of racism, I would default to amending the term racism with something like "systematic racism" because it shows it is a type of racism that is, well, systematic, or something like "powerful racism". This is a logical evolution of language. For linguistic reasons "racism/racist" are perfectly apt for the colloquial definition over any other. We don't say a communist is only a communist when they're in a country that is controlled by communists. Any linguistic argument for racism=prejudice+power is at best arbitrary. The real variable here that leads to this debate is simply this: "racism" has powerful emotional connotations that some people decades ago apparently felt overrode linguistics and made it apt to redefine at the expense of everything else to push certain agendas.

My point is it seems to me the choice of redefining racism is primarily for emotional reasons. "Prejudice" does not substitute for "prejudice based on race", that is the big canary in the coal mine for me. They essentially deleted a word, an oversight or at worst something they deemed tolerable for the sake of being able to use the emotional stigma of the word racism to deliver what is essentially a political message. Irrelevant to the reason why it is currently adopted in academia, if it was initially done for that reason, especially with all the other issues I just mentioned, it does not have much credibility in intent, making it valid to criticize it. The way it is used on tumblr as a way of essentially derailing arguments into big long semantics debates confirms every single pre-concieved notion we all had about that definition. It really isn't objective in its reason for existing is my real point, and besides, let's assume it was logical and done for purely objective reasons: This wouldn't make the colloquial definition of racism wrong any more than the military defining rockets as unguided missiles makes the colloquial definition of rocket wrong, or psychiatrists defining "Depression" as a specific disorder makes the colloquial definition of "depression/depressed" wrong. That's not how words work. Words don't instantly become wrong due to arguments from authority, in no other case does anyone argue that an academic definition trumps and renders absolutely incorrect another definition. The only time it is generally agreed that academics at least get "first dibs", for lack of a better term, on a word is if they were the first to use the term, to invent it essentially. With racism this is obviously not the case. In general when people get super upset with semantics, regardless of reason, this leads to literalism and derailment. People care more about what you said than what you mean. The whole point of language is what you mean.

When you agree with the prejudice+power definition of racism, irrelevant to how many academics use it, and irrelevant to your intent, you're basically using a definition that exists for no real objective reason other than to use the emotional connotations of "racism" and "racist" in opposition to the comparatively soft connotations of the word prejudice, with the intent to communicate that anything "racist" is ipso facto worse than anything "prejudice". The real moral problem is it is not predicated on the severity of the action. When you say something is racist, and we presume the connotation is "working", the emotional response isn't "this is a horrible occurrence based on power and oppression that is systematic". No, it just subconsciously tells you "REALLY BAD THING" with brute force. If successful, it basically tells people that ANY racist act, no MATTER the severity, if done by a person in power, is worse than ANY racist act done by a minority. The fact one may be systematic or not is not transmitted in the connotation. At all. There is a limit to the amount of information that the emotional connotations of a word can transmit. It also, in my opinion, subconsciously removes agency and responsibility from minority groups committing any act. There is this presumption in SJW circles that any racist act committed by a minority group is to do with oppression on their end. They always matter-of-factly say something like "oh, I can understand why the minority did that!" and they'll go on about institutional racism. The fact is as long as we live in a society without racial laws, this is an ASSUMPTION. Obviously, GENERALLY more correct than visa-versa due to whites having power, but only because it is nearly impossible for certain severe things to happen to whites that are of course worse than petty name calling, but not ANYTHING that is worse than petty name calling. That is the reason why it is morally inconsistent. Period.

The simple unfortunate fact is there is just no defensible reason any professional academic should support manipulating language for emotional reasons at the expense of linguistic transparency, even if it didn't have the moral issues I stated in my previous paragraph. It's not much different from when a white nationalist goes on about "white genocide" when he talks about the ethnic displacement of Europeans by immigrants in, say, London. We know that is not what genocide means, but he is loosely (in this case unconsciously) redefining a word and utilizing the connotations and emotional stigma of it to deliver what is essentially a political message. The irony is it is of less negative consequence that some random extremists subconsciously redefine a word for emotional reasons than a presumably intelligent academic doing so consciously and working up the pretense of professionalism. This is inexcusable and, to be frank, not rational. At all, and that is the simple fact of it. -Nobody 1 October 2014

OK so rather than bothering to look into why this concept exists or trying to understand the theory behind it, you're just going to keep repeating your own unfounded simplistic assumptions about it? Good for you jack, but that ain't how it is. ŴêâŝêîôîďWeaselly.jpgMethinks it is a Weasel 17:30, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
Can you give a brief synopsis, then, of why the original use of the word "racism" should be avoided in favor of a redefined term? How do the social theorists (or whoever) respond when one points out that there is still a need to discuss racial prejudice generally and that the term "racism" had heretofore been the term for precisely that? What disadvantage is there to adopting a new term for the "prejudice + power" concept?
From the unenlightened outside, the linguistic move does seem designed to downplay the importance of certain forms of racial prejudice, by declaring by fiat that they don't count as "real" racism.
Perhaps the social theorists are more interested in "prejudice + power" and so, in technical writings, have adopted the term "racism" to mean precisely that, but, of course, the fact that an academic discipline finds this definition appropriate would not entail that the rest of us are "wrong" to use the term in its colloquial sense in non-technical discussions, near as I can figger.
Thanks much. Phiwum (talk) 19:30, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
Out of difference for to institution of sociology I acknowledge that this is a commonly accepted definition and thus should pointed out as being such. However the fact remains that this word "racism" already had an accepted definition when it was redefined, this was an example of extremely poor judgement on the part of sociologists because they sought to redefine a loaded word with an already accepted meaning. Hence it is not surprising that many theories should arise from why they decided to do this. As far as I can tell all of these theories are mere speculation but such speculation is in my mind should not immediately be dismissed as unfounded due to facts I've already laid out. I.E. That there already was an accepted definition of the word racism prior to this one, and that this new definition first became widespread in the academia in the late 70s when the term "racism" was already a loaded word. Do not be fooled into thinking that ideas of a conspiracy is limited to the right either. This Marxist <http://www.wetasphalt.com/content/why-racism-prejudice-power-wrong-way-approach-problems-racism> who I alluded to in an earlier debate seems to think that this definition was a bourgeoisie conspiracy to divide the proletariat. Simply put, while I tentatively accept the commonly accepted definition used in sociology out of respect for academia, the criticism section must stay (and it must be honest and sincere, though who writes it is not as much of a concern of mine). Alsto003 (talk) 20:31, 1 October 2014 (UTC) Alex
Your basic assumptions that there was ever a single "accepted definition" of the concept, that this included prejudices by marginalised peoples against their oppressors, and your insistence that any other understanding of the concept must be viewed suspiciously as a manipulative "redefinition" are all pretty questionable. Do you have any examples of the things you like to describe as racism - such as black antipathy toward white people - being referred to as such during the early or mid twentieth century?
The term racism was first used more or less synonymously with racialism, referring to theories of racial hierarchies & supremacy - ideas that were heavily connected with imperialism, conquering & subordinating foreign peoples (i.e. prejudice+power). The concept of racism was extended to more casual and institutional racial prejudice within societies around the mid twentieth century, but this usage generally still reflected prejudice by a dominant people against a minority. As far as I'm aware, referring to the reverse situation (prejudice by a minority against the dominant ethnicity) as racism started somewhat later, probably popularised by segregationists & reactionaries as a backlash against the civil rights movement. This would be about the same time that the "prejudice plus power" definition started to be used, so the one is a redefinition as much as the other. WėąṣėḷőįďWeaselly.jpgMethinks it is a Weasel 22:15, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
You might be right. I'd like to know how the term was defined and used in earlier decades. I found a partial article here, but I don't have the rights to read it all.
Modern dictionaries do not use the "prejudice + power" definition. Do you suppose that dictionaries of the 1950s were closer in spirit to the "prejudice + power" definition than modern dictionaries are? (I recognize that dictionaries simply describe how a word is used, but the heart of our current question is whether or not "racism" was originally applicable regardless of power differences, so a dictionary is an appropriate resource here.) Phiwum (talk) 02:55, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
You are indeed correct on how the term racism originated, however it is wrong to say that the concept of racism perpetrated on the majority by the minority was the popularized by "segregationists and reactionaries" indeed a quote from the well known (understatement) Malcom X shows that the word "racism" was commonly used to describe racism perpetrated on the majority by the minority, he wrote in his autobiography: "My trip to Mecca has opened my eyes. I no longer subscribe to racism..." (he goes on to further this point saying that now he criticizes white people for their actions rather than their skin color). What this quote illustrates is that the word itself was commonly used to describe racial animosity regardless of who was perpetrating it. Alsto003 (talk) 20:42, 2 October 2014 (UTC) Alex
I am in the middle of an interesting article. For what it's worth, the author of this article (who discusses the challenges of discussing the term "racism" in the classroom) explicitly states that the original definition of racism lacked the requirement of power, which was added later. He agrees with those of us who see "Prejudice + Power" as a redefinition of an existing term.
Mind you, that doesn't mean the redefinition is inferior to the original, which is a distinct point. I merely bring this up because Weaseloid challenged whether or not there really was a power-agnostic definition of racism prior to the P+P formulation.
In my opinion, the existence of a widespread prior usage of the term places greater onus on those who insist that the "correct" usage is the narrower definition. Phiwum (talk) 23:00, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
Weaseloid: As far as I'm aware, referring to the reverse situation (prejudice by a minority against the dominant ethnicity) as racism started somewhat later, probably popularised by segregationists & reactionaries as a backlash against the civil rights movement. This would be about the same time that the "prejudice plus power" definition started to be used, so the one is a redefinition as much as the other. What time did you have in mind? When I read this, I was thinking about the sixties or early seventies, but the article mentioned above seems to trace P+P to the early nineties.
Surely, you're not suggesting that notions of reverse racism were first discussed in the 1990s, are you? Wikipedia mentions a use of the term as far back as 1966, and even if we ignore the term "reverse racism", I would be shocked if Nation of Islam wasn't referred to as a racist organization around (roughly) the same time. Phiwum (talk) 23:07, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
No, I didn't say anything about the 90s, but I doubt you'll find many examples of black v white prejudice & similar hostilities being described as racism much earlier than about the 60s or 70s. ЩєазєюіδWeaselly.jpgMethinks it is a Weasel 20:26, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
Supposing you're right, that's twenty-five years before the "Prejudice + Power" redefinition, if I understand that article correctly. About this, the author (Hoyt) writes, "Wellman (1993) proposed a revision of the definition that would allow it to remain 'useful and analytically powerful'." Now, it's not too clear from the quoted material whether Wellman viewed it as a revision, rather than a clarification, but regardless that puts the date of the P+P movement around the early 90s, not the 60s or 70s.
I have finished reading the article, and the author clearly is opposed to using the term "racism" (which is, after all, an "ism" word and hence should be about a system of beliefs or ideas, rather than a kind of oppression -- parroting Hoyt's argument here) to mean anything different than the traditional dictionary definition. I thought his presentation was informative, and his argument good, but I was already leaning in that direction. I haven't found a similarly accessible and short article expressing the opposite view. Phiwum (talk) 02:06, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
This article dates the "prejudice plus power" to the 1970s. As I say, I think applying "racism" to black prejudice against white people probably starts at around the same time. I'm not really interested in which dates exactly first as I don't think it would prove anything. They're two alternative interpretations of the existing concept of racism. WeaseloidWeaselly.jpgMethinks it is a Weasel 11:13, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
I think that's rather misleading. The first "alternative" is the dictionary definition, which was so chosen because it was the meaning consistent with usage of the term. I would be surprised if the 1970 book didn't frame "P+P" as a redefinition, though of this I'm not certain.
Thanks for pointing me to that reference. I guess I'm not sure what to make of the discrepancy with the article I read. Phiwum (talk) 13:23, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
Which dictionary definition are you appealing to & when does it date from? ŴêâŝêîôîďWeaselly.jpgMethinks it is a Weasel 13:30, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
A fair question. I don't have access to a dictionary that predates the 1970s, so I am presuming a bit here. I presume that the current definition is close to the definition found prior to the 1960s. A little evidence would be better. (Of course, you haven't given any clear evidence that the prior definition really presumed an imbalance of power and that his has changed since.)
Here are two of my criticisms of the redefinition: (1) As Hoyt says, the redefinition casts racism as a form of oppression, but linguistically, it is a body of beliefs or ideas. (2) The redefinition makes it difficult to see how the term "racist" applies to individuals. The notion of power is explicitly on the scale of society, not the individual (so even black Presidents can't be racist), but does that mean that every member of the privileged race, no matter how individually unprivileged can be racist? "Racist" as a term applies to individuals, but the P+P definition of "racism" is on a much broader scale. There is an uneasy difference between the two.
But, primarily, I oppose the redefinition because it changes a useful, existing term to something quite different without what I consider a compelling need to do so. The P+P situation is certainly one we ought to focus our attention on, but doing so does not require repurposing the notion of "racism". Phiwum (talk) 14:13, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

[edit] On Reddit

A discussion of this article in /r/TiADiscussion (where TiA = "Tumblr in Action"). --ZooGuard (talk) 17:19, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

And again, this time on /r/KotakuInAction - "Don't let people get away with using prejudice + power definitions. Even Rational wiki doesn't even let them do that." It looks like this article is quite popular in some circles.--ZooGuard (talk) 12:22, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

I guess that figures, but it's one of our weakest & most anti-intellectual entries. WeaseloidWeaselly.jpgMethinks it is a Weasel 12:37, 29 March 2015 (UTC)
It would appear that the article has been edited a couple of times recently to be more critical. I would raise no objection to rewording the most of article to be more in favor of the definition, my only insistence is that there be an honest "Criticism" section and there is one. Alsto003 (talk) 19:39, 8 April 2015 (UTC) Alex
But it only focuses on one guy's opinion. ЩєазєюіδWeaselly.jpgMethinks it is a Weasel 19:52, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
Pardon me for my absence, I've been somewhat busy these last couple of weeks. But continuing on with our discussion. You are correct in saying that having one academics critique of this definition is rather silly, therefore it may make sense to add the opinion of several more academics and their criticism to the "Criticism" section. Such critiques do exist, I found this paper <https://www.andover.edu/About/Newsroom/TheMagazine/Documents/8-PedOfRacismSWJournal.pdf> which goes over the various academic viewpoints of this definition and mentions the various counterpoints against it. Indeed I cited another critique of it by a Marxist in an earlier conversation on this talk page. In order to check the passions of the various reactionaries across the interwebz reading this article it may be necessary to water down the criticism section, emphasizing it as a minority viewpoint. Nevertheless the usage of this article by the various reactionaries on Reddit is not a valid argument against critiquing the definition. Alsto003 (talk) 17:25, 22 April 2015 (UTC) Alex
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