Talk:Prejudice plus power/Archive1

From RationalWiki
Jump to: navigation, search

This is an archive page, last updated 27 September 2015. Please do not make edits to this page.
Archives for this talk page:   , (new)(back)

How prevalent is this definition in academia? Does anyone know? I normally have a deep respect for the opinions of academics, but in this particular case it just seems incredibly stupid and fallacious. Wehpudicabok [話] [変] 09:08, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Well, the presentation is also stupid and fallacious, so it kind of balances out... I'm going to clean it up later.
Oh, and there's at least one user on this wiki who's probably going to defend the concept at length. (No, I'm not talking about me.) Let's see if we can keep the argument productive.--ZooGuard (talk) 11:04, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
I ain't touching this with a ten-foot pole. What I do not need as I take breaks from writing about race and racism is arguing about race and racism, especially with the types of editors who tend to engage in these things without having read any/much of the relevant literature. Listening to Ella Fitzgerald sing "Baby, if I'm the bottom, you're the top" is very different after reading Dan Savage's column..Moderator 15:21, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, I don't really like this definition either, but this is poorly written. It also heavily implies some of the favorite tropes used by right-wing scolds -- anti-racists are the real racists/Feminists are the real sexists and complaining about "Critical Theorists". Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 15:57, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
I've tried to do something for the intro, but the article needs more work.--ZooGuard (talk) 16:37, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

"How prevalent is this definition in academia? Does anyone know?"

I don't know, is Tumblr considered academia yet? According to advocates, "The definition used in anti-racist circles is the accepted sociological definition", and therefore you can't question it, while someone else says "It is no longer used widely in academic circles because it is simplistic". So... yeah. Hmmph (talk) 01:34, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
The day Tumblr is part of academia is the day Ann Coulter votes for a Democrat. Not saying the users are unintelligent, but it's a blog site. It's not professional and never will be. Wehpudicabok [話] [変] 01:41, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
That was a joke. Hmmph (talk) 02:01, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
Ah, sorry. I'm not good at detecting sarcasm over the Internet. Normally I rely on tone of voice. Wehpudicabok [話] [変] 02:10, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
From my own personal experience I can tell you that it is dominant among the anti-imperialist crowd and quite common among the academics studying post-colonialism. I remember one particularly telling quote from a book by a Mr. James Toth which basically justifies Sayyid Qutb's Occidentalist worldview by declaring it to be a form of resistance against Imperialism because of and I quote "the power imbalance between the West and Egypt." Furthermore, anti-imperialists and post-Colonialists tend to use the definition to legitimize nationalism in non-western countries. For instance: Zionism (which is for all intents and purposes Jewish Nationalism) is racism not because it is a "Nationalist" ideology but because it is a "Colonialist" one. Whereas Arab Nationalism is not racism because Arabs don't have power. So while the Copts, Berbers, South Sudanese, Darfurians, and Assyrians suffer indignities in the name of Arab Nationalism and Islamic Fundamentalism (in the case of the Copts and Assyrians) these events do inspire nearly as much protest or emotion as the plight of the Palestinians because Arab nationalism is seen as a legitimate form of resistance against imperialism and the very idea that they themselves could be espousing an equally intolerant ideology is dismissed out of the inconvenience it would cause and the implications it would create for political movements in the Arab world. 74.97.30.242 (talk) 16:41, 7 July 2014 (UTC) Alex

Contents

[edit] Really?

I get that rational wiki likes to take a critical approach to concepts to help highlight irrationality, but half the "consequences" section ignores that many of those cases are, in fact, people with power to kill and harm their victims and prejudice driving the action. Are we really okay with such an self-aware article? It seems to embrace the idea that popularity or population are the definition of power, until a political figure comes into the discussion, then its perspective on the situation dramatically reverses itself. I'm not really a frequently rational wiki editor, but is their a policy for dealing with schlock? 159.45.129.17 (talk) 15:12, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

It's reductio ad absurdum (though it could be reworded to make this more clear), and "prejudice plus power" is explicitly about institutional power, not one-on-one physical force. Hmmph (talk) 01:35, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
No, it's about social power and is not synonymous with institutional racism. WèàšèìòìďWeaselly.jpgMethinks it is a Weasel 01:41, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
Please clarify the difference between "social power" and "institutional power". Hmmph (talk) 01:59, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
One exists in societies and one in institutions. WẽãšẽĩõĩďWeaselly.jpgMethinks it is a Weasel 02:18, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
So racism is prejudice plus social power, then? Wehpudicabok [話] [変] 02:19, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
The people who are against the re-definition of racism are making a purely semantic argument. Acknowledging that institutional racism exists can be done without re-defining a word. There's plenty of negative consequences to doing so when you factor in hypothetical reasons for said re-definition, or it is at best pointless and regardless oversimplifies things.— Unsigned, by: NoBody / talk / contribs 01:34, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

[edit] "Consequences"

That said -- do it right. Each of those items needs a cite. I removed the "sites" about the murders because they were from Wikipedia, which is against the guidelines. We need cites there that say that race was a factor in the killings, AND that people have denied that racism was a factor in the killings. Listening to Ella Fitzgerald sing "Baby, if I'm the bottom, you're the top" is very different after reading Dan Savage's column..Moderator 15:25, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

I think that the "consequences" section is intended as a reductio ad absurdum (i.e. overblown alleged logical consequences, not causal consequences of applying the formulation or actual claims of its proponents).
Also, which guidelines?--ZooGuard (talk) 15:33, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
It's not clear that that's what's happening in the section -- to me it reads as though someone is making empirical claims. And these guidelines. Listening to Ella Fitzgerald sing "Baby, if I'm the bottom, you're the top" is very different after reading Dan Savage's column..Moderator 15:56, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
I don't see how these could be taken as empirical, when they clearly follow logically from the premise. If power is a prerequisite to racism, then powerless people are not racist, American neo-Nazis included. It's a simple syllogism. Snarky but logically valid.
I think a social justice advocate would probably counter that this is an oversimplification, perhaps that our society is inherently racist and that therefore American Nazis are more powerful than you'd think. Or just that the idea was never supposed to be applied to individuals but only societies. I don't know, I'm kind of going off the top of my head at this point, but I still don't think those need any citations. They're more snark than anything and I'd rather see them removed than left as they are now. Wehpudicabok [話] [変] 08:10, 20 July 2013 (UTC)
Done. ωεαşεζόίďWeaselly.jpgMethinks it is a Weasel 11:04, 20 July 2013 (UTC)
To my knowledge, they see it as a societal thing. Whilst neo-nazi groups are in no way accepted, they still perceive that as a manifestation of institutional racism de-facto. People have different minimum standards.— Unsigned, by: NoBody / talk / contribs 01:33, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
I specifically linked to the Wikipedia articles about the murders because of Wikipedia's NPOV and not wanting to accidentally link to white supremacist bullshit. I added a news article reference and references for where all the others came from. Better? Hmmph (talk) 01:19, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
No, it's still awful. You're grossly missing the point that this issue is about de facto power or privilege held by demographic groups, not about specific positions held by individuals. In the USA, white people are overwhelmingly the most privileged group and black people among the least - this is the kind of "power" that this adage is intended to reflect. The fact that some black individuals, like the President, are in positions of authority, or that some white individuals are in positions of poverty doesn't mean that white vs black racism is somehow "not racist" when it involves these individuals, since it clearly still draws on the tradition of whites denigrating blacks as inferior. WëäŝëïöïďWeaselly.jpgMethinks it is a Weasel 01:40, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
  1. You're confusing sarcasm with ignorance.
  2. Only one of the items in the list is about a specific position held by an individual. What's your objection to the rest that justifies repeatedly blanking the whole section rather than rewording it? Hmmph (talk) 01:59, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
I'll grant that white people hating Obama for his race is racism by any definition. That still leaves the issue that apparently African Americans can't be racist, which is absurd and amounts to arguing over semantics rather than actually combating genuine social ills. Wehpudicabok [話] [変] 02:17, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

[edit] the majority of racism in the US is against minorities by whites

Is there any study supporting this claim? FBI statistics on hate crimes tell a different history. -190.140.192.193 (talk) 21:20, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

"Of the 5,331 known offenders, 54.6 percent were white and 23.3 percent were black." Thanks for clearing that up for us. SophieWilderModerator 21:45, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
That doesn't actually clear it up because not all hate crimes are racial. If you look at the actually-relevant statistics at that site, only 41.3% of racial hate crimes in 2012 were attributed to whites acting against racial minorities. Of course, since not all racism involves documented hate crimes, it's a loose measure at best, but if that statement is to stay in the article, it should have a citation that actually supports it. 96.61.58.35 (talk) 19:57, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

[edit] This article is trash.

And the citations are trashier. Prejudice plus power isn't used by "some" academic types and "some" social justice people RW seems to hate according to this article-- I mean enthusiasts. It's basic shit you can learn in even the least prestigious USA community college in Social Inequality in the United States or even Sociology 1 fucking 01. The idea that racism is saying mean things about other people based on race because that's the "common definition" is as wrong as saying that an acid is a substance that is bright green and dissolves metal like on saturday morning cartoons because that's how many children who have never taken a chemistry course know what it is. We trust researchers of nearly every other topic to be more authorities on that topic than the dictionary and the layman; why are hundreds of sociologists somehow inferior to common people's desire to have a definition that means people with privilege can call people with less racial privilege racist?

rather, prejudice plus power is NOT a band-aid or excuse or a cover-up so black people can't be racist (what kind of america-centric bullshit is this, the entire black diaspora isn't treated the same everywhere, fuck off). Black people and other racial minorities can be racist to those who have less racial privilege than them, or a different axis of racial privilege. People of color can be racist against their own demographics due to internalized racism inflicted upon them by others and society, and merely repeated by themselves. Racism in different countries works differently than it does in the USA, almost all over the world. Prejudice plus power is a way to summarize the common thread of ALL of these racist relationships: a racial group with more political or social favor is able to marginalize a group with less, and cause that group with less to internalize their own oppression.

Whoever wrote this article should be fucking ashamed of themselves. This bullshit is humiliating to rationalwiki with assertions that this is some kind of nonwhite plot to make white people feel bad and never be called racist (?!), horrid statements such as "Whilst it is true that acts like slavery and segregation require one group to be privileged, to be consistent one must say it is worse to kill a black person for being black than to kill a white person for being white, or even more absurdly, to claim calling a black person the n-word is worse than killing a white person for being white. All of these acts can be committed without privilege." (one of these is a systematic occurrence, black people are murdered every day in the USA with race as part of their axis of WHY that was, white people hardly ever are! of COURSE one is worse, because only one is an actual problem in the USA! The other is a by-comparison freak occurrence!) as well as "This is obviously not the case to a morally sane person" (when does RW police morality or sanity? Are is this article calling people who have gone to fucking university and learned what the actual power dynamic about racism is 'irrational?!' Drink!). This is humiliating and shameful, 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. ±Knightoftldrsig.pngKnightOfTL;DRcritical thinking is the key to success! 12:02, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

I wrote the "offending" text in question. I will concede I could have written parts of it better and more neutrally, but I will elaborate on my points. This is fundamentally a semantic argument. Comparing using the term racism without the "+power" to believing in cartoon acid is a false equivocation.
Firstly, when it comes to deciphering what the "correct" definition of a word is, common usage is a completely valid metric, in fact I would argue it trumps most other usages. The dictionary definition generally follows common usage, and historically that has been the go-to way of defining a word. That is it. A definition is not incorrect in the same way, say, creationism is false, for instance. I mean, if you want to apply a huge occam's razor, you could say no definition is objectively correct over any other, because semantics is not really based on objective fact. Saying prejudice plus power is the only correct definition of racism is an argument from authority. I don't care if every single intellectual in existence believes that is the correct definition. If the definition of a word is totally up to ivory tower types that may set a negative precedent.
The main point though is there is really no justification to use a definition of a word few people use at least in common parlance. The point of a word is to communicate a concept. If you use a definition separate from the common one in a conversation with common people, the definition just becomes awkward and does not help with conveying the idea, and ironically tends to end up derailing the discussion into semantics debates or accusations of anti-white bias (which is funny to me because Social Justice activists complain about derailment all the time). Saying someone does not understand what "racism" is because they use the common definition (something I hear a lot) is about as nonsensical as saying that someone who speaks German and uses the term "gift" to mean "poison" doesn't understand what a "gift" is. It sounds like an extreme analogy but it is a valid one. What fundamentally matters is what people mean, not what they literally say. If you know what someone means, plus you know it is a common definition, what is the point of derailing it into a semantics debate or worse? A person who uses the term "racism" to simply mean prejudice based on race is not implicitly denying the existence of institutional racism. They may not know of its existence, but that is a different subject. In practice, the usage of the prejudice+power definition outside of academic circles is of no pragmatic benefit to anyone, including Social Justice activists. I would wager that the vast majority of people who would agree with the p+p definition would not "need" it redefined in the first place. Every single time I see someone contest the p+p definition of racism to a social justice person, they make it into more than a semantics debate when it is fundamentally a semantics debate - and note, the equivalent to the "burden of proof" is on the person using the minority definition.
To elaborate on some specific points you contest, the general idea I get from people who use racism to mean "prejudice+power" is that they are more trying to take advantage of the negative emotional stigma "racist" and "racism" tend to carry, ergo they wish to use it only for things they consider "worse" than other forms of prejudice. My point of contention is merely having power does not inherently make the net effect of any prejudiced action one may take worse than one committed by someone with less "power". If that is the reason you choose to use the p+p definition, be aware that you are implicitly implying killing a white person for being white is less terrible than killing a black person for being black, or even calling them the n-word. Emotional stigma is not precise or technical, never mind subjective to different people. Remember, you predicated the definition on the power, not the action. For the sake of this argument let us assume everything you said about white on black hate murders being higher than visa versa are true. I know the common rebuttal to what I said is "well it happens more so it IS worse" or something or other, something you more or less said and I have heard many times before. Well, I think this is flawed logic and we are talking about different things here. One black person being murdered in a hate crime is not worse than one white person being murdered in a hate crime because more black people are murdered in hate crimes, because we are talking about that one black person being murdered versus this one white person being murdered, not all anti-black hate murders versus all anti-white hate murders. People who use the p+p definition will still use it to compare individual events.
This way of thinking is to me the equivalent of saying that if you have two faucets spewing water, and Faucet A is spewing out way more water than Faucet B, that this somehow means a single molecule of water from Faucet A is "more" than a single molecule from Faucet B. A molecule is a molecule, a death is a death. We are not talking about it all, we are talking about single incidences. Factoring in emotional stigma is by nature just going to give very imprecise implications. I may be able to concede that the n-word is generally more offensive than cracker, but even that is not because of the "power" white people possess, it is because of the history of the word. I would argue if in the future blacks gained power over whites, that would not make cracker more offensive than the n-word - based on the same logic most Social Justice activists would use to argue the n-word is worse. But even then, how offensive a word is is subjective from person to person. A black person may not give a crap about the n-word, and a white person may be offended by cracker. If you eliminate how the people "on the ground" feel and replace it with how you think they should feel, well, then you are just pointlessly legislating morality.
To summarize, the "more correct" definition of a word has generally always been the common usage, there is no pragmatic reason to use the prejudice+power definition of racism because words are primarily meant to communicate concepts and insisting on different definitions is derailment at best and a way of shielding yourself from criticism at worst, and it has moral implications that are just not good. I would also like to add that it is quite possibly one of the most tactically counter-productive ways of combating fringe white nationalist and separatist groups. To them, you are "confirming" what they fear, and probably doing nothing to help inter-racial conflict between real people, just creating spite and divide. I am not a Marxist, but the Marxist some ways below me makes a good point. --NoBody 13 July 2014
By definition, wiki articles are edited by multiple people. Different parts of the text of an article at any current moment can be attributed to different people who may have had different ideas what the article should cover and how their contributions contributed to that purpose. In a way, wiki articles resemble a wall splattered in graffiti - only the topmost layer of paint at any given point is visible.
In this case, the brunt of your complaints seem to be against a pair of paragraphs added by NoBody in May 2014: [1] I've taken them out, for a number of reasons. --ZooGuard (talk) 13:06, 7 July 2014 (UTC)
I'm not sure you fully understand the implication of this definition. I wrote a paragraph on this talk page on how post-colonial theorists tend to use this definition to argue that Islamism is a legitimate form of resistance against western imperialism (my IP address is 74.97.30.242, I occasionally forget to log in when posting). In response to accusations that this definition promotes moral relativism you make the following assertion: (one of these is a systematic occurrence, black people are murdered every day in the USA with race as part of their axis of WHY that was, white people hardly ever are! of COURSE one is worse, because only one is an actual problem in the USA! The other is a by-comparison freak occurrence!) not only do you not provide any evidence let alone statistical evidence proving your claim but you have completely missed the point. Even if the assumptions you make are true (in all likelihood they are) you have merely proved that institutional racism is widespread in the United States. As for your horror in how such beliefs appear on rationalwiki I should remind you that a fair number of rationalwiki users have a (traditional) marxist worldview (including myself to an extant). From that perspective the definition of racism being prejudice plus power is semantic nonsense designed by the bourgeois to distract the population from their disparate economic conditions. Hence while it would make more sense to conduct affirmative action programs on the basis of economics rather than race, universities prefer to use race so as to keep the class divide intact. From a purely marxist perspective all of identity politics itself is divisive nonsense and such theories regarding power are flawed because power is merely a means by which wealth is acquired and kept. Power rests with those who have more money what race they happen to be is wholly irrelevant. Alsto003 (talk) 17:24, 7 July 2014 (UTC) Alex
After reading the last couple of line of your rant I think it is only necessary to apply your logic to another situation regarding an oppressed minority. The director and producer of "The Innocence of Muslims" was from Egypt and is a Coptic Christian. Following your logic the Muslims offended by the film 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. What say you about Coptic Christians who blaspheme against Islam so far as to mock the entire premise of that religion? Is it islamophobia or simply a expression of the frustration held by a long oppressed minority? Alsto003 (talk) 19:23, 8 July 2014 (UTC) Alex

[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. WěǎšěǐǒǐďWeaselly.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. WēāŝēīōīďWeaselly.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. WèàšèìòìďWeaselly.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. WëäŝëïöïďWeaselly.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. WēāŝēīōīďWeaselly.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? WéáśéĺóíďWeaselly.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. €₳$£ΘĪÐWeaselly.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. WẽãšẽĩõĩďWeaselly.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 academic 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
Personal tools
Namespaces

Variants
Actions
Navigation
Community
Tools
support