An Incorrect Meme on Racism

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

I claim that racism is an idea that a person believes in.
Thus a racist is a person with a certain trait--that of believing in racism.

This disagrees with the meme "racism = prejudice + power"

I am essentially taking power out of it and saying that racism = prejudice.

Now, racist actions require a certain amount of power--and racist actions are the result of racists with power--but any person can be racist despite being completely powerless. Or so I claim.

This I believe is shown by taking a person who meets either definition of a racist--a 76 year old white man, lived in Alabama his whole life, who believes blacks are inferior to all other races, and let's take him and put him on a plane to Japan. There he still believes that blacks are inferior, but in Japan he doesn't have any cultural power to enforce his racist thoughts. Does he lose his racist ways on the flight to Japan? No. He remains a racist as racism is a personal belief not related to power--personal or cultural.

Thoughts?

Am I just calling a rose by a different name?

Comments

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

No, you're entirely accurate in your statement.

You will however change no minds as the definition of "prejudice+power" is a definition that came about for a certain end and is extremely self-serving to people who hold racist thoughts but don't wish to be stigmatized by the charge. So you're unlikely to get any converts.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

You need to listen closely to the words of Yoda.

Luke: I don't believe it.
Yoda: That is why you fail.

Believe in change.
And hope.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

No this made me thinking and I think he has a point.

[bord-du-rasoir.livejournal.com]

I've always found the prejudice + power definition needlessly confusing. That's why I prefer the following:

racism: a system of advantage based on race

It defines racism in the same way, only using simpler, more direct, more comprehensible phrasing.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

If racism describes the system, but we still describe people as being racist, then how is this less confusing?

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

[speciesofspaces.livejournal.com]

My experience is consistent with your theory.

I would phrase my experience: Some of the most vicious racists I know are some of the least powerful people I know. But I tend to believe racism, like any irrational hatred, comes mainly from one's own insecurities and doubts. To turn it around, if I'm not threatened by you or your existence, why do I care what race, gender, creed, sexuality, etc. you are? I don't. I have better things to think about.

[bord-du-rasoir.livejournal.com]

Confusion occurs because what is meant by power isn't clear.

Is power social-emotional power? Is power confidence and security?

Sure, but my understanding of power as it relates to discussions of racism is more of this variety: Can you screw up badly (e.g. shoplift, or flunk out of school) without other people considering your race in the situation. There's a certain amount of power in having the immunity or the freedom to not have your behavior regularly judged by others through racial filters/biases.

[mrflagg.livejournal.com]

white man gets to japan and meets a billion people who agree with him ... yet neither of them know it.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

There aren't a billion people in Japan.

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

How do see the concept of social processes predicated on race, which are designed to correct inbalances arising from historically racist actions taken by those with power, fit into this framework?

[farchivist.livejournal.com]

I'm not touching this one with a ten-foot pole.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

sizist!

[korean-guy-01.livejournal.com]

I think "power" is ambiguous when talking of racism (in the US) committed by non-whites, especially based on the racism I have experienced (a majority of the racism I have experienced is by non-whites). Usually I get shunned for saying this because I'm supposed to talk about the supposed prevalent racism by whites, and not the kind I have experienced. I would like someone to quantify this power by racial groups, that way I know when I'm supposed to be offended.

[http://users.livejournal.com/-wanderer-/]

What sort of racism have you experienced most as (I assume) a Korean American?

[torpidai.livejournal.com]

Now, racist actions require a certain amount of power

I don't think this is correct, a racist action requires only a percieved power, deluded or not if an IC1 thumps an IC3 believing all Afro carribeans to be too stoned to put up a fight and just doesn't like stoners in "His/her" country, then gets hammered was the IC1's action still racist?

[bord-du-rasoir.livejournal.com]

if an IC1 thumps an IC3 believing all Afro carribeans to be too stoned to put up a fight and just doesn't like stoners in "His/her" country, then gets hammered was the IC1's action still racist?

. . .

<.<

How can anyone argue that this isn't racist?

As an aside, I'm pretty sure most people outside the UK have no idea what you're talking about with IC1 and IC3 unless they google it.

[torpidai.livejournal.com]

One of the most amusing Race related things I've seen in my Life is the number of BNP supporters that celebrate St George's Day!

[mybodymycoffin.livejournal.com]

Since racism contains an inherent power structure at its front and center, and no one thinks the "powerless" can't "be racist" your objection is pointless.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

'...and no one thinks the "powerless" can't "be racist"..'

No one seems to pop their heads up too often.

[eracerhead.livejournal.com]

Am I just calling a rose by a different name?

Yes.

Racism is not the same thing as being racist. Racism is not prejudice.

[headhouse.livejournal.com]

It is. Prejudice based upon race, rather than any number of other possible descriptors. Racism is a subset of prejudice.

[anosognosia.livejournal.com]

"Thus a racist is a person with a certain trait--that of believing in racism."

That's true. Non-racists think racism is invented by the Bilderbergs to control the international money supply.

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

Objectively speaking, without taking sides, the structure of "racism=prejudice+power" refers to structural racism, not individual, therefore it doesn't contradict anything you've said about individual (and powerless) racism, except that the structural model you're criticizing refers to the kind of individual racism you're describing as prejudice (lacking power).

The model was in part aimed at explaining racism and injustice that was covert and structural in a society, not individual cases, although it may be used as such also. Here's the political crux: most people believe that individual racism exists in the US, while certain (often political) groups don't believe that structural racism is prevalent.

[dv8nation.livejournal.com]

Indvidual racism unquestionably real. Institutional racism is harder to prove as there's always more than one way of looking at a situation. Also, even if an institution is biased you can't assume than everyone who is a part of the institution is biased. Thus throwing around words like "racist" turning into dancing in the landmines.

[zebra24.livejournal.com]

"racism = prejudice + power" It is true only when we are talking about WHEN WE ALL SHOULD CARE ABOUT IT.

Personal believes isn't I care about, but any kind of discrimination, especially by the person in public charge is really big issue.

Until his doings are legal, we can't do anything about his believes, we can just personally ban him and call him this way, nothing more.

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

Just because you claim something not to be true does not make the original idea incorrect.

Beyond that, I find it is simpler to describe the actions of an individual as bigoted. However, that person's bigoted actions may well bolster a racist system.

Moreover, prejudice is an idea. Discrimination (at least racial discrimination) is an action based on prejudice. This distinction may seem like hair-splitting, but nuance goes a long way when trying to ascertain the nature of racism.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

There needs to be some distinction made between someone who has racial prejudices, someone who is prejudiced against others for some reason(s) which may or may not be tied to race, and a system that enforces racial prejudices. The problem is that the terminology is not universally agreed on, and the implications for the various terminology used are inflammatory and not always accurate.

[dv8nation.livejournal.com]

Hell yes to this.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Racism always requires power. I'm pretty sure there were blacks who were extremely prejudiced against whites in the Jim Crow era but only one of the two was engaging in lynchings and pogroms.

[mybodymycoffin.livejournal.com]

Exactly. There's actual historical significance tied to the disease of racism.

[drcruel.livejournal.com]

I agree with you. I tend to think the "racism must involve power" is a stretch made by liberal-arts majors trying to insist that people like Al Sharpton aren't as racist as people like David Duke.

[anosognosia.livejournal.com]

You don't think that people talking about power dynamics are trying to bring attention to the problems of institutionalized poverty; labour, health, and education inequities; institutionalized broken families; de facto segregation; and deculturation?

[anadinboy.livejournal.com]

that man still has his power, hes got it over the japs. the power of being a white american goddammit!

[dv8nation.livejournal.com]

I've been a white American in Japan. Not as great as you think.

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

I completely agree.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

It's nonsense. The fundamental premise of racism is invalid, the reality of racism, however, always requires an elaborate apparatus that discriminates against two groups in a species more similar to each other across the world than two chimpanzees in the same troop are. This in turn requires the ability to back it up by force because humans are too ornery a species to accept any such preposterous notion. Without that power, sure people hate each other but it's over culture or class, not race.

[headhouse.livejournal.com]

This is exactly right. I'll save my speculation on the reasons why people believe in the newer definition.

[mybodymycoffin.livejournal.com]

The best part about discussions like these is you can always tell who the honkies are.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

That's racist!