Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: Notesfiles $Revision: 1.6.2.17 $; site uiucdcs.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!uiucdcs!renner
From: renner@uiucdcs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Affirmative action
Message-ID: <29200206@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 19-Feb-85 08:26:00 EST
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.29200206
Posted: Tue Feb 19 08:26:00 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 22-Feb-85 21:29:56 EST
References: <338@gargoyle.UUCP>
Lines: 32
Nf-ID: #R:gargoyle:-33800:uiucdcs:29200206:000:1530
Nf-From: uiucdcs!renner    Feb 19 07:26:00 1985


>  Gordon E. Banks writes:
>  > We can't rectify past injustice by introducing more injustice in the 
>  > form of discrimination.  Injustice occurs only to individuals not to 
>  > groups.  Racism is the doctrine that people can [or "should"--SR] 
>  > be judged and dealt according to what racial group they belong to, 
>  > rather than as individuals.  
>  
>  Bullshit.  By this definition Martin Luther King Jr. was a racist
>  because he devoted himself to seeking social justice for blacks,
>  rather than being completely colorblind in all his doings.  Racism is
>  the belief that some ethnic group other than one's own should be
>  "kept in its place" in society because of an alleged moral or
>  intellectual inferiority.
>  				-- Richard Carnes, (carnes@gargoyle)
   
The only way MLK could be considered a racist under Gordon's definition is
if he advocated that people should be treated differently according to the
color of their skin.  I always thought that MLK was opposed to that sort of
thing.

You haven't yet shown any problems with Gordon's definition of racism; you
have only proposed your own.  And yours conveniently excludes affirmative
action.  After all, racism is bad, and you approve of the stated goals of
AA -- therefore, AA can't be racism.  Sounds like the "taxation is not
theft" argument all over again.

Oh well, I don't propose to get caught up in a protracted argument over
definitions, and this argument is unlikely to progress past that stage.

Scott Renner
{ihnp4,pur-ee}!uiucdcs!renner