Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site ucbjade.BERKELEY.EDU Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxn!ihnp4!qantel!lll-crg!ucdavis!ucbvax!ucbjade!mwm From: mwm@ucbopal.BERKELEY.EDU (Mike (I'll be mellow when I'm dead) Meyer) Newsgroups: net.politics,net.religion.jewish,net.nlang.africa,net.politics.theory Subject: Re: Apartheid on the West Bank (defining racism) Message-ID: <167@ucbjade.BERKELEY.EDU> Date: Thu, 28-Nov-85 08:30:16 EST Article-I.D.: ucbjade.167 Posted: Thu Nov 28 08:30:16 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 29-Nov-85 11:25:02 EST References: <4188@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU> <360@ubvax.UUCP> <614@unc.unc.UUCP> <366@ubvax.UUCP> Sender: network@ucbjade.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: mwm@ucbopal.UUCP (Mike (I'll be mellow when I'm dead) Meyer) Organization: Missionaria Phonibalonica Lines: 45 Xref: watmath net.politics:12227 net.religion.jewish:2765 net.nlang.africa:157 net.politics.theory:1494 In article <366@ubvax.UUCP> tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch) writes: >To my sense (ignoring the corrupted rhetoric), racism is a pathological >relationship between members of a powerful ethnic (or religious) group >and members of a less powerful group, such that all the powerful ethnic group >needs to know about a member of that minority group is that he or she >is a member of that group, AND the member of the powerful ethnic group >assumes that the member of the less powerful group is an inferior. > >The pathology is in letting a person's membership in one or another group >blot out one's checking out anything that might make that person an >individual, with special valuable qualities, in situations where >knowledge of the presence or absence of these qualities would normally >be checked. > >Laws are racist if they make racist relationships the only legal ones. >People are racist if they belong to a more powerful group and regularly >engage in racist relationships. A state is racist if it makes racist >laws a major basis of its legitimacy. > >Anyone's invited to try to improve on this if they want to. No sooner said, than done. You tie to much to the racist being a member of a powerful group. For instance, if a white refuses to do business with blacks because "they'll cheat you every time," then your definition would make that white racist. On the other hand, if a black refused to do business with blacks for the same reason, then this black isn't racist; at least not by your definitions. Your second paragraph nailed down what a racist relationship is almost exactly, if you rephrase it assuming that there's no first paragraph: A racist relationship is a relationship where a person's membership in one or another group blots out one's checking out anything that might make that person an individual, etc... The obvious change to the second paragraph yields: People are racist if they regularly engage in racist relationships. I also have problems with the first sentence (Laws are racist if they make racist relationships the only legal one.), but I'm not sure how to rephrase it. Seems to strict, somehow; there are laws I would call racist that this doesn't catch.