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From: tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Apartheid on the West Bank (defining racism)
Message-ID: <383@ubvax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 11-Dec-85 22:02:44 EST
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Posted: Wed Dec 11 22:02:44 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 18-Dec-85 20:06:54 EST
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Reply-To: tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch)
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In article <298@l5.uucp> laura@l5.UUCP (Laura Creighton) writes:
>In article <260@gargoyle.UUCP> carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) writes:
>>Thus if an American black says, "All honkies are alike.  You can't
>>trust them -- they'll get you every time," his statement is
>>prejudiced and bigoted, but not racist, properly speaking, because
>>his views are not part of an ideology which justifies "keeping whites
>>in their [subordinate] place."
>
>I am not so sure that it is clear cut who is in the subordinate place
>here.  The Whites may have economic superiority, but I know Blacks who
>claim spiritual/moral superiority.

I'm not sure I understand Laura here.  In general, it's not valid
to go from "I'm better on this scale and you're better on that scale"
to the inference "Well therefore we must be equal."  To me, racism
is mostly restricted to a political and economic (organizational if
you want to call it that, since that combines both) domain.

Unless we really want to get picky about cultural-religious connections,
I'd rather leave spiritual/moral superiority out of it.  Especially
since "racism" as it's commonly used happens to be an almost entirely
Christian disease.

In Christian eschatology, spiritual/moral superiority usually goes to
the politically and economically poor, so it's no argument against
the presence of a racist relationship that the victims happen to be
Christian.  (this is just a logical inference, no offense meant)

>I know what you mean, but I am
>not all that sure that the distinction you are trying to make is a
>useful distinction.  The one that *I* make is that racism is organised
>prejudice.  Bigots who sit at home are prejudiced, but bigots who get
>together with other bigots to promote bigotry are racist.

Not enough.  Organizations have to plug into other organizations or
a political system.  If an organized prejudicial organization plugs
into a set of favorable environmental relationships with a state or
with other groups, then it deserves the word racist.  If it doesn't,
I'd just keep the word prejudiced.  An academic example of a group
that might fit Laura's definition but not mine would be a group that
organizes prejudice towards eye color (blue-eyes or brown-eyes).

I think it's this sense of being "plugged in" and the possibility of
being plugged in, and the knowledge of how to plug in, that constitutes
ideology.  At least that would be my definition of ideology -- I prefer
avoid the word.

>I have my own theory (which probably is not original with me, but I
>have no idea where I got it) on racism and prejudice.  People walk
>around with a great load of frustration and hatred.  We are singularily
>untaught how to deal with this.  The general view seems to be the one of
>the ostrich -- we are all supposed to be sweetness and light and reason,
>so let us ignore any way in which we are not.  This is hardly useful.
>
>There are, however, a few socially condoned ways to vent your spleen, and
>one of them is through prejudice.

Maybe Laura is saying you need your prejudices socially condoned, which
is much closer to what I'm claiming (her "socially condoned" is my
"plugging in" -- but not quite).  But the social condonence of prejudice
widely varys between different cultural environments.

In my experience, for instance:  I grew up in a strongly Portuguese city
where expressing even vaguely anti-Portuguese sentiments in a public arena
(like high school) could get you beaten up fast.  No social condonance
for prejudice against Portuguese there.  Another example: in German-speaking
Switzerland, expressing a liking for Wagner gets a barrage of questions
demanding that one clarify that one's not a Nazi.

The usual "solution" to racism in these cases is to place fire breaks
around prejudice, so that a flame cannot become a fire.  With an awareness
that were those fire breaks not there, the flame might become a fire.
For me that means stopping organized prejudice from catching on, which
is not the same as suppressing organized prejudice.

And I wholly approve of this.  I think that's a pragmatic and effective
solution.

>It is astonishing to notice how many
>people who ``ought to know better'' who use this same release.  You get
>Blacks who are as prejudiced against Whites as they claim Whites have
>been to them, and feminists who are thoroughly anti-men, and Gays who
>are utterly intolerant of bisexuals.  You would think that these people
>would have developed compassion though their suffering, but no ... what
>they have is an unbareable load of anger and frustration -- and they
>dump it in the way that they claim to have been dumped upon.

What does compassion have to do with it?  And why, if you do, do you
reach out and have compassion for them?  Maybe because this society
values personal understanding above social harmony and justice.  The
problem with that is it lets people with less compassion use people
who have more.  Seeing THAT leads to a decline in the compassion of
the rest of us.

Anger and frustration become unbearable because people with it may
be able to find forums where they can let it out and use it for their
own vengeful or emotional purposes.  If those forums didn't
exist or weren't permitted to exist, or if they existed weren't
permitted to spread beyond a certain size, and if others didn't
express sympathy or empathy for such anger and frustration, people
wouldn't store it up, because there'd be no opportunity to vent
it effectively.  It would just go away and people would go on to
new things.

Unfortunately, this society again is one which encourages people to
dream they can do anything they want.  It encourages anomic, disconnected
people to actively search for places where their worst dreams can
be realized.  And it says those places should be available in the
name of freedom of choice.  And it has very few resources for stopping
the spread of organized prejudice.  And organized prejudice in the
form of slavery was a big part of its history.  Then flames are bound
to become fires.  Often, with unpredictable, sometimes uncontrollable
consequences.

>I'm not so sure what can be done about it.  Admitting that there is a
>lot of hatred and anger around, and that we need to do something about it
>cannot hurt.  I would be interested in what any Jewish people have to
>say about it.

As I've said, although I appreciate and admire people with great
compassion, compassion is not what this issue calls for.  Quite the
contrary.  Substituting "realism", a sense that the world is real
and changing it works in strange ways and takes work to achieve,
for "compassion" might be better.

It's useful to know what someone feels to the extent that one can
respond to it, without letting a compassionate attempt to understand
it cloud one's judgment.  Withholding compassion when you normally
give it out freely is a very powerful way to express your beliefs
about an issue.  Compassion should be a gift, not a reflex.  I know
that's very tough for some of us who depend on positive communication
with others on a regular basis.  Me, for instance.

>I have lived in a great many Jewish neighbourhoods and
>have heard stories that would curl your hair about centuries of oppression.
>Ihave known a good many jerks who were Jews, but wherever I go I find
>Jewish people working in their communities and being very, very good
>neighbours.  Somehow, amidst all the anti-semitism, a lot of Jews have
>managed to avoid hating others as we have been hated (or at least are
>very specific about who they hate and don't spread it around indiscriminately)
>I suspect that if I had been an Arab I would not have as good a set of
>memories about Jewish neighbourhoods.
>
>--
>Laura Creighton
>sun!l5!laura           (that is ell-five, not fifteen)
>l5!laura@lll-crg.arpa

Tony Wuersch
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