Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
And completely absent from the Middle East, Russia, India, China, Japan...?
Racism and imperialism were not invented by a cabal of evil white dudes in 1600, believe it or not.
How England Sees Itself
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And completely absent from the Middle East, Russia, India, China, Japan...?
Racism and imperialism were not invented by a cabal of evil white dudes in 1600, believe it or not.
you are dodging the main point: that it isn't racists vs. non-racists -- we ALL live in a world structured by racism.
now onto the tangent: Yes, Racism as we know it comes from the theories of racial hierarchy invented with the specific intent of justifying colonialism. So yes, absolutely, racism was invented by a cabal of evil white dudes around 1600.
Racism is a specific ideological construct, and should not be confused with (but related to) distrust of difference, ethnocentrism, etc.
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Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
I'm not dodging anything, I'm picking up your implication that racism is somehow a uniquely European export.
Which you've now turned from an implication to an outright statement. A statement full of bullshit. What about the caste system in India? Doesn't get much more institutionalized or structural than that, and it was established long before any significant contact with European culture, let alone the British Raj. Or the fact that Japanese of Korean ancestry are officially and legally discriminated against to this day. But no doubt you can find some way of pinning this on Whitey after all.
Which you've now turned from an implication to an outright statement. A statement full of bullshit. What about the caste system in India? Doesn't get much more institutionalized or structural than that, and it was established long before any significant contact with European culture, let alone the British Raj. Or the fact that Japanese of Korean ancestry are officially and legally discriminated against to this day. But no doubt you can find some way of pinning this on Whitey after all.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...ven-huge-payouts-after-abolition-8508358.html
Seems quite relevant here.
On a related note, I wonder where Mr Tate got the money for all those paintings?
Seems quite relevant here.
On a related note, I wonder where Mr Tate got the money for all those paintings?
baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
Someone who does say things that might be interpreted in a racist manner can however be one who acts in a way far less aligned to racial prejudice than one who makes all the 'right' noises in terms of lack of prejudice.
The idea that someone can be somehow magically completely free from prejudice, having been brought up in a world replete with it, is problematic. It's a question of whether someone is willing to interrogate that prejudice. People who claim to be completely prejudice-free* are simply saying that they're not willing to look at themselves, and therefore (in my experience) far more problematic, because they've refused to think about the complexity of the issue.
* akin to my rule that anyone claiming to be 'really honest' is most likely to be as deceptive as all fuck, and is best avoided (proven true again and again in my experience....). Protesting too much and all that.
PS Re the discussion immediately above, caste system in India is a problematic example to choose, because lots of people would say that the British were the ones who really racialised that system (I Have a particular article in mind, will post later when I find it). Edit, this one I think, though I can't find a free pdf online...http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2928654?uid=3738032&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21101856037827
But certainly racism predates that. Just from wikipedia, cos that's my level of research this morning: In the 14th century CE, the Tunisian scholar Ibn Khaldun wrote:
- :"beyond [known peoples of black West Africa] to the south there is no civilization in the proper sense. There are only humans who are closer to dumb animals than to rational beings. They live in thickets and caves, and eat herbs and unprepared grain. They frequently eat each other. They cannot be considered human beings." "Therefore, the Negro nations are, as a rule, submissive to slavery, because (Negroes) have little that is (essentially) human and possess attributes that are quite similar to those of dumb animals, as we have stated."
Potentially it was more the case that the Europeans were the ones who systematised racism to an extent unseen before, and then of course attempted to imbue it with the status of scientific 'fact' in the 19th C?
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Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
I'm not sure I get you. Wouldn't you agree that a white person who casually uses terms like 'paki' and 'nignog' - even if they're dressing it up as 'ironic comedy racism' - is quite likely to be more racist than someone who doesn't?
I don't know how useful this Witchfinder-General approach to subconscious racism really is. Taken to its logical conclusion, it can lead nowhere but a sort of psychic paralysis whereby you fret compulsively over your every gesture and syllable. And moreover, surely it's the one thing (short of outright white supremacism) that's guaranteed to make you think about non-white people differently from how think about white people, which is a bit of an own goal, isn't it?
That's not an argument for blithely going through life pretending racism doesn't exist or has been 'solved', it's just an argument for not obsessing over IT to an extent that it becomes self-defeating.
I have no doubt the caste system was further entrenched by the British in India but I'm pretty sure it was racialized long before any white people turned up - or rather, the raclialization occurred when India's original white people turned up, speaking proto-Sanskrit 3,500 year ago or whenever. There's always been a correlation between being high-caste and pale-skinned and between being low-caste and dark-skinned.
It's true that the caste system isn't one-dimensional and that it makes distinctions between language, religion and even occupation, but it's certainly hierarchical as well. And in cases where castes are meant to be "separate but equal", well we all know what that really means, don't we (see apartheid-era South Africa, the pre-Civil Rights deep South).
Exactly. Africans were enslaving Africans before most Europeans were aware Africa existed - and of course Europeans were enslaving Europeans at the same time, just as Asians were enslaving Asians and Americans were enslaving Americans. And in just about every case where people of one ethnic group enslaved another, they created a myth of racial superiority to justify themselves. That's how it works.
The difference with the transatlantic slave trade was mainly one of scale and extent (from one continent to another), and that it also happened very recently in the scheme of things. And as you say, the racial hierarchy was given a (pseudo-)scientific gloss in the 19th century, which hadn't happened before. But people have been treating the ethnic Other as possessions and beasts of burden since prehistory, and it's pointless and revisionist to think otherwise.
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that is categorically not racism. that is CLASS-ism.
really very bad example, Tea.
a better example would have been how some ethnic groups in Africa or Asia have traditionally, for thousands of years, considered themselves, or have been considered by many, such as the Masai in modern day Kenya, superior to other ethnic groups in the same geographic vicinity.
But which things like this may share some same elements as the racism we are talking about and are concerned with, it still is absolutely not the same thing.
Again, the racism we are concerned with is a specific ideology which ludicrously places people of the world on a hierarchy according to skin color, an ideology which, again, was created specifically to justify European colonialism of the past 400 years.
edit: this is not MY definition. it is the definition widely used and accepted by scholars and thinkers world wide.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
that is categorically not racism. that is CLASS-ism.
really very bad example, Tea.
Well I was given to understand there was a fairly significant ethnic or racial element to the caste system, and that this pre-dated the British dominion in India, however much that may have exacerbated it.
So some racism isn't really racism? How is, for example, the traditional Japanese view of the natural superiority of Japanese people not racism? You're just giving a term the meaning you think it should have to suit your agenda.
And how does the quote from a 14th-century Arab that baboon posted above display an attitude towards black Africans in *any* significant way different from that of a canonically racist white European of a few centuries later?
Perhaps it isn't your personal definition, but it's a definition according to scholars who have an ideology of their own, which you identify with.
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Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Fuck, in the context of a thread about racism, someone reading this sentence without realizing there's a forum regular called "baboon" might severely get the wrong end of the stick.
quite simply: THIS version of racism, classifying people according to skin color and putting them in a hierarchy, is what structures OUR world today. You can say that older societies wer also "racist", fine, but there are important differences between those and racism as we know it today. Through out history "racism" has never been so well unified and organized into a cohesive doctrine, backed by a body of theories and "racial science", and this doctrine so deeply and widely spread and applied in such a systematic manner, as to dictate city planning, rewrite history, shape economics, laws, education, sciences and the entire world, as the kind we have today.
Thus for all intents and purposes, it is very useful for us to draw a distinction between:
1. Biologically evolved natural distrust of people who look different
2. Ethnocentrism which occurs in traditional societies, and
3. Today's Racism which originated with, and was created to justify, European colonization, around 400 years ago.
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Tea, your position seems to be this:
"Everyone is racist, so the racism we have today is really nothing special or worthy of particular attention.
Every culture of all time are racist, so it's kind NATURAL and OK to be racist.
Why, it's the same as it ever was, no? So come now, there is no need to take it all that seriously, and at the end of the day, we should simply shrug, have a laugh and just be glad that we are on the beneficial end of the stick."
am i wrong? Well, this is view and attitude is:
1. false, and
2. repugnant
"Everyone is racist, so the racism we have today is really nothing special or worthy of particular attention.
Every culture of all time are racist, so it's kind NATURAL and OK to be racist.
Why, it's the same as it ever was, no? So come now, there is no need to take it all that seriously, and at the end of the day, we should simply shrug, have a laugh and just be glad that we are on the beneficial end of the stick."
am i wrong? Well, this is view and attitude is:
1. false, and
2. repugnant
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Also, Tea, in numerous posts you have made in the past you love to point out:
1. Egyptians were not black and Egyptian culture had nothing to do with sub-saharan Africa.
2. Egyptians, Arabs, and Europeans have all kept black slaves.
3. Nothing of lasting, significant value has ever come from black, sub-saharan Africa.
i apologize, but it doesn't take a very big leap to arrive from the above to this conclusion:
maybe black Africans really are, you know, inferior.
Whether that is really what you think or not, this myopic, incomplete and racist logic i think typifies the general population. Allow me:
1. Egyptian culture had a lot to do with sub saharan Africa, from earlier Nubian civilization, and many strands of East and West African cultures which came before.
2. Purely circumstantial, and only part of the picture: North African Moors also kept European slaves, for example. Also, having been enslaved means you don't have good enough guns, and only that.
3. This kind of evaluation is entirely stemming from an ethnocentric point of view bolstered by the conceits of our "civilization" and its own priorities. But contrary to what we think, dwelling systems made of bio-degradable materials which disappear and becomes again part of the jungle after 1 generation is not necessarily less sophisticated than monuments and buildings in stone. Oral traditions are not necessarily less broad, deep, or valuable than written literature. The wisdom and understanding of Cultures for which no records exist are not necessarily lesser than our technocentric yet barbaric society.
this last point deserves a much longer post, or book, but for now:
We modern westerners in the year 2013 desperately need to re-evaluate not only the methods and criteria of our valuation of human acheivements, but what should be on the list of things we value. We do away with once and for all the utterly stupid conceits and ethnocentricity wich is dooming ourselves, and start learning from older sustainable cultures.
1. Egyptians were not black and Egyptian culture had nothing to do with sub-saharan Africa.
2. Egyptians, Arabs, and Europeans have all kept black slaves.
3. Nothing of lasting, significant value has ever come from black, sub-saharan Africa.
i apologize, but it doesn't take a very big leap to arrive from the above to this conclusion:
maybe black Africans really are, you know, inferior.
Whether that is really what you think or not, this myopic, incomplete and racist logic i think typifies the general population. Allow me:
1. Egyptian culture had a lot to do with sub saharan Africa, from earlier Nubian civilization, and many strands of East and West African cultures which came before.
2. Purely circumstantial, and only part of the picture: North African Moors also kept European slaves, for example. Also, having been enslaved means you don't have good enough guns, and only that.
3. This kind of evaluation is entirely stemming from an ethnocentric point of view bolstered by the conceits of our "civilization" and its own priorities. But contrary to what we think, dwelling systems made of bio-degradable materials which disappear and becomes again part of the jungle after 1 generation is not necessarily less sophisticated than monuments and buildings in stone. Oral traditions are not necessarily less broad, deep, or valuable than written literature. The wisdom and understanding of Cultures for which no records exist are not necessarily lesser than our technocentric yet barbaric society.
this last point deserves a much longer post, or book, but for now:
We modern westerners in the year 2013 desperately need to re-evaluate not only the methods and criteria of our valuation of human acheivements, but what should be on the list of things we value. We do away with once and for all the utterly stupid conceits and ethnocentricity wich is dooming ourselves, and start learning from older sustainable cultures.
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Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Oh for fuck's sake. Yes, you're massively, painfully, I would almost say deliberately wrong. You're the one who thinks everything that's "natural" must therefore be "good", not me. Nor did I ever say "everyone is racist".
Or, if it makes you happy: yes, by pointing out that inter-ethnic slavery existed prior to the Middle Passage, I am basically saying blacks are worthless and slavery is perfectly fine.
If you're going to distort my arguments as ludicrously as that then I'm just going to leave you to your nice simple Avatar-esque worldview of Good People and Bad People. Well done on totally derailing yet another at least potentially interesting thread. Good day to you.
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if that's not it, then what exactly IS your point in claiming that our modern racism is the same as historical racism, which can be found in every culture?
seems to me your point is that it's all the same as it ever was, and as it was every where. so no big deal and lets not get too worked up about it.
baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
Having to abbreviate your quote to make this doable.
To save a long answer (edit:although I've ended up writing a long answer anyways) explaining just how wrong you are in what you've said below, do you think, if a non-white person living in a white majority society were to be asked: Do you think white people should (a) think less about race ; (b) think more about race?, the answer would be (a) or (b)?
It's not about "fretting compulsively over every last gesture or syllable". If only we were anywhere near that point in terms of awareness of everyday racism! It's an absurd use of language when structural racism is basically treated like it doesn't exist on a day-to-day basis, and when there are still masses of very obvious things that people get wrong all the time. Just one example: your use of "blacks" above should clearly read "black people" - it's a glaringly dodgy use of language**. And I'm not getting at you specifically - merely making the point that any white person who thinks they should be thinking less about race rather than more needs a reality check, I'm afraid.
My diagnosis of the major problem (which may be wrong, but hey) is simple - society is still super-segregated, and when there are mixed groups that hang out together, they are overwhelmingly majority white and therefore the non-white members are frequently silenced about the casual and structural racism that is going on all the time. Because white people don't feel comfortable with it. So white people don't often talk to non-white people about racism in a situation where the truth can be told without any comeback.
I guess I have to add a personal disclaimer which explains where I'm coming from - had I not for the past two decades had a best friend who happens to be black, I would be a lot fucking dumber about race than I think I am now, cos talking to him over the years made me realise how little I knew and how much I had to learn. One sees a constant barrage of racism if one is hanging out all the time with someone who's experiencing it, including from white people who can't deal with interrogating the racism they've picked up from hanging round with lots of other white people.
That's just the truth - most people turn a blind eye when the issue gets more complicated than just not using racial epithets. To choose one blatant example - when the issue is around not being admitted to a venue because of one's colour - 2010s London, not 1975 Johannesburg btw - most people pretend it's not happening, or that it is the fault of the person refused entry for some unspecified reason. So, do we need to think more or less about racism?
As to the caste system, I'm not sure to what extent this is true, but I'd need to read more on the subject.
** and I know the term is still widely used, but it's 2012 and we should be talking about black people, gay people etc etc, not about 'blacks' and 'gays', given that the very substance of discrimination and prejudice is to treat others as though they are not actually human, essentialising them out of existence.
To save a long answer (edit:although I've ended up writing a long answer anyways) explaining just how wrong you are in what you've said below, do you think, if a non-white person living in a white majority society were to be asked: Do you think white people should (a) think less about race ; (b) think more about race?, the answer would be (a) or (b)?
It's not about "fretting compulsively over every last gesture or syllable". If only we were anywhere near that point in terms of awareness of everyday racism! It's an absurd use of language when structural racism is basically treated like it doesn't exist on a day-to-day basis, and when there are still masses of very obvious things that people get wrong all the time. Just one example: your use of "blacks" above should clearly read "black people" - it's a glaringly dodgy use of language**. And I'm not getting at you specifically - merely making the point that any white person who thinks they should be thinking less about race rather than more needs a reality check, I'm afraid.
My diagnosis of the major problem (which may be wrong, but hey) is simple - society is still super-segregated, and when there are mixed groups that hang out together, they are overwhelmingly majority white and therefore the non-white members are frequently silenced about the casual and structural racism that is going on all the time. Because white people don't feel comfortable with it. So white people don't often talk to non-white people about racism in a situation where the truth can be told without any comeback.
I guess I have to add a personal disclaimer which explains where I'm coming from - had I not for the past two decades had a best friend who happens to be black, I would be a lot fucking dumber about race than I think I am now, cos talking to him over the years made me realise how little I knew and how much I had to learn. One sees a constant barrage of racism if one is hanging out all the time with someone who's experiencing it, including from white people who can't deal with interrogating the racism they've picked up from hanging round with lots of other white people.
That's just the truth - most people turn a blind eye when the issue gets more complicated than just not using racial epithets. To choose one blatant example - when the issue is around not being admitted to a venue because of one's colour - 2010s London, not 1975 Johannesburg btw - most people pretend it's not happening, or that it is the fault of the person refused entry for some unspecified reason. So, do we need to think more or less about racism?
As to the caste system, I'm not sure to what extent this is true, but I'd need to read more on the subject.
** and I know the term is still widely used, but it's 2012 and we should be talking about black people, gay people etc etc, not about 'blacks' and 'gays', given that the very substance of discrimination and prejudice is to treat others as though they are not actually human, essentialising them out of existence.
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baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
And it's a classically misleading argument you've used, too. The idea that thinking too much will lead to 'psychic paralysis'. It will have precisely the opposite effect when you're thinking about discrimination, which relies for its perpetuation precisely upon people who are not themselves the subject of discrimination (and indeed, even more insidiously, those who are*) NOT thinking about the multifarious ways in which discrimination is manifested. Irving Goffman's 'Stigma' is brilliant on this - written in the 1950s, but light years ahead of the public debate (well, certainly in the UK) in 2013.
* example my girlfriend comes across all the time to her immense enervation is the disclaimer "Not in a feminist way, but..." before certain women of her acquaintance will say anything that could even mildly be construed as critical of patriarchy.
* example my girlfriend comes across all the time to her immense enervation is the disclaimer "Not in a feminist way, but..." before certain women of her acquaintance will say anything that could even mildly be construed as critical of patriarchy.
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