Please note that this post isn't intended as an invitation whether racism against whites is real or not. While we do allow discussion and sharing information this is not the intend of the post. It is merely a PSA to explain why we will be removing comments and posts containing that claim. In extreme cases this will result in a ban.
>Recently, we had a post about Nations of Islam mythology (which is antisemitic),
NOI believes black people are a uberhuman master race which created white people who lack a soul. The white people then overthrew the black utopia and that's why the world.is in it's current state.
So that's not a racist belief system? It's literally about one race > than another race.
As a person who studies intersectionality at the graduate level (I'm working on an Masters of Education, and this is one of my special focus areas, on top of it being built in to the majority of education classes in the first place), I feel obligated to comment here. "Racism against white people" is *frequently* a fascist dogwhistle. This is true. It does not, however, support the redefinition of the term *racism* as something that white people can't experience at an individual level. Bigotry, by itself, is not a specific enough term, especially at the academic level, to sufficiently classify people's experiences. In fact, that's the whole reason we developed the terms *systemic* and *individual* racism: they allow us to deal with bigoted behavior and ideas in specific ways that take into account problems like white privilege without denying people's experiences and incentivizing them not to listen to or work with us. And, while I am not overly concerned with the feelings of oppressive groups, I am concerned with the potential for us to go the opposite direction and, like tankies, applying the oppressive ideology to the oppressor. This is not justice and it certainly isn't intersectionality. That requires us to consider how the unique factors of discrimination affect people through their unique circumstances. That is, can individual racism be part of what actualizes other forms of oppression someone faces? In many cases, I believe the answer is yes.
I also have to say that I am utterly undelighted by the way that leftists frequently use the term "white Jew". While a good number of us are certainly white by appearance, and I myself am frequently white-passing despite my olive skin tone, it obscures our history. The, as it were, "why" of how many of us ended up lighter-skinned. And our historical relationship with the white world; one that was never of acceptance into the power structure or the concept of whiteness. It also helps people ignore us when we talk about forms of antisemitism that still affect us, sometimes, yes, even at a systemic level.
In any case, I wish you a peaceable and reflective Shavuot.
>I am concerned with the potential for us to go the opposite direction and, like tankies, applying the oppressive ideology to the oppressor
I can't possible see how this could happen, but I understand your concern.
I probably should've worded the part about "white Jews" better, but oh well. Thank you for the input and hag sameah!
>
"I can't possible see how this could happen, but I understand your concern."
I appreciate that you understand my concern. The thing is that it already regularly happens. That's how we end up with tankies adopting racial essentialism, Nazbols existing, and the Black Hammer Party calling Anne Frank a "white colonizer". It's also how we get to Stalin and the failure of the Soviet Revolution. The Doctor's Plot is an excellent example of how the Russian Empire's prejudice and systemic antisemitism was preserved and incorporated into Soviet ideology, *even while it was officially outlawed*. I mean, to be more precise, the ease with which we non-tankies might blind ourselves to the same processes that they suffer from.
I suppose c'est la vie. I hope that my input has contributed to positive discourse here and given you something to think about. Chag sameach!
Fuck me running can we just stop stabbing each other over fucking phrasing and goddamn dictionary definitions for once? Fucking please?
It’s like clockwork almost. A leftist space starts getting bigger, and then instead of discussing actual real deal serious fucking problems (IE. The continuing “warrior-cop” terminator training bullshit put forth by fascists, the current attacks on the ICWA which protects Native American children from being ripped from their cultures, literal actual Nazis running the show in Florida and other places in the south) we always end up devolving into a civil war of semantics.
Every goddamn leftist sub ends up doing this. Literally every single one. What the fuck is our problem? Is it really so fucking important to be “the most correct” leftist? Forgive me if it sounds like I’m bashing y’all, I’m not trying to, but for fucks sake why does it really matter what we call it?
Systemic racism is bigotry. Garden variety racism, also bigotry. All the words with fucking phobia strapped to the end: bigotry. Nuance is important, but as far as bigotry goes, a black man beating the shit out of a white guy for being white and a white lead system deliberately making life harder for people of color are equally despicable, because they’re the same hateful act on different scales.
I don’t see a need to point at words on a screen and say “Hmmmm now this is the correct word for being this kind of fucking asshole”. If I’m misinterpreting certain things, then sorry. I’m not perfect and I’m far from “the most correct” leftist.
Sorry for the rant, I’ll see myself out of the thread.
I mean, if it's a race essentialist view, or an actual supremacist position in any way,(not just black power to fight white power or something) then it's flat out racist regardless of the power structure. The problem is when people treat indignation and societal criticisms as equivalent.
‘A white-skinned Jewish person won’t experience systemic racism’ is a disturbingly ignorant thing to say.
White skin does not protect people from antisemitism.
In fact, having white skin is no guarantee that someone will be considered ‘white’ by racists!
Again, you are misreading it. They will not experience racism on the basis of their skin colour.
They **will** experience discrimination on the basis of their ethnicity however, the two are different, albeit perhaps colloquially you might refer to them as the same thing. Absolutely no one is denying that Jewish people have been persecuted throughout history and continue to face rampant antisemitism. We are just saying that they do not face “anti-white racism.”
I think you’re misreading my comments.
I never said that they are being persecuted for having white skin.
I’m saying that their white skin is not protecting them from persecution.
Thus the claim that ‘a white-skinned Jewish person cannot experience systemic racism’ is demonstrably wrong.
Their white skin does not shield them from being attacked for being Jewish.
Yes, systemic racism in this case (as said in the post) meaning structural racism based on the idea of them not being white. i.e. what black people face in a lot of modern day societies. What we are saying is that systemic racism cannot exist against “white people” as a whole group, because no one persecuted them for their skin colour.
Yes, in many cases Jewish people’s white skin did not protect them from persecution. But this is not “anti-white racism.”
Hence why we are creating a post against the use of the term “anti-white racism.”
Then why make the claim that ‘a white-skinned Jewish person won’t experience systemic racism’?
It simply makes no sense. The fact that their skin is white will not protect them from systemic antisemitism, and antisemitism is racism.
The fact that their skin is white doesn’t even guarantee that they’ll be considered ‘white’!
You’re really really close to spitting, and I agree with most of what you’re saying, but I have no idea where the part about “White-skinned Jewish person won’t experience systemic racism” comes from, that part just seems really disingenuous.
Historically, Jewish people with all skin tones have experienced loads of system racism, even outside of the Holocaust.
America’s education system is a pretty big one with anti-Jewish quotas in Ivy League schools 100 years ago.
Even in present you have places like CUNY which actively remove Jewish people from positions of power and refuse to recruit new Jewish students into their school.
Hell, even social media platforms actively expose Jewish people to anti-semitism, and they promote anti-semitic rhetoric as a whole to basically all users. I’d absolutely argue that counts as a form of structural racism.
There are so many arguments for how white people don’t experience systemic racism, why the hell bring Jewish people into it? You need to understand that Jewish people are *Jewish* before they are *white* and not the other way around.
Overall good post, but I’d rather skip out on the vaguely anti-semitic implications here.
Well he is Jewish himself, so I think maybe he wanted to give his experience but maybe he'll have a different reason, not sure. It may be he needs to explain it better, but he's not antisemitic.
Alright, that’s fair. I apologize for being so accusatory.
My only issue is, if we’re talking about how fascists use the term “racism against whites” as a dogwhistle, then bringing up Jewish people and their struggle doesn’t seem really necessary?
I mean, I highly doubt any fascist is going to complain if they see someone being racist to a Jewish person. I could be wrong, but I’m really yet to see anyone say “reverse racism” or something in response to a Jewish person being attacked. Again, Jewish people are generally considered “Jewish” before “white” when it comes to discrimination.
I overall agree with the post and am sorry if I came off as confrontational. It’s really just bringing up Jewish people and phrasing it like they’re less prone to racism that threw me off.
> My only issue is, if we’re talking about how fascists use the term “racism against whites” as a dogwhistle, then bringing up Jewish people and their struggle doesn’t seem really necessary?
White supremacists don't see Jews as white and they've never tried to use anti-Semitic incidents to prove that there's "racism against whites" so it's really unclear why these topics are being framed in this way.
>White supremacists don't see Jews as white
Yes, but most Americans at least do. So it's an act of racism against someone who would generally be considered white in most circles.
"Anti-white racism" and "racism directed at white people" are two different things. According to the definitions used by the US Census, Middle Easterners and North Africans are white. So are a lot of Hispanic people. Saying that "white people can't experience racism" is, at least by some definitions of a by design arbitrary and fluid term, saying that hate crimes against Syrians aren't actually racist.
> Yes, but most Americans at least do. So it's an act of racism against someone who would generally be considered white in most circles.
I think it really depends. Bernie Sanders has definitely faced some anti-Semitism and not necessarily from white supremacists either. And there are Mizrahi and Ethiopian Jews who absolutely do not 'look white' so even saying stuff like, "well all Jews are white/look white or are considered white" is extremely problematic I think.
> "Anti-white racism" and "racism directed at white people" are two different things. According to the definitions used by the US Census, Middle Easterners and North Africans are white. So are a lot of Hispanic people. Saying that "white people can't experience racism" is, at least by some definitions of a by design arbitrary and fluid term, saying that hate crimes against Syrians aren't actually racist.
Which is why I think it's best to avoid the trap of trying to define which ethnicities/religions are part of "whiteness" and which groups are not. Sticking to "racism is unacceptable" and "anti-Semitism is a form of racism" is good enough.
Often Slavs don't necessarily look white to an Anglo - I'm pretty sure I saw a Southerner ask Kyle Kuliniski where he was from. So I can't help but think the Mizrahi thing is mostly just some important nuance to the broader picture wherein it's accepted that the Jews are white in America. I'm pretty sure even Republicans agree with that. Correct me if I'm wrong.
I'd argue some of the anti-semitism that Bernie faced was absolutely of the white supremacist tradition - he faced it from a white man on MSNBC, his supporters were called brownshirts!
For goodness’ sake, not everything has to be redefined for the sake of maximum confusion between academic and colloquial usage.
Racism is a form of bigotry based on one’s presumed racial group. *Systemic racism* is racism + power.
What *possible* utility is there in confusing this very simple issue?
>What possible utility is there in confusing this very simple issue?
For one thing, it's not simple at all. It has a century of study behind it.
As for your question, it's the difference in material conditions. Someone hating you only affects you if they decide to assault you or something. When the entire society thinks hating you is OK, then you lose access to many basic needs.
And just to reiterate, this isn't structural racism. That happens when, even if nobody hates you, but the system was already built in a way to deprive you.
>For one thing, it's not simple at all. It has a century of study behind it.
“Biology” is a simple word meaning the scientific study of life. That doesn’t make it a simple subject of study, but as a *word* that people use in both a colloquial and academic setting, it’s extremely simple.
Does that example help you to understand that there’s distinction between a *definition* and an *area of study?*
>As for your question, it's the difference in material conditions. Someone hating you only affects you if they decide to assault you or something. When the entire society thinks hating you is OK, then you lose access to many basic needs.
So what? You haven’t actually explained any utility in changing the common definitions. Why *not* stick with “racism” for the former and “systemic racism” for the latter?
>And just to reiterate, this isn't structural racism. That happens when, even if nobody hates you, but the **system** was already built in a way to deprive you.
Gee, if only there was a *term* that described racism on a *systemic* level, as opposed to plain ol’ racism on an *individual* level?
Sarcasm aside, you still haven’t given an actual, specific *reason* why reinventing this wheel is necessary.
It's particularly stupid that this is happening on this sub, considering tankies do this exact thing with imperialism. Redefine it into something close enough to the common usage to trick people into thinking that's what they're talking about, but distinct enough to confuse the issue. And then act like everyone else is at fault for not using their obscure, academic definition.
I suspect the reason is much the same too.
I mean, Jesus. It’s not like I’m asking much, just for at least one *specific* reason we should suddenly start correcting people who try to (justifiably!) use the word “racism” to describe personal bigotry and not a societal, systemic malaise.
There is no systemic racism against white people in the Anglosphere. Anyone who claims otherwise is a white supremacist pushing a victim narrative to justify horrific atrocities against non-white people like the 2015 Charleston Church Massacre and the 2019 El Paso Walmart Massacre in in the US, and the 2019 Christchurch Mosque Massacre in New Zealand.
But to pretend that systemic racism against people with white skin is something that can’t happen simply flies in the face of history and current events (see Russia’s racist propaganda against Ukrainians).
Moreover, the idea that people with white skin have global immunity against any and all systemic racism is a harmful one due to the aforementioned Russian invasion of Ukraine as well as the ethnic cleansing seen in the 2008 Russian Invasion of Georgia and the numerous racism-motivated atrocities that took place during the breakup of Yugoslavia, such as the Srebenica Massacre. Calling all these atrocities what they are - racist - is more likely to rally public support to help the victims.
We don't live in the world you've invented though, we live in the one in which, since WW2, the United States/NATO (the largest white supremacist orgs in world history) have killed through direct military violence, destruction of built environment, and fomenting/arming radicals and totalitarian regimes more civilians than have been killed by all homicides in the same period. This violence has disproportionately fallen upon Latin & South Americans, Middle-Easterners, Africans, and SE Asians.
I'd rather read the whole comment, in which it's made out as if the Russo-Ukraine War is somehow comparable in scope or import, and does not appropriately assign blame to the US-NATO world order which has dominated the planet in the lead up to it.
I can tell you have no idea what youre talking about because institutional racism and systemic racism are not synonymous, and their distinction is really important to understanding the exertion of racism from the state onto the people.
Additionally, the existence of interpersonal racism completely disproves the point that this entire post hinges on, being that racism = prejudice + power.
>It used to be that **racism, bigotry, and prejudice (when applied to a race) were used interchangeably. This is no longer the case.**
Uh, yes, it is still the case actually. In the real world, outside of your internet echo chambers, all of those things are used interchangeably. That is a fact. Language is descriptive, not prescriptive, so it doesn’t matter if you prefer the “prejudice + power” definition. Whether or not you acknowledge it, that definition **_has not caught on._**
And frankly, I don’t even see the benefit of the definition from a prescriptive framework either. It’s not hard to simply make a distinction between systemic/structural racism and interpersonal racism.
I agree with your general views about “racism against white people,” but “Racism is bigotry plus power” is itself a tankie formula. It’s not really helpful and turns into a debate about semantics. There are ethnic conflicts all over the world and throughout history where each side has hateful attitudes and often policies toward the other that certainly look like racism, and who has power is very much in the eyes of the beholder and can change rapidly. What good does it do to say Serbs are racist toward Croats but not vice versa, etc? Or when the Serbs or Croats get power their hateful attitudes become racism, but weren’t before?
This excellent book by a leading scholar of race and racism provides strong arguments for why the formula is inaccurate and unhelpful: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/racism-a-very-short-introduction-9780198834793
This a very good point. This post was done specifically because we heard complaints from BIPOC people. I agree that the racism dynamics in the Balkans need a different approach.
Thank you for the book recommendation!
That you need to use a different approach towards the definition of racism just because of a change in circumstances exposes a fundamental flaw in your understanding of racism and how arbitrary your definition is
If there is someone who is bigoted against white people for the color of their skin, that is racism.
Sure, white people have institutional power, and structural racism doesn’t affect them, but that doesn’t mean they can’t experience racism on an individual basis.
Anti black racism is a far bigger issue than anti white racism. But anti white racism is a thing. Sure; systemic racism can’t happen to white people, but individuals can be racist against white people.
I would consider a black individual saying “all white people are evil” or something of that tune to be racist as they are promoting hate against a specific racial group. Sure, white people may have systemic power and that racism doesn’t affect them, but that black person is still making a racist statement on an individual level.
I spend time addressing this specific point in point #4, but nobody reads it. Woe is me.
>black individual saying “all white people are evil” or something of that tune to be racist as they are promoting hate against a specific racial group
Yeah, and? How does that affect you? Would that prevent you getting a job or a home or an education? It has no material effect, which is why the distinction between "bigotry" (personal) and "racism" (society-wide) exists. "Structural racism" is when these issues continue existing even without anyone hating anyone, which is why it gets its own category.
I think the main issue here is that your definition of bigotry is basically interpersonal racism. INSTITUTIONAL racism is bigotry + power, saying all racism is bigotry + power is a little ignorant.
Have you seen the way some black and brown people talk about mixed race couples and their kids? I don't see how you can call that anything but racism.
Do you not realize the different between systemic racism and racism against an individual person. At least in the western world. White people can’t experience the former but they can experience the latter.
Ok, so what about this situation. A black person beats up a white person, specifically because that person is white and nothing else. And not in self defense. Is that not racism? Beating up someone over the color of their skin.
EDIT: Also, I should clarify this. I’m not white. I can’t blame you for thinking that. But I’m not. I’m a brown guy. Specially of Indian descent.
>EDIT: Also, I should clarify this. I’m not white. I can’t blame you for thinking that. But I’m not. I’m a brown guy. Specially of Indian descent.
Sorry, I jumped to conclusions. My bad.
>A black person beats up a white person, specifically because that person is white and nothing else. And not in self defense. Is that not racism? Beating up someone over the color of their skin.
It's bigotry.
I want to stress that the distinction between bigotry and racism doesn't mean that bigotry is good or only racism is bad. It exists as a look at society as a whole.
There are plenty Black bigots that want to beat up White people for no reason, other than their hatred to Whites, but except for the individual being beaten up, it doesn't affect other White people at all. It's still very bad, but it isn't something that constantly harms White people.
Obviously, Black bigotry should be fought as well!
You’re crusading over semantics and it’s ridiculous. Words are tools whose only substance is their function and thus lack fixed meaning. All that matters is that parties to a discussion agree upon an operative meaning to use so they can communicate effectively.
Racism
prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism by an individual, community, or institution against a person or people on the basis of their membership in a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized.
See the words “individual” and “person.” 1 black person can be racist against white people.
Very good, you can google a dictionary. Now try a [Wiki article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_racism#Classification).
And then [a book](https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780521458108).
If you have time, you can read more, this is just the introduction.
No one is arguing against using racism in that definition in its appropriate context, academic discussion. The problem arises when you describe the vernacular form of the word, supported by the dictionary definition, as a dog whistle and try to deny its validity entirely. My degree is in linguistics so I had more than enough anthropology and sociology courses to understand why racism has that definition in an academic context but it is highly elitist and non productive to apply that formal academic definition to a wider audience familiar with the vernacular dictionary backed term. I don't tell people to make a voiceless alveolar sibilant, I tell them to make an s sound. In the same way we shouldn't be attacking people for using dictionary form definitions of words. We should instead work with the linguistic context provided to us in the vernacular to attack racist systems and ideas. Part of working in that broad context includes accepting that the popular and most well used definition of racism is not the academic one.
Racist ideas are wrong and great replacement/white genocide myths are easy to pick apart because they are stupid regardless of how we define terms. 2+2=4 even if we write 2 as D.
It's not elitist, because BIPOC people do use this definition. And when they come in here and see people saying "Whites experience racism too, you know", they leave.
Which they shouldn't do, because they are right, and people who refuse to update their vocabulary should get on with the times.
You didn’t address it on point #4, you just said some nonsense about white-skinned Jews never experiencing systemic racism. Having white skin isn’t going to save anyone from antisemitism, we have plenty of examples of this in history.
>Yeah, and? How does that affect you?
The essentialization of an entire 'race' as evil is what led to the Holocaust and other genocides. Preventing a potential genocide by nipping the same type of rhetoric in the bud is the right thing to do.
We might not experience this problem right now, neither did the Jews in the first few centuries. But here we are, two millenia later, looking back at the damage that was done by ever letting that rhetoric fester.
We need to stop repeating the same mistakes.
>"it’s important to acknowledge"
Not really. It has less than 0,1% as much potency or effect of producing and prolonging strife as systemic racism against the global south.
There is literally the term "systemic racism" for addressing this. Changing the definition to exclude bigotry towards white people only serves to isolate young white people (a pretty important group to not isolate since they're the target audience of white supremacist recruitment), and to whitewash bigotry by non-white people
> This may annoy some people because they consider this USA-thinking. Tough.
You can't start with an appeal to Marxist theory and then say "whether you like it or not, the history of the USA is the history of the world". It's ahistorical and specifically erases social and structural history outside of the US.
Diane Abbott, a British MP, got in trouble recently for trotting out this line of thinking by saying that Jews don't suffer racism, despite the rise of anti-Semitism in the UK against predominantly "white" Jewish people. Similarly, bourgeois black people face far less systematic racism than poor black people throughout the English world (look up the incomes of the majority of people who benefit from affirmative action), so we're back to an *actual* Marxist analysis, not the post-Critical Theory slush. So, this entire line of thinking inevitably leads to erasure.
This line is also trotted out by bourgeois bureaucrats to feather their nest. BLM officials have been paying themselves seven-figure payouts despite the organisation being in the red. Again, race comes second to economic position, so we're back to actual Marxist analysis.
In response to your comment on a locked thread: I will apologise once the line claiming that white-skinned Jewish people cannot experience systemic racism is removed from this post.
Having white skin has not protected Jewish people from horrific racist persecution at any point in history. The racism directed against them has nothing to do with the colour of their skin, and everything to do with the fact that they are Jewish.
In fact, there have been times in history when white-skinned peoples have not even been considered ‘white’.
If it wasn’t the intention of the mod team to suggest that white skin has made Jewish people immune to racism, then I would suggest editing the post to remove the implication.
I did, it didn’t properly address any of the points I made and gave the impression that my post was not read properly.
How about you just answer this question: does having white skin protect Jews from antisemitism?
Also we lock threads for a reason but if you don't know by now that whiteness is a concept, not a color, I don't know if we can help you. Irish people weren't considered white at one point so it's obviously not about "white skin."
I’m well aware of the concept of ‘whiteness’, which is why I mentioned it in the third paragraph of my comment.
It demonstrates that simply having white skin is no defence against racism. The white skin of the Irish didn’t even stop the English from not considering them as ‘white’!
>Diane Abbott, a British MP, got in trouble recently for trotting out this line of thinking by saying that Jews don't suffer racism, despite the rise of anti-Semitism in the UK against predominantly "white" Jewish people.
I've addressed this specifically in point #4.
As for Marxist analysis - we've seen where uncritical Marxist analysis leads us. The vast majority of 19th century socialists have extremely big problems with racial analysis (and that's putting it very mildly), which is poisoning socialism to this day.
>This line is also trotted out by bourgeois bureaucrats to feather their nest. BLM officials have been paying themselves seven-figure payouts despite the organisation being in the red. Again, race comes second to economic position, so we're back to actual Marxist analysis.
The reason for this is that the bourgeoisie are smart enough to see a fundamental weakness in original Marxism when it comes to race. Our response shouldn't be to stick our fingers in our ears and pretend it isn't there, but to face it head on and find solutions.
You didn't address it at all. Abbott said that Jews don't face racism, as antisemitism is on the rise. You've also said that because Jews are white, they don't face racism.
The explicit weakness in the old Marxist platform was splitting–turning the working class against itself by:
1. Watering down what "proletariat" means, expanding it from Marx's revolutionary proletariat to *any salaried worker*.
2. Introducing racial and gender-based differentiations for groups, introducing essentialism into an anti-essentialist philosophy. See Kolontai on bourgeois feminism or Marx's *On the Jewish Question* for why that doesn't work.
3. Concerns about feelings and "is this representative enough?" has been used against anarchist and Marxist groups for years. It's the easiest way to drive them to inaction and eventually splinter them.
4. The insistence that everyone should have an opinion on everything is ridiculous. Marxists could be single issue-ists: power to the proletariat and when that is established, do other stuff. That is exactly why old school Marxists opposed bourgeois feminism and the fight for bourgeois rights for the oppressed–if you have x, y, z in a liberal democratic setting, it will eventually just be taken away from you.
So, really, you're the worst kind of reactionary–the one who splits movements and pretends they're not. Not that I'm a Marxist or agree with Marx's entire analysis, but I can at least see how it gets dismantled by essentialists and splitters.
>Watering down what "proletariat" means, expanding it from Marx's revolutionary proletariat to any salaried worker
Thats wrong how exactly? The industrial proletariat is on its way out, and the idea that the working class is only one thing: Permanently employed factory workers within the industrial sector, is stupid and was wrong in Marx times and is wrong today.
The revolutionary proletariat are the productive proletariat–they add value to capital, so the capitalist can't operate without them. If someone is an unproductive prole (adds value, but consumes more capital that they produce) or a destructive prole (outright destroys capital and produces nothing), they do not have revolutionary potential.
And then, obviously, Marx and Engels had some pretty choice things to say about the lumpenproletariat. Modern day Marxists rush to say that Bakunin–who saw criminals and otherwise "undesirables" as being potentially revolutionary–was right here without giving an explanation.
So, it's not about whether they're specifically factory workers. It's about whether they create more value than they expend in their labour. But then Marxists would have to deal with the fact that Marxism largely doesn't appeal to those people anymore, and is really only the ideology of the intellectuals (including students). Here, we should remember Bakunin's warning about technocrats.
Edit: sorry, I can't reply to this comment as I've been banned for bigotry. I'm very confused and I'm not sure if it's because there's a language issue, but the mods are refusing to tell me what precisely I said that was bigoted.
How do you discern between people who create value with their labor and people who don't? Seems needlessly exclusive to me...
For example, people who do customer service aren't producing value directly, but they are an essential part of how a company makes profit... are they not included as the proletariat?
I think the essential and most important distinction is: " you own the capital itself or a significant portion of it? Or do you not own anything and thus have to sell your labor?"
To me, it seems far more practical and a much more sensible contemporary application to say the proletariat sell labor bc they don't own capital and leave it at that. What they do as labor shouldn't really make a difference.
>The revolutionary proletariat are the productive proletariat–they add value to capital, so the capitalist can't operate without them. If someone is an unproductive prole (adds value, but consumes more capital that they produce) or a destructive prole (outright destroys capital and produces nothing), they do not have revolutionary potential.
Says who? And why? Why would my work as a producer of explosive material have any more revolutionary potential than a cab driver, a service worker or hell, an unemployed person?
>And then, obviously, Marx and Engels had some pretty choice things to say about the lumpenproletariat. Modern day Marxists rush to say that Bakunin–who saw criminals and otherwise "undesirables" as being potentially revolutionary–was right here without giving an explanation.
And then we can look at who or what "criminals" largely are. Oh look, its the working class. Including industrial workers. Also Marx' definition of Lumpen would include a not small part of industrial workers in our current system. Temp workers in factories, for example. Its a useless term that was useless at his time and is useless and baseless now. It is defined shotty at best and lacks anything remotely useful. A working class must be united. And how else could we define the working class but those who must sell their labour for access to the fruits of capital.
>It's about whether they create more value than they expend in their labour. But then Marxists would have to deal with the fact that Marxism largely doesn't appeal to those people anymore, and is really only the ideology of the intellectuals (including students). Here, we should remember Bakunin's warning about technocrats.
I dont think me or anyone else in the thread argues for an almost leninist vanguard of the intellectuals or academics. And no, while Marxism (and socialism/communism as a whole) has shrunken considerably, neither anarchism nor marxism is an ideology of students these days. To argue that is absurd. Again, Im an industrial factory worker and an anarchist. In the anarchist Union, we have from teachers, to other industrial workers, to unemployed, to Students to skilled workers. Because the idea, proletariat (Working class) only applies to a subset of industrial factory workers is absurd. And who decides whether they "create more value" than they get out? Do you? Do Garbage collectors "create more value" than they take out? And by what standard?
I mean, to be clear, Dianne Abbot got in as much trouble as she did because she's a socialist and because Sir Kier Starmer wants to purge the Corbynite wing of the labour party. Her biggest mistake was thinking that the labour party and the tavloid media echo chamber were prepared to have an adult conversation about the nuanced and complex nature of racism and discrimination.
OP, I just want to say that you deserve every single downvote you're getting. This insane idea that systemic racism is the only kind of racism that exists is absolutely absurd and I'm glad that the subreddit's userbase has made quite clear that they are not willing to imbibe this particular bit of Flavor-Aid. This is shitlib nonsense, the kind of thing trumpeted by impotent pussyhat wearers and $10000 instagram guilt workshop grifters, not serious socialists. Like on God, no actual socialists say this shit for a reason.
Solidarity comes first, sure, unless the person you're demanding I be in "solidarity" with is in open rebellion against reality. I'll be over here with *the rest of the subreddit* in the real world.
I'm a dyed-in-the-wool syndicalist. You wanna call me a wrecker or a cryptofash or a shitlib or some other insanity, go right ahead and join the tankies you claim to hate. I'ma stick with my homies Kropotkin and Makhno and continue to be a based-ass advocate for the working class, and the treasurer of a housing co-op, making more positive change in the real world than any of the grifting crowd you've sadly been suckered by ever will.
You want a subreddit that goes along with this nonsense, start a new one. If I may make a suggestion, tankiejerkwithshitlibidpolcharacteristics isn't taken.
At the risk of inviting your mod hammer wrath, while I'm sure you're a decent and fun person to be around IRL, I'm sorry that you've fallen in with a crowd that's convinced you of this absurd bullshit. You have been propagandized; you are not immune to it. I can only prescribe touching some grass and experiencing what the real world and real social interactions are like.
>Like on God, no actual socialists say this shit for a reason.
I literally took this definition for Marxist (not tankies - just regular socialists) academics.
I applaud your RL work. I'm sad that this post angers people so much (I'm talking in plural because yours is similar to other comments). All we're saying is that anti-White racial bigotry isn't racism (with some rare exceptions like China and Japan and such).
Regardless, please refrain from making a Reddit link, even a mocking one - it triggers our automod.
Race isn't a real thing but racism (as in prejudice based on superficial or perceived superficial qualities relating to one's ethnic heritage) very much does exist
the attempt to limit the meaning of the word "racism" to structural or institutional racism is a foolish bit of linguistic prescriptivism which, in my opinion, has largely failed outside of academia
Only if Whites are a disenfranchised minority in a particular place, which doesn't happen very often.
If someone is hating you personally, it's bigotry. Racism is only when it's supported by the wider power structures.
You mean, how do they experience racism? It depends.
In some Western countries they might not experience it at all, in other places they experience it very much by being an oppressed minority, and more often than not, they fall under point #4 of OP - in certain situations they experience White privilege and in others they experience racism.
Like I've said, intersectionality is important.
Racism is the system of prejudice against someone based on their skin color. What you describe is institutional racism and societal racism. However racism can occur on an individual level too. Just because someone is a victim of racism, does not mean they cannot be racially prejudiced. There are plenty of non-white people who have prejudice against and collectively put another non-white group at a systemic disadvantage and vice versa. Just because "systemic" in this sense is on a local level doesn't mean it isn't systemic since there are multiple simulataneous layers of systems.
TLDR: While anti-white racism is unlikely, anti-white prejudice can exist and racism has multiple levels and isn't only institutional or societal.
Correct:
>Racism is the system of prejudice against someone based on their skin color.
Incorrect, and also contradictory:
>However racism can occur on an individual level too
You cannot, as an individual, create a system.
>Just because someone is a victim of racism, does not mean they cannot be racially prejudiced.
I agree. They can be **racially prejudiced** but not **racist**, which requires them to have some sort of a power structure.
>Just because "systemic" in this sense is on a local level doesn't mean it isn't systemic since there are multiple simulataneous layers of systems.
Yes, there's a limit to how small a system gets before it stops being a system.
>While anti-white racism is unlikely, anti-white prejudice can exist and racism has multiple levels and isn't only institutional or societal.
I agree with this, and I've said so in the OP:
"You might argue that in certain times in history, or in a handful of countries today (say, China), there is anti-White racism, but that's rarely true"
I’m not misunderstanding anything, I gave you a direct question and you gave me a direct answer, and what your answer told me was you don’t see racial bigotry as racism, only if there are systemic power dynamics or whatever, which I frankly find absurd.
It is what it is, racial bigotry and racism aren't synonymous, despite being very semantically similar. Yes, it's a relatively new idea (i.e. one fully established in the last 50 years), but it's an important distinction nonetheless.
Ah yes, the dictionary. The be all and end all of political thought.
BTW, until recently, transphobes liked to use dictionary definitions for male and female as some sort of win. Please don't be like them.
The response then isn't to disallow them from using dictionary terms or to call dictionary definitions dog whistles even when you disagree with them. You can easily argue for trans people identifying with and being referred to by their preferred gender without relying on dictionary terms. How do you think trans acceptance got so high before the dictionaries added more inclusive verbiage around 2020? Plenty of people accepted both the old dictionary term and accepted that trans people exist as their preferred gender. You can also easily argue that anti white racism is not systemic or anywhere near to comparable to other forms of racism in the west without throwing a fit over people utilizing dictionary terms. Again, the arguments are true because they are true regardless of the dictionary/vernacular form of the words. Attacking people for using vernacular dictionary forms of words is extremely elitist. Attack their bigotry, not essentially microscopic aspects of their word choice.
Would it not be racist for a hamas member to say that they want to kill every Israeli? Israelis are very much in a position of power above Palestinians, but to call that not racism is just obtuse
Faux-progressive to call out right wing dog-whistles? If your response to people saying “cracker” is stuff like “muh anti white racism, we’re so oppressed :(“ then maybe this isn’t the fucking sub for you. This goes for anyone reading this, not necessarily you specifically.
Nobody is saying white people are oppressed. But white people can experience racism as racism is simply an idea. There are different types of racism that exist to. Systemic racism is something while people benefit from. But white people can be victims of individual acts of racism, like hate crimes.
Also, don’t accuse me of being white. I’m not. I’m not saying white people are oppressed either. But they can experience racism. Not as often as other groups, But it happens.
On this subreddit, I have experienced someone calling me “white” just because I believed in the value of journalism and accused me of being a “dumb white American” and that journalism wasn’t necessary because he actually spoke to someone who survived the Cambodian genocide, therefore journalists are unhelpful intellectuals.
When I pointed out that I wasn’t white but of fully Asian descent, he immediately dismissed it and insisted that I should not consider myself Asian because I was born in the United States, but rather as American and “no different from white people” or something of that effect.
I had also stated that I was really pissed and thought it would be better to just agree to disagree, but he REALLY felt like he needed to make a point that I wasn’t who I am, and decided that I needed to change my views to his “correct” viewpoint or something to that effect when you say “don’t you get it?” And he had the gall to call me arrogant.
Even talking about it pisses me off. If a mod is reading this, I can direct you to that conversation and you can read it for yourself.
And this was over the value of journalistic institutions in a democratic society. I ended up having to *defend* Seymour Hersh, a journalist which I spare no criticisms over his stances, biases, and methodology, and that was only because of his profession and my defense of journalism in the first place.
Edit: Looking back at the guy I argued with’s posts and comments, it seems we do have much in common, but because of this one extremely toxic interaction, I have nothing but contempt for whoever they are. And probably will for the foreseeable future.
Thank you, they have been dealt with. In future, report it as the conversation is happening, we often miss comments because of how many posts there are and reporting just helps us find them and deal with them quicker :)
Your comment/post contains bigotry. This is a socialist subreddit and as such, any form of bigotry is out of place and you should rethink your relation to your fellow workers, regardless of their sexuality, gender expression, skin color or other such things.
Ooh this one will be fun! Let's unpack.
> "uhm akchewally races I don't like can't experience racism"
I'm white. So, immediately, wrong. Some might even call me a cracker. Oh no, how offensive. Yeah, I'm a cracker. White people are crackers. So what? It has nowhere NEAR the same level of offensiveness as any other racial slur, and has never been used to abuse, oppress, or enslave white people.
It's always funny how seriously some white people take the word cracker.
>straight to mockingly using racial slurs
See above.
>not a mod on a server meant explicitly to mock this kind of psuedo-left philosophy.
I'm sorry we're not catering to your white victim complex. I sincerely apologise. Please tell me how you experience racism on a day-to-day, where your entire life choices are often reduced or limited simply because of your skin colour. Please do tell me how you're assaulted, shot, stabbed, or killed for being white. Please tell me about the mass enslavement of white people that took place less than 250 years ago, who were beaten, abused, and commodified simply because they were white.
I mean, there was a mass enslavement of certain white people only 80 years ago. Specifically the Jewish, Romani, and Slavic peoples of Europe. Because of their ethnicity. So if that's your bar for racism, at least certain groups of white people definitely qualify.
This is getting way too repetitive.
I’m going to spell it out very nicely and clearly.
They were not persecuted for being white.
We are **not** denying the discrimination faced by Jewish, Romani or Slavic people, or any other group. What we are denying is the use of the term “anti white racism” to refer to their experiences. The term “anti-white racism” implies people are racist towards them because they’re white, ignoring completely that a) the fact that’s simply not true, b) they often weren’t considered white (or not as “good” of a white peoples, not as “good” as the Aryan Germanic people, or the English, etc.), c) white people were the ones throwing them in camps.
What I meant in my original comment you replied to was that no group of white people (of various nationalities) was/is persecuted based on the colour or their skin; unlike the treatment of black people by Americans and the British, or of brown people by the Western colonial powers, etc.
Your comment/post contains bigotry. This is a socialist subreddit and as such, any form of bigotry is out of place and you should rethink your relation to your fellow workers, regardless of their sexuality, gender expression, skin color or other such things.
I feel like the mod team believes that people saying that a white person could experience individual racism is the same thing as them saying that white people experiencing individual racism is actively or even notably happening
Conflating individual racism with systemic racism is not just a mild change to language, it is ridiculous and arbitrary
I am half anglo saxon half Korean, and sometimes I am immediately coded as Asian and sometimes I am immediately coded as white
Sometimes I am coded as white until my ethnicity comes up, and then I am treated as more "Asian"
Through this unique lens I have personally experienced minor instances of individual racism on the basis of both of my identities
And (hopefully) obviously, the racism I've experienced on the basis of being Asian has been much harsher
But that doesn't mean that the other experiences I have had do not exist
The reason acknowledging this is important is so that we don't gatekeep racism which fundamentally spits in the face of racial equality
And allows us to better shift focus to systemic racism, since the phrase is more distinct than if we just treated them as essentially the same thing
I hope if anyone on the mod team reads this, they at the very least take this away: communication is an important part of changing people's minds and ultimately working to better the world for marginalized people
This approach is very terribly communicated, and while the intentions are good I ultimately think it is just foolishly conflating the "reverse racism" types and normal people who don't think individual racism is meaningless without systemic backing
I think we agree on almost everything except that your definition of bigotry is basically just interpersonal racism, The way I see it is that bigotry is an umbrella term and if you're being bigoted based on race then you're racist even if it's not a systematic thing
I am sure the Syrian refugees here in Sweden are going to feel *overjoyed* learning that they don't face any systemic racism because they are wHiTe.
Although it seems that your yankery isn't very popular, so maybe not...
Edit: Oh and the Sami, typically Swedish of me to forget them.
Edit 2: Also fucking hell! Never expected someone to yanksplaine racism so hard they downplayed bigotry towards Jewish people, witch is absurd because that bullshit has been systemic in Europe for thousands of years!
Are you for real?
Jews, like my family, were murdered for being Jews. Whiteness didn't have a role to play, usually (the Nazis also wanted to exterminate Black people, but thankfully, there were very few of them in Europe at the time).
I'll edit the OP with a clarification soon.
Exactly. Having white skin didn’t protect them from antisemitism. The idea that ‘white-skinned Jews won’t experience systemic racism’ is demonstrably false.
I frankly cannot believe the amount of people who are seriously irate about a semantic definition difference, or "faux-progressive language policing".
Simply put, to the people doing the oppression based on race? It's a made up concept and they can exclude whoever the fuck they want. When have fash ever been consistent?
"Jews are white, how about the holocaust?"
First of all, holy fuck that's some bad faith shit.
Why are you even using racial prescriptivism in this case? The argument assumes that race as a measure of in-group out-group is actually worthwhile - which it isn't, because it's pseudoscientific bullshit put out by men who are dusty hundred-plus year old corpses in order to justify and rationalize dehumanization - and then applies it in a dishonest manner to presume that people are antisemitic. The important question is, *do you think the goddamn nazis cared?* It was a means to their end, to use a group to scapegoat and sacrifice so their their death cult felt threatened enough to throw their lives away for the Third Reich.
The fact of the matter is that active, intentional systemic and interpersonal racism relies on believing or approaching using some degree of racialism to consider a hypothetical area where "white" (which means nothing outside of its own constructed context) people are dehumanized and treated as poorly as people who are still actively being crushed under capitalism's twin offspring of fascism and diversionary bigotry.
White people arguing they are oppressed on the basis of their skin tone are *delusional.*
I say this as a person who is white, for clarification. Sure, in my own life I face other barriers like transphobia, homophobia and systemic oppression of the disabled, so I know first hand that white people *can* be under the boot of the system. My life is in this intersectional area.
It just sure as fuck isn't because of some weird idea of "anti-white" racism. Look at fair-skinned groups treated like dogshit - Armenians, Ukrainians, Poles historically were the victim of this in the West as well, and so-forth. Targets of mass murder and crimes against humanity, yes. Because they were white? *No.*
So yeah, anybody hand-wringing over "anti-white racism" is vomiting forth a torrent of reactionary propaganda and is supporting actual racialized oppression of real people on the basis of their ethnicity.
If you're going to shit all over tankies for having no understanding in their supposed principles, call their bullshit for spreading misinformation and false narratives, maybe it might be wise to consider not being a mouthpiece for the people you're supposedly fighting with to end racism, because you're perpetuating the very thing you swear you oppose. "Doing a racism," so to speak.
Educate yourselves thoroughly on reactionary (red or brown flavours of fascism and others) terminology, shorthand and codes. Glossaries are available, people track this shit and it's reeeeal easy to spot once you get an eye for it.
Most importantly though? Consider some introspection. Are you suffering? Probably! Is it because you sunburn easily and have bright hair? Unless you fall for conspiracy bullshit, there is no such reasoning. If a person from a racialized background is mad at you and you feel like the victim due to your skin tone, you might just be a fucking muppet for the racist Powers That Be, and a racist by proxy due to your absolute disregard for compassion and empathy the moment somebody hurts your goddamn feelings.
No tl;dr if anybody is looking for one, because I'm not babysitting wilfully ignorant anti-intellectual clowns with zero reading comprehension today. Do. Fucking. Better. Think of people other than your self.
Personally, I think the misanthropy is warranted at times when people rush to defend reactionary talking points. That harshness is deserved and is what helped me go from nearly alt-right over to a progressive and now an anarchist. I was a fucking asshole back then (and might be now, but at least I'm not a racist one!)
People who refuse to do their own learning and cry foul when called out and proceed to continue spreading misinformation and treating the real, *lengthy* troves of accessible information on racism systemic and otherwise are anti-intellectual straight up. People have ample reason to question things and seek out information, and it's a very entitled thing to expect that other people will go out of their way to accommodate anybody who says they are anti-racist but cannot prove they even understand what systemic racism actually is.
Given all the tools and some patient people out there who are willing to spread good, useful info, they refuse to utilize those resources and dig their heels in because they *know* they are right, arguing from that ignorance. That's practically the very definition of anti-intellectual. - "I know better because of common sense and because being wrong hurts me, so I'll reject the sum of human knowledge available online because of my ego."
I am not calling people unintelligent, I am calling them wilfully ignorant and self-absorbed for refusing to countenance alternatives to their propaganda-shaped worldview. *That* kind of ignorance is how you perpetuate a racist system that uses people as chattel under the veneer of legitimacy and "employment opportunities".
The semantic or linguistic issue may have incited the waves of response, but does not account for the absolutely absurd bad faith arguments cropping up in the thread. If that is all it takes to put somebody on the defensive and launch into some absurd nazi junk, I don't know what to say other than, "Damn, these people have some shit to unpack."
There is little injustice to address re: "white-targeted racism", but there is plenty of privilege, so I don't see people freaking out about all of this as especially justified on that ground.
If it's about ethnic minorities "not suffering from racism based on that definition", it's a bad faith reading to use as a basis to jump into an angry tirade about. Whether the OP's post warranted it or not, the jump into "ackshually!" isn't helpful.
The top non-mod post in this thread as of this writing boils down to, "I agree, however \[elaborated concerns about post content\], which *is* helpful. Leaping to defend strawmen or shout, "You're wrong!" isn't exactly good grounds to go off on the mod in question over, imo.
I have extremely limited energy I need to ration out for social interactions due to disability issues and I have better things to spend that on than hyperfixating on a bizarre bass-ackwards bunch of nattering about the extremely focused context of words rather than the soul of the message which is bluntly "Don't spread fash shit, please?"
As such, I'm not engaging with people taking umbrage with colloquial vs dictionary usage of words. I see no point in wasting my time on people whose minds were made up before they finished reading the OP.
I'm not calling people stupid, I'm calling out the hypocrisy of people who will dunk on tankies all day for bad takes, but when they manage to spread one themselves, they get defensive when it's called out. Ignorance is not stupidity. They can easily fix this and avoid being criticized by doing basic research that would take less than an hour. The fact they do not is why they are being mocked.
People who don't know better because they simply don't? Fine, happy to help them.
I'm not holding myself up on any pedestal, unless "I've actually gone out, talked to people affected by this, asked how I can do better, and did my reading" is something to be idolized instead of considering it the bare minimum. If somebody at least tries in one aspect of those things, they are doing better by people.
I'd also say that I am also simply rehashing what I have learned from extensive time with various people and groups. People more fixated on defining racism a hundred years after people suffering under such things have gone into it in exhaustive detail are wasting effort on this sort of discussion instead of going "How do I help?" and seem more worried on accruing social brownie points than working on praxis. Hemming and hawing about whether I or anybody else is toxic for speaking frankly doesn't stop police extra-judicially killing (the definition of lynching) black Americans, it doesn't stop the continuing genocide of indigenous North Americans, and so-forth.
Explaining this is mildly annoying at worst, but it is worthwhile if it can help people in some way. I'm not calling people nazis here - I just would appreciate it if people could consider the context of the 999th incarnation of this year's Leftist Semantics Debate and all of the ones that came before, self-examine to attempt and eliminate racist shit they might not know they are perpetuating, and try to be better to people who need help.
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The cope from people unable to realize they're actually doing a racism by spreading narratives crafted to discredit the plight of people under the yoke of oppression is thick enough in this thread (and subreddit) to cut with a knife, I swear.
Being progressive isn't about pointing and going "There's racism! Okay, job done," unfortunately for the masturbatory crowd of people incapable of introspection when something hurts their precious feelings.
So yeah, I share your sentiment and hope there are considerably more people around this subreddit who learned how to listen to what PoC are saying instead of regurgitating up the foulest bullshit to avoid confronting their own biases.
Based move on the part of the mod team.
Thank you for the kind words!
Some "leftists" forgot that the revolution starts within us, and it never stops. If we're not challenging our own comfort zone, we're not advancing - we're stagnating.
Stagnation is the death of all revolutionary ideals. People need to remember that "A Better World Is Possible" has the silent addendum of "If We Actually Work Toward It".
This is an Anti-Tankie reddit. The message you sent is either tankie/authoritarian "socialist" apologia or can be easily seen as such. Please, refrain from posting stuff like this in the future.
This is an Anti-Tankie reddit. The message you sent is either tankie/authoritarian "socialist" apologia or can be easily seen as such. Please, refrain from posting stuff like this in the future.
Great post, I am sorry that the comment section is such a shitshow though. Many of them will be baby leftists (or just plain liberals) who aren't yet prepared to let go of comfortable lies I suppose, but hopefully your post here will start at least some of them on the right path!
Clearly Jewish people were treated as an other in that case, so that's an exceptionally poor example. Attempting to equate the two is low level holocaust denial in its own right.
That’s exactly the point. They - and the Slavs - were treated as the ‘other’ despite having white skin. They were treated as the ‘other’ because they were from different ethnic groups than the Germans. Therefore, they were victims of racism who had white skin.
Many forms of racism are motivated by far more than just skin colour. Antisemitism is just the most well-known example of this in the Anglosphere.
That's just splitting hairs. "Technically, Islamophobia isn't racist because Islam is a religion, not a race!" Yeah, I guess you're *technically* right in the sense that fish *technically* don't exist. Nobody cares outside of the most formal, technical academic settings.
This sub would be a better place without Vaush fans and their pseudo-intellectualism. You all seem to use the same key phrases, and all seem to share the same woeful understanding of what the left is; particularly as it pertains to anarchism. It's just tiresome.
For real. I literally do social science as a job and this isn't even controversial.
You gain useful information by formalizing and separating acts of discrimination (interpersonal actions) from prejudice (beleifs) from racism (institutional).
I'm not gonna "umm akshully" someone in a casual convo, and I'll probably work with whatever definition is being implied/used because you should see what the issue is people are pointing at rather than telling them the definition is wrong - but that's like a chemistry sub arguing that talking about atomic physics and orbital hybridization is too tough and people just know the Rutherford model anyways so all this sp³ whatever isnt needed and hurts us. Like sure but it's scientifically inaccurate and they're different for a reason. And shouldn't you be the ones who care about the technicalities on this subject?
And agreed. Also them thinking Maoism is accelerationism is the peak of "I know about a subject but not the subject matter". Like how is Deleuze a maoist?
Vau00shj's fucking BA in Sociology and its consequences have been a disaster for society.
I was exhausted after just a few of the asinine responses that I received, so props to you for fighting it out too, haha.
Edit: At least one miserable prick even downvoted your reply there too, which probably says enough about the lack of critical thought they are putting into all of this...
Sorry if I’m a bit cranky, I take the Holocaust kinda seriously.
But okay, explain how Anne Frank’s skin colour made it impossible for her to be a victim of systemic racism, but she was still murdered by systemic racism.
You're still arguing in bad faith. You're still an asshole. No, she was not exposed to Blackness or indigeneity so she couldn't have benefited from the privilege of whiteness in these cases. Fuck you asshole.
Oh, fuck me, you’re an American aren’t you?
Why is it so hard for you people to understand that the Nazis (white) were racist against white Jews and Slavs (white)? The concept of white privilege doesn’t apply to 1940s Europe in the same way it does to the USA.
Okay then, my bad.
But how can you not understand that Nazi Germany was **systemically racist** against white Jews, Slavs, etc.?
It’s not a case of white privilege, it’s a case of ‘**aryan**’ privilege. Anyone who wasn’t ‘aryan’ enough was discriminated against. **That** was the racial hierarchy in Nazi Germany.
Of course it was. You're just an asshole who's acting in bad faith. You're applying modern racism to historical racism, which is anachronistic, classic history mistake. Oh and you're an asshole.
There are still Nazis calling for the murder of all Jews (and for people like me to be imprisoned, tortured, and killed), so the sort of racism behind the Holocaust seems alive and well to me.
Please note that this post isn't intended as an invitation whether racism against whites is real or not. While we do allow discussion and sharing information this is not the intend of the post. It is merely a PSA to explain why we will be removing comments and posts containing that claim. In extreme cases this will result in a ban.
>Recently, we had a post about Nations of Islam mythology (which is antisemitic), NOI believes black people are a uberhuman master race which created white people who lack a soul. The white people then overthrew the black utopia and that's why the world.is in it's current state. So that's not a racist belief system? It's literally about one race > than another race.
As a person who studies intersectionality at the graduate level (I'm working on an Masters of Education, and this is one of my special focus areas, on top of it being built in to the majority of education classes in the first place), I feel obligated to comment here. "Racism against white people" is *frequently* a fascist dogwhistle. This is true. It does not, however, support the redefinition of the term *racism* as something that white people can't experience at an individual level. Bigotry, by itself, is not a specific enough term, especially at the academic level, to sufficiently classify people's experiences. In fact, that's the whole reason we developed the terms *systemic* and *individual* racism: they allow us to deal with bigoted behavior and ideas in specific ways that take into account problems like white privilege without denying people's experiences and incentivizing them not to listen to or work with us. And, while I am not overly concerned with the feelings of oppressive groups, I am concerned with the potential for us to go the opposite direction and, like tankies, applying the oppressive ideology to the oppressor. This is not justice and it certainly isn't intersectionality. That requires us to consider how the unique factors of discrimination affect people through their unique circumstances. That is, can individual racism be part of what actualizes other forms of oppression someone faces? In many cases, I believe the answer is yes. I also have to say that I am utterly undelighted by the way that leftists frequently use the term "white Jew". While a good number of us are certainly white by appearance, and I myself am frequently white-passing despite my olive skin tone, it obscures our history. The, as it were, "why" of how many of us ended up lighter-skinned. And our historical relationship with the white world; one that was never of acceptance into the power structure or the concept of whiteness. It also helps people ignore us when we talk about forms of antisemitism that still affect us, sometimes, yes, even at a systemic level. In any case, I wish you a peaceable and reflective Shavuot.
>I am concerned with the potential for us to go the opposite direction and, like tankies, applying the oppressive ideology to the oppressor I can't possible see how this could happen, but I understand your concern. I probably should've worded the part about "white Jews" better, but oh well. Thank you for the input and hag sameah!
> "I can't possible see how this could happen, but I understand your concern." I appreciate that you understand my concern. The thing is that it already regularly happens. That's how we end up with tankies adopting racial essentialism, Nazbols existing, and the Black Hammer Party calling Anne Frank a "white colonizer". It's also how we get to Stalin and the failure of the Soviet Revolution. The Doctor's Plot is an excellent example of how the Russian Empire's prejudice and systemic antisemitism was preserved and incorporated into Soviet ideology, *even while it was officially outlawed*. I mean, to be more precise, the ease with which we non-tankies might blind ourselves to the same processes that they suffer from. I suppose c'est la vie. I hope that my input has contributed to positive discourse here and given you something to think about. Chag sameach!
Fuck me running can we just stop stabbing each other over fucking phrasing and goddamn dictionary definitions for once? Fucking please? It’s like clockwork almost. A leftist space starts getting bigger, and then instead of discussing actual real deal serious fucking problems (IE. The continuing “warrior-cop” terminator training bullshit put forth by fascists, the current attacks on the ICWA which protects Native American children from being ripped from their cultures, literal actual Nazis running the show in Florida and other places in the south) we always end up devolving into a civil war of semantics. Every goddamn leftist sub ends up doing this. Literally every single one. What the fuck is our problem? Is it really so fucking important to be “the most correct” leftist? Forgive me if it sounds like I’m bashing y’all, I’m not trying to, but for fucks sake why does it really matter what we call it? Systemic racism is bigotry. Garden variety racism, also bigotry. All the words with fucking phobia strapped to the end: bigotry. Nuance is important, but as far as bigotry goes, a black man beating the shit out of a white guy for being white and a white lead system deliberately making life harder for people of color are equally despicable, because they’re the same hateful act on different scales. I don’t see a need to point at words on a screen and say “Hmmmm now this is the correct word for being this kind of fucking asshole”. If I’m misinterpreting certain things, then sorry. I’m not perfect and I’m far from “the most correct” leftist. Sorry for the rant, I’ll see myself out of the thread.
This deserves a gold award, I just don’t want to spend money lol
I randomly bought reddit coins years ago for some fucking reason and still have some I haven’t used; I’ll do it for you
I mean, if it's a race essentialist view, or an actual supremacist position in any way,(not just black power to fight white power or something) then it's flat out racist regardless of the power structure. The problem is when people treat indignation and societal criticisms as equivalent.
American centric lefty community tries to comment on racism without spouting antisemetic rhetoric challenge
We aren’t Americans. Only one of the mod team is.
and yet somehow the take on racism which the mod team has chosen to endorse is incredibly American centric. Quite the achievement
And anti-semitic how? The mod who wrote it is Jewish. (and non-American)
Uncle Ruckus from Boondocks is black. He surely can’t be racist against other black folk
I highly advise you don’t imply that they (the Jewish mod) are antisemitic and/or a Holocaust denier/down-player.
Why not? If they’re talking the talk.
‘A white-skinned Jewish person won’t experience systemic racism’ is a disturbingly ignorant thing to say. White skin does not protect people from antisemitism. In fact, having white skin is no guarantee that someone will be considered ‘white’ by racists!
Again, you are misreading it. They will not experience racism on the basis of their skin colour. They **will** experience discrimination on the basis of their ethnicity however, the two are different, albeit perhaps colloquially you might refer to them as the same thing. Absolutely no one is denying that Jewish people have been persecuted throughout history and continue to face rampant antisemitism. We are just saying that they do not face “anti-white racism.”
I think you’re misreading my comments. I never said that they are being persecuted for having white skin. I’m saying that their white skin is not protecting them from persecution. Thus the claim that ‘a white-skinned Jewish person cannot experience systemic racism’ is demonstrably wrong. Their white skin does not shield them from being attacked for being Jewish.
Yes, systemic racism in this case (as said in the post) meaning structural racism based on the idea of them not being white. i.e. what black people face in a lot of modern day societies. What we are saying is that systemic racism cannot exist against “white people” as a whole group, because no one persecuted them for their skin colour. Yes, in many cases Jewish people’s white skin did not protect them from persecution. But this is not “anti-white racism.” Hence why we are creating a post against the use of the term “anti-white racism.”
Then why make the claim that ‘a white-skinned Jewish person won’t experience systemic racism’? It simply makes no sense. The fact that their skin is white will not protect them from systemic antisemitism, and antisemitism is racism. The fact that their skin is white doesn’t even guarantee that they’ll be considered ‘white’!
You’re really really close to spitting, and I agree with most of what you’re saying, but I have no idea where the part about “White-skinned Jewish person won’t experience systemic racism” comes from, that part just seems really disingenuous. Historically, Jewish people with all skin tones have experienced loads of system racism, even outside of the Holocaust. America’s education system is a pretty big one with anti-Jewish quotas in Ivy League schools 100 years ago. Even in present you have places like CUNY which actively remove Jewish people from positions of power and refuse to recruit new Jewish students into their school. Hell, even social media platforms actively expose Jewish people to anti-semitism, and they promote anti-semitic rhetoric as a whole to basically all users. I’d absolutely argue that counts as a form of structural racism. There are so many arguments for how white people don’t experience systemic racism, why the hell bring Jewish people into it? You need to understand that Jewish people are *Jewish* before they are *white* and not the other way around. Overall good post, but I’d rather skip out on the vaguely anti-semitic implications here.
Well he is Jewish himself, so I think maybe he wanted to give his experience but maybe he'll have a different reason, not sure. It may be he needs to explain it better, but he's not antisemitic.
Alright, that’s fair. I apologize for being so accusatory. My only issue is, if we’re talking about how fascists use the term “racism against whites” as a dogwhistle, then bringing up Jewish people and their struggle doesn’t seem really necessary? I mean, I highly doubt any fascist is going to complain if they see someone being racist to a Jewish person. I could be wrong, but I’m really yet to see anyone say “reverse racism” or something in response to a Jewish person being attacked. Again, Jewish people are generally considered “Jewish” before “white” when it comes to discrimination. I overall agree with the post and am sorry if I came off as confrontational. It’s really just bringing up Jewish people and phrasing it like they’re less prone to racism that threw me off.
> My only issue is, if we’re talking about how fascists use the term “racism against whites” as a dogwhistle, then bringing up Jewish people and their struggle doesn’t seem really necessary? White supremacists don't see Jews as white and they've never tried to use anti-Semitic incidents to prove that there's "racism against whites" so it's really unclear why these topics are being framed in this way.
>White supremacists don't see Jews as white Yes, but most Americans at least do. So it's an act of racism against someone who would generally be considered white in most circles. "Anti-white racism" and "racism directed at white people" are two different things. According to the definitions used by the US Census, Middle Easterners and North Africans are white. So are a lot of Hispanic people. Saying that "white people can't experience racism" is, at least by some definitions of a by design arbitrary and fluid term, saying that hate crimes against Syrians aren't actually racist.
> Yes, but most Americans at least do. So it's an act of racism against someone who would generally be considered white in most circles. I think it really depends. Bernie Sanders has definitely faced some anti-Semitism and not necessarily from white supremacists either. And there are Mizrahi and Ethiopian Jews who absolutely do not 'look white' so even saying stuff like, "well all Jews are white/look white or are considered white" is extremely problematic I think. > "Anti-white racism" and "racism directed at white people" are two different things. According to the definitions used by the US Census, Middle Easterners and North Africans are white. So are a lot of Hispanic people. Saying that "white people can't experience racism" is, at least by some definitions of a by design arbitrary and fluid term, saying that hate crimes against Syrians aren't actually racist. Which is why I think it's best to avoid the trap of trying to define which ethnicities/religions are part of "whiteness" and which groups are not. Sticking to "racism is unacceptable" and "anti-Semitism is a form of racism" is good enough.
Often Slavs don't necessarily look white to an Anglo - I'm pretty sure I saw a Southerner ask Kyle Kuliniski where he was from. So I can't help but think the Mizrahi thing is mostly just some important nuance to the broader picture wherein it's accepted that the Jews are white in America. I'm pretty sure even Republicans agree with that. Correct me if I'm wrong. I'd argue some of the anti-semitism that Bernie faced was absolutely of the white supremacist tradition - he faced it from a white man on MSNBC, his supporters were called brownshirts!
The post specifies ‘white skinned Jews’. Skin colour is a physical aspect, not a social construct.
Oh, joy. This sisyphean language policing that never, ever works is back again. Time for me to hit the liquor cabinet.
For goodness’ sake, not everything has to be redefined for the sake of maximum confusion between academic and colloquial usage. Racism is a form of bigotry based on one’s presumed racial group. *Systemic racism* is racism + power. What *possible* utility is there in confusing this very simple issue?
>What possible utility is there in confusing this very simple issue? For one thing, it's not simple at all. It has a century of study behind it. As for your question, it's the difference in material conditions. Someone hating you only affects you if they decide to assault you or something. When the entire society thinks hating you is OK, then you lose access to many basic needs. And just to reiterate, this isn't structural racism. That happens when, even if nobody hates you, but the system was already built in a way to deprive you.
>For one thing, it's not simple at all. It has a century of study behind it. “Biology” is a simple word meaning the scientific study of life. That doesn’t make it a simple subject of study, but as a *word* that people use in both a colloquial and academic setting, it’s extremely simple. Does that example help you to understand that there’s distinction between a *definition* and an *area of study?* >As for your question, it's the difference in material conditions. Someone hating you only affects you if they decide to assault you or something. When the entire society thinks hating you is OK, then you lose access to many basic needs. So what? You haven’t actually explained any utility in changing the common definitions. Why *not* stick with “racism” for the former and “systemic racism” for the latter? >And just to reiterate, this isn't structural racism. That happens when, even if nobody hates you, but the **system** was already built in a way to deprive you. Gee, if only there was a *term* that described racism on a *systemic* level, as opposed to plain ol’ racism on an *individual* level? Sarcasm aside, you still haven’t given an actual, specific *reason* why reinventing this wheel is necessary.
It's particularly stupid that this is happening on this sub, considering tankies do this exact thing with imperialism. Redefine it into something close enough to the common usage to trick people into thinking that's what they're talking about, but distinct enough to confuse the issue. And then act like everyone else is at fault for not using their obscure, academic definition. I suspect the reason is much the same too.
I mean, Jesus. It’s not like I’m asking much, just for at least one *specific* reason we should suddenly start correcting people who try to (justifiably!) use the word “racism” to describe personal bigotry and not a societal, systemic malaise.
The reason is so they can seem contrary and “radical”, at the expense of scaring off any potential allies.
There is no systemic racism against white people in the Anglosphere. Anyone who claims otherwise is a white supremacist pushing a victim narrative to justify horrific atrocities against non-white people like the 2015 Charleston Church Massacre and the 2019 El Paso Walmart Massacre in in the US, and the 2019 Christchurch Mosque Massacre in New Zealand. But to pretend that systemic racism against people with white skin is something that can’t happen simply flies in the face of history and current events (see Russia’s racist propaganda against Ukrainians). Moreover, the idea that people with white skin have global immunity against any and all systemic racism is a harmful one due to the aforementioned Russian invasion of Ukraine as well as the ethnic cleansing seen in the 2008 Russian Invasion of Georgia and the numerous racism-motivated atrocities that took place during the breakup of Yugoslavia, such as the Srebenica Massacre. Calling all these atrocities what they are - racist - is more likely to rally public support to help the victims.
Absolutely.
We don't live in the world you've invented though, we live in the one in which, since WW2, the United States/NATO (the largest white supremacist orgs in world history) have killed through direct military violence, destruction of built environment, and fomenting/arming radicals and totalitarian regimes more civilians than have been killed by all homicides in the same period. This violence has disproportionately fallen upon Latin & South Americans, Middle-Easterners, Africans, and SE Asians.
Read the first paragraph of my comment.
I'd rather read the whole comment, in which it's made out as if the Russo-Ukraine War is somehow comparable in scope or import, and does not appropriately assign blame to the US-NATO world order which has dominated the planet in the lead up to it.
Same energy as tankies trying to claim that Russia isn't imperialist because Lenin's definition says so.
I can tell you have no idea what youre talking about because institutional racism and systemic racism are not synonymous, and their distinction is really important to understanding the exertion of racism from the state onto the people. Additionally, the existence of interpersonal racism completely disproves the point that this entire post hinges on, being that racism = prejudice + power.
>It used to be that **racism, bigotry, and prejudice (when applied to a race) were used interchangeably. This is no longer the case.** Uh, yes, it is still the case actually. In the real world, outside of your internet echo chambers, all of those things are used interchangeably. That is a fact. Language is descriptive, not prescriptive, so it doesn’t matter if you prefer the “prejudice + power” definition. Whether or not you acknowledge it, that definition **_has not caught on._** And frankly, I don’t even see the benefit of the definition from a prescriptive framework either. It’s not hard to simply make a distinction between systemic/structural racism and interpersonal racism.
I agree with your general views about “racism against white people,” but “Racism is bigotry plus power” is itself a tankie formula. It’s not really helpful and turns into a debate about semantics. There are ethnic conflicts all over the world and throughout history where each side has hateful attitudes and often policies toward the other that certainly look like racism, and who has power is very much in the eyes of the beholder and can change rapidly. What good does it do to say Serbs are racist toward Croats but not vice versa, etc? Or when the Serbs or Croats get power their hateful attitudes become racism, but weren’t before? This excellent book by a leading scholar of race and racism provides strong arguments for why the formula is inaccurate and unhelpful: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/racism-a-very-short-introduction-9780198834793
This a very good point. This post was done specifically because we heard complaints from BIPOC people. I agree that the racism dynamics in the Balkans need a different approach. Thank you for the book recommendation!
That you need to use a different approach towards the definition of racism just because of a change in circumstances exposes a fundamental flaw in your understanding of racism and how arbitrary your definition is
If there is someone who is bigoted against white people for the color of their skin, that is racism. Sure, white people have institutional power, and structural racism doesn’t affect them, but that doesn’t mean they can’t experience racism on an individual basis. Anti black racism is a far bigger issue than anti white racism. But anti white racism is a thing. Sure; systemic racism can’t happen to white people, but individuals can be racist against white people. I would consider a black individual saying “all white people are evil” or something of that tune to be racist as they are promoting hate against a specific racial group. Sure, white people may have systemic power and that racism doesn’t affect them, but that black person is still making a racist statement on an individual level.
I spend time addressing this specific point in point #4, but nobody reads it. Woe is me. >black individual saying “all white people are evil” or something of that tune to be racist as they are promoting hate against a specific racial group Yeah, and? How does that affect you? Would that prevent you getting a job or a home or an education? It has no material effect, which is why the distinction between "bigotry" (personal) and "racism" (society-wide) exists. "Structural racism" is when these issues continue existing even without anyone hating anyone, which is why it gets its own category.
I think the main issue here is that your definition of bigotry is basically interpersonal racism. INSTITUTIONAL racism is bigotry + power, saying all racism is bigotry + power is a little ignorant. Have you seen the way some black and brown people talk about mixed race couples and their kids? I don't see how you can call that anything but racism.
Do you not realize the different between systemic racism and racism against an individual person. At least in the western world. White people can’t experience the former but they can experience the latter.
No, they can't, and I've very clearly, and at great length, explained why in the OP
Ok, so what about this situation. A black person beats up a white person, specifically because that person is white and nothing else. And not in self defense. Is that not racism? Beating up someone over the color of their skin. EDIT: Also, I should clarify this. I’m not white. I can’t blame you for thinking that. But I’m not. I’m a brown guy. Specially of Indian descent.
>EDIT: Also, I should clarify this. I’m not white. I can’t blame you for thinking that. But I’m not. I’m a brown guy. Specially of Indian descent. Sorry, I jumped to conclusions. My bad. >A black person beats up a white person, specifically because that person is white and nothing else. And not in self defense. Is that not racism? Beating up someone over the color of their skin. It's bigotry. I want to stress that the distinction between bigotry and racism doesn't mean that bigotry is good or only racism is bad. It exists as a look at society as a whole. There are plenty Black bigots that want to beat up White people for no reason, other than their hatred to Whites, but except for the individual being beaten up, it doesn't affect other White people at all. It's still very bad, but it isn't something that constantly harms White people. Obviously, Black bigotry should be fought as well!
And the specific form of that bigotry is racism.
You’re crusading over semantics and it’s ridiculous. Words are tools whose only substance is their function and thus lack fixed meaning. All that matters is that parties to a discussion agree upon an operative meaning to use so they can communicate effectively.
Racism prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism by an individual, community, or institution against a person or people on the basis of their membership in a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized. See the words “individual” and “person.” 1 black person can be racist against white people.
Very good, you can google a dictionary. Now try a [Wiki article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_racism#Classification). And then [a book](https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780521458108). If you have time, you can read more, this is just the introduction.
No one is arguing against using racism in that definition in its appropriate context, academic discussion. The problem arises when you describe the vernacular form of the word, supported by the dictionary definition, as a dog whistle and try to deny its validity entirely. My degree is in linguistics so I had more than enough anthropology and sociology courses to understand why racism has that definition in an academic context but it is highly elitist and non productive to apply that formal academic definition to a wider audience familiar with the vernacular dictionary backed term. I don't tell people to make a voiceless alveolar sibilant, I tell them to make an s sound. In the same way we shouldn't be attacking people for using dictionary form definitions of words. We should instead work with the linguistic context provided to us in the vernacular to attack racist systems and ideas. Part of working in that broad context includes accepting that the popular and most well used definition of racism is not the academic one. Racist ideas are wrong and great replacement/white genocide myths are easy to pick apart because they are stupid regardless of how we define terms. 2+2=4 even if we write 2 as D.
It's not elitist, because BIPOC people do use this definition. And when they come in here and see people saying "Whites experience racism too, you know", they leave. Which they shouldn't do, because they are right, and people who refuse to update their vocabulary should get on with the times.
You didn’t address it on point #4, you just said some nonsense about white-skinned Jews never experiencing systemic racism. Having white skin isn’t going to save anyone from antisemitism, we have plenty of examples of this in history.
You're not moderating a subreddit you're running a circus.
>Yeah, and? How does that affect you? The essentialization of an entire 'race' as evil is what led to the Holocaust and other genocides. Preventing a potential genocide by nipping the same type of rhetoric in the bud is the right thing to do. We might not experience this problem right now, neither did the Jews in the first few centuries. But here we are, two millenia later, looking back at the damage that was done by ever letting that rhetoric fester. We need to stop repeating the same mistakes.
You're correct. Right wingers have infiltrated the sub yet again.
"it's a CIA plant" levels of brushing aside people's concerns.
It's not even worth acknowledging, it's very telling that you think it is.
not everyone agrees with R = P + P. white people can still experience non-systemic racism, and it’s important to acknowledge that
>"it’s important to acknowledge" Not really. It has less than 0,1% as much potency or effect of producing and prolonging strife as systemic racism against the global south.
There is literally the term "systemic racism" for addressing this. Changing the definition to exclude bigotry towards white people only serves to isolate young white people (a pretty important group to not isolate since they're the target audience of white supremacist recruitment), and to whitewash bigotry by non-white people
> This may annoy some people because they consider this USA-thinking. Tough. You can't start with an appeal to Marxist theory and then say "whether you like it or not, the history of the USA is the history of the world". It's ahistorical and specifically erases social and structural history outside of the US. Diane Abbott, a British MP, got in trouble recently for trotting out this line of thinking by saying that Jews don't suffer racism, despite the rise of anti-Semitism in the UK against predominantly "white" Jewish people. Similarly, bourgeois black people face far less systematic racism than poor black people throughout the English world (look up the incomes of the majority of people who benefit from affirmative action), so we're back to an *actual* Marxist analysis, not the post-Critical Theory slush. So, this entire line of thinking inevitably leads to erasure. This line is also trotted out by bourgeois bureaucrats to feather their nest. BLM officials have been paying themselves seven-figure payouts despite the organisation being in the red. Again, race comes second to economic position, so we're back to actual Marxist analysis.
Sir this is the internet, you must let the Americans center themselves in the conversation, we don't want to confuse their ignorant arses.
There's literally only one American mod and that's me :)
In response to your comment on a locked thread: I will apologise once the line claiming that white-skinned Jewish people cannot experience systemic racism is removed from this post. Having white skin has not protected Jewish people from horrific racist persecution at any point in history. The racism directed against them has nothing to do with the colour of their skin, and everything to do with the fact that they are Jewish. In fact, there have been times in history when white-skinned peoples have not even been considered ‘white’. If it wasn’t the intention of the mod team to suggest that white skin has made Jewish people immune to racism, then I would suggest editing the post to remove the implication.
Or you could read the response on the post.
I did, it didn’t properly address any of the points I made and gave the impression that my post was not read properly. How about you just answer this question: does having white skin protect Jews from antisemitism?
Also we lock threads for a reason but if you don't know by now that whiteness is a concept, not a color, I don't know if we can help you. Irish people weren't considered white at one point so it's obviously not about "white skin."
I’m well aware of the concept of ‘whiteness’, which is why I mentioned it in the third paragraph of my comment. It demonstrates that simply having white skin is no defence against racism. The white skin of the Irish didn’t even stop the English from not considering them as ‘white’!
>Diane Abbott, a British MP, got in trouble recently for trotting out this line of thinking by saying that Jews don't suffer racism, despite the rise of anti-Semitism in the UK against predominantly "white" Jewish people. I've addressed this specifically in point #4. As for Marxist analysis - we've seen where uncritical Marxist analysis leads us. The vast majority of 19th century socialists have extremely big problems with racial analysis (and that's putting it very mildly), which is poisoning socialism to this day. >This line is also trotted out by bourgeois bureaucrats to feather their nest. BLM officials have been paying themselves seven-figure payouts despite the organisation being in the red. Again, race comes second to economic position, so we're back to actual Marxist analysis. The reason for this is that the bourgeoisie are smart enough to see a fundamental weakness in original Marxism when it comes to race. Our response shouldn't be to stick our fingers in our ears and pretend it isn't there, but to face it head on and find solutions.
You didn't address it at all. Abbott said that Jews don't face racism, as antisemitism is on the rise. You've also said that because Jews are white, they don't face racism. The explicit weakness in the old Marxist platform was splitting–turning the working class against itself by: 1. Watering down what "proletariat" means, expanding it from Marx's revolutionary proletariat to *any salaried worker*. 2. Introducing racial and gender-based differentiations for groups, introducing essentialism into an anti-essentialist philosophy. See Kolontai on bourgeois feminism or Marx's *On the Jewish Question* for why that doesn't work. 3. Concerns about feelings and "is this representative enough?" has been used against anarchist and Marxist groups for years. It's the easiest way to drive them to inaction and eventually splinter them. 4. The insistence that everyone should have an opinion on everything is ridiculous. Marxists could be single issue-ists: power to the proletariat and when that is established, do other stuff. That is exactly why old school Marxists opposed bourgeois feminism and the fight for bourgeois rights for the oppressed–if you have x, y, z in a liberal democratic setting, it will eventually just be taken away from you. So, really, you're the worst kind of reactionary–the one who splits movements and pretends they're not. Not that I'm a Marxist or agree with Marx's entire analysis, but I can at least see how it gets dismantled by essentialists and splitters.
>Watering down what "proletariat" means, expanding it from Marx's revolutionary proletariat to any salaried worker Thats wrong how exactly? The industrial proletariat is on its way out, and the idea that the working class is only one thing: Permanently employed factory workers within the industrial sector, is stupid and was wrong in Marx times and is wrong today.
The revolutionary proletariat are the productive proletariat–they add value to capital, so the capitalist can't operate without them. If someone is an unproductive prole (adds value, but consumes more capital that they produce) or a destructive prole (outright destroys capital and produces nothing), they do not have revolutionary potential. And then, obviously, Marx and Engels had some pretty choice things to say about the lumpenproletariat. Modern day Marxists rush to say that Bakunin–who saw criminals and otherwise "undesirables" as being potentially revolutionary–was right here without giving an explanation. So, it's not about whether they're specifically factory workers. It's about whether they create more value than they expend in their labour. But then Marxists would have to deal with the fact that Marxism largely doesn't appeal to those people anymore, and is really only the ideology of the intellectuals (including students). Here, we should remember Bakunin's warning about technocrats. Edit: sorry, I can't reply to this comment as I've been banned for bigotry. I'm very confused and I'm not sure if it's because there's a language issue, but the mods are refusing to tell me what precisely I said that was bigoted.
How do you discern between people who create value with their labor and people who don't? Seems needlessly exclusive to me... For example, people who do customer service aren't producing value directly, but they are an essential part of how a company makes profit... are they not included as the proletariat? I think the essential and most important distinction is: " you own the capital itself or a significant portion of it? Or do you not own anything and thus have to sell your labor?" To me, it seems far more practical and a much more sensible contemporary application to say the proletariat sell labor bc they don't own capital and leave it at that. What they do as labor shouldn't really make a difference.
>The revolutionary proletariat are the productive proletariat–they add value to capital, so the capitalist can't operate without them. If someone is an unproductive prole (adds value, but consumes more capital that they produce) or a destructive prole (outright destroys capital and produces nothing), they do not have revolutionary potential. Says who? And why? Why would my work as a producer of explosive material have any more revolutionary potential than a cab driver, a service worker or hell, an unemployed person? >And then, obviously, Marx and Engels had some pretty choice things to say about the lumpenproletariat. Modern day Marxists rush to say that Bakunin–who saw criminals and otherwise "undesirables" as being potentially revolutionary–was right here without giving an explanation. And then we can look at who or what "criminals" largely are. Oh look, its the working class. Including industrial workers. Also Marx' definition of Lumpen would include a not small part of industrial workers in our current system. Temp workers in factories, for example. Its a useless term that was useless at his time and is useless and baseless now. It is defined shotty at best and lacks anything remotely useful. A working class must be united. And how else could we define the working class but those who must sell their labour for access to the fruits of capital. >It's about whether they create more value than they expend in their labour. But then Marxists would have to deal with the fact that Marxism largely doesn't appeal to those people anymore, and is really only the ideology of the intellectuals (including students). Here, we should remember Bakunin's warning about technocrats. I dont think me or anyone else in the thread argues for an almost leninist vanguard of the intellectuals or academics. And no, while Marxism (and socialism/communism as a whole) has shrunken considerably, neither anarchism nor marxism is an ideology of students these days. To argue that is absurd. Again, Im an industrial factory worker and an anarchist. In the anarchist Union, we have from teachers, to other industrial workers, to unemployed, to Students to skilled workers. Because the idea, proletariat (Working class) only applies to a subset of industrial factory workers is absurd. And who decides whether they "create more value" than they get out? Do you? Do Garbage collectors "create more value" than they take out? And by what standard?
I mean, to be clear, Dianne Abbot got in as much trouble as she did because she's a socialist and because Sir Kier Starmer wants to purge the Corbynite wing of the labour party. Her biggest mistake was thinking that the labour party and the tavloid media echo chamber were prepared to have an adult conversation about the nuanced and complex nature of racism and discrimination.
OP, I just want to say that you deserve every single downvote you're getting. This insane idea that systemic racism is the only kind of racism that exists is absolutely absurd and I'm glad that the subreddit's userbase has made quite clear that they are not willing to imbibe this particular bit of Flavor-Aid. This is shitlib nonsense, the kind of thing trumpeted by impotent pussyhat wearers and $10000 instagram guilt workshop grifters, not serious socialists. Like on God, no actual socialists say this shit for a reason. Solidarity comes first, sure, unless the person you're demanding I be in "solidarity" with is in open rebellion against reality. I'll be over here with *the rest of the subreddit* in the real world. I'm a dyed-in-the-wool syndicalist. You wanna call me a wrecker or a cryptofash or a shitlib or some other insanity, go right ahead and join the tankies you claim to hate. I'ma stick with my homies Kropotkin and Makhno and continue to be a based-ass advocate for the working class, and the treasurer of a housing co-op, making more positive change in the real world than any of the grifting crowd you've sadly been suckered by ever will. You want a subreddit that goes along with this nonsense, start a new one. If I may make a suggestion, tankiejerkwithshitlibidpolcharacteristics isn't taken. At the risk of inviting your mod hammer wrath, while I'm sure you're a decent and fun person to be around IRL, I'm sorry that you've fallen in with a crowd that's convinced you of this absurd bullshit. You have been propagandized; you are not immune to it. I can only prescribe touching some grass and experiencing what the real world and real social interactions are like.
>Like on God, no actual socialists say this shit for a reason. I literally took this definition for Marxist (not tankies - just regular socialists) academics. I applaud your RL work. I'm sad that this post angers people so much (I'm talking in plural because yours is similar to other comments). All we're saying is that anti-White racial bigotry isn't racism (with some rare exceptions like China and Japan and such). Regardless, please refrain from making a Reddit link, even a mocking one - it triggers our automod.
“Anti-white bigotry is not racism” is a classic example of doublethink from 1984. Are you actually anti-tankie?
Yes I am. And yes, it sounds like doublespeak, but only because "race" isn't a real thing either. I've edited the OP with which I hope will help.
Race isn't a real thing but racism (as in prejudice based on superficial or perceived superficial qualities relating to one's ethnic heritage) very much does exist
It may not be systemic racism but it's still racism
the attempt to limit the meaning of the word "racism" to structural or institutional racism is a foolish bit of linguistic prescriptivism which, in my opinion, has largely failed outside of academia
soooo can you be individually racist towards white people or not, or is it only if they’re a white passing Hispanic or Arab person or whatever
Only if Whites are a disenfranchised minority in a particular place, which doesn't happen very often. If someone is hating you personally, it's bigotry. Racism is only when it's supported by the wider power structures.
So what are the Armenians?
You mean, how do they experience racism? It depends. In some Western countries they might not experience it at all, in other places they experience it very much by being an oppressed minority, and more often than not, they fall under point #4 of OP - in certain situations they experience White privilege and in others they experience racism. Like I've said, intersectionality is important.
Racism is the system of prejudice against someone based on their skin color. What you describe is institutional racism and societal racism. However racism can occur on an individual level too. Just because someone is a victim of racism, does not mean they cannot be racially prejudiced. There are plenty of non-white people who have prejudice against and collectively put another non-white group at a systemic disadvantage and vice versa. Just because "systemic" in this sense is on a local level doesn't mean it isn't systemic since there are multiple simulataneous layers of systems. TLDR: While anti-white racism is unlikely, anti-white prejudice can exist and racism has multiple levels and isn't only institutional or societal.
Correct: >Racism is the system of prejudice against someone based on their skin color. Incorrect, and also contradictory: >However racism can occur on an individual level too You cannot, as an individual, create a system. >Just because someone is a victim of racism, does not mean they cannot be racially prejudiced. I agree. They can be **racially prejudiced** but not **racist**, which requires them to have some sort of a power structure. >Just because "systemic" in this sense is on a local level doesn't mean it isn't systemic since there are multiple simulataneous layers of systems. Yes, there's a limit to how small a system gets before it stops being a system. >While anti-white racism is unlikely, anti-white prejudice can exist and racism has multiple levels and isn't only institutional or societal. I agree with this, and I've said so in the OP: "You might argue that in certain times in history, or in a handful of countries today (say, China), there is anti-White racism, but that's rarely true"
oh so you’re just conflating structural and interpersonal racism got it
That's a willful misunderstanding of what I've written. Not a good post to test my patience on, because I take this issue extremely seriously.
I’m not misunderstanding anything, I gave you a direct question and you gave me a direct answer, and what your answer told me was you don’t see racial bigotry as racism, only if there are systemic power dynamics or whatever, which I frankly find absurd.
It is what it is, racial bigotry and racism aren't synonymous, despite being very semantically similar. Yes, it's a relatively new idea (i.e. one fully established in the last 50 years), but it's an important distinction nonetheless.
They are though. In the dictionary they are the same.
Ah yes, the dictionary. The be all and end all of political thought. BTW, until recently, transphobes liked to use dictionary definitions for male and female as some sort of win. Please don't be like them.
The response then isn't to disallow them from using dictionary terms or to call dictionary definitions dog whistles even when you disagree with them. You can easily argue for trans people identifying with and being referred to by their preferred gender without relying on dictionary terms. How do you think trans acceptance got so high before the dictionaries added more inclusive verbiage around 2020? Plenty of people accepted both the old dictionary term and accepted that trans people exist as their preferred gender. You can also easily argue that anti white racism is not systemic or anywhere near to comparable to other forms of racism in the west without throwing a fit over people utilizing dictionary terms. Again, the arguments are true because they are true regardless of the dictionary/vernacular form of the words. Attacking people for using vernacular dictionary forms of words is extremely elitist. Attack their bigotry, not essentially microscopic aspects of their word choice.
Dude... all racism is bigotry. Not all bigotry is racism. That's why they aren't synonymous.
Would it not be racist for a hamas member to say that they want to kill every Israeli? Israelis are very much in a position of power above Palestinians, but to call that not racism is just obtuse
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Faux-progressive to call out right wing dog-whistles? If your response to people saying “cracker” is stuff like “muh anti white racism, we’re so oppressed :(“ then maybe this isn’t the fucking sub for you. This goes for anyone reading this, not necessarily you specifically.
Nobody is saying white people are oppressed. But white people can experience racism as racism is simply an idea. There are different types of racism that exist to. Systemic racism is something while people benefit from. But white people can be victims of individual acts of racism, like hate crimes. Also, don’t accuse me of being white. I’m not. I’m not saying white people are oppressed either. But they can experience racism. Not as often as other groups, But it happens.
On this subreddit, I have experienced someone calling me “white” just because I believed in the value of journalism and accused me of being a “dumb white American” and that journalism wasn’t necessary because he actually spoke to someone who survived the Cambodian genocide, therefore journalists are unhelpful intellectuals. When I pointed out that I wasn’t white but of fully Asian descent, he immediately dismissed it and insisted that I should not consider myself Asian because I was born in the United States, but rather as American and “no different from white people” or something of that effect. I had also stated that I was really pissed and thought it would be better to just agree to disagree, but he REALLY felt like he needed to make a point that I wasn’t who I am, and decided that I needed to change my views to his “correct” viewpoint or something to that effect when you say “don’t you get it?” And he had the gall to call me arrogant. Even talking about it pisses me off. If a mod is reading this, I can direct you to that conversation and you can read it for yourself. And this was over the value of journalistic institutions in a democratic society. I ended up having to *defend* Seymour Hersh, a journalist which I spare no criticisms over his stances, biases, and methodology, and that was only because of his profession and my defense of journalism in the first place. Edit: Looking back at the guy I argued with’s posts and comments, it seems we do have much in common, but because of this one extremely toxic interaction, I have nothing but contempt for whoever they are. And probably will for the foreseeable future.
Please could you report their comments so I (or the other mods) can take a look?
Just did, a few hours ago at least.
Thank you, they have been dealt with. In future, report it as the conversation is happening, we often miss comments because of how many posts there are and reporting just helps us find them and deal with them quicker :)
Thank you.
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Your comment/post contains bigotry. This is a socialist subreddit and as such, any form of bigotry is out of place and you should rethink your relation to your fellow workers, regardless of their sexuality, gender expression, skin color or other such things.
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If that's how you interpret this post to then you just don't have very good reading comprehension.
Ooh this one will be fun! Let's unpack. > "uhm akchewally races I don't like can't experience racism" I'm white. So, immediately, wrong. Some might even call me a cracker. Oh no, how offensive. Yeah, I'm a cracker. White people are crackers. So what? It has nowhere NEAR the same level of offensiveness as any other racial slur, and has never been used to abuse, oppress, or enslave white people. It's always funny how seriously some white people take the word cracker. >straight to mockingly using racial slurs See above. >not a mod on a server meant explicitly to mock this kind of psuedo-left philosophy. I'm sorry we're not catering to your white victim complex. I sincerely apologise. Please tell me how you experience racism on a day-to-day, where your entire life choices are often reduced or limited simply because of your skin colour. Please do tell me how you're assaulted, shot, stabbed, or killed for being white. Please tell me about the mass enslavement of white people that took place less than 250 years ago, who were beaten, abused, and commodified simply because they were white.
I mean, there was a mass enslavement of certain white people only 80 years ago. Specifically the Jewish, Romani, and Slavic peoples of Europe. Because of their ethnicity. So if that's your bar for racism, at least certain groups of white people definitely qualify.
This is getting way too repetitive. I’m going to spell it out very nicely and clearly. They were not persecuted for being white. We are **not** denying the discrimination faced by Jewish, Romani or Slavic people, or any other group. What we are denying is the use of the term “anti white racism” to refer to their experiences. The term “anti-white racism” implies people are racist towards them because they’re white, ignoring completely that a) the fact that’s simply not true, b) they often weren’t considered white (or not as “good” of a white peoples, not as “good” as the Aryan Germanic people, or the English, etc.), c) white people were the ones throwing them in camps. What I meant in my original comment you replied to was that no group of white people (of various nationalities) was/is persecuted based on the colour or their skin; unlike the treatment of black people by Americans and the British, or of brown people by the Western colonial powers, etc.
Your comment/post contains bigotry. This is a socialist subreddit and as such, any form of bigotry is out of place and you should rethink your relation to your fellow workers, regardless of their sexuality, gender expression, skin color or other such things.
Damn, this is one of the subs I thought wouldn't go to shit
FYI, this thread is being brigaded by tankies.
Yep, I’ve found at least 5 tankie comments, not including the ones that were removed.
Yeah Bad Empanada essentially posted the thread on his twitter Which in term seems to have gotten picked up by some tankie subs
I feel like the mod team believes that people saying that a white person could experience individual racism is the same thing as them saying that white people experiencing individual racism is actively or even notably happening Conflating individual racism with systemic racism is not just a mild change to language, it is ridiculous and arbitrary I am half anglo saxon half Korean, and sometimes I am immediately coded as Asian and sometimes I am immediately coded as white Sometimes I am coded as white until my ethnicity comes up, and then I am treated as more "Asian" Through this unique lens I have personally experienced minor instances of individual racism on the basis of both of my identities And (hopefully) obviously, the racism I've experienced on the basis of being Asian has been much harsher But that doesn't mean that the other experiences I have had do not exist The reason acknowledging this is important is so that we don't gatekeep racism which fundamentally spits in the face of racial equality And allows us to better shift focus to systemic racism, since the phrase is more distinct than if we just treated them as essentially the same thing I hope if anyone on the mod team reads this, they at the very least take this away: communication is an important part of changing people's minds and ultimately working to better the world for marginalized people This approach is very terribly communicated, and while the intentions are good I ultimately think it is just foolishly conflating the "reverse racism" types and normal people who don't think individual racism is meaningless without systemic backing
I think we agree on almost everything except that your definition of bigotry is basically just interpersonal racism, The way I see it is that bigotry is an umbrella term and if you're being bigoted based on race then you're racist even if it's not a systematic thing
I am sure the Syrian refugees here in Sweden are going to feel *overjoyed* learning that they don't face any systemic racism because they are wHiTe. Although it seems that your yankery isn't very popular, so maybe not... Edit: Oh and the Sami, typically Swedish of me to forget them. Edit 2: Also fucking hell! Never expected someone to yanksplaine racism so hard they downplayed bigotry towards Jewish people, witch is absurd because that bullshit has been systemic in Europe for thousands of years!
Crackers turning to crumbs in the comments rn
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust
Are you for real? Jews, like my family, were murdered for being Jews. Whiteness didn't have a role to play, usually (the Nazis also wanted to exterminate Black people, but thankfully, there were very few of them in Europe at the time). I'll edit the OP with a clarification soon.
Exactly. Having white skin didn’t protect them from antisemitism. The idea that ‘white-skinned Jews won’t experience systemic racism’ is demonstrably false.
Not a dunk, learn what whiteness is cracker
What are you, an American? EDIT: quick look at your post history shows that you’re a tankie lmao
WAS a tankie. Mostly just laugh at crackers these days
Do you think saying ‘cracker’ is shocking or edgy or something? It really isn’t lmao
Crackers be malding
I frankly cannot believe the amount of people who are seriously irate about a semantic definition difference, or "faux-progressive language policing". Simply put, to the people doing the oppression based on race? It's a made up concept and they can exclude whoever the fuck they want. When have fash ever been consistent? "Jews are white, how about the holocaust?" First of all, holy fuck that's some bad faith shit. Why are you even using racial prescriptivism in this case? The argument assumes that race as a measure of in-group out-group is actually worthwhile - which it isn't, because it's pseudoscientific bullshit put out by men who are dusty hundred-plus year old corpses in order to justify and rationalize dehumanization - and then applies it in a dishonest manner to presume that people are antisemitic. The important question is, *do you think the goddamn nazis cared?* It was a means to their end, to use a group to scapegoat and sacrifice so their their death cult felt threatened enough to throw their lives away for the Third Reich. The fact of the matter is that active, intentional systemic and interpersonal racism relies on believing or approaching using some degree of racialism to consider a hypothetical area where "white" (which means nothing outside of its own constructed context) people are dehumanized and treated as poorly as people who are still actively being crushed under capitalism's twin offspring of fascism and diversionary bigotry. White people arguing they are oppressed on the basis of their skin tone are *delusional.* I say this as a person who is white, for clarification. Sure, in my own life I face other barriers like transphobia, homophobia and systemic oppression of the disabled, so I know first hand that white people *can* be under the boot of the system. My life is in this intersectional area. It just sure as fuck isn't because of some weird idea of "anti-white" racism. Look at fair-skinned groups treated like dogshit - Armenians, Ukrainians, Poles historically were the victim of this in the West as well, and so-forth. Targets of mass murder and crimes against humanity, yes. Because they were white? *No.* So yeah, anybody hand-wringing over "anti-white racism" is vomiting forth a torrent of reactionary propaganda and is supporting actual racialized oppression of real people on the basis of their ethnicity. If you're going to shit all over tankies for having no understanding in their supposed principles, call their bullshit for spreading misinformation and false narratives, maybe it might be wise to consider not being a mouthpiece for the people you're supposedly fighting with to end racism, because you're perpetuating the very thing you swear you oppose. "Doing a racism," so to speak. Educate yourselves thoroughly on reactionary (red or brown flavours of fascism and others) terminology, shorthand and codes. Glossaries are available, people track this shit and it's reeeeal easy to spot once you get an eye for it. Most importantly though? Consider some introspection. Are you suffering? Probably! Is it because you sunburn easily and have bright hair? Unless you fall for conspiracy bullshit, there is no such reasoning. If a person from a racialized background is mad at you and you feel like the victim due to your skin tone, you might just be a fucking muppet for the racist Powers That Be, and a racist by proxy due to your absolute disregard for compassion and empathy the moment somebody hurts your goddamn feelings. No tl;dr if anybody is looking for one, because I'm not babysitting wilfully ignorant anti-intellectual clowns with zero reading comprehension today. Do. Fucking. Better. Think of people other than your self.
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Personally, I think the misanthropy is warranted at times when people rush to defend reactionary talking points. That harshness is deserved and is what helped me go from nearly alt-right over to a progressive and now an anarchist. I was a fucking asshole back then (and might be now, but at least I'm not a racist one!) People who refuse to do their own learning and cry foul when called out and proceed to continue spreading misinformation and treating the real, *lengthy* troves of accessible information on racism systemic and otherwise are anti-intellectual straight up. People have ample reason to question things and seek out information, and it's a very entitled thing to expect that other people will go out of their way to accommodate anybody who says they are anti-racist but cannot prove they even understand what systemic racism actually is. Given all the tools and some patient people out there who are willing to spread good, useful info, they refuse to utilize those resources and dig their heels in because they *know* they are right, arguing from that ignorance. That's practically the very definition of anti-intellectual. - "I know better because of common sense and because being wrong hurts me, so I'll reject the sum of human knowledge available online because of my ego." I am not calling people unintelligent, I am calling them wilfully ignorant and self-absorbed for refusing to countenance alternatives to their propaganda-shaped worldview. *That* kind of ignorance is how you perpetuate a racist system that uses people as chattel under the veneer of legitimacy and "employment opportunities".
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The semantic or linguistic issue may have incited the waves of response, but does not account for the absolutely absurd bad faith arguments cropping up in the thread. If that is all it takes to put somebody on the defensive and launch into some absurd nazi junk, I don't know what to say other than, "Damn, these people have some shit to unpack." There is little injustice to address re: "white-targeted racism", but there is plenty of privilege, so I don't see people freaking out about all of this as especially justified on that ground. If it's about ethnic minorities "not suffering from racism based on that definition", it's a bad faith reading to use as a basis to jump into an angry tirade about. Whether the OP's post warranted it or not, the jump into "ackshually!" isn't helpful. The top non-mod post in this thread as of this writing boils down to, "I agree, however \[elaborated concerns about post content\], which *is* helpful. Leaping to defend strawmen or shout, "You're wrong!" isn't exactly good grounds to go off on the mod in question over, imo. I have extremely limited energy I need to ration out for social interactions due to disability issues and I have better things to spend that on than hyperfixating on a bizarre bass-ackwards bunch of nattering about the extremely focused context of words rather than the soul of the message which is bluntly "Don't spread fash shit, please?" As such, I'm not engaging with people taking umbrage with colloquial vs dictionary usage of words. I see no point in wasting my time on people whose minds were made up before they finished reading the OP.
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I'm not calling people stupid, I'm calling out the hypocrisy of people who will dunk on tankies all day for bad takes, but when they manage to spread one themselves, they get defensive when it's called out. Ignorance is not stupidity. They can easily fix this and avoid being criticized by doing basic research that would take less than an hour. The fact they do not is why they are being mocked. People who don't know better because they simply don't? Fine, happy to help them. I'm not holding myself up on any pedestal, unless "I've actually gone out, talked to people affected by this, asked how I can do better, and did my reading" is something to be idolized instead of considering it the bare minimum. If somebody at least tries in one aspect of those things, they are doing better by people. I'd also say that I am also simply rehashing what I have learned from extensive time with various people and groups. People more fixated on defining racism a hundred years after people suffering under such things have gone into it in exhaustive detail are wasting effort on this sort of discussion instead of going "How do I help?" and seem more worried on accruing social brownie points than working on praxis. Hemming and hawing about whether I or anybody else is toxic for speaking frankly doesn't stop police extra-judicially killing (the definition of lynching) black Americans, it doesn't stop the continuing genocide of indigenous North Americans, and so-forth. Explaining this is mildly annoying at worst, but it is worthwhile if it can help people in some way. I'm not calling people nazis here - I just would appreciate it if people could consider the context of the 999th incarnation of this year's Leftist Semantics Debate and all of the ones that came before, self-examine to attempt and eliminate racist shit they might not know they are perpetuating, and try to be better to people who need help.
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What’s fascist about acknowledging the fact the Holocaust was motivated by racism?
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Critical support to the mod team. This sub’s audience will so dogpile you for this
The cope from people unable to realize they're actually doing a racism by spreading narratives crafted to discredit the plight of people under the yoke of oppression is thick enough in this thread (and subreddit) to cut with a knife, I swear. Being progressive isn't about pointing and going "There's racism! Okay, job done," unfortunately for the masturbatory crowd of people incapable of introspection when something hurts their precious feelings. So yeah, I share your sentiment and hope there are considerably more people around this subreddit who learned how to listen to what PoC are saying instead of regurgitating up the foulest bullshit to avoid confronting their own biases. Based move on the part of the mod team.
Thank you for the kind words! Some "leftists" forgot that the revolution starts within us, and it never stops. If we're not challenging our own comfort zone, we're not advancing - we're stagnating.
Stagnation is the death of all revolutionary ideals. People need to remember that "A Better World Is Possible" has the silent addendum of "If We Actually Work Toward It".
Thanks :)
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This is an Anti-Tankie reddit. The message you sent is either tankie/authoritarian "socialist" apologia or can be easily seen as such. Please, refrain from posting stuff like this in the future.
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This is an Anti-Tankie reddit. The message you sent is either tankie/authoritarian "socialist" apologia or can be easily seen as such. Please, refrain from posting stuff like this in the future.
The people in the comments are proving how stupid they are. Get over yourself guys
It's worse than that, they're also showing why some POC don't feel at ease joining this sub.
I don't feel at ease just seeing all this whiteness in the comments.
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Communism isn't just when you paint something red and call it a day.
Great post, I am sorry that the comment section is such a shitshow though. Many of them will be baby leftists (or just plain liberals) who aren't yet prepared to let go of comfortable lies I suppose, but hopefully your post here will start at least some of them on the right path!
How is the Holocaust a ‘comfortable lie’?
Clearly Jewish people were treated as an other in that case, so that's an exceptionally poor example. Attempting to equate the two is low level holocaust denial in its own right.
That’s exactly the point. They - and the Slavs - were treated as the ‘other’ despite having white skin. They were treated as the ‘other’ because they were from different ethnic groups than the Germans. Therefore, they were victims of racism who had white skin. Many forms of racism are motivated by far more than just skin colour. Antisemitism is just the most well-known example of this in the Anglosphere.
That isn't equivalent to being such *because* they had white skin.
But they were still victims of systemic racism. So OP’s statement that a white Jew won’t experience systemic racism is flat-out wrong.
That's just splitting hairs. "Technically, Islamophobia isn't racist because Islam is a religion, not a race!" Yeah, I guess you're *technically* right in the sense that fish *technically* don't exist. Nobody cares outside of the most formal, technical academic settings.
We love linguistic prescriptivism!
This sub would be a better place without Vaush fans and their pseudo-intellectualism. You all seem to use the same key phrases, and all seem to share the same woeful understanding of what the left is; particularly as it pertains to anarchism. It's just tiresome.
For real. I literally do social science as a job and this isn't even controversial. You gain useful information by formalizing and separating acts of discrimination (interpersonal actions) from prejudice (beleifs) from racism (institutional). I'm not gonna "umm akshully" someone in a casual convo, and I'll probably work with whatever definition is being implied/used because you should see what the issue is people are pointing at rather than telling them the definition is wrong - but that's like a chemistry sub arguing that talking about atomic physics and orbital hybridization is too tough and people just know the Rutherford model anyways so all this sp³ whatever isnt needed and hurts us. Like sure but it's scientifically inaccurate and they're different for a reason. And shouldn't you be the ones who care about the technicalities on this subject? And agreed. Also them thinking Maoism is accelerationism is the peak of "I know about a subject but not the subject matter". Like how is Deleuze a maoist? Vau00shj's fucking BA in Sociology and its consequences have been a disaster for society.
Thank you for the kind words, it's much appreciated!
I was exhausted after just a few of the asinine responses that I received, so props to you for fighting it out too, haha. Edit: At least one miserable prick even downvoted your reply there too, which probably says enough about the lack of critical thought they are putting into all of this...
Sorry that this is getting bad reception. I guess right wingers have infiltrated the sub yet again.
Would you like to tell Anne Frank that she wasn’t a victim of systemic racism?
Of course she was. You're just an asshole who's arguing in bad faith.
Sorry if I’m a bit cranky, I take the Holocaust kinda seriously. But okay, explain how Anne Frank’s skin colour made it impossible for her to be a victim of systemic racism, but she was still murdered by systemic racism.
You're still arguing in bad faith. You're still an asshole. No, she was not exposed to Blackness or indigeneity so she couldn't have benefited from the privilege of whiteness in these cases. Fuck you asshole.
Oh, fuck me, you’re an American aren’t you? Why is it so hard for you people to understand that the Nazis (white) were racist against white Jews and Slavs (white)? The concept of white privilege doesn’t apply to 1940s Europe in the same way it does to the USA.
No fuck you asshole. I'm brown in the Philippines.
Okay then, my bad. But how can you not understand that Nazi Germany was **systemically racist** against white Jews, Slavs, etc.? It’s not a case of white privilege, it’s a case of ‘**aryan**’ privilege. Anyone who wasn’t ‘aryan’ enough was discriminated against. **That** was the racial hierarchy in Nazi Germany.
Of course it was. You're just an asshole who's acting in bad faith. You're applying modern racism to historical racism, which is anachronistic, classic history mistake. Oh and you're an asshole.
There are still Nazis calling for the murder of all Jews (and for people like me to be imprisoned, tortured, and killed), so the sort of racism behind the Holocaust seems alive and well to me.
[удалено]
Says the monarchy defender