Proper and improper uses of the term "racism"

aidan said

Quote:

I agree with Asherman - racism is making a determination about someone or something based soley on race

What if the discrimination is based on a set of factors, one being race?

What if the purpose of the discrimination is to include rather than to exclude? What if, for example, a country club where blacks and jews were previously excluded from membership, sets out purposefully to recruit more blacks and more jews? Clearly their previous policy was racist and anti-semitic. Does it make any sense at all to use those same (highly and justifiably derogatory) terms to describe their present policy?

First of all, can't a club, be it a country club or other type of club, have membership policies, based on the fact it is a private club?

If it is a "public club" like a public swimming pool, then I understand everyone must be allowed to join. Why must a private club be allowed to allow everyone to join? Otherwise, it is not a private club.

Now there are country clubs that are "Jewish" (owned and operated by Jews; perhaps affiliated with a Temple?) And, they may have originated from the time that the "other" country clubs wouldn't accept Jews. But, what if today there are Jews that may not want to golf at a country club where many of the women have cutsey names like Midge or Buffy and men talk about their hunting exploits. In other words, many Jews like to socialize mainly with other Jews, and when they have a non-Jewish friend it tends to be another ethnic, many times Italian-American. Is this racism? I hope not, since otherwise our right to pursue happiness in the United States may be gone.

Naturally, the image of being exclusive might be prevented, since every private club can have a few "tokens." So a white/Gentile country club can have a few token Blacks and Jews. A Jewish country club can have a few Gentiles, both Black and White (Democratic Jews might just prefer golfing with the Black members; there's no enhancing one's liberal image by golfing with a plain vanilla Gentile).

My point is, what is supposed to be racist, from past history, might today just be exercising one's preferences based on maintaining one's social image. (Jews, I believe, are outside the WASP game of social class, even though some may think that's not true. Perhaps one day, but I think the WASP game of social class has been entrenched too long to allow for any change in membership rules; just my opinion.)

By the way, I believe there's an entire social ladder that exists in Catholic Spanish Latin America that most Americans are not aware of. I think it harkens back to Spain circa the 1500's. I think these thread's questions wouldn't be asked in Latin America, since the societies there do not, I believe, promulgate the myth, like the United States, that "we're all equal." In Latin America people know who is on the top of the heap, the "family" owning land and other wealth.

The United States has this great need to promulgate the myth that everyone is equal? At least in the current times. If anyone remembers watching Bonanza on TV, were the Cartwrights just like journeymen cowboys? Uhh, no!

...If someone believes that a person needs a leg up because they are latently and inherently inferior due to their racial heritage, and not because of the cultural limits which may have been placed upon them because of their racial heritage in a specific environment - I'd call that racist.

Otherwise I'd call it racial inclusion- as opposed to racism.

But I do find it sort of offensive to think that some people believe that if they were to ask a black man or woman why he or she might vote for Barach Obama- their question might most honestly be answered with the statement: "Because he has black skin and so do I."
That's demeaning and undermining of both the candidate's achievements and the voter's intelligence.

For those interested in digging into some of the history on the right's attempts to roll back civil rights legislation and, particularly pertinent here, to redefine the notion of 'racism' into something ahistorical and really quite meaningless precisely in the manner that we've seen georgeob, asherman and fishin do here and in the Obama thread, there are a few key players to read up on. Wikipedia has some good information and links which will extend your sources of research. And I particularly recommend Nina J. Easton's book The Gang of Five for its chapter on one key player who you've likely never heard of but who has been a foundational character in this story, Clint Bollick. But there is much elsewhere online re Bollick.

So, he's the first key actor. Along with Chip Mellor, Bollick founded the Institute for Justice, our second key actor. Small piece on it at wikipedia . Note the funding source that facilitated its startup... the Koch family.

The third actor we'll note here is The Federalist Society and there's lots and lots available on the very important 'think tank'. See here for starters. Note again the key funding sources for this group...Koch, Bradley, Olin, Scaife, Coors etc.

And those very rich, very right wing families constitute another key player in this story (and other related stories).

I was not implying any moral judgment about racism in my post. When I was saying that the club policy was "highly" racist I could have just as well said "very" racist...and not saying if this was a good thing or not.

In my moral view some racism is appropriate. There are real biologic and social differences between the races, some of this difference is genetic based and some is formed by social environment. Americans are WAY WAY too concerned about race though, and militant multi-culturalists are some of the worst offenders. When I run across them I am always wanting to ask "what, are we like in fifth grade? Can we talk about something important now?"

blatham wrote:

On the second point, I think you minimize the experience of minority oppression and institutional/cultural inequality. My mother, if she were still alive, would be doing cartwheels to see a woman so close to the Presidency and it would be because of gender. Finally!! she would have said.

Even Karl Rove, talking on Fox last Tuesday evening, acknowledged the normalcy and understandability of, as he put it, "african americans wishing to see on of their own" rise to the Presidency. These are normal tendencies in us and speak to our sense of community.

It's not that they don't like whites in the Presidency. It's that it sure is time to see their community included as well.

What if, for example, a country club where blacks and jews were previously excluded from membership, sets out purposefully to recruit more blacks and more jews?

Yes, I think you are avoiding moral issues absolutely inherant to the history and meaning of the term. That's precisely the problem.

As to whether American culture thinks about or talks about race too much, I'd want to survey people who aren't white to see if their experiences lead them to the same perspective as your own. It is difficult, perhaps even impossible, for me to understand the experiences of a female. I can guess, imagine, presume...but that's it.
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I find that a very tempered and thoughtful post, aidan.

We've just moved away from new york to oregon. We were in the upper east side of manhattan for three years. I reallllly miss it.

To my friends from central america, I'm sure you've been asked if you are Mexican. I feel your annoyance.

For instance, I can't tell you how many times someone has asked me if I'm Chinese, and I respond "no, I'm Japanese." I can't tell you how many times I've recieved a following "Whatever" afterwards.

Diest TKO wrote:

For instance, I can't tell you how many times someone has asked me if I'm Chinese, and I respond "no, I'm Japanese." I can't tell you how many times I've recieved a following "Whatever" afterwards.

If you knew how many Americans don't know the difference between China and Japan you would be very afraid for the human race.

As bad as it is for me, I feel even worse for my Cambodian, Vietnamese, and Malaysian friends.

Diest TKO wrote:

As bad as it is for me, I feel even worse for my Cambodian, Vietnamese, and Malaysian friends.

No, most Americans have heard of Vietnam (we had a little mis-adventure there once upon a time)....just don't ask any of us to find it on a map. Some of us foodies know a good Vietnamese restaurant or two though, if that helps any.

For those interested in digging into some of the history on the right's attempts to roll back civil rights legislation and, particularly pertinent here, to redefine the notion of 'racism' into something ahistorical and really quite meaningless precisely in the manner that we've seen georgeob, asherman and fishin do here and in the Obama thread, there are a few key players to read up on.

To use the same term, racism (or anti-semitism), to refer to actions or values which seek to redress such prior historical imbalances is to remove the most fundamental sense of that term. And that's precisely WHY it is being used in the manner you recommend. If it is 'racist' to forward policies or laws which work to redress the enormous prior disadvantages which blacks have suffered in America, then to attempt such laws or policies is just as bad as the earlier racism of lynchings etc. It must be a negative or destructive or immoral thing because it is 'racist'. Quite a little trick.

Aidan
On your first point, yes, some other term or phrasing helps to make the critical differentiation. Unless we do make such a clear differentiation, then someone like Strom Thurmond can describe, say, the affirmative action policies of the seventies as 'racist' and therefore, obviously, bad.