Misandry is real, misandry is out there...

[MellowDem]

80. According to your link, your view of racism is dangerously naive...

On the other hand, I hear from other students (from my black and brown students particularly, but by no means only from them), that racism is a "system of power." This idea implies that only whites have power, and thus only they can be racists. We should also recognize the origins of this idea, which exhibits a different but no less dangerous naivete -- for it is highly problematic to assert that racially-defined minorities are powerless in the contemporary U.S. -- in the radicalized later years of the civil rights era.

Their definition doesn't seem to be your definition at all. They seem to oppose your definition. They never bring up my definition. They only seem to bring up two other definitions besides their own.

I don't agree with your definition, but I think it's far less problematic than the "colorblind" definition they also argue against, which is much more widespread.

It was in interesting read. I agreed with almost all of it, except for their definition they come up with to some degree. Here seems to be their proposed definition:

Today, a racial project can be defined as racist if it creates or reproduces hierarchical social structures based on essentialized racial categories. This approach recognizes the importance of locating racism within a fluid and contested history of racially based social structures and discourses. It allows us to recognize that there can be no timeless and absolute standard for what constitutes racism, because social structures undergo reform (and reaction) and discourses are always subject to rearticulation. This definition therefore does not invest the concept of racism with any permanent content, but instead sees racism as a property of certain political projects that link the representation and organization of race -- that engage in the "work" of racial formation. Such an approach focuses on the "work" essentialism does for domination, and the "need" domination displays to essentialize the subordinated.

I think it is very important to have a well understood and accepted definition of racism so that it can be addressed. I don't think it's easy coming to a conclusion of what it should be. I do disagree with their definition.

Their definition requires an action or process of some kind in order to find the action racist or not. But what about ideas and ideologies? I think it's much more accurate and more useful to recognize racism as an idea that can be implemented in all sorts of actions or processes. That is what racism has been since its invention as an idea. It also has the advantage of being simpler to define as well. Whether some policy supports a status quo or not is not always so clear either.

Also, it assumes the hierarchical social structure will always remain stratified along racial lines and be undesirable to support.

I understand that under my definition, it's hard to divine who believes what. Therefore, how do we know a policy that happens to support the social structure of whites on top is based on racist ideas or on something else? This is a weakness of my definition, but their definition doesn't address it any better. Under their definition, the assumption must be made that it's racist. And I think that leads to addressing the wrong problem many times. Under my definition, it's a question to be answered through the best means possible, looking at the evidence, the legislative history, the ideas of those who proposed it, etc. If the reason given isn't racist, but supports the status quo, then it needs to be addressed and undermined based on that idea, not on the accusation that secretly, it's racist. Even if that's true, it won't be effective.

For example, I think the idea that we live in a perfect meritocracy is a bad idea that maintains the status quo. It is used as a way to oppose affirmative action, for example. But to call it racist misses the mark, and makes it tough to undermine the idea because it distracts from what that idea is based on.

I guess the ultimate point is that the idea of racism as I describe it could vanish from the earth tomorrow, along with all racial bigotry, and if everything else remained the same, racial disparities would continue far into the future, because ideas or policies that keep the status quo don't necessarily rely on racism or bigotry. It's an important distinction to be made.