What does RACISM mean to you?

[Spiffor]

Vel :
To add to your answer, with which I agree, I'd say it has to do with an ordinary profiling, which happens to take race and religion as elements (and not as the only elements).

It comes from the principle that Arab terrorist groups use plane hijacking as an ordinary way, and that these Arab terrorist organisations are more likely to hire in Arab or Muslim populations.

It is very different than thinking all Arabs are terrorists by nature and should be all thrown in jail or killed.

[Az]

Racism is NOT the different treatment of someone based on their ethnic background.


Racism is the belief that a human has inherent personal qualities based on his ethnic background.

[Wernazuma III]

To me, at first, racists are all people who believe in the concept of race, that's simply what the word says. This can range from harmless "Blacks have a better feeling rhythm" to complete freak ideas of subhumans etc.
If I can't call people racists who believe in the concept of race it's actually a PC-people attitude because "you can't say it, the word is so negative" .
Racist=Believer in the existance of races - period.

[Zylka]

Originally posted by Azazel
Racism is NOT the different treatment of someone based on their ethnic background.


Racism is the belief that a human has inherent personal qualities based on his ethnic background.

Thank you

[mrmitchell]

Aha! Azazel wins the prize.

[Az]

[FrustratedPoet]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
You don't think that automatically assuming a group of people is more dangerous due to their ethnic origin is racist?

I do. Frankly the "All brown people are suspects" method of police investigation sickens me. To assume that an individual person is more likely to commit a certain crime based on their nationality, skin colour or religion is terrible thing.

Racial profiling is fine when a crime has already been committed. If a victim of a street mugging says to the cops "The guy who did it was black" then it clearly doesn't make any sense to arrest a white guy (or a black woman) for the crime.

However, to say "We're worried about plane hijackings so we're going to keep an extra special close eye on everyone called Akhbar or Mohammed who comes through here, because those were the names of the guys who did it last time" is a completely different thing. This kind of racial profiling assumes that people from a broad and diverse group are more likely to commit a highly specific crime.

Is an individual Arab Muslim more likely to hijack a plane than an individual Christian White? Of course not. Is a cross-section of ten thousand Arab Muslims more likely to contain a single hijacker than ten thousand Christian White guys? Perhaps .... but if the only solution to the problem you can come up with is to closely monitor all ten thousand of the Arab Muslims (at the expense of watching other people - resources are very limited, remember) then you have far deeper problems than terrorism.

(Note: a lot of countries do this, not just the US - they aren't necessarily the worst offenders either)

[Sikander]

Here's some of what Thomas Sewell has to say on the matter:

Race is a biological concept, but it is a social reality. In a society where most people are blends of various races, there may nevertheless be sharp dividing lines, with people on one side of of those lines being called 'black', for example, and others on the other side being called 'white,' even if a geneticist or an anthropologist would reject this dichotomy. But, however questionable these and other designations may be from a scientific standpoint, populations with different genetic mixtures may also differ culturally, and thus be as different in various capabilities and their consequences as if they were in fact pure races and also inherited different genetic endowments in those capabilities.

Recognition of these differences in capabilities and orientations is often called "racism", as if that somehow invalidated the observations about group differences in behavior or performance, or turned it into a mere subjective perception. But to insist that such group differences be ignored, either in causal explanations or in policy formulations, is as dogmatic as the insistence that genetics must be the reason for such differences. Where 'racism' is not simply a term of abuse for political purposes, its central dogma is that genetics explains intellectual, moral, and other differences among peoples - that 'race is everything,' as Madison Grant said in a popular book of the early twentieth century. His reductionism is matched by the reductionism of those who see racism itself the general explanation of intergroup differences. More than an analogy is involved. The actual structure of the argument is very similar in the two cases. Specifically, the argument is that, when intergroup differences remain after taking various economic and social factors into account, these remaining differences must be attributed to the favored residual factor - whether that factor is genes or racism. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the residual factor to be credited or blamed was race. At the end of the twentieth century, the residual facor was racism. Both factors need careful attention, not automatic acceptance - and that careful attention must begin by defining what the terms mean.

[Sikander]

More Thomas Sewell, from "Conquests and Cultures":

"Racism" is a term not only used very loosely by many, but also a term for which a precise definition is not easy to achieve. In various usages the term applies to the ideas of:

(1) those who have animosity toward people of another race

(2) those who believe that people of another race are genetically inferior

(3) those who believe in discriminating against people of another race, out of sheer self interest

(4) those who believe that members of another racial or ethnic group are less capable, or have other undesirable traits, as of a given time, even if for non-genetic reasons

Those who believe all these things at the same time provide the clearest examples of racism. But all four notions need not go together and often do not.

What of those who believe that other races are intellectually or otherwise inferior, but who take a benevolently paternalistic attitude toward them? If such well-meaning believers in genetic inferiority are to be considered racists, even if they favor giving largess or preferential treatment toward those considered inferior, then animosity is no longer part of our definition. What about those who who wish to discriminate against another race for purely selfish reasons, such as the early twentieth -century white organizers of an anti-Japanese-immigrant movement in the United States, on precisely the ground that the Japanese were such able, intelligent, and resourceful competitors that whites could not maintain their own higher living standards in open competition with them, but required the help of special legal protection? Halfway around the world, a very similar argument for preferential policies favoring the majority population was made in Malaysia, where it was claimed that otherwise the Chinese minority would best Malays in every form of open competition: "Whatever the Malays could do, the Chinese could do better and more cheaply," according to a Malay leader who defended preferential policies for Malays, and later became prime minister.

[Sikander]

More Thomas Sewell on racism:

In Nigeria likewise, preferences and quotas were defended on grounds that otherwise "the less well-educated people of the North will be swamped by the thrusting people of the South." Similar claims for preferential treatment, on grounds that either racial or ethnic groups have superior capabilities, have been made in India, Burma, and Fiji, sometimes accompanied by fears that either physical or cultural extinction threaten without such protection. If acknowledgement of superior capability in racial or ethnic groups who are targeted for discrimination is to be included as "racism," then opposite assumptions are being encompassed by the same word.

What of those who believe that particular racial or ethnic groups are less capable or less desirable in various respects, even if not for genetic reasons, and even if the people who believe this have no general animosity toward those from these groups? If the term "racism" is applied to those who have this view, even if they support programs designed to to raise the level of capability in the group considered to be lagging, then social workers and lynch mobs are being lumped together. Nor is this a problem only in Western countries. A tenth-century Moslem scholar noted that Europeans grow more pale the farther north you go and also that the "farther they are to the north the more stupid, gross, and brutish they are." Considering this was said at a time when southern Europe was in fact considerably more advanced than northern Europe, where illiteracy was widespread and conditions often primitive, can we confidently reject this as an empirical generalization about correlations among location, skin color, and cultural development at that particular juncture in history, and say that such conclusion is so false that it can only be based on bias or animosity? More to the point, would this be racism because it with the social characteristics of races, even if it did not attribute the differences to genetics? Again, this simply illustrates the difficulty of consistently applying the term.

The tendency to dismiss all unfavorable conclusions about any group as racism or as prejudice, stereotypes, or other manifestations of ignorance overlooks the fact that often those with the most unfavorable opinion of a group are those in closest contact with them, while those with a more favorable view know them less well and often from a greater distance. During the generations of armed conflict between whites and American Indians, for example, those whites with the most unfavorable view of the Indians were often those with the most contact with them on a daily basis, while those most favorably disposed toward Indians were often those with less personal contact. When the U.S. army massacred an encampment of Indians in Colorado, the news was greeted with cheers in Denver but with horror in the eastern United States, where a peace movement developed to try to bring hostilities with the Indians to an end. However benign or paternalistic a view of Indians was taken by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, or Abraham Lincoln, the most unfavorable view of them was that taken by Andrew Jackson, who had fought with Indian allies, as well as against Indian enemies, before becoming president. Perhaps the most romantic view of the American Indian was that among some intellectuals in Europe who had never seen an Indian.

The point here is that adverse opinions of any group cannot be automatically waved aside as prejudices, stereotypes, or other forms of ignorance. These opinions might be mistaken for other reasons - or they might be true. Each specific case requires evidence, analysis, or agnosticism. It is sheer dogmatism to say, a priori, that adverse opinions must be wrong. Genetic differences may be neither necessary nor sufficient to account for many differences in groups, nations , or civilizations, but these differences can nevertheless be very real and very consequential.

[Sikander]

Sometimes the issue of racism has involved not so much capability, but desirability in some social sense ecompassing personal hygiene, congeniality, or cultural assimilation. Thus the first Chinese seen in the United States were welcomed, for they were disproportionately visiting scholars, business leaders, or others with the social graces or admired achievements that made them acceptable. It was after the later masses of largely illiterate and primitively-living Chinese laborers arrived that widespread anti-Chinese hostility developed, resulting in indiscriminate legislation directed at keeping out all Chinese, and discriminating against those already in the country. Since both the earlier Chinese visitors and the later Chinese immigrants were of the same race, is "racism" a consistent term to cover the attitudes of the same generation of Americans who first welcomed them and later rejected them?


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The point here is not to derive the best definition of "racism," but to see if any specific and consistent meaning is conveyed by this widely used word. If not, then the many disparate things covered by this sweeping expression must be analyzed seperately in terms that convey some clear and specific meaning.

------

One of the reasons for not dismissing as racism every conclusion concerning the role of genes in the development of of human intelligence is that such a dismissal too often becomes a substitute for a careful critique of what has been said. In many fields, even incorrect theories or conclusions can contribute to a deeper understanding of a subject, if a critique of those theories and conclusions leads to a more thorough examination of what both sides believed before the controversy, while an automatic dismissal adds nothing to our understanding and may even convince some observers that nothing rational can be said agains the theory, when in fact much that is rational could be said against it. If nothing else, a serious critique can demonstrate which statements on either side can and cannot stand up under scrutiny.

[Sikander]

Now the final bit:

"Racism" as a blanket explanation of intergroup differences is not an over-rated explanation. It is iteself a positive hindrance to a focus on the acquisition of the human capital or cultural capital needed to rise economically and socially. If there is any central theme that emerges from the histories examined in these three volumes, it is that the cultural capital of a people is crucial to their economic and social advancement, whether that people is a racial minority, a nation-state, or a whole civilization. In some cases, the factors inhibiting the development of this human capital have been geographical or historical. But they need not include self-inflicted ideologies or ideologies congenial to sympathetic outsiders, whose sympathies may prove to be more of a handicap than the hostility of others.

A more tendentious definition of racism has emerged in the late twentieth century to exempt racial minorities themselves from the charge. Racism was now said to require power, which minorities do not have, so that even the most anti-white, anti-Jewish, or anti-Asian statements (including those asserting a genetic basis for depravity) were automatically exempt from the charge of racism. No such proviso that power was required for racism ever existed before. That this new and self-serving escape hatch remained largely unchallenged has been one index of the level of moral intimidation surrounding racial issues. One might as well add the proviso that murder requires right-handedness, so that murderers who are left-handed could escape murder charges. In the ordinary sense of the word, minorities of all colors have shown themselves capable of as vicious racism as anybody else, whether in or out of power. The hostility, boycotts, or violence of African-ancestry people against people from India has been common from Kenya to South Africa, as well as in Jamaica and Guyana. Such behavior differs in no essential way from the behavior labelled "racism" when it is the African-ancestry population being abused by people of European ancestry.

[Berzerker]

Elijah - Please allow me to "parse" this.

Its the differential treatment of someone based on their ethnicity, perceived ethnicity etc. Thats loose, but normally, its only applied in negative situations

Then Jesse Jackson is an admitted racist....regardless of how he feels about white people. He has admitted that he feels safer walking down a street at night with a group of white [males?] behind him than black males (don't worry, he used to spit in white folks food when he worked in a diner so he don't like us much either I think Jesse is all Jesse cares about... If that were the criterion, we might only find non-racists up in Tibet practicing buddhism.

racism in general is indicative of a more inherrent intolerance.

You mean born that way? I treat myself differently than I treat others, don't you? Not necessarily in a bad way, but less well nonetheless. Are we just as guilty of racism?

But there's more to it I think. Since the world has seen so much human conflict over the eons, with story after story being handed down about those bad people across the valley (much of the war was probably over who got the women ), this differential treatment has become ingrained as a result of "society". I'd bet the most non-racist peoples are those who've lived in relative isolation from war.

Racism has to be more than that or most of us are liars if we deny being racists. How much more, I don't know...maybe a hatred of someone based on their race. But I don't think it's "racist" to make judgements (and pre-judgements) .i.e, reach conclusions, based on available information, we all end up doing anyway.

[Berzerker]

From Sowell -

No such proviso that power was required for racism ever existed before. That this new and self-serving escape hatch remained largely unchallenged has been one index of the level of moral intimidation surrounding racial issues.

Since racism is most likely a result of wars from God knows when (Cain and Abel), power was always involved with the powerful looking down on the weaker peoples around and the weaker peoples hating the powerful. But the weak have an excuse...they're weak.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Velociryx
Law enforcement agencies have....are you ready....*limited resources.* That means, we can't hire three million investigators to look into every crime there is.

Why would you want to do such a thing?

Originally posted by Velociryx
Given limited resources then, investigators have to cull out and largely ignore groups that have no real previous track record for committing crimes.

Since the spectrum of "crimes" is extremely broad, ranging from shoplifting and speeding to murder, there is no one group that is squeakly clean, so to speak.

Originally posted by Velociryx
So let's take airline hijackings, for example.

Have the boy scouts ever hijacked a plane?

Have elderly ladies (above the age of 60)?

Have skinheads?

The answer to all of those questions is....no.

These are not ethnic groups, thus doesn't form a counter argument. The truth of the matter is there were way more white male hijackers in the US than minority hijackers. By your logic, it is the white males that need to be profiled, not minorities.

Originally posted by Velociryx
However, in looking back over the history of airline hijackings, it can fairly be said that a significant number of them have been done in the past by muslim males between the ages of 20 and 40.

I believe this is false. Do you have a cite, such as FBI numbers?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Azazel
Racism is NOT the different treatment of someone based on their ethnic background.


Racism is the belief that a human has inherent personal qualities based on his ethnic background.

How does one different from another? The former is merely a manifestation of the latter.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Sikander
Here's some of what Thomas Sewell has to say on the matter:
[snip]

Recognition of these differences in capabilities and orientations is often called "racism", as if that somehow invalidated the observations about group differences in behavior or performance, or turned it into a mere subjective perception.

[snip]

The problem with this is the capabilities within any ethnic group span a wide spectrum, thus no useful conclusion might be drawn on a person's ethnic origin alone.

[Berzerker]

UR -

These are not ethnic groups, thus doesn't form a counter argument.

It does in that when a specific group CAN be identified as the relevant source of hi-jackings, focusing on that group, whether they be a different race, skin color, gender, age, appearance, etc., that knowledge should be put to use to make the most of available resources. But since these people can find ways of using other people to deliver bombs who don't fit the profile, we can't just ignore everyone else.

The truth of the matter is there were way more white male hijackers in the US than minority hijackers. By your logic, it is the white males that need to be profiled, not minorities.

If true, so what? The focus is on terrorism, not some white commie who can't afford plane fare to Cuba.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Berzerker
It does in that when a specific group CAN be identified as the relevant source of hi-jackings, focusing on that group, whether they be a different race, skin color, gender, age, appearance, etc., that knowledge should be put to use to make the most of available resources.

As I said, most hijackers have been white males

Originally posted by Berzerker
If true, so what? The focus is on terrorism, not some white commie who can't afford plane fare to Cuba.

But there is more to terrorism than just plane-hijackings. For example, the infamous Unabomber Theodore
Kaczynski isn't a Muslim, and neither is McVeigh. It wasn't a muslim who sent Anthrax spores through the US Mail after 911.

There is also more to racism than racial profiling. The most famous cases were the detention of Japanese-Americans during WWII, and the imposing of "head tax" against Chinese workers building the trans-America railways.

[Az]

How does one different from another? The former is merely a manifestation of the latter.

No it's not. the fact that you discriminate against people doesn't mean that you think they're worse. It CAN mean that, and often it does, but it's not the sole reason.

Oh, and the muslim debate doesn't belong here at all, since it's not racism, as muslims are not a race, but a persuasion.