20th July 2010, 3:44 PM
What's funny is that 'racist' is an awfully subjective term.
I would classify a racist as someone who legitimately hates a person because of differing skin color.
You would classify a racist as someone who shows the slightest hint of insensitivity towards anyone who isn't white, regardless of any extenuating circumstances.
I firmly believe that the biggest problem regarding racism today is how insanely sensitive we are about it. There are some real racists out there, and some of them are legitimately dangerous, awful people. Context matters, though. Context always matters. You can tell a joke about black men being criminals, for instance. The same joke can be told by two different people who interpret it differently. I don't believe that such a joke is inherently wrong. It can be told ironically, to demonstrate the absurdity behind such a stereotype.
That's just one example, but my point is, the real reason race is such a huge deal is because we really aren't willing to kill it. The right thing to do with honest racists is to marginalize them. Instead, we blow them up into monsters far exceeding their actual importance in the grand scheme of things, leaving the rest of us having to carefully consider every word we speak when such topics come up, because public accusations of racism can destroy a person in today's society.
I recommend reading a novel by Philip Roth called The Human Stain. It is an excellent (albeit fictional) account of a man whose long career as a professor is destroyed by an accusation of racism against a black student, due to an unfortunate choice of words used during a class session (and, because nobody knows that he is, himself, a light-skinned man who is actually black, and gave up all ties to his past to escape being victimized by racists in academia in the 1950s). Before you make any assumptions beforehand, considering who is making this recommendation, know that it is written with a very liberal political slant (the event is paralleled to the Lewinsky affair and subsequent Republican witch hunt).
I would classify a racist as someone who legitimately hates a person because of differing skin color.
You would classify a racist as someone who shows the slightest hint of insensitivity towards anyone who isn't white, regardless of any extenuating circumstances.
I firmly believe that the biggest problem regarding racism today is how insanely sensitive we are about it. There are some real racists out there, and some of them are legitimately dangerous, awful people. Context matters, though. Context always matters. You can tell a joke about black men being criminals, for instance. The same joke can be told by two different people who interpret it differently. I don't believe that such a joke is inherently wrong. It can be told ironically, to demonstrate the absurdity behind such a stereotype.
That's just one example, but my point is, the real reason race is such a huge deal is because we really aren't willing to kill it. The right thing to do with honest racists is to marginalize them. Instead, we blow them up into monsters far exceeding their actual importance in the grand scheme of things, leaving the rest of us having to carefully consider every word we speak when such topics come up, because public accusations of racism can destroy a person in today's society.
I recommend reading a novel by Philip Roth called The Human Stain. It is an excellent (albeit fictional) account of a man whose long career as a professor is destroyed by an accusation of racism against a black student, due to an unfortunate choice of words used during a class session (and, because nobody knows that he is, himself, a light-skinned man who is actually black, and gave up all ties to his past to escape being victimized by racists in academia in the 1950s). Before you make any assumptions beforehand, considering who is making this recommendation, know that it is written with a very liberal political slant (the event is paralleled to the Lewinsky affair and subsequent Republican witch hunt).
YOU CANNOT HIDE FOREVER
WE STAND AT THE DOOR
WE STAND AT THE DOOR