The Art of Listening

[Bengalzona]

(08-02-2019, 04:09 AM)Dill Wrote: I don't think racism is in the eye of the beholder. But it may seem that way because people hold to different definitions, which may create the illusion everyone has his own definition. Also, social circumstances are changing. You were among the first to experience inter-racial fraternization as "normal." People who weren't mixing weren't experiencing the definitional challenges mentioned earlier. I remember in the 60s African-and native-Americans were more willing to express solidarity with liberal whites. In the 70s I noticed that went to pot. And yet, people are more socially integrated than at any previous time in Us history.

Anyway, a couple more thoughts on "racisms." It is not possible to create and demarcate useful definitions without thinking of how they might be applied, how they might be tested, made consistent and accountable.  Some definitions seem suited to moral leveraging on message boards, but not much more ("B-zona said "white"!  HE'S the REAL racist!").

I look to people who are doing historical and social research on race issues (historians, sociologists, critical race theorists), whose goal is to understand these issues first. Their definitions develop and change as new information emerges and they are tested by logical consistency and application to events past and present.

In the US, right now, definitions seem to be moving in primarily two directions: 1) racism is individualized, tied individual performance and responsibility, and 2) racism is tied to dominance, to history of institutional and personal control. These definitions fit different purposes, solve different problems. The former is frequently deployed to dispute claims that institutional racism continues. The latter to affirm them.

So when one is "listening" to others, one may be listening through, and listening to, racial tensions and shaped and experienced primarily through one of these definitions.

Very academically written,my friend.

But that last line would seem to support the "Eyes (or, more appropriately, ears) of the Beholder" concept.

Also, is it possible for someone to make a "racist" comment and not really be a racist? Certainly the opposite is true: Racists can and do make non-racist comments. I ask the question, but I'm not sure that anyone can really answer definitively because, as we have seen, the scope of the term 'racist' is pretty wide. You give the two common definitions above, which loosely seem to align with the more base terms of 'casual racism' and 'formal racism' that I mentioned before.