It's Kamala!

[Dill]

(08-21-2020, 03:19 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: But believe me when I say that this word is consistently used to shut down opposing viewpoints.  As I said, you saw it first hand on this very forum, and I appreciate your joining me in its condemnation.  I think largely due to the united front of opposition (there were others condemning it as well) we haven't seen it since.  We created an environment in which the offender was made to realize we wouldn't tolerate such baseless accusations.  Now, if we could move that concept to a larger scale of debate in this country we could actually have some real conversations and possibly fix a few problems.

Sounds like you are describing a "piling on" incident. I missed that it, and would not likely approve.

I confess I have not seen the "racism" accusation used as a shutdown move very often in this forum. Dino was accused of "blatant" racism at least once. I was too. Wait, maybe twice, if you count being "called out" for "real" racist "behavior." That might have been an attempt to shutdown an opposing viewpoint, as efforts to explain myself were dismissed outright. Others condemned the accusation in both mine and Dino's cases. 

Posters here rarely accuse other posters of racism, but a number do indeed complain about "the race card" and politicizing race as issues. Usually when someone posts an article in which past racial divisions are used to explain or question current issues like gentrification or statistical contrasts between health/educational outcomes for Blacks and whites. But I never viewed that as trying to shut down discussion. "Shutdown" happens when one side decides the other cannot be argued with, even as the other side continues to present rational, evidence-based arguments. I think when such threads appear, they make some posters "feel" personally accused, even when they are not directly addressed. I have myself at least once been accused of accusing someone of racism, though that person could never produce the offending statement. Both claiming others are racist and claiming oneself "accused" could be desparate shutdown tactics, I suppose. But they are rarely used. 

Baseless accusations are tolerated in this "environment" though. The people making them rarely "feel" they are baseless. On my view, they become baseless when those who make them refuse any supporting evidence beyond a sweeping gesture at "posting history." Then it's clear they just want to accuse but not risk engagement and accountability. Impossible to regulate this sort of thing, beyond noting when it occurs, since many baseless accusations are harmless and ignored anyway. 

(08-21-2020, 03:19 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: There are quite a lot of racists on the far right.  The far left certainly has its fair share of racists as well, they just don't tend to view their racism as such.

He may be.  I think it's more that he grew up in an era in which that kind of thought was much more prevalent and he never really grew out of it.  A true racist wouldn't have anything to with those they hated, I don't think that's ever been the case with Trump.  I think he has a lot of racist opinions and thoughts.  I know this comparison won't really connect with you but it's a direct parallel.  There's a guy on The Howard Stern show, Sal Governale.  His father is a Sicilian immigrant and is absolutely racist against black people.  While Sal was growing up he taught Sal a lot of racist "lessons" about black people.  Sal, today, still has those thoughts in his head, and will say some racist things, but I don't think the guy is a racist at all.  He just never learned to unwire those thoughts and feelings from early in his life.  They still color his thoughts, but they don't cause him to fear or hate.  Maybe I did a poor job of explaining it, but I do think a person have hold racist beliefs and not be a racist.  There's a lot of room on the spectrum between a completely unracist person and a Klan member or black supremacist.

Some flaws with the "true racist" definition above. To be consistent we'd have to say that slave masters who interacted daily with their house slaves in the antebellum South, literally living with them, were not true racists because they had "something to do" with their slaves. Or maybe there is an unstated premise here maybe that true racism requires "hatred"? Anyway, your definition could have some political consequences now, e.g., normalizing/excusing Trump behavior. We know that he has "a lot of racist opinions and thoughts" and it looks like he acts on them, e.g., in matters of immigration policy. But if he is not a true racist then someone could rationalize that he/she is not voting for a true racist and truly racist policies, perhaps? Don't think a "leftist" racist could do that. What if "true racists" are not the problem today, but people who just have "a lot of racist opinions and thoughts"? 

I think there are few "racists" at any point in the political spectrum who view their racism as "racism"-- except on the right. Left-wing "racists," if there be such, tend to fight against racism, so that raises the question of how "racism" is defined here, not to mention the "right/left" spectrum.

If there are a lot of people out there who are "not racist" but their thoughts are "colored" by it, can we be sure that such thoughts don't also color their voting practices? Their response to current social issues?   E.g. --

(08-21-2020, 03:19 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: This is a very touchy suspect, and actually one f the few areas in which Fred and I were in complete agreement.  What you are stating here is true to an extent, but it absolutely does not account for the incredibly disproportionate number of violent crimes committed by black men in this country.  There's something very wrong when ~7% of the population commits over half of the murder.  If racism was the sole determinant of this disproportionality then we'd see it across the spectrum, but we don't.  Hispanics commit crime around the same rate as their percentage of the population, the same with whites.  Asians are actually under represented by quite a bit.  Even Native Americans, who do show a disproportionate number, are only slightly over-represented, and they certainly got the shaft the worse in this country.

I'm not sure anyone calls racism the "sole determinant of this disproportionality." Nor why we should expect to see it "across the spectrum" if it were.  What spectrum? In other so-called "races"?

Most would agree there is something wrong "when~7% of the population commits over half of the murder." There is a public debate over why such disparities. And that debate will influence elections and policy.

You say "the left," the group(s) which have fought for and won the racial equality we have, refuses to address the issue as a whole, and now stands in the way of resolving racial problems in the US.  iBy"limiting" discussion to systemic racism or some such? But there is another group which does see the whole problem? Who are they? "The Right"? Those who have traditionally opposed racial progress?  What do they see that completes the explanation?   How is the disproportion explained by not-racists whose views may only be colored by racism?