Quote:
Originally Posted by suzzer99
So it's only racist if you do it for hatred, not for money? Um, yeah I'm gonna have to go ahead and disagree with you there.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rococo
This is why people accuse you of trolling. Are you seriously arguing that racist conduct is not racist if it is a good business decision (i.e., if it benefits you financially)?
I suspect that many slave holders in the 1840s would have been reluctant to offer that defense.
How about my example? Is that racist?
If a white person enslaves a white person for reasons of pure personal gain, it's not racist (presumably?). This was very common in various places and times:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_slavery
But if a white person enslaves a black person for the exact same reasons of pure personal gain, it's automatically racist?
I do not think that is a tenable position. In fact, I would call it a highly untenable position.
Racism certainly served as a justification for continuing slavery, but it was mostly economic in a world largely indifferent to the suffering of the non in-group (serfs vs aristocracy, women vs men, white Vikings vs white Brits, children in factories). Life was hard and short and empathy was low. Africans rounded up Africans to sell to white and Arab slavers due to same reason (life was hard and short and empathy was low). Were the Africans rounding up Africans to enslave and sell into slavery racist in doing so?
As another historical example: when Muslims enslaved Europeans en masse for hundreds of years (much of the European Mediterranean coast was depopulated by
Muslim slave raiders. Is that racism given that the races are different? Is it sexism given that it's men enslaving women for sex? In some parts (e.g. Kurdish regions under the Turks), boys were also enslaved as sex slaves and war conscripts. Racism? Sexism? Convenience?
All these terms (racism, sexism) applied to historical motives in world largely without modern empathy and dismissive of all non-in-groups seem a little ridiculous.
Last edited by well named; 05-01-2019 at 02:38 PM.