I assume you are critical of this fact, which it seems to me makes my point that they are less than relevant.

Calling democrats commie leftists has been pretty effective. Its why its used so often.

How about this buccu... you pick I time frame. You go research folks fired/killed/etc for being called variously a r-word-er. I'll go research folks fired/killed/etc for being called variously left of center. Whoever comes up with the lower number donates $20 to a cause of the other's choosing.

Uh, lots of people disagree that that issue is resolved. I am one of them. Evidence in my favor is rampant housing discrimination and Donald Trump is president because of a campaign of racism.

How toxic do you think accusations of racism are? Name someone who lost a job over unfounded or false accusations of racism?

I can name some politicians who kept their job or got a promotion...

Did you read the piece I suggested?

Campaign wasn't long ago. People seriously do not remember Trump's remarks on the Mexicans?

A little. It rambles a lot and uses mostly imaginary examples. What I made it through doesn't do much to address the notion that accusations of racism, especially spurious ones, ruin lives.

Is this a school integration pic? I'm terrible at my photography history, but if it is then it's clearly still relevant today.

The north/liberal enclaves manage to effectively segregate via income. The south is pissed they can't segregate as easily, so you have SCOTUS decisions about federal money being spent on religious schools, like the one decided recently. It's all about keeping white children away from black children, and it's still incredibly relevant today.

Sadly, racism hasn't gone anywhere. People are just slightly better at hiding it. Just ask google.

The point of the blog post is that much rhetorical use of "racist" or "racism" is generally confused and imprecise. I think he's right about that. His second point is that liberalism is fundamentally opposed to the demonization of one's opponents, and that accusations of racism are often exactly that.

I think he's correct on both points. I suggest to you, Wookie, that you think carefully about what you actually mean when you use the term.

Do people on the internet use the term imprecisely? Sure. Of course. Am I one of them? Maybe. Perhaps you can find a particular example rather than using a bunch of hypothetical examples to support a broad dismissal.

Furthermore, characterizing use of the term racism as being inherently demonizing is silly on its face. It gives the freedom of racists to make whatever racist points they want free from the most obvious criticism rather than encouraging honest discussion.

On the subject of whether issues involving race have been largely resolved in our culture, I recommend two books:

Racism without Racists: Color Blind Racism and the Persistance of Racial Inequality in America

The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America

It's certainly true that there have been dramatic changes in the way Americans think about race since the 1950s. On the other hand, data from large surveys (GSS, ANES) show that prejudicial attitudes about African Americans are still quite widespread*, and those attitudes are intimately tied to the history and consequences of policies involving segregation, mass incarceration, and other issues. The events of the 50s are still enormously relevant to understanding race in contemporary politics.

* Those articles emphasize the partisan divide, but here I'm more interested in the general point that the raw data from these surveys demonstrate the persistence of racial prejudice among Americans. Not just Republicans, but all Americans. Although it is also a legitimate point that it seems to be a larger problem in the GOP.

The argument in The Color of Law is essentially that we finally ended explicit policies of racial segregation (policies which also greatly contributed to economic stratification between blacks and whites) in the 1970s, but we've never taken the steps necessary to actually heal the injuries caused by hundreds of years of official policy, and the consequences of those policies are nearly self-perpetuating even in the modern climate where instead of explicit claims to white supremacy we have merely the persistence of a more covert kind of racial prejudice used to maintain that status quo.

Howard, I read the article you recommended. Some comments before I gave up and couldn't read any more of that drivel.

I
Alice: The main topic of conversation when Middle Eastern immigrants socialize is what kinds of hijabs are in fashion right now? GMAFB. The author’s opening salvo is to construct an example based on a racist stereotype and he expects anyone to take him seriously when he discusses racism?

Racist depiction of Middle Eastern people aside, of course most people will prefer to move into a community in which they share a lot in common with the people that live there, rather than move to a community in which they share very little in common. Race has nothing to do with this and is just a red herring in this example.

Not wanting to be around brown people because you find their accents difficult to understand, however, is racist. So my verdict is that Alice is a little racist, though the person who came up with the example is more racist and is not good at coming up with meaningful examples.

Bob: Another ridiculous example. Why does the bus route in the mostly-black neighborhood have only one-tenth the ridership? This is the actual data on public transit use by race: among urban residents, 34% of blacks and 27% of Hispanics report taking public transit daily or weekly, compared with only 14% of whites. So where is this mythical mostly-black neighborhood in which so few people take public transit? Does it exist outside the mind of an author struggling to support his thesis who needs to concoct unrealistic examples to try to make a point he can’t support with real world examples?

Bob better investigate what it is about his transit system that is discouraging black riders, because those low ridership numbers just don’t make sense. To cancel the route without figuring out the cause of the low ridership does that black community a disservice. Would Bob be so quick to want to cancel the route act were this happening in a white neighborhood?

Carol: Yes, it is racist to vote against allowing people of color into your country based on a hunch about how they might vote. She is also racist for taking full advantage of her white privilege to not care at all about issues that affect people of color.

Dan: He seems like another mythical creature created by the author to bolster his thesis without having to rely on real world examples: That rare progressive member of the ACLU and NAACP who reads The Bell Curve plus all of the critiques of the methodology, biases and conclusions drawn, yet still decides the Bell Curve is probably true. Yes, Dan is racist for coming to that conclusion when there is not sufficient evidence or consensus in the scientific community to support it. Dan is also probably not very smart.

Eric: Do we even have to argue whether or not someone who violates the Federal Civil Rights Act is racist?

Fiona: Not even going to bother.

II
Moving on to his definitions, he decides to go with Definition By Consequences as “the really sophisticated one, the ones that scholars in the area are most likely to unite around.” This allows him to try to argue it does not make sense to ask questions like “Did racism contribute to electing Donald Trump?” What?

Let’s go with a different definition of racism, which is actually the one that anti-racisim academics and activists unite around, and quite simple: Racism is prejudice plus power. Racism requires racial prejudice plus social/institutional power to codify and enforce this prejudice into an entire society.

Now let’s ask again, “Did racism contribute to electing Donald Trump?” this time appealing to the above widely accepted and promoted definition. Of course it did.

Howard, sorry, but I think that’s a terrible article by an author who really wants things to be one way even though they are the other, and is not nearly intelligent enough to make a coherent argument to begin to support his mistaken beliefs.

I don't believe the author there expresses a view as to whether racism does or does not exist. I think if you read his blog more deeply, you'll find him to be intelligent, disciplined, and somewhat left of center.

We've disagreed about the definition you posit before. You're correct in that activists and academics think it's right. I myself find it to be too cute and convenient by half, in that it permits only whites to be racist.

Your take is as ever both considered and in good faith. I do suggest you read a little more of that blog before you write it off.

What problems are solved by treating black prejudice against white people (which doesn't have the authority of the state behind it) on equal footing with white prejudice against black people?

Don't you have a 2 day old post report to address?

Not interested in that debate, which is a fair one. And your premise is incorrect, seeing as the state isn't monolithic: viz. the District of Columbia. But defining racism to include one but not the other is IMO deceptive and deliberate.

Deliberate? Of course, precisely because of the debate you don't want to have. Deceptive? Lol, there is extensive literature on the subject, and it's been in use for decades. It has its own damn Wikipedia article : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prejudice_plus_power

I feel like the obvious solution to debates about the definition of racism is just to acknowledge that the term has been and is used in a bunch of related but different senses, and to try to disambiguate those senses where necessary, or to use related words to help make your meaning clear.

Individual prejudice, hate, or discrimination is popularly called "racism", and anybody can be prejudiced or discriminate, even against others in the same social category. Laws, institutions, and societies can be "racist" in ways that don't reduce neatly to individual prejudice, even though it's obvious that there will be a relation between the two. Of course, in theory, or in some counterfactual world, there can exist societies with institutions and laws that are racist against any particular ethnic group.

But it's clear that in this society, because of our history and because of the interaction between individual prejudice and institutional factors, the potential impact of individual prejudice against whites is mitigated in ways that the impact of individual prejudice against blacks is not. And, of course, the institutional issues have always and continue to be only in the one direction.

I've never heard anyone claim that it's theoretically impossible for non-whites to be "racist" in any of the above senses. I've only heard people claim that in our society anti-white racism isn't a problem equivalent to anti-black racism.

Yeah, I would be hard pressed to find anyone of repute who argues that black racism doesn't exist to the point that things like the Rwandan genocide aren't racist. It is much more common that someone on the internet wants to point to a prejudiced black American as proof that racism in America is symmetric.

In your forum all Trump supporters are racists/bigots, ipso facto.

Correct?

Sorry Howard, the more I read, the more unimpressed I got. I take exception with almost everything he says, except those things that are so obvious that it's embarrassing he brings them up as if they were interesting. It was like a clinic on white privilege and poorly constructed narrative and verbosity. Maybe he says something useful in Part V, but having suffered through I-IV, I have no more patience.

I know right? its not a big deal i don't think they would actually kill me

The sure supported it with their votes.

I'm not actually referring to that post in particular, but rather his blog generally. This race issue aside, I suspect you'll find it interesting. Perhaps not: to each their own.