Jimmy's Definition is "Dan"gerous

I think the concerns in Dan’s response are strong concerns. In fact I share all of them. There is a strong pejorative meaning to being a racist. I also think that the negative connotations associated with being a racist are a good thing. I also think that if we throw the words racist and racism around in a non-serious fashion we dilute the impact of the negativity surrounding those words.

I do think that Dan’s position would agree though that it is a good thing to examine one’s self to see if one has racism or anything else that is bad in them. So if one is taking a serious look at one’s inside (for lack of a better word), and looking at some things and saying to one’s self that those things might be racist, I don’t think one dilutes the power of the word racist. To me the dilution comes when one says, “hey I have a racist tendency and I’m ok with it.” It’s not the identification of racism, but the lack of desire to improve as a person that dilutes the power associated with the word racism.

I am unclear as to your position on this statement; it is possible to have some racism in you but still not be a racist. I know I didn’t make it clear from my original post, but this was the underlying assumption. For instance, I can think all Asians like to eat rice. That idea might be racist (I really don’t know if it is or not), but I wouldn’t consider anyone that held that view to be a racist. My concern is where you (by you I mean I) draw the line between having racism inside of you and being a racist. For instance is it racist to feel uncomfortable around black men? Is it racist to avoid black neighborhoods? Is it racist to not date Mexican men because you feel that they won’t be faithful? There are the obvious cases such as the advocating of violence or denial of rights based on race. It’s the close calls that concern me. I find it difficult to make a line in the close cases. My strategy has been to try and eliminate all racism in me so that I never have to consider the line. Another aspect of drawing the line, to me racism depends a lot on intent. I think if you hold a belief because you feel by mere status of your race (whatever that notion is) you are better than another that is racism. But if you do it out of ignorance, I don’t know what to say on that.

On your second disagreement to my position, I think I should clarify. I think you might have misread or over applied what I was getting at. I completely agree with your statements: “The fact is that there are eternal truths.” “We should not be afraid to stand up and say X is wrong”. I completely agree that one should criticize cultures for doing evil acts. I think we need to understand the justifications for the practices before you make a judgment on it. Or in other words we need to make an informed judgment. For instance the Inuit culture’s practice of infanticide might have existed because everyone else would have died without it. Does it justify the practice? I’m going to say no but there are certainly arguments of its justification that extend beyond the mere “it’s my culture” argument.

The dilemma that enters my mind from your second response is when can we say someone is evil? For instance, there is a strong cultural norm for men in Mexico to have affairs on their wives. Both of our positions can agree that this social norm is wrong and evil. I feel very comfortable calling the men that do this evil. I think it is possible to draw a distinction between thinking someone is evil and hating them. In my faith I am called to love especially those people. When you apply your standard can you call these men evil when they continue the practice? Another example is a culture that says its ok to force sex on your wife (or Rape). I have no problem calling those who practice rape on one’s spouse evil. It would be different in some instances where the person did it and stopped doing it (don’t get me wrong the act is still evil, but I would find it harder to call the person evil). But I think in the cases where there is a social norm of rape or adultery and the person conforms to the social norm I have no problem calling them evil. Do you advocate calling the practice evil and the person not evil in these instances? Do you think you can call someone evil, period? If so what is your criteria? These are sort of unfair questions, as I have not answered them myself. But I think they are questions I need to ask to flesh out your stance.

You also made a third statement about exclusive groups. I think that exclusion, as rule is bad. I don’t think “pride” groups are necessarily bad. One good example of this is Bruce Lee. Bruce Lee (the man, the legend) advocated Chinese people taking pride in what the culture was about. The purpose of the pride though was to unite Chinese people and then teach it to others. People don’t fear what they know and understand according to Bruce. To unify so that one can show the beauty of the culture is a good thing. So any “pride” groups is a good thing if its goal is to unify a group so it can show how beautiful it is to the rest of the world. You probably feel the same way but I thought I’d just clarify this viewpoint.

Lastly there are a slew of things that really didn’t fit anywhere under your response but I think your response sort of touched on them. The primary focus of my post was to try and see how we as individuals can be better people. It wasn’t to try and develop some standard by which we judge other people. I was hoping that by this kind of discussion everyone could come up with a more thoughtful standard to apply to himself or herself (this will be discussed in the post regarding Will’s response a bit more). I see your point about by definition being too broad. You don’t have to use the word racist or racism. I think that those words are the closest approximation though. Now it is being judgmental as well but I think racism is a sub category of judgmental. I think that there is a lot of common ground between Dan’s and my point of view. However, I do feel the issues that Dan addressed (while extremely important) do little to shed light on the primary issue in the original post. What about those evaluations that are almost fundamentally just matters of preference? Beauty is a prime example. For example I know a woman that thinks white is an ugly color and thinks that brown skin is much more beautiful. I consider that racist. But that consideration is based purely on a gut feeling. I’m not comfortable basing my evaluation of racism on a gut feeling. It’s hard for me because the evaluation (or judgment) isn’t about good or evil rather it's about preference. I just don’t have a clue as to how to articulate in a logical way my gut feelings about these kinds of evaluations.