European kids are taught that racism is bad but not how real, systemic, subtle racism actually looks. We are taught that slavery and hitler is bad, so our bar for what is acceptable is very low.
This is also why Europeans will get offended if you point out something subtly racist they did/said. They think you’re straight-up comparing them to Hitler and the KKK.
The unacknowledged shift from the adjective form “racist” to the noun form “racist” is the best indicator that someone doesn’t really get what racism actually is in real life.
As an example of why that’s wrong, I can do something stupid without being a stupid.
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race or ethnicity over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against other people because they are of a different ethnic background.
a belief that race is a fundamental determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race
harmful or unfair things that people say, do, or think based on the belief that their own race makes them more intelligent, good, moral, etc. than people of other races
chiefly US slang, disapproving : politically liberal or progressive (as in matters of racial and social justice) especially in a way that is considered unreasonable or extreme
a way of referring to the acts and opinions of people who are especially aware of social problems such as racism and inequality, used by people who think these acts and opinions have gone too far
But, there certainly isn’t a consensus on racism. Some vocal elements demand that for for something to be racist, there also has to be a racial power imbalance working in the favor of the person being racist… and they’ll use that distinction to explain how actions that would be evaluated as racist by the definitions you provided actually aren’t if the target is in a position of racial privilege.
And, personally, I think that definition was literally seeded as a wedge by state actors for the explicit purpose of sowing discord, but here we are.
That’s just misapplying an academic definition in a colloquial circumstance, which happens a lot in various disciplines. It’s like the “what is a vegetable” question: it means different things to a botanist, chef, and tax collector.
So just dismiss everything the person tried to explain to you, because you’ve decided, with absolutely no proof that they’re millennial? The fuck is wrong with you?
When I was in grad school I lived in an international student dorm where I was basically the only American. One day we had a party, and after a few drinks the Europeans started into this game they’ve all seemingly done a hundred times before where they started saying the most vile shit I’ve ever heard to each other while laughing. Like “OK, sure everyone in my country is drunk all the time, but it’s better than you guys letting in all those thieving gypsys!”
So they did a full round of about 20 people throwing the worst racism/nationalism I’ve ever come across in real life at each other, including absolutely dunking on the only black guy as if he was a representative for all africans, then like a hive mind they all turned to me and someone went “At least none of us are as racist as these Americans!” followed by uproarious laughter. I ask myself internally all the time if my behavior is problematic, but it seemed like these people never learned that skill but instead were taught “USA=racist, everyone else is good” and never questioned it or themselves.
For years this led me to privately think “Man, Europeans are way worse.” But then, you know, we elected Trump twice and the Klan came back dressed in camo.
Self-reflection and critical thinking are almost always defeated by social conformance among healthy well-adjusted humans. For a social animal, it is more important to agree with the group than to be objectively correct.
From being taught that someone is different from you in some way.
Does this seriously need to be explained? And do you think babies naturally hate? That they are capable of it without being taught? They know to love and snuggle with humans, any. They’ll even snuggle with a deadly lion. They need to be TAUGHT otherwise.
Babies don’t care about colour, or religions, they don’t even know what the fuck that stuff is dude. Until they are taught.
And who teaches? An another human, right? But doesn’t that human also inherently love other humans? So he must’ve been taught to hate too. If you go step by step into the past, at what point is hate introduced into human society?
Babies are not fully developed human beings, they don’t have a society, culture, or almost anything else, including basic survival mechanisms, so they’re a pointless comparison. It is ridiculous to think they, left to their nature, wouldn’t develop communities, trust and suspicion, stereotypes, etc. that can eventually build up to racism. We have documented wars among literal apes, humans are definitely not much nicer in their natural state (whatever that might be - it can’t be just “being a baby”).
Please don’t talk at me. You’re not really addressing or engaging with what I said. You have a point to make that’s got nothing to do with me, take it to the top level.
Humans inherently care, and love each other. Anything else is taught by someone else who thinks they know what’s okay.
The hell you on about? I ain’t givin shit about anybody who’s not already in my friend circle and sure as hell last time I checked I am human. Empathy varies a lot in humans, some people are naturally caring, some don’t give a damn if most people around them die, most are somewhere between so chill out.
The only objectively correct way to treat anyone else is how you treat yourself. Anything else is just learned hate.
Let others reap what they sow. Extend some respect at first and give benefit of the doubt but if they aren’t worth it, they simply aren’t worth it. Anything else and you’re gonna get used, trampled and disrespected.
And that extends to racist, homophobic or transphobic idiots who cannot argue for their stance. If a black person killed your dog and that was only black person you ever saw, yeah, fair you have bad opinion.
But if you’re like one of my coworkers who hates gay folk cause it’s fun, not respect, die in a ditch.
Shouldn’t have to be taught to treat others with respect or how you would treat yourself
No disrespect, but I disagree. Respect is absolutely a learned behavior.
what ever respectful means is a defined by your culture. What is considered respectful is different in the uk versus the us, at least that’s what thought this post was about.
Kids absolutely need to be taught this.
Kids don’t magically share, or treat each other with respect. You teach kids how to be respectful everyday.
You teach behavior and biases, but it’s well observed that kids naturally don’t see distinctions between groups of people until it is taught to them, and that kids do feel empathy naturally, and will feel upset about perceived injustices and such. Isolating a white kid so they don’t see a Black kid until they’re 15 is a learned thing, if they’re raised in a shared environment, they won’t see a difference. What you teach is how to act on it (like sharing), how to handle emotions about it. Restricting experience is teaching.
European kids are taught that racism is bad but not how real, systemic, subtle racism actually looks. We are taught that slavery and hitler is bad, so our bar for what is acceptable is very low.
This is also why Europeans will get offended if you point out something subtly racist they did/said. They think you’re straight-up comparing them to Hitler and the KKK.
That seems like how it is in the US too.
“Racism is only a thing very bad evil people do. I’m not an very bad evil person. Thus I cannot have done racism.”
“what you said was kinda racist”
“How dare you, I’m not a racist!”
The unacknowledged shift from the adjective form “racist” to the noun form “racist” is the best indicator that someone doesn’t really get what racism actually is in real life.
As an example of why that’s wrong, I can do something stupid without being a stupid.
Everyone always laughs at the people who complain about “woke” and asks them to “define woke”, but can you define racism?
Racism
From Wikipedia
From Merriam-Webster
From Cambridge dictionary
As for Woke
From Merriam-Webster
From Cambridge dictionary as “wokeism”/“wokery”
The guy was obviously being a troll.
But, there certainly isn’t a consensus on racism. Some vocal elements demand that for for something to be racist, there also has to be a racial power imbalance working in the favor of the person being racist… and they’ll use that distinction to explain how actions that would be evaluated as racist by the definitions you provided actually aren’t if the target is in a position of racial privilege.
And, personally, I think that definition was literally seeded as a wedge by state actors for the explicit purpose of sowing discord, but here we are.
That’s just misapplying an academic definition in a colloquial circumstance, which happens a lot in various disciplines. It’s like the “what is a vegetable” question: it means different things to a botanist, chef, and tax collector.
Ah, the American Millennial: the generation that could’ve led us toward utopia if they cared more about actions than words.
(yes I see the whole academic definitions thing as a specifically Millennial trait)
So just dismiss everything the person tried to explain to you, because you’ve decided, with absolutely no proof that they’re millennial? The fuck is wrong with you?
When I was in grad school I lived in an international student dorm where I was basically the only American. One day we had a party, and after a few drinks the Europeans started into this game they’ve all seemingly done a hundred times before where they started saying the most vile shit I’ve ever heard to each other while laughing. Like “OK, sure everyone in my country is drunk all the time, but it’s better than you guys letting in all those thieving gypsys!”
So they did a full round of about 20 people throwing the worst racism/nationalism I’ve ever come across in real life at each other, including absolutely dunking on the only black guy as if he was a representative for all africans, then like a hive mind they all turned to me and someone went “At least none of us are as racist as these Americans!” followed by uproarious laughter. I ask myself internally all the time if my behavior is problematic, but it seemed like these people never learned that skill but instead were taught “USA=racist, everyone else is good” and never questioned it or themselves.
For years this led me to privately think “Man, Europeans are way worse.” But then, you know, we elected Trump twice and the Klan came back dressed in camo.
words vs deeds
Such a weird take, every single other thing isn’t binary, yet suddenly racism is? Self reflection and critical thinking are what’s lacking.
Shouldn’t have to be taught to treat others with respect or how you would treat yourself.
Self-reflection and critical thinking are almost always defeated by social conformance among healthy well-adjusted humans. For a social animal, it is more important to agree with the group than to be objectively correct.
By racism you mean? Those are leaned behaviors that take over from being taught that others are different from you.
Humans inherently care, and love each other. Anything else is taught by someone else who thinks they know what’s okay.
The only objectively correct way to treat anyone else is how you treat yourself. Anything else is just learned hate.
Lmao, this is basically religious thinking, with the inevitable “problem of evil”. If people inherently love each other, where does hate come from?
From being taught that someone is different from you in some way.
Does this seriously need to be explained? And do you think babies naturally hate? That they are capable of it without being taught? They know to love and snuggle with humans, any. They’ll even snuggle with a deadly lion. They need to be TAUGHT otherwise.
Babies don’t care about colour, or religions, they don’t even know what the fuck that stuff is dude. Until they are taught.
And who teaches? An another human, right? But doesn’t that human also inherently love other humans? So he must’ve been taught to hate too. If you go step by step into the past, at what point is hate introduced into human society?
Babies are not fully developed human beings, they don’t have a society, culture, or almost anything else, including basic survival mechanisms, so they’re a pointless comparison. It is ridiculous to think they, left to their nature, wouldn’t develop communities, trust and suspicion, stereotypes, etc. that can eventually build up to racism. We have documented wars among literal apes, humans are definitely not much nicer in their natural state (whatever that might be - it can’t be just “being a baby”).
Please don’t talk at me. You’re not really addressing or engaging with what I said. You have a point to make that’s got nothing to do with me, take it to the top level.
Of course people don’t like it when it’s pointed out that they were actually taught to be racist.
You made a wildly racist remark in response to someone saying that everyone should be treated how they treat themselves.
Of course you’re gonna get called out.
The hell you on about? I ain’t givin shit about anybody who’s not already in my friend circle and sure as hell last time I checked I am human. Empathy varies a lot in humans, some people are naturally caring, some don’t give a damn if most people around them die, most are somewhere between so chill out.
Let others reap what they sow. Extend some respect at first and give benefit of the doubt but if they aren’t worth it, they simply aren’t worth it. Anything else and you’re gonna get used, trampled and disrespected.
And that extends to racist, homophobic or transphobic idiots who cannot argue for their stance. If a black person killed your dog and that was only black person you ever saw, yeah, fair you have bad opinion.
But if you’re like one of my coworkers who hates gay folk cause it’s fun, not respect, die in a ditch.
No disrespect, but I disagree. Respect is absolutely a learned behavior.
what ever respectful means is a defined by your culture. What is considered respectful is different in the uk versus the us, at least that’s what thought this post was about.
Kids absolutely need to be taught this. Kids don’t magically share, or treat each other with respect. You teach kids how to be respectful everyday.
You teach behavior and biases, but it’s well observed that kids naturally don’t see distinctions between groups of people until it is taught to them, and that kids do feel empathy naturally, and will feel upset about perceived injustices and such. Isolating a white kid so they don’t see a Black kid until they’re 15 is a learned thing, if they’re raised in a shared environment, they won’t see a difference. What you teach is how to act on it (like sharing), how to handle emotions about it. Restricting experience is teaching.