It makes very little sense to change the established meaning of a term and not create a new one instead. Words gather connotations as they age and an accusation of racism is a very serious one with serious connotations. Redesigning it so as to exclude whites (even if this is then covered by 'racial predujdice' ) is trying to remove those negative connotations when using it to describe a class the speaker favours. It's a redefinition meant to focus on allowing certain kinds of racism through and not others.
As for your point about AA that's exactly what it means- the concept is inherently racist and they will get passed over for a less qualified black, redefining terms like racism is done precisely so this is ok and harder to object to.
This got long as shit. Sorry. Obviously you're not under any obligation to read it. I appreciate you engaging with me about it nonetheless and reading through the rest of the shit I've thrown out here so far.
Is it that serious an accusation, though? I mean, yeah, people have lost jobs over accusations of racism, but usually after doing something like posting pictures of themselves in blackface on their Facebook profiles. I can't think of someone getting fired or having their life seriously affected over accusations of racism when there's no hard evidence there; it's not like adultery or a closeted sexuality, it doesn't spread around after the person and get talked about behind closed doors in a negative way (at least not where I'm from). A black guy won't get fired for just acting racially prejudiced against white people, maybe, but I'd argue a white guy is just as unlikely (if not more unlikely) to get fired for being racist (or racially prejudiced, I guess makes more sense for the argument I'm about to make) in the workplace.
That sort of speaks to why the distinction is, in my opinion, one worth making. A black person won't get fired for being racist, because what could they really do to white people that would be the inverse equivalent of blackface, or of something like
this video? To me, there's a big difference between the weight behind white-on-black racism and its reverse. That's the difference the sociological field is trying to point to.
Now, in the common vernacular, I don't see a problem with people using the term 'racist' the way it's always been used, to refer to any racial prejudice in any direction. I also don't think it's wrong of someone to take the opportunity presented by an accusation of 'reverse racism' to talk about how the terminology is changing, to talk about systemic racism. Saying 'you can't be reverse racist' is just another way of saying 'yeah, a black person may be prejudiced against white people, but there is virtually no viable comparison between that and white-on-black racism, which has a hell of a lot more institutionalized and systemic violently racist ideology backing it.'
As I've said, though, that doesn't mean I think it's reasonable for a white person to use that counter as a trump card to win an argument and then blow the other person off like they've won. Black people, in general, can hold their hands up and say 'it's not my job to educate you.' in my view anyway, because I'm one of those people that thinks it's not on the oppressed group to educate the oppressive majority on how their group's oppression has shaped the modern world. I will say, however, that in my experience, if a black person thinks you'll genuinely hear them when they talk to you about this kind of thing, they will stop and explain it to you calmly and rationally and in great detail despite their lack of obligation, because it matters to them,because they know just how important it is. The people I see going 'you can't be REVERSE RACIST' and using that as a get-out-of-jail-free card in an argument tend to be white people who barely understand the concept themselves.
I mean, in the end, though, no one person can dictate how or when or by whom words ought to be used, so at this point the argument of whether or not the sociological definition should be brought up in everyday conversations seems like a simple matter of opinion. But I could be wrong,especially if you still hold that accusations of racism are more serious than I perceive them.
Part Two Re: Affirmative Action
As for the rest of it, I don't know shit about how or to what extent Affirmative Action is enacted in the rest of the world, but in the US, even if it's not the 'colorblind' style people have been advocating for more recently, I think it's necessary in a lot of areas of the country, particularly the South. For one thing, I'd assume the amount of people that are truly overlooked for less qualified (much less unqualified) candidates is negligible; even if it weren't, I don't see it as inherently wrong that the system has measures in place to correct for the disadvantaged position certain minority groups start out at in applying for jobs/schools, a disadvantage that same system played a large role in establishing for them and, arguably, still does today.
In somewhere like the UK, the lines are a bit fuzzier since they don't necessarily have a directly institutionalized top-down history of systemic racism like the US does (I could try and make the argument if anyone's interested in hacking down that path, I guess). Here, though, you have loads of states that had laws in place specifically designed to disenfranchise black voters, you had segregation and intense local violence (full-out lynchings happened in the US as late as the '60s) keeping past generations from getting educations or better jobs, you have racial prejudice deeply ingrained into the local cultural mindset, you had black schools getting lower quality materials and much less funding, and today's generation of black students are still affected by these setbacks; Affirmative Action is a system attempting to correct its own wrongs, rather than attempting to make the natural way of things more PC-friendly.
You can definitely argue that it's not the government's place to do that, and of course you can argue that it flat out does not work. To the first, I say if a government's going to have the level of authority our government does, this imposition is in no way beyond the scope of what they ought to be doing, and it's hardly beyond any other limitations the government places on businesses and publicly funded schools. As to the second, I'd say that no one who's ever argued for Affirmative Action ever genuinely thought it'd fix all the racial woes of the US, but that it's a small step towards leveling the playing field after centuries of brutal oppression.
EDIT: including this to avoid double-post
@norrington,
Has it occurred to you that, by giving racism a pass when those who enact it are "punching up" allows an unlimited degree of racism as long as those espousing it can concoct some way in which they're the victim? Or that such thought experiments are completely unnecessary since this is exactly what's been enacted by the likes of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Idi Amin Dada, Robert Mugabe, Henry Ford, the capos Mao put in charge of minority-majority provinces like Tibet and Xinjiang, the True Whig party, Saddam Hussein, Hugo Chavez, the KKK, and even the Führer Himself?
Are you aware that human social groups seldom divide neatly between oppressors and the oppressed? Or the sheer absurdity of the hoops that are needed to jump through in order to justify your philosophy?
Has it crossed your mind that this identity politics mentality -- where the only way to judge someone is in the context of factors outside their control like their ethnicity or gender -- is a hideously illiberal position which runs counter to everything good about free society and is driving the entire Left Wing to intellectual death?
If not, why? What compells you go support such an unworkable philosophy?
I'm not suggesting we give people a pass for treating other people like shit, no matter who they are or what race they're from. I'm suggesting that there's validity to distinguishing between systemic racism and individual instances of racial prejudice. Minorities aren't magically cured of all their woes just because they have a response when someone accuses them of reverse racism.
