Seriously...I can almost see a Gazette now...but not now. Now a momentary response to a friend of mine who began a conversation by wondering if his wanting to walk through Harlem armed was a sign that he might be a racist.
So I said:
Are you racist if you carry a gun passing through a poor neighborhood? Not inherently. Are you if you find yourself carrying a gun because a black family moved into your neighborhood? Probably.
I suppose the question would be if you're that fearful of it why on earth walk through Harlem at all? And the larger point would be are you fearful because you've heard the crime rates are elevated or because you're surrounded by black people? So it would depend on the individual.
Then he suggested racism carries weight and had become a gratuitous assertion as used of late.
I agree racism is an important term and shouldn't be applied willy-nilly. I also think it by and large isn't by most people. How some radicalize it is of less practical importance than how some racists do. It's a thing for reasonable, rational people to understand.
So no, it isn't an entirely or necessarily gratuitous assertion, only one that requires us to consider both the use and source. Doesn't sound like much work and better than pretending its application and the racist can't be determined.
Then he went off with a laundry list of inappropriately mated "things that irk me about minorities without actually calling the card" bit.
I think you lost focus at the end. Gang-bangers are criminals, so that's a repeat and a needless one unless you mean to slant it toward minorities, the largest contributor to that hyphenated particular. Likewise mixing in people who make, to my mind, poor fashion choices with criminals. And it's also popularly perceived as a choice made by minorities. Then pooling that with the ignorant, however you feel about the clothing or music or whatever seems a poor choice on the whole.
Before he suggested racism might be a survival instinct.
Lastly, racism isn't a survival instinct, it's an irrationality hiding behind the appearance of reason, like phrenology or playing the lottery and thinking you might win. I'm glad we're far less racist, but I'm troubled when 33% of Republicans and 12% of Democrats are moving so slowly along that line that interracial marriage is problematic for them...it speaks to a long road left for a great many of us to walk, don't you think?
So I said:
Are you racist if you carry a gun passing through a poor neighborhood? Not inherently. Are you if you find yourself carrying a gun because a black family moved into your neighborhood? Probably.
I suppose the question would be if you're that fearful of it why on earth walk through Harlem at all? And the larger point would be are you fearful because you've heard the crime rates are elevated or because you're surrounded by black people? So it would depend on the individual.
Then he suggested racism carries weight and had become a gratuitous assertion as used of late.
I agree racism is an important term and shouldn't be applied willy-nilly. I also think it by and large isn't by most people. How some radicalize it is of less practical importance than how some racists do. It's a thing for reasonable, rational people to understand.
So no, it isn't an entirely or necessarily gratuitous assertion, only one that requires us to consider both the use and source. Doesn't sound like much work and better than pretending its application and the racist can't be determined.
Then he went off with a laundry list of inappropriately mated "things that irk me about minorities without actually calling the card" bit.
I think you lost focus at the end. Gang-bangers are criminals, so that's a repeat and a needless one unless you mean to slant it toward minorities, the largest contributor to that hyphenated particular. Likewise mixing in people who make, to my mind, poor fashion choices with criminals. And it's also popularly perceived as a choice made by minorities. Then pooling that with the ignorant, however you feel about the clothing or music or whatever seems a poor choice on the whole.
Before he suggested racism might be a survival instinct.
Lastly, racism isn't a survival instinct, it's an irrationality hiding behind the appearance of reason, like phrenology or playing the lottery and thinking you might win. I'm glad we're far less racist, but I'm troubled when 33% of Republicans and 12% of Democrats are moving so slowly along that line that interracial marriage is problematic for them...it speaks to a long road left for a great many of us to walk, don't you think?