May 11, 2018 03:05 PM
https://evolvingthoughts.net/2017/08/31/...on-racism/
EXCERPT: For many years, I have been very hesitant to speak about race. I’m white (a stupid social construction in itself), male and middle class. Every time I make a comment, in come the critics, attacking me on everything from my own group identity (which, by the way, I do not adopt; being on the spectrum, I never saw people as anything but either nice to me or nasty to me. I’m not colour blind, of course, but usually I was fascinated by my aboriginal, Japanese, and subcontinental schoolfriends, not prejudiced, despite my context and upbringing) to my intentions and personality flaws (there are lots).
I was taken to task recently for defending New Zealand, which is not my own country, as being generally less racist than other countries (especially my own, which puts foreigners in indefinite and inhumane detention for being refugees, and then refuses them medical and psychological treatment, or, if it does, takes away their right to any kind of support). I was accused of privilege (which I do have) and told that saying some place or society is less racist is itself racist. I’m not going to defend myself here, but it raised a few questions in my mind.
One was why it is wrong, on the purity account, to suggest a society is comparatively less racist than others. So long as there is some racism, that society is racist, I agree. But if we cannot compare outcomes, every society is equivalent to a genocidal racist nation. And that seems to me to defeat the purpose of opposing racism. If no progress is ever worth noting, it seems to me most members of a culture or class or nation will end up too weary to fight, since they will be told not that they have worked for equality and justice, but that they haven’t, and never will, worked hard enough....
MORE: https://evolvingthoughts.net/2017/08/31/...on-racism/
EXCERPT: For many years, I have been very hesitant to speak about race. I’m white (a stupid social construction in itself), male and middle class. Every time I make a comment, in come the critics, attacking me on everything from my own group identity (which, by the way, I do not adopt; being on the spectrum, I never saw people as anything but either nice to me or nasty to me. I’m not colour blind, of course, but usually I was fascinated by my aboriginal, Japanese, and subcontinental schoolfriends, not prejudiced, despite my context and upbringing) to my intentions and personality flaws (there are lots).
I was taken to task recently for defending New Zealand, which is not my own country, as being generally less racist than other countries (especially my own, which puts foreigners in indefinite and inhumane detention for being refugees, and then refuses them medical and psychological treatment, or, if it does, takes away their right to any kind of support). I was accused of privilege (which I do have) and told that saying some place or society is less racist is itself racist. I’m not going to defend myself here, but it raised a few questions in my mind.
One was why it is wrong, on the purity account, to suggest a society is comparatively less racist than others. So long as there is some racism, that society is racist, I agree. But if we cannot compare outcomes, every society is equivalent to a genocidal racist nation. And that seems to me to defeat the purpose of opposing racism. If no progress is ever worth noting, it seems to me most members of a culture or class or nation will end up too weary to fight, since they will be told not that they have worked for equality and justice, but that they haven’t, and never will, worked hard enough....
MORE: https://evolvingthoughts.net/2017/08/31/...on-racism/
