first, chaz, the excerpt i forwarded is a critique of iris marion young's work. she's trying to rework habermas's theory of justice. i think both you and wojtek have seriously misunderstood habermas's argument but i'll get to that elsewhere.
Henry C.K. Liu wrote:
>There is a social distinction between prejudice and discrimination.
Prejudice is an attitude, discrimination is a categorical act.
>Everyone is entitled to his/her prejudice. It is a peronal morality
problem. But discrimination is overt oppression.
it's not really a social distinction but rather a conceptual one. henry, i would suggest that you take the time to read the entirety of my post because i'm afraid you're missing out on the chance to pick up some new conceptual tools with which you might do battle against an aspect of racial oppression that you experience on these lists and elsewhere. your own argument seems to undermine your attempts to charge everyone with racism on this list.
the prejudice/discrimination distinction is an old one in the sociological literature and these turn out to be rather inelegant concepts for capturing a rather complex process, since discrimination doesn't get off the ground without prejudice. acts just don't occur in the absence of an interpretive framework for understanding the world around you and what you believe your acts mean. there is, of course, the much researched puzzle that manifests itself in the following questions which i'll concretize:
1. how is that my chinese friends think americans are barbaric (their words) for eating whole wheat bread and tossed salads (raw vegetables) and for public displays of affection between men and women and yet their judgment has very little bearing on anything that happens in my life or in the lives of others like me?
2. how is it that someone can hold prejudiced beliefs, say that chinese men are overly aggressive [i understand your concerns henry a good friend of mine must deal with this issue all the time--being dismissed as a too easily angered chinese man], and yet not necessarily act in discriminatory ways e.g., failing to hire and promote him?
3. how can we understand what you call prejudice as something that does do harm? i would think that you'd be concerned about this because these are precisely the claims you make: that you are harmed by beliefs expressed on this listserv even though they may never result in actions which harm you or other men like you in terms of material conditions or your life chances, etc. in other words, it's not just white USers problem that they hold prejudices; it's also your problem as a man of chinese descent.
young's work is an attempt to delineate the way in which race oppression or class oppression works by examining what she refers to as "the five faces of oppression" these sort of framework for understanding racial oppression might help explain to folks how they are part of the problem (if they in fact are) without necessarily being racists in the sense that they purposefully set out to harm people through their actions, etc.
kelley
“touch yourself and you will know that i exist.” ~luce irigaray