It is disagreement over the term racism that is part of the problem of discussing Zionism and anti-Zionism.
If we use the term racism to cover related yet distinct aspects of prejudice, discrimination, supremacy, oppression, and repression, then the discussion collapses into meaningless babble.
It is not a silly scholarly exercise. Naming the precise aspects of a problems is the first step toward having a sensible discussion.
I recognize that the most oppressive form of racism in the US manifests itself as White supremacy. But Farrakhan is still a racist and antisemite. He lacks the power to make it a form of oppression.
-Chip Berlet
----- Original Message ----- From: "Carrol Cox" <cbcox at ilstu.edu> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Friday, August 03, 2001 9:27 PM Subject: Re: Anti-Zionism Is Racism
>
>
> Chip Berlet wrote:
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > Racism is an ideology that elevates the social construction of racial
difference
> > to a primary place in human relations. It can be used to rationalize the
> > oppression of certain groups, but can exist in oppressed groups in response
to
> > the oppressors. Racism, as an ideology, is an idea, not an act.
> >
> > Racism + power = racial oppression
> >
>
> I am aware that racism is an idea (or rather a rather large complex of
> ideas, implicit & explicit), but ideas come from some place -- they do
> not drop from the sky. And that someplace is human activity: racism is a
> set of ideas which spontaneously emerge from a set of social relations
> in which a particular group (Blacks primarily in the U.S.) are subject
> to highly visible and continuous oppression -- they make that oppression
> intelligible to those who practice it.
>
> This set of ideas is so different in quality, cause, and operation from
> the responses of an oppressed group to their (real or apparent)
> oppressors that I really think a separate name for it is useful. After
> all the U.S. state and the U.S. Supreme Court have been crushing
> affirmative action (for example) in the name of anti-racism.
>
> The power to which racism attaches itself also comes from someplace.
> Racism and Power are not two platonic abstractions which descend from
> heaven and mate.
>
> Carrol