CB: >It is important to confine the use of the term "racism" to white prejudice, because structurally/institutionally there is white supremacy. Black's are _prejudice_ , not racist, toward whites. It is important to retain this qualitative distinction. Racism is prejudice + power.
>Black prejudice against whites is not just personal. It is structural
too, but it is in response to structural white racism. <
I generally agree, but I think that agreeing with conservatives, liberals, moderates, etc. that some Blacks are "racist" toward whites can open the way to saying the the power thing (institutional racism) is what's important. Arguing about the meaning of terms is one of the more useless activities that people get into. (Not actively harmful, but useless.)
I think it's reasonable to say that "personal racism isn't the real problem, it's institutional racism..."
In addition, there are such embarrassing phenomena as Black against Black prejudice, often because the latter have darker skins. Of course, that's a result of _structural_ White-on-Black racism....
Me:>> This is one reason why we have to be careful with language. To liberals, only psychological/linguistic (i.e., individidual) racism exists, so that it's a problem sprinkled somewhat randomly all over society. To me, attitudes that seem very similar in isolation (in the abstract) have completely different meanings when put in societal context. Black "racism" against Whites is a (perhaps self-defeating) part of self-defense, while White Racism againt Blacks is part of an effort to defend structures that give them privilege.
>>To conservatives, affirmative action for Blacks is an example racism
against Whites. To me, AA is way to undermine institutional racism.
>>Why do I capitalize "Whites"? because of the grammatic principle of
parallelism. Why don't other people do so? <<
CB;> I think it has to do with Black nationalism not being inherently reactionary, but "White" nationalism is inherently reactionary. The political principle is over the grammatical parallelism. <
the political point is murky.
-- Jim Devine / "There can be no real individual freedom in the presence of economic insecurity." -- Chester Bowles
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