Based on a discussion we had here last week re what to call race if not race (since we do have differences) I'm working on an article about replacing 'colour' words with flavours, since they sound a lot friendlier. Also, they make racist talk sound a lot stupider :)
Based on a discussion we had here last week re what to call race if not race (since we do have differences) I'm working on an article about replacing 'colour' words with flavours, since they sound a lot friendlier. Also, they make racist talk sound a lot stupider :)
Yeah, I'd call race, "the mistaken belief that people can be meaningfully categorised based solely on the colour of their skin." I admit, this doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.
But as I said in our other conversation, that's different from *describing* a person by the colour of his or her skin.
If you were to say, "Steve is the black guy over there," there'd be absolutely nothing wrong with that as far as I'm concerned. But if you said, "Steve is the member of the black race over there," you're saying something very different. And if you said, "Steve is the 'chocolate' guy over there," I'd roll my eyes and probably never take you seriously ever again.ЁЯШЕ Although you're right, that does make racism sound even more stupid.
My article is tongue in cheek but the point is, we can't get away from 'colour' conversations, there's too much baggage still to be dealt with. We're not in a position yet to be 'colour-blind' and maybe we never totally will be; we categorize people, which is not always a bad thing...even 'stereotyping' isn't he worst thing in the world, it's helped us survive an often-hostile world. Friendlier words make race discussions sound less threatening since, as I point out, we all pretty much have positive associations with good tastes - whether it's desserts, potato chips or pizzas. And *no one* wants 'vanilla supremacy' - it's just too boring by itself!
"My article is tongue in cheek but the point is, we can't get away from 'colour' conversations, there's too much baggage still to be dealt with."
Yep, absolutely. Again I'm baffled at how you think I'm saying anything different. It's just that "race" and "colour" seem so synonymous in your mind that you can't see they describe two different things. So when I criticise the long debunked concept of race, you seem to think I'm saying we can't acknowledge that people have different coloured skin.
It would be ridiculous to deny that demographics with different coloured skin have had different life experiences in America and in most of the world. And it's impossible to talk about that without talking about skin colour. All good so far.
But one of the clearest paths to changing the attitudes that lead to these problems is having more people wrap their heads around the fact that just because our skin is a different colour, it doesn't mean we're different types of human being. Just as, as I've said many times, we don't treat people with different colour hair or different colour eyes as if they're different types of human being.
We don't lump all blue-eyed people together as a "race." Most people would consider that ridiculous. But you can still say, "John is that guy with blue eyes." It's equally ridiculous to lump all white-skinned or brown-skinned people together. But you can still say "Nicole is the white woman over there."
In my mind, they've always been interchangeable terms. Maybe you and others have a deeper understanding as to what 'race' is (or is supposed to be). When people said, "Race is a social construct," I thought of race as the colour/other minor differences between all of us and I'd respond, "Race isn't a construct, the values we attach to it is." Because yeah, we choose to attach arbitrary values to certain ways people look, but eye colour isn't one of them, nor is hair colour. So when we talk about 'racism' we're often speaking about discrimination against people with different skin colours; 'antiracism' is fighting bigotry & discrimination against other 'colour' groups. Scientists talk about 'ancestry' and that's a much better description of the concept formerly known as 'race', but then what else do we call it? No one seems to know. Anyway, you got a mention :) https://nicolechardenet.substack.com/p/race-is-a-social-construct-but-color
Based on a discussion we had here last week re what to call race if not race (since we do have differences) I'm working on an article about replacing 'colour' words with flavours, since they sound a lot friendlier. Also, they make racist talk sound a lot stupider :)
Yeah, I'd call race, "the mistaken belief that people can be meaningfully categorised based solely on the colour of their skin." I admit, this doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.
But as I said in our other conversation, that's different from *describing* a person by the colour of his or her skin.
If you were to say, "Steve is the black guy over there," there'd be absolutely nothing wrong with that as far as I'm concerned. But if you said, "Steve is the member of the black race over there," you're saying something very different. And if you said, "Steve is the 'chocolate' guy over there," I'd roll my eyes and probably never take you seriously ever again.ЁЯШЕ Although you're right, that does make racism sound even more stupid.
My article is tongue in cheek but the point is, we can't get away from 'colour' conversations, there's too much baggage still to be dealt with. We're not in a position yet to be 'colour-blind' and maybe we never totally will be; we categorize people, which is not always a bad thing...even 'stereotyping' isn't he worst thing in the world, it's helped us survive an often-hostile world. Friendlier words make race discussions sound less threatening since, as I point out, we all pretty much have positive associations with good tastes - whether it's desserts, potato chips or pizzas. And *no one* wants 'vanilla supremacy' - it's just too boring by itself!
#ChocolateLivesMatter :)
"My article is tongue in cheek but the point is, we can't get away from 'colour' conversations, there's too much baggage still to be dealt with."
Yep, absolutely. Again I'm baffled at how you think I'm saying anything different. It's just that "race" and "colour" seem so synonymous in your mind that you can't see they describe two different things. So when I criticise the long debunked concept of race, you seem to think I'm saying we can't acknowledge that people have different coloured skin.
It would be ridiculous to deny that demographics with different coloured skin have had different life experiences in America and in most of the world. And it's impossible to talk about that without talking about skin colour. All good so far.
But one of the clearest paths to changing the attitudes that lead to these problems is having more people wrap their heads around the fact that just because our skin is a different colour, it doesn't mean we're different types of human being. Just as, as I've said many times, we don't treat people with different colour hair or different colour eyes as if they're different types of human being.
We don't lump all blue-eyed people together as a "race." Most people would consider that ridiculous. But you can still say, "John is that guy with blue eyes." It's equally ridiculous to lump all white-skinned or brown-skinned people together. But you can still say "Nicole is the white woman over there."
In my mind, they've always been interchangeable terms. Maybe you and others have a deeper understanding as to what 'race' is (or is supposed to be). When people said, "Race is a social construct," I thought of race as the colour/other minor differences between all of us and I'd respond, "Race isn't a construct, the values we attach to it is." Because yeah, we choose to attach arbitrary values to certain ways people look, but eye colour isn't one of them, nor is hair colour. So when we talk about 'racism' we're often speaking about discrimination against people with different skin colours; 'antiracism' is fighting bigotry & discrimination against other 'colour' groups. Scientists talk about 'ancestry' and that's a much better description of the concept formerly known as 'race', but then what else do we call it? No one seems to know. Anyway, you got a mention :) https://nicolechardenet.substack.com/p/race-is-a-social-construct-but-color