What is wrong with racism?

1. 59

   Jesus was a hippyposted 12 years ago

   What is wrong with racism?
   
   According to a dictionary, racism is defined as;
   
   1.The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.
   
   2. discrimination or prejudice based on race.
   
   Ok I can see the problem with number 2, but what is wrong with number 1? After all, it is a fact that different races are different. Otherwise they wouldnt be a different race would they?

   replyreport
2. 60

   MickSposted 12 years ago

   If you embrace racism, you don't pick and choose the defintions that you like but the ones that have become the norm. That definition 2 is unsavoury in the extreme should be enough to answer the question; everything is wrong with racism.  We've been sorting  out my study area out so I don't have my Oxford to hand, so I can't check definition; however, dictionary  definitions are just what other people have defined for the meaning of a word.
   To determine that race is the reason for human character and abilities is offensive in itself, it is stereotyping human types and is akin, say, to saying that some one behaves in a certain way because of racial background.

   replyreport
3. 82

   Attikosposted 12 years ago

   Boiled down, racism is the belief that one race is congenitally superior to others, where racial discrimination is the practice of treating people differently due to race. People, including the editors of dictionaries, have a bad habit of confusing the two, or in the case of said editors of caving in to muddy popular perceptions.
   
   The question, then, is two rolled into one. Perhaps it would be better to ask, "What is wrong with racism, and what with racial discrimination?"

   replyreport
4. 0

   icountthetimesposted 12 years ago

   We're all a mixture anyway. People view things in terms of black and white, but we've all got various percentages of our makeup from different areas of the world. Realistcially a great many people see Obama as being black for instance when he's clearly half white, hence as white as he is black. Basing everything on appearance doesn't really give the full picture. Is race color, culture, geographical. Do we even need to decide?

   replyreport
5. 82

   Catherine Kaneposted 11 years ago

   one major point here is that it's not true. While people can be superior because of a number of different things, race doesn't make any one better in character or ability, and the assumption that there's truth in that concept is part of what creates the behavior in definition 2
   
   While there may be trends in cultures, there aren't automatic abilities that go with race (with the possible exception of one's skin's ability to deal with sun)

   replyreport