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Saying white people food tastes plain isn't the same as calling the cops on a black teen (discuss.online)
submitted 3 months ago by to c/politicalmemes@lemmy.world
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[+] -17 points 3 months ago (11 children)

You people throw the word "majority" around a lot. I'm whiter than you are and I can acknowledge that there's a dimension of subtext in the word racism related to power structures. "Me and my drinking buddies" does not constitute a majority.

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  • [–] 19 points 3 months ago (6 children)

    If you’re trying to talk to people don’t define the word to inherently include systemic power structures, then you’re never going to get anywhere by refusing to use language in a way that they understand. There’s no harm in specifying “systemic racism“ if the people you’re talking don’t include “systemic“ in their idiolectic baseline definition of racism. But just telling a person they can’t experience racism when their definition of “racism“ is simply analogous to prejudice will only make them defensive and hostile

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  • [+] -24 points 3 months ago (5 children)

    And why exactly is it my responsibility to adapt to their idiolectic preferences? They understand the concept, or they wouldn't get so damn angry about it.

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  • [–] 16 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 child)

    They don’t understand the concept. And using language in a way they don’t understand doesn’t help.

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  • [+] -15 points 3 months ago

    They absolutely understand the concept and it's ignorant to treat them like children that don't understand.

    What say the great grumbling masses? Any of you not understand what I mean when I use the word that way? Or does this guy who thinks you're too dumb to understand have a point?

    What they're annoyed by is the feeling that they got rug-pulled by the fact that the specific meaning of the word is different to different people. Always has been, we just didn't need to address it when we were discussing the more obvious gross misconduct of yesterday; it was close enough both ways. And now it's not.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago (2 children)

    Because you're the one trying to convince someone you're correct. If you can't even properly use the words defining the concept you're discussing, why would they listen to you?

    There's already a term for what you're describing, systemic racism, that will communicate your point in a way that doesn't end with you arguing semantics and not getting anywhere in the actual conversation. Redefining terms to mean something the other person doesn't agree with just turns your debate about a concept into a meta debate about what words mean.

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