@ericrugiero I only read your first post and then skipped reading what looks like a monster flame war. But with respect to disagreement about racism, I have had the following thoughts over the past couple of years as I live and grew up in fairly conservative communities, but recently have spent more time with liberals/progressives.
I think we need clearer language to describe racism and sexism. The absence of such language leads to confusion and resentment, and unnecessarily divides us.
The
conservative understanding of racism and sexism seems to mean: deliberate bias with malice intended. It excludes unconscious bias and does not take into account the power relationship between groups. For instance, a woman who thinks men are stupid would be sexist. A black person who forwards mocking memes about white people would be a racist. This is the only definition I used to know and I think it is the older definition.
The
progressive understanding of racism and sexism seems to mean:
Bias from the dominant group, whether conscious or unconscious. It includes passive bias. For example, if you are not as outraged by brutal persecution of brown people as you would be if your own family was in danger of this treatment, then you are not seeing people of color as part of your humanity, and therefore are being racist. If you support a candidate who promotes discrimination against women in the workplace, not because of his sexism, but because you like his foreign policy, you're also being sexist even if you don't personally like the discrimination. It means that you're okay enough with discrimination against a group to allow or even help it to continue.
This definition
excludes bias against members of the dominant group, or even inter-minority bias. It's a functional definition.
We are currently divided by the failure of conservatives to acknowledge the economic/life endangering damage caused by unconscious racism/sexism, and the failure of progressives to acknowledge the emotional hurt caused by bias against members of dominant groups. Because of these failures,
- Conservatives are upset to be called racist or sexist when they don't have a conscious intent to be. They also feel that it's unfair to have one-sided definition... why is it fair game to make fun of or resent white people or men, or indeed white men? Liberals are making a mistake by failing to acknowledge the natural pain and anger this causes.
- Progressives are upset that conservatives are not recognizing the role that passive and institutional racism have played in causing unjust imprisonment, premature death, and impoverishment of generations of people of color. Conservatives are making a mistake (and causing real harm) by failing to acknowledge that how an unconscious bias can still lead to job discrimination, an unjustified arrest, a shooting, or an unprosecuted rape is
not equivalent in magnitude to the harm caused by bias against the majority by minorities, women, or lgbtq people.
Perhaps if we were to use different terms for these two types of racism/sexism (something like the distinction between murder and manslaughter), that would discourage the casual street bias which is hurtful whichever way it points, and remove distractions from the very serious task of abolishing institutional racism/sexism from our society.