Talk:Racism

Wiki Education assignment: CMN2160C

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 13 January 2022 and 16 April 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): JiangLyn (article contribs).

Adding "toward" to the opening sentence

I invite Quindraco to discuss their preferred text here rather than edit warring. Thanks, Generalrelative (talk) 04:05, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Who started racism? 174.228.162.251 (talk) 06:05, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 23 Febuary 2023

The Anti-Racism section is completely unsourced, and also implies that in the past, nonviolent antiracism did not exist, which does not seem right. Shouldn't be too hard to rewrite it and port some sources over from the main Anti-Racism article. Explodingcreepsr (talk) 00:09, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

Merge from Racial discrimination

If those topics are different, both of our article do a terribly poor job of explaining the difference in terms. Racism means racial discrimination. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 13:29, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

Racism is discrimination and prejudice against people based on their race or ethnicity. According to Wikipedia. According to Britannica it's by its main definition, the belief that humans may be divided into separate and exclusive biological entities called “races”. It includes discrimination, but I am not sure that it should be identified with one another. Reprarina (talk) 08:31, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

This begs the question whether we should have a separate article on racial prejudice? It redirects here for now. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:04, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

The topics are different. One can be a racist, and think racist thoughts, without having the opportunity to discriminate. I work casually as a teacher. Sillier teenagers can be sometimes heard declaring they hate Asians (or some other group), but don't actually know any, and are not in any position to racially discriminate. HiLo48 (talk) 10:13, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Support, both articles cover the same topic, and the discrimination material would be a prime example of how racism is applied. Plus, the bytes would not be too much. Merge them, dagnaabit! DirtySocks357(WreckItRalph) (talk) 15:31, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Support can't see any significant difference between two that warrants a separate article. The Blue Rider 15:06, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

• Support They are not really different. MapSGV (talk) 16:18, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Support same meaning HudecEmil (talk) 16:43, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

The analogous Gender discrimination redirects to Sexism. HudecEmil (talk) 08:10, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

That's a false equivalency when genderism is a disambiguation page. --MikutoH ^talk! 02:54, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose. They're not the same thing, although one often leads to the other (although not necessarily). And one is not predicated on the other either, e.g. granting scholarships to candidates of a particular race is "racial discrimination", but it is not necessarily "racism" (i.e. does not rest on the belief that different races have different characteristics). Walrasiad (talk) 09:17, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose: Racial discrimination can be a crime in some places, wherein racism covers many aspects a larger concept, in which one is included and as others pointed out. For example, would societal racism or environmental racism be subtypes of racial discrimination? I suppose not!--MikutoH ^talk! 02:59, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Discussion

Racism

One of the mistakes I frequently see from sources informed by racists who write on the topic is imbuing a false perception that racism is rooted in malevolent attitudes. I believe this arises in environments where racism is tacitly accepted in reality yet almost undeniably regarded as unethical in word. Inevitably some people must be raised to hold applicable beliefs otherwise it would not be a topic of interest, and they are simultaneously informed that racism is wrong, so they come to infer racism as only encompassing aspects of dealing with racial constructs that they disagree with.

Racism can arise in malevolent environments but does not necessarily originate in malevolence. It may be employed as a coping device to rationalize exploitation while still contending that one is of a benevolent mindset. This benevolent condescension is considered archaic yet notoriously prominent in certain areas of the United States. Often enough they will express themselves as though they are in fervent opposition to racism, while in reality they exhibit the very reasons that such an approach to one's community is viewed negatively in their culture.

It is appropriate to include at least one reference to an inferiority/superiority complex.

In other areas which in the United States are certainly becoming less contiguous, racism is embodied by a desire for segregation, often oriented about cultural preservation. I believe this is originally rooted in upbringing where people who happen to look different from one another reliably reinforce a stereotypical mindset, as however slightly they may also behave differently from one another with enough frequency that there isn't a natural intuition to fully acknowledge the possibility of overlap and individuality.

People sympathetic to segregation often introduce their racism in the form of light hearted jokes. It may take some local understanding to distinguish actual racism from dark humor that acknowledges the experience.

Racism is a rationalization generally considered to be based upon social construct, as opposed to inquiry, characterized by assuming common attributes of ancestry on account of superficial indicators of genetics. Racists are otherwise normal people that would disagree with one another. It may be viewed as positive, neutral, or negative, and is generally composed of two components. Firstly, one adopts a worldview in which races are broadly determinable (belief in races), and secondly that one must then make determinations as to how races compare in some respect.

Racial Discrimination

As distinguished from conveying concern for belief or a superiority/inferiority complex, the aspect of differential treatment on the basis of race is referred to with specificity by the term "racial discrimination". — Preceding unsigned comment added by StuckMuck (talk • contribs) 23:38, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

It states racism is a modern concept arising from the European coloial era

This is a wrong statement as racism has existed in various forms throughout millenias like the discrimination towards dravidians in India or the racism between tribes in Africa, this should be changed in the article 2403:A080:803:FA5D:EDC1:797A:5BD0:FBDB (talk) 16:00, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Actually, it says "Racism is frequently described...." which is sourced. Now is this description correct? I don't know. Much of discrimination towards Dravidians and among African tribes appears to be, at least partially, due to European colonialism. Colonialism brought the concept to the wider world. If sources can be found to predate this period; that might be useful. O3000, Ret. (talk) 16:23, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

From the simple sociological perspective, racism is just a specific form of xenophobia, and this has been common to all humans everywhere since out species evolved, and has only been slowly receding due to moral progress... _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 00:58, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

No, absolutely not. Racism is about "race" - ostensibly immutable and inheritable phenotypes, a belief that different races exist, and have different characteristics. It is a rather recent invention, a largely European 19th C. invention (although copied by others since). "Xenophobia" is about animosity towards foreigners - be they one town over or one country over, and has been around for eons. A foreign nationality is not a "race". It is extremely common to resent foreigners of the same race, and even of the same ethnicity. Walrasiad (talk)

No. Please re-read what xenophobia is about. It is not only phobia of foreigners, but of strangers (aliens, "the other", etc.). As such, racism is just one of the forms of xenophobia (fear/dislike/etc. of those who have a different 'race'). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:57, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

...except that that's not a sufficient definition of racism. As our article says: Garner (2009: p. 11) summarizes different existing definitions of racism and identifies three common elements contained in those definitions of racism. First, a historical, hierarchical power relationship between groups; second, a set of ideas (an ideology) about racial differences; and, third, discriminatory actions (practices). It's not just "people dislikng people of other 'races'". This is why we get endless complaints over at the talk page for reverse racism; seeing "racism" as just "disliking people of other races" opens the door to the possibility of "reverse racism", or anti-white racism, which completely ignores the systemic hierarchies and power imbalances in our system that allow racism to exist, and which only go in one direction. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 19:00, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

"ostensibly immutable and inheritable phenotypes" How can phenotypes be immutable if mutations in genes are relatively common? Dimadick (talk) 09:58, 18 May 2024 (UTC)