Is the definition of racism obsolete or do we need to select a new word to define culture based abuse?

[Chandra]

I have posted this thread under philosophy to distance it a bit from the highly heated Big Brother's threads. But, since seeing the outrage caused by Jade's comments, I have started to wonder if the term racism is obsolete, and we are therefore in need to create a new term to define cultural background based abuse.

As an expat in several countries I have been in the receiving end of Jade-like comments -I have had the f* off home thing and my name being reconstructed in a pejorative way. I have had nasty comments about "looking different" or about my "country" of origin, which, most of the times, people get wrong or know little about-.

Those comments would not be racist per se, because they are based in my (or my supposed) cultural origin rather than in race itself. But with current world population mobility, race boundaries are blurred and, as a result, race and culture are now, more than ever, separate entities. But the abuse is the same.

The word race doesn't include culture as it did before, and abuse can't be literally called racist, even when the forms in which it presents itself are virtually the same.

We call it ignorance but, although not all ignorants are racist, many racists are ignorant, but is it ignorance a good excuse??? If you crash a car because you you don't know how to drive before could you claim not being responsible for not knowing how to drive? No, but as long as you don't refer specifically to race you can get away with lots of cultural abuse.

Because, even if the term "culturalism" were used to define a pejorative attitude towards a particular culture, it would take ages to be considered as negatively charged as the term racism... Should we go back to the origins and accept the word "racism" also covers cultural background based abuse?

OK, I have written an essay about this and I would be very surprised if somebody managed to read all this, but if you did, I would be interested in hearing your comments

[tribpot]

I know what you mean. I don't watch BB but it's been rather hard to avoid hearing some of the comments that have been made and I think the abusers would probably have ganged up on anyone who was (a) beautiful (b) talented and (c) 'different' in some way (as if a and b don't distinguish her enough from the others). So even if Shilpa Shetty were white and from another country, they would probably still have made stupid ignorant comments and told her to "go back to where she belongs" or whatever.

Perhaps 'Jadeism' is the appropriate term

[Chandra]

Yes, bacause even classism is off now, although before it was not the "right thing to do"

However, discrimination in terms of power is not always from powerful to powerless, and definitively there's no such thing about one being better than other regardless of what some people think, but it always come both ways. BEcause the things that you respect about your own culture and would like the other one to have, are, sometimes, precisely the same ones in which the other part thinks you are wrong: For instance, women dress... many European cultures find themselves shocked at how covered women of other cultures are, while those same women may be shocked about the others wearing so little coverage

[Chandra]

Jadeism... wonder if that's the word I was looking for.

Guess that between all the things caused by Jade's comments, the full thing has had the positive effect of pointing out that those sort of comments are politically incorrect.

[Socci]

Message withdrawn

[Socci]

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[UCM]

The whole statement can be applied to any insult thought really can't it? Not just race.

Chandra I posted on that other thread after reading this as I wanted to know what insult 'really' would hurt people. I know that if someone insulted my race, I wouldn't be hurt as I am what I am and can't change that, but would be really hurt if it was something that I could do something about IYKWIM ie, you fat cow or you don't speak with a posh accent therefore you are inferior. So was interested to know what constitutes insulting to people.

If someone insults you on the base of your race, does it hurt your feelings as much is what I am trying to say I think.

[suzycreamcheese]

its just pure ignorance isn't it?

havent seen cbb etc...but going on what i've heard it would appear to be bullying ignorance

[Booboobedoo]

UCM: things that 'hurt' tend to be things that hit our self-esteem, don't they? So if you've never been persecuted because of your race, your racial self-esteem will probably be pretty robust. Not so someone from an ethnic minority, I'd guess.

I'd be more hurt by the fat comment too, but that's because my ego is more tender on that point.

[UCM]

Very true.

[foxabout2pop]

I'd be hurt either way TBH. I have been experienced comments about my hair colour (red), being of Irish origin, mysogynistic (sp?)remarks and being PG at work. The ones which made me feel most angry and hurt were the first two because I felt so disempowered. I feel there is legislation to support me on the last two, but its still OK to make derogatory remarks about the first two.

Interestingly its only the English who make the first two, due to the history of racism against celts (which red heads are - usually - hence the prejudice towards "people of freckles").

Socci - I totally agree - being thick is no excuse for being racist. A lot of people will claim ignorance when in fact they are just being disengenuous - thinking they can get away with it if they plead ignorance or say "I was just speaking plainly" etc.

Chandra - in answer to your question (and I'd be very interested to read your essay) I agree that the term racist has in some ways been usurped by other terms such as "religious hatred", "hate crimes" as its now recognised that predudice has many faces and someone who is gay, for example, may be a victim of harassment as much as a person of colour or a Jewish person etc.

But race legislation has led the way in terms of legislation being developed for other minorities.

[DominiConnor]

I see the whole "-ist" thing as a mindset of the bully, not something we can easily measure, and thus attempt to ban.

Recall how a few years back English football fans stabbed a German after they'd lost a match against Germany. Except he was Russian, who it can be safe to assume didn't like being called German...

But I have a problem with thought crimes. You don't know what someone is thinking, just what they are doing.

I don't see how it is "better" to stab someone because of the colour of their football shirt, than their skin.

What we get instead is "protection" for groups that acquire political clout, or who are adopted by politicians.

Jade Goody was given a bad time in her first BB for being fat ugly and stupid, because well she is all those things.

Having worked in the media it would shock me if the Indian lady who got some grief from Jade hadn't bullied under similar circumstances. You reckon she is nice to her underlings, or that as a star she doesn't have "difficult" people removed from her presence ?

But the politics are that this is "acceptable".
If they had said the same things about an American celeb, it would have been "good clean fun".

I see all this as part of a nasty trend.
Politically powerful groups can declare any behaviour as "offensive", and thus get away with quite terrible behaviour themselves.

[monkeymonkeymoomoo]

I totally agree that it seems acceptable to bully certain groups of people and it is this that needs tackling. Without wishing to drag up the CBB arguements on this thread an example is of a particular celebrity last year on the same programme who was bullied because she is perceived to be promiscuous. Yet this seemed to be ok?

A term to cover all forms of 'isms' seems a good idea, lets just call it bullying.

[Monkeytrousers]

Hi Chandra, I've quoted a different quote from Memmi before ut they are more or less saying the same thing:

"Differences can exist or not exist. Differences are not in themselves good or bad. One is not racist or anti-racist in pointing out or denying differences, but one is racist in using them against someone to one's own advantage."

Albert Memmi

My seminar at LSE this week is actually about this subject. Examining if racism is a specifc evolutionary adaptation or a by product of the cognative machinery that evolved to detect coalitional alliances.

Personally I?ve wondered if it's possible for someone to be guilty of 'yellow card' racism - where offence is not meant but blundered into by ignorance. If however the offence is repeated, and again and again, ignorance is definitely no excuse.

[Monkeytrousers]

And yes, I think 'cultural' should be included

[Chandra]

Thanks for your replies

Socci, I attended a training at work about Equality and Diversity, and it really shocked me how difficult people found it to separate between what were examples of racist incidents and those who were not. Other thing that I found striking was that people find it easier to define an act as racist when the offense is perpetrated on their own race, while the same incident perpetrated against another race was often classed as non racist.

UCM. At the first look at your post my first reaction was to think "What???" but there's an element of truth in it. It made me remember the first racist comment someone directed at me... I just thought that woman was an idiot and I replied with a comment as offensive at hers. It was annoying but didn't hurt.
After 2-3 years of pretty regular racist comments they hurt and angered me deeply. Now it doesn't hurt as much as it did but everytime I get a stupid comment, I just strike back, never with a racist comment but with something as nasty and hurtful as what I was told. Most of the times I regret it later, especially with the ignorant ones, but guess I have a raw nerve about this. Which I guess confirms what Booboobedoo has said.

Foxabout2pop, the essay was the OP , something that I find fascinating about white people who have not travelled much is the assumption that racism can only be from white to dark, from a powerful culture to a powerless one, etc. Failing to realise that those cultures may harbour an equally strong racism against them. But again, I guess I didn't realise about this until I suffered it on my own skin. Now, when I go back to my country, the politically incorrect jokes and ignorant comments that I didn't notice before now irritate me deeply.

Monkeymonkeymoomoo, I think the groups who may be considered as major targets of discrimination have fight enough for their rights to be respected to be recognised. Unfortunately there are many small groups of people whose problem with discrimination has not been widely identified or accepted, as a consequence they tend to suffer more at the hands of ignorance. I guess that if Shilpa had not been an indian but perhaps someone from a small almost unknown country the outrage may not have been as loud as it was, but with the Indian and Pakistani communities being highly represented, and the history of their interaction with the British Culture, there is a wider group of people able to draw the line between what is general bullying and racism.

[Chandra]

Hi Monkeytrousers!

I think that's a very good phrase but it leaves open the question of what is understood by the term "advantage".

Lets suppose that someone is watching TV at home and while hearing the news, he utters a highly race derogatory comment. No one heard and he is not to gain anything from it, is the comment still racist?

Also wonder about the "yellow card abuse", could it be considered as the growing pains and part of the learning process of a comunity who is learning not to be racist?

about being part of such Seminar, guess I would try to find more about Memmi to make up for it

[foxabout2pop]

Chandra - I was interested in the last point of your post of 23.54 to monkey. I wonder if there would have been such outrage had Shilpa come from Kazakstan?

[Chandra]

It is my guess it wouldn't, although I supose that the nature of Jade's comments and their effects on the offended party would be the same, there would be less people prepared to be simpathetic or to complain about the subject.

[Monkeytrousers]

We aren't doing Memmi in the seminar as it isn't from an evolutionary perspective. This is one of the essays we'll be looking at on Wed erase race?

[Chandra]

Thank you for that link Monkeytrousers

[DominiConnor]

I don't see how you can erase "race", and as the articel seems to imply you can pick up on affiliation on small cues. I assume that is the way we evolved, and you ain't gonna change that with slogans.

It is the nature of people to pick on "others".

Japan is about the lest ethnically diverse place on the planet, yet bullying is pretty much integral to the culture.
Closer to home, the Northern Irish managed to murder each other for a long time over differences that are hard to understand, let alone spot, even if like myself you evolved from them.

At one point in the Middle Ages England even managed anti-semitism when there were pretty much no Jews to be found.

Where I grew up there were basically no obvious "others", so they were invented along the lines of which street you lived in, what you wore, and of course your choice of football team.

[foxabout2pop]

I totally agree Domini - people will create differences even when there are no obvious ones - because for some reason humans love the whole tribal "us and them" concept and use it as an excuse to fight each other. Children in school will often single out the kid with glasses, red hair, etc to bully them. Its a distasteful part of human nature probably dating back from when we lived in caves.

[Chandra]

or probably before we evolved into humans