to be a bit irritated by this racism thing?

[extremepie]

By this I do not mean racism itself (which is, or course, wrong), its people's perceptions of what constitutes 'being racist'.

Unless I'm mistaken, I was under the impression that racism is discriminating against someone on the basis of their race, that is, the colour of their skin.

It has nothing to do with what country you come from or what religion you are, it is about what colour you appear on the outside!

Sorry, it's just been irritating me because it seems that anyone who comments on religion or immigration in a negative way is accused of being racist and they are not! Coming from a particular country does not automatically make someone a certain colour and neither does belonging to a particular religion and it annoys me when people make these assumptions!

Rant over, thank you.

I say this as a white, blue eyed, blonde (very scandinavian looking), south african who suffered a lot of bullying from kids at school because I was from another country, just in case anyone was wondering :D

No, racism isn't 'just' about skin colour. It's long history, now an integrated and institutionalized part of society, makes racism far more complex and way deeper than individuals' beliefs about skin colour and race. In your case OP, it's far more likely xenophobia (or anti-Africanism as Western society seems to enjoy treating Africa as a monolithic backward hole for people to laugh at and/or pity).

You can divide it all up into different types of xenophobia, discussing how one particular group is 'othered' can be very useful. However, it's all just different ways the elite puts up a 'standard' to separates itself from the 'other'. The British v the African/non-native born, in your case OP. We need to focus less on titles and categorizing random individuals' opinions and more on the wider society, media, popular culture, government that continually backs it up and reinforces the 'standard' over other groups if we are going to improve things for everyone.

Racism is not being redefined for some political purpose. Legally, both in the UK and internationally, there is not a distinction made between discrimination based on physical characteristics and cultural ethnic group (which is sometimes nationality). But there is a legal distinction between religious discrimination and racism.

If people want to invent there own ideas about what racism is and debate these ideas, that's fine if you enjoy such stuff, but why do you need another definition than the legal one? What purpose are these other definitions going to serve?

There is no basis whatsoever for a particular 'race' in science. There are no 'pure' races. There is no British race, English race, Jamaican race as such. The white South African person is a perfect example, they are African.

'Race' is a social construct, so its not surprising that its difficult to define racism without including some cultural elements including religion.

Religion is not included in the definition of race. Unless I have missed something. Can somebody please show me an example of religion being used in law as racial discrimination, or explain why you're trying to use a definition other than the legal one?

MillyR -
Religious and Racial Hatred Act 2006 (I think) goes some way to doing this.

But surely that is an example of how they still have a separate meaning? It isn't called the Physical characteristics, nationality, ethnicity and religious hatred act, because the first three are types of racism, so do not need to mentioned individually. Religion is separate from racism, which is why it has to be added.

In addition to which, the Equality act has been updated since 2007, and it still has different rules for religion and race. So how they can be one and the same in UK law?

Phew - OK, maybe there's a very fine line, maybe this is just my reading of intention behind RRHA, but my understanding is that religion's included precisely because what's understood as race can't be summed up as 'physical characteristics... etc.'
I think it's 'ethnicity' that's problematic in this definition - and was also for drafters, hence adding religion (see 19:24 post).
Sorry if this is a red herring - not sure if it helps OP.
Is there in fact a legal definition of race, btw?

The EU says that it doesn't support the idea that there are separate races, so there isn't a definition of race as it doesn't exist. It just defines racial discrimination, which is based on racial (appearance) and ethnic (cultural) origin.

The definitions of racism are many and varied. I teach in a school with a high 'ethnic minority' population (28 languages spoken in the school, some classes are 100% non-native English speakers).

How, dear reader, would you deal with the following incidents (which all occurred last week in a Y4 class) - an Asian kid calling a white kid 'Paki' as a term of abuse, two Asian kids comparing their skin colour to see who was 'best', a kid standing up suddenly during a lesson and shouting 'Allah is great', one kid insulting another by saying 'Your father is poor' (which reduced him to tears).

What about Judaism? I know plenty of people, myself included, who consider themselves Jewish in terms of a race rather than a religion. If people use abusive terms towards me concerning their perceived ideas of physical / mental aspects of my race, what's that defined as? I'm paler than snow and sound totally English.

The Judaism thing is another red herring isn't it. If I said for example that I disapprove of the Jewish practice of circumcision (which I do as a matter of fact) That has nothing whatsoever to do with your race. It's about things that your religion requires you to do.

Consider that I have reasons why I disapprove of all organised religions. If I say that in front of a Jew, a Catholic and a Protestant then in theory the Jewish person could shout "racist!". It would be ridiculous to do so though.

Btw that would be a good reason to have two different words for the two different things.