to think that it is racist

[ConferencePear]

of the Labour party to charge different entry fees for different ethnic groups ?
I find this quite difficult to believe and wonder why it is not in the national newspapers.

www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/leicester-news/tories-accuse-labour-racism-over-1096236

thecat
Do any of your dictionaries define racism as prejudice + power?

I'd add to what bewilderness and rufus said by asking everyone to just stop a minute and remember the last time you tried to organise something by committee. You need to effect action A and you have to put in place some sort of measure, or measures that will do this.

You may know that the action you've decided on lacks nuance, is a blunt instrument, but sometimes your desire to effect A, quickly, means that you go for the blunt, but fairly effective, compromise action. You may decide that it is provisional, and that you will review it to see how it's going, or if you need to/are able to fine-tune it later.

But you want to effect A as soon as possible because you care about getting A done.

Initially I didn't believe it because the first dated news reports were from breitbart and the BNP, followed by the daily mail. But this is from the East Midlands Labour Party page - these are indeed the prices.

So if I'm wealthy Keith Vaz, I get to pay less than working class Mrs Jones who has voted labour all her life?

Nice move, St Jezza.

Although the truly bizarre thing is why they charge in the first place. Who on earth pays to go and hear politicians of any colour (I mean red/blue etc, not race!) spouting their shitty lies and fantasies?!

So can a white person be the victim of racism in other countries then? Or is this new "definition" of racism designed so that they can never be?

I'd have said Mugabe had a good go at being racist.

(Almost as good as his predecessors, ironically!)

@MrsTerryPratchet of course reverse racism exists. You understand that historically speaking (the Ottoman Empire) and worldwide modern day (South Africa) white people were and are ofcourse oppressed on a systemic scale. So my question is how long does this last for? Are you saying that 500/600 years into the future that white people still won’t experience racism by your definition. And what exactly is your definition of prejudice with power? As my definition would certainly include a major political party charging more for white people & would certainly include white people being turned away for jobs because they’re white. So my question to you is for how long are you not going to recognise it is possible for a white person to experience racism?
Can you really keep punishing someone for something that they had no involvement in, no power themselves, because they weren’t even born yet? & how is that any better than the historical oppression experienced by ethnic minorities in this country?

It is unacceptable to make assumptions that you should pay less (or more)depending on the colour of your skin. It insults people who are not white.

I think it's based on the individual's choice whether to join BAME Labour, Rose:

www.bamelabour.org.uk/join_bame_labour_online

So presumably you could be a POC and not a BAME member and you'd still have to pay the full price. It's doubtless aimed at trying to get more people to join rather than to make a comment about income and race.

But it's still utterly tone deaf IMO.

MrsTerryPratchett

We have danced this dance (briefly) before. The definition of racism as 'prejudice plus power' is a deliberate misinterpretation of some complex social theories. Its a stipulative definition which is used in some contexts in order to simplify complex arguments, it is certainly not intended to be the only correct definition of the word and to replace all others. Using it in this way is mostly done by activists to excuse racism and in some cases actual hate speech by derailing arguments. Because of course criticising someone for being white 'isn't racism' because you know... reasons.

Please don't go down the whole Zarna Joshi road with this one, its absolute bollocks.

I'd be interested to see what other words you disagree with the definition of from the dictionary, or is it just racism?

I think labour supporters should read Animal Farm again

Didn't that guy write more than just Animal Farm and 1984?

in order to simplify complex arguments

Yes but sometimes on the internet, you have to cut to the chase. Do you need to bring up the history of slavery and colonialism every single time?

WTF? What a baffling mess of a policy, and how does it square against labour's ongoing, and shameful, history of anti-semitism.

Still, nice to know that Jewish people will be able to pay a reduced membership fee in order to be abused by other party members. Perhaps labour should focus on rooting out their antisemitic factions before messing around with variable fees.

Makeourfuture

It's a definition given in some circumstances and is used to simplify complex arguments that are about specific types of racism, such as group privilege and institutional racism. It's purely stipulative and contextual and does not supercede all other definitions.

Racism at its most basic level is making a pejorative judgement about someone, or treating them less favourably based on their race or ethnicity.

I don't like playing the 'logical fallacy' game, but when the usual suspects on here try to redefine the use of important words like racism and sexism for their own social justice ends, they are giving a persuasive definition and commiting the definist fallacy.

Effectively it's a disingenuous attempt to avoid a point being made against you by 'defining yourself out of the question'.

i.e Labours policy in this instance cannot be racist because you can't be racist against white people.

Its not racist. But it is really insulting and demeaning to any non white person!

Anyway surely a white person can say they identify as non white? Or is labour not recognising all self ID?

The equalities watchdog got involved and they are not continuing it anymore.

Labour should have a think about why they thought racially
discriminatory policies were ok in the first place.

And anyone who was previously arguing the technicality is rather close to "I'm not racist but...".

YABU to expect Labour to do anything fair and equal.