To think racism is should not be excused based on intent?

[soph7777]

My DH honestly thinks that the basis for assessing racism is purely ones intent as opposed to what they actually said or their actions. And if they didn't intend to be racist then they should be let off the hook.

This concerns me deeply. If this was everyone's attitude, that means we could all go around saying whatever we like about whoever we like and never take responsibility for our actions. It just doesn't make sense to me.

I guess we can apply the same principle to sexism etc but I mention race purely because we we having a conversation about race that lead to this debate.

What do people think? He has me doubting myself thinking I am going mental.

Legally, it's not the intent but the effect, and I tend to agree with that for both racism and sexism

Other than harassment for which the conduct can have the purpose OR effect, I don’t think this is correct for most forms of race discrimination is it?

In theory you are both right. While intent matters , and someone using a word they don't know it's racist doesn't necessarily mean they are racist, you are also right that they should be told that it is. If they react negatively then you can make further judgement, but a lot of people would be mortified. Depending in the situation it can actually be quite mean not to point it out and let that person get in serious trouble in a different situation.

Due to how the world and society works, your husband's theory is slightly more "wrong" because a lot if racist people will hide behind "I didn't know", "it's just a joke/banter" or "my grandma used to say it and she's the nicest person ever".

I have to put my hands up and admit I used the p word when I first moved here. A lot of people around me used it and to me it was just a shortening of a longer word like "brit" is. Took me a while to understand and find out the history and the connotations of the word. Haven't used it since.

I thought ‘nitty gritty’ meant the basics of a situation - ‘getting down the the nitty gritty’ - I have never heard of it being racist or racist in origin. A quick search of the Cambridge dictionary backs this up, and the entry makes no mention of any racist connotations.

Elon Musk eon his libel case. Apparently him calling someone a "pedo guy" doesn't mean that he really thinks that person is a paedophile.

I think that you need to be let off if you really didn't know that you were using racist terminology but the person who uses the terminology owes an apology and promise not to repeat said term

I find it extraordinary that calling someone referring to another as pedo guy is not libel. Really extraordinary.

I've also seen the suggestion that 'rule of thumb' is sexist because of its origins. I believe words can move away from their origins and stop being offensive.

Thats usually called 'gaslighting'

Narcissists don't like being challenged, and they don't like to admit they were wrong, or apologise. Do any of these red flags ring a bell?

It’s not gaslighting every time people have a debate and one person is made to question their original opinion because someone else’s is different ffs! A few people on here have said the DH might have a point.

I sort of get what he’s saying. It’s like calling a Chinese takeaway a chinky. There’s is no racist intent to me saying it, it’s merely an abbreviation the same way I would say “Scot” instead of Scottish person.

Quite a few of my friends have reclaimed the word “paki” for this reason and openly refer to themselves as one when speaking of their heritage. I would never use it though it would make me feel uncomfortable.

I think there's a difference between someone using a word that they don't fully understand the connotations to, and being mortified when they're corrected, and someone who repeatedly uses language that they've been told - or should realistically know - is inappropriate, and refusing to change.

I wouldn't necessarily say the first person has intent to be offensive (racist, sexist whatever), but the second person, yeah, they're racist / sexist, because they know they're using offensive terminology, and at best they just don't care, at worse they secretly have intent and are just making excuses.

So who decides whether someone has been racist?
I say the word "XZYZXY" with no intent about anything. You decide it is a racist word and I am therefore judged to be a racist - and punished accordingly.

@Jimdandy no body should be using that word to refer to Chinese restaurants. If you have used it before unknowingly then ok but now you know it is offence so you shouldn’t do it again.

If you would contribute to use it even though you have been informed it is offence then I would say that your actions are racist.

Has anyone told the makers of nitty gritty combs, as advertised in Mumsnet, that it's a racial slur?

As far as I can find out that meaning was invented for use in a Bristol Council training course in 2005, as an example of a phrase with a perfectly innocent meaning being given a different one by people who wanted to be nasty, not as a suggestion that it actually had anything to do with race. And even Urban Dictionary doesn't seem to think it has anything to do with slavery, to my surprise.

OP, would your DH object to being called a honky, or Whitey? If he would, maybe suggest to him that neither is actually offensive except in the way it is used?

I've also seen the suggestion that 'rule of thumb' is sexist because of its origins.

If you are referring to idea of a mythical law that allowed men to beat their wives with a rod no thicker than their thumb, then you’re in the same folk etymology territory as the poster who objected to nitty gritty.

@AgeShallNotWitherHer That is a completely pointless hypothetical because words that are racist have history and background. If you called someone xzyzxy then it would not be racist as that is not a racist word and has never been used to demean or degrade someone.

Whereas if you used the n word it would be racist because it was used to degrade and demean people.

I hate when people use this stupid hypotheticals to pretend people are accused of being racist for no reason.

I hate when people use this stupid hypotheticals ...

I agree but it’s probably inevitable in a thread where the OP refuses to tells us the words her husband actually said.

Op just interested to know what line of work you are in or do you volunteer with migrants ? Sounds like a passion of yours so I’m just interested.

I have a similar issue with my dad, he uses outdated terms and tries to do it in a jokey way. I call him out on it especially now I have a 8 month old. He is a wonderful grandad though, caring and kind and always keen to play with DD. I’ve told him he needs to knock it on the head before DD starts repeating stuff - it’s not like every other word is racist but once is to many .

He refused to acknowledge that he can say something racially inappropriate, admit it and learn from it. His reaction was anger and complete denial.
Well that’s wrong. Anyone can say something offensive if they no one has ever told them a certain phrase is offensive. Once you find out your mistake though you should apologise and make sure you don’t do it again. To keep on carrying on doing the same thing when you know it’s offensive turns it from a mistake into racism.

What you are asking is what is the relationship between intention, meaning and responsibility. All three can come apart in different situations.

For example, in Greek the word ‘malakas’ is both an offensive swear word and a term of endearment, the difference comes from intention and context. If you call someone this in anger, intending to insult them, it is insulting, if you call someone this with affection intending to indicate they are your friend, it is a positive word.

Swear words tend to have a negative connotation, they are usually used to insult, but, as above, this is not always the case. If someone uses a swear word in ignorance, by accident, or mistakenly and does so non-culpable, we wouldn’t hold them responsible. For example, a child who uses a swear word they do not understand, either the exact meaning or the usage as a slur, we wouldn’t hold them responsible. Because words change meanings, it is possible for an adult to make a non-culpable mistake in use; here intention is crucial, we don’t hold people responsible for unavoidable mistakes.

The connection between intention and meaning is also evident when words are reclaimed. What was a swear word can be taken over by the community it was intended to offend, embraced and repurposed until the old meaning is changed to a positive one.

I suspect from what you say that your DH made a mistake without intending to be racist and became defensive when you pulled it up on it.

We all have biases, conscious and unconscious. Some people are more educated about what to say and what not to say, but racism is about the way we all make judgements about other people based on their race. I haven’t read the book ‘white fragility’, have been meaning to, but here’s a summary in the New Yorker you could use as a starting point with your husband (and yourself - all of us). The idea that liberal white people are so heavily invested in the idea ‘race doesn’t matter’ and being seen as non racist, that they perpetuate racism by failing to acknowledge and deal with how it does matter - v interesting.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/a-sociologist-examines-the-white-fragility-that-prevents-white-americans-from-confronting-racism/amp

@TriangularRatbag not all crimes need both elements. The main one that people know is the difference between murder and manslaughter. However, most crimes only need the Actus Reus.
@soph7777 your husband doesn’t sound very nice at all, barring mental impairment why won’t you continue to say something people have said is offensive, even if it wasn’t meant as such you should apologise.

Re intent and racism. The willingness of the person to accept they were racist and learnt from it is hugely telling.

I’m a manager of a diverse team - age, sex, religion, race, ethnicity, it’s all there. I spend quite a lot of my time explaining to mostly white team members why what they have said isn’t acceptable or is actually flat out racist. It’s the same few, rather than a roll call and I watch them all closely.

Then in my manager meetings I spend an awful lot of time trying to explain to some of the male managers why whatever they just said is horrendously misogynistic.

Those who don’t wish evaluate their own thought processes and evolve, invariably won’t and try to hide behind the apparent invisibility cloak of “you shouldn’t be offended, I didn’t mean it like that”. Rather than “I didn’t intend to be offensive, I am sorry and take on board what you’ve said”.

So lack of intent, doesn’t hold much weight, for me. The barometer by which we measure if someone has been sexist/racist is not the same as the one with which we measure if someone had intent to murder. For good reason.

If you accidentally say something racist without realising it, somebody tells you and you never say it again, then that’s fine. Carrying on saying it while protesting loudly that “you didn’t mean to offend” - not fine.

No, racism does not have to be intentional. The police officers whose errors led to Stephen Lawrence's killers going unpunished didn't intend that to happen. That's why Macpherson's definition of institutional racism, which developed out of that case, focuses on outcomes, not intentions.

That's not to say that people who make inappropriate remarks are to be automatically condemned. The response to such a remark is not "You're racist", but "That's inappropriate, and here's why ...".