[Frondo]

Racism is not a political opinion. Political opinions are along the lines of "are my taxes too high" or "do we spend more on parks or on police".

A belief in the inferiority of another race isn't political, it's something else. I don't know what, but discriminatory and bigoted beliefs don't belong in political discussions or any discussions about how we govern ourselves or organize society.

[bluthru]

Social science has observed that race has real implications in a society. http://archive.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/...

Are you saying that it's beyond the pale to even have a conversation about diversity and immigration policy? Are you assuming that an inflow of people from anywhere in the world is always good or neutral?

[Houshalter]

First of all muslims aren't really a "race". Debates about race are completely irrelevant, they are criticizing islamic culture and religion. No one would care about someone mocking christian beliefs of culture.

Second you are right. Beliefs about differences between races aren't political. They are scientific. These are scientific question that are completely beyond politics. Your morality or political opinions have no impact on the truth value of scientific claims. Censoring things does not make them untrue.

[vk23]

The whole "islamic culture" thing is just a populist move. In the end they dont care if the refugees are islamic or christian (there are actually a lot of christian people in the arabic speaking region)

Also they are constantly talking about saving the german/north european culture/people. This is more about race and racism than anything else.

Regarding the second part: Its obviously true that there is a scientific base to racial questions but discussions about it are rarely based on scientific research. Most of the time its a political / cultural conflict.

[Houshalter]

>In the end they dont care if the refugees are islamic or christian (there are actually a lot of christian people in the arabic speaking region)

Yes they do. Even Trump has supported increasing Christian refugees. Although religion is far from the only important factor to Western culture.

>Also they are constantly talking about saving the german/north european culture/people. This is more about race and racism than anything else.

I fail to see how wanting to preserve your race is racism. I like my own people and want to see them continue. It doesn't mean I literally hate and oppose other peoples.

And I really do think you underestimate the cultural aspect of it. If they were brown skinned but otherwise culturally indistinguishable from Europeans, I think far fewer people would care. Labeling your opponents "racists" is just a convenient way of dismissing their concerns.

>Its obviously true that there is a scientific base to racial questions but discussions about it are rarely based on scientific research.

That's more of an issue that average people don't know how to do scientific research or think scientifically. I think they intuitively see things like "hey this group of people seems to do way worse" and "the mainstream oppression narrative doesn't really make sense." Without having the knowledge to dig up the actual statistics and figures to prove that.

[vk23]

>I fail to see how wanting to preserve your race is racism. I like my own people and want to see them continue. It doesn't mean I literally hate and oppose other peoples.

As soon as you value people based on their race ("your people" are worth more than others) you are in racist territory.

>And I really do think you underestimate the cultural aspect of it. If they were brown skinned but otherwise culturally indistinguishable from Europeans, I think far fewer people would care.

In Germany the most racism takes place in regions where nearly no immigrants/refugees live. The people are just afraid and do not try to find out if "they" are that different after all (spoiler alert: they are not)

>Labeling your opponents "racists" is just a convenient way of dismissing their concerns.

This is true and i dont want to dismiss anybodies opinion but if you talk about banning a whole race/religion from entering your country (trump) or refuse to help refugees from certain reasons (german afd in the article) and discredit them at every opportunity you are by definition a racist.

[Houshalter]

>As soon as you value people based on their race ("your people" are worth more than others) you are in racist territory.

Then 99.99% of humans who have ever lived are "racist". It's an meaningless mindkilling word, stop using it.

The weirdest thing about this is most liberals qualify as "racist" by your definition, when they take the outside view. For instance China taking over Tibet. And flooding it with Chinese immigrants, to outnumber and replace the Tibetan people. Or similar things done by Russians to areas they conquered. Or some aspects of what happened to the native americans. Liberals seem pretty upset by these things and even consider them genocide.

>In Germany the most racism takes place in regions where nearly no immigrants/refugees live.

Because immigrants congregate in cities, and cities tend to be more liberal. Besides don't take what people vote for too seriously. When put to it, even liberal whites show a strong preference for living in white neighborhoods.

[aceofspad4s]

Racism does not have to be about "the inferiority of another race". Racism can be "I don't think it's good for the economy that so many people from outside are coming" or "this culture is completely incompatible with ours and I don't want these people here". It's a pretty lax word. By outlawing "racism" you're outlawing discourse.

[mithr]

This is not true; as in, racism has a clear dictionary definition as "Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior."

(Source: Oxford English Dictionary https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/racism)

[gehwartzen]

How is "race" defined?

[blattimwind]

Volksverhetzung is juristically exhaustively defined and none of your "racism can be" statements fulfill that definition.

Volksverhetzung is not about "inciting hatred", which does not convey the concept. This article also isn't about Volksverhetzung, it's about the NetzDG, a new law.

[zeeZ]

What you're describing sounds like xenophobia to me, not racism.

[everdev]

Anti-Immigration != Racism

Saying you don't want immigration isn't racist if it applies to more than just immigration from certain racial groups.

However, her tweet was not about that. She called out Muslims as having certain behaviors which is clearly racist.

[kofejnik]

the left are constantly calling out Christians for certain behaviors, is this racist?

[everdev]

If you try to define all Christians as X, you're probably mistaken.

If it's a negative definition designed to insult then it's probably discrimination.

The whole point of being anti racism, anti religious discrimination etc., is that race and religion are not good qualifiers for making assumptions or decisions.

[nailer]

The parent asked you if disliking Christianity was racist, not if it was religious discrimination. Please answer them.

If, say PEW Research asks a statistically significant portion of people who identify themselves one way, and a large amount of them self declare they have awful views, is reporting this bad because it's 'negative'?

[everdev]

No, it's perfectly fine to have an opinion about an ideology, like: "I don't believe in the Bible/Christianity, etc.". A statement like that only makes a judgement about yourself which is of course your right.

If you dislike something, there's usually a fear underneath that. People who dislike Christianity on a deeper level are probably afraid that if everyone was Christian X would happen. Sometimes that's realistic, sometimes it's not, but expressing your fear is OK and usually helps people understand you better than if you simply say "I don't like X type of people".

When you switch your focus to a group of human beings and say "I don't believe Christians are...", you're judging others. When we judge others we're probably bias in some way because none of us have enough accurate information to uniformly judge the millions of unique people that identify with a race or religion.

Just saying "I" first doesn't mean you can then say whatever you want. If the target of your judgements is a person or group of people, you're probably not being honest with yourself about what you're uncomfortable with and projecting your fears onto a group of people. That's typically what racism is about.

Instead, it's usually more accurate to express your fears about a particular non-human target (like a law, behavior, etc.) and leave people out of it.

[nailer]

I dislike stuffed crust pizzas, which are also not a race, but I imagine everdev considers that racist too.

[everdev]

You can hate whatever pizza you want

[nailer]

Wouldn't that be racist against people who like stuffed crust pizza?

(Correcting self as you mentioned later)

[nailer]

Wouldn't that be racist against stuffed crust pizza?

Why one idea and not the other? Are we allowed to dislike Christianity? Scientology? Libertarianism? Socialism? Capitalism? Cutting off dogs tails? If so, what makes Islam non dislikeable?

Are you aware of the many ex Muslims and the harassment they receive? The people who've criticised Islam and been killed for it? Do you think declaring Islam non dislikeable helps this?

Do you know anyone who is an ex black person or ex white person or ex asian? Why not?

[nailer]

> She called out Muslims as having certain behaviors which is clearly racist.

No. Islam is not a race.

[coffee9]

If it's not in your self-interest what's the problem? They're certainly not immigrating for your benefit.

[worstscenario]

"Racism" is not outlawed, racial injury and hate crimes are.