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by spacemanmatt 1489 days ago
IIRC, we call it racist without the scare-quotes because of it's disproportional effect. That's how that word works.
1 comments

> That's how that word works.

Incorrect. In ordinary usage, “racism” means prejudice based on race. There are efforts by some to muddy its meaning, to encompass both racial prejudice and “disproportionate effect,” but that’s not the common usage.

> In ordinary usage, “racism” means prejudice based on race. There are efforts by some to muddy its meaning, to encompass both racial prejudice and “disproportionate effect,” but that’s not the common usage.

Thank you. For some reason I've never been able to explain it so succinctly when two people I respect get into an obviously semantic argument around something being or not being racist and then getting lost in the weeds of the intentions of the long dead.

Just so we're all clear, the racism of prohibitions on intergenerational housing --- which is what BLM is talking about when they talk about the "nuclear family" or whatever it is they said to spook the normies --- is racism, not disproportionate impact. Single family zoning was designed to keep specific ethnicities out of "white" neighborhoods. It's not an accident.
Do you think that there is a large gap between prejudice and disproportionate effect? I'm just curious how this break down for you.
I don't know, I'm just saying these policies were motivated directly, maybe exclusively by racial animus.
> I'm just saying these policies were motivated directly, maybe exclusively by racial animus

We have similar motivations to thank for our cabaret laws in New York, which literally fined restaurants without the proper licences if their patrons danced.

> In ordinary usage

Sounds like you are referring to a connotative value which is common to a subculture of English speakers. I learned to use the dictionary definition from sociology 101.

You definitely didn’t learn the “dictionary definition” in any sociology class, but rather a redefinition of the term developed in social sciences circles that’s used mainly there.

https://www.google.com/search?q=racism&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=...

> noun prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against a person or people on the basis of their membership in a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized. "a program to combat racism"

That's nice that you think the dictionary definition is an newer academic construct
> That's nice that you think the dictionary definition is an newer academic construct

If you have to change the dictionary meaning of a word to make your argument work, it's your argument that is broken, not the dictionary.

I’m not sure I understand your point. The dictionary definition, as I quoted above, refers to prejudice. Is that what you learned in sociology?
The definition you quoted included discrimination which is another umbrella term like disproportionate effect. Why is it so hard to understand that racism is what racism does?
Yes, prejudice was discussed, but prejudice is not descriptive of the social force that we talked about in sociology.