[jrflowers]

> you don’t have to be racist (as in believing in racist ideas) to be a racist troll (propagate racist ideas)

Exactly. Racism has nothing to do with what people say or do, it’s a sort of vibe, so really there is no way of telling if anything or anyone is Real Racist versus fake racist. It is important to point this out b

[drdaeman]

I’m a bit confused, is that possible you think racism is binary? I recognize you jest, but not sure I get the idea, and I sincerely hope you don’t do it pointlessly.

If you refuse to distinguish between someone who genuinely believes in concept of a race, or postulates an inherent supremacy of some particular set of biological and/or sociocultural traits, and someone who merely talks edgy shit they heard somewhere and haven’t given it much thought - then I’m not entirely sure how can I persuade you to see the distinction I do.

But I believe this difference exists and is important because different causes require different approaches. Online trolls, engagement farmers, and bonehead racists are (somewhat overlapping but generally) different kind of people. And any of those can post racist content.

[jrflowers]

I showed the videos to my friend and he keeps saying stuff like “Seems like it’s racists making and sharing the racist videos” and “So if a person posts a bunch of racist garbage and then post ‘I’m not racist in my heart’ then the second post is obviously true?”

I keep trying to explain that no, it’s not real racism because if you can imagine that it’s not real, it must not be real but then he says “Who made you the arbiter of racism?” and “What purpose on God’s Green Earth does it serve anyone, in any context, to chime in unprompted that you choose to sort racism into real and fake piles? Like what do you get out of that?”

Anyway I explained that it’s fake racism because it’s just somebody that wants attention and he said “racists can want attention too” and “seems like you’re just doing gymnastics to invent excuses for people online that you don’t even know why are you doing that” so I don’t know what to tell him. I don’t think we’ll see eye to eye on this because he incorrectly defines racism as a “real phenomenon” that “affects real people” and is “perpetuated by people’s actions”, whereas I know that what he’s describing is fake racism, because real racism is a little thing people feel in their hearts.

Seems like anybody could plainly see that fake racism is when people say or do real racist things in the world and real racism is intangible, not really strictly “real”, but the guy’s a kook so ¯_(ツ)_/¯

[drdaeman]

Uhh, I see that really made a very poor word choice when I wrote “‘real’ racism”. My bad, words are hard.

Given that you’ve chose “fake” as the antonym, I think I can see where we differ, and that I misused the term “‘real’”. In my mind I would’ve picked something like “less intentionally”. I’m not even sure if I can imagine what a fake racism could possibly be like: racism is an idea, and I don’t really get what fakeness for ideas means.

I will try to remember and be more careful with the word “real” in the future. Appreciate your comments.

And, yes, that was real racism, of course - in the way you’ve used the expression. Or rather, there’s no such thing that “not real racism”, and “not ‘real’ racism” was a confusingly bad phrase.