Comic: The Dictionary Definition of Racism

[gollygee]

[Electric Monk]

1. For those curious as to why this was posted, it's a continuation of a subthread

here http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=7167525

[Brickbat]

2. Important work. K&R

[Shandris]

3. Ah! Well this makes perfect sense!

I concur, this is a travesty. Words should not have consistent meaning when others use them in different ways. All we need to do is get the definition that is uncorrupted by any men, white people, system, structure, institution, heterosexuals, people between the ages of 16 and 54, Christians Islamics or Jews, non-diseased, non-mentally-ill, symmetrical, non-disabled non-political, non-educated non-citizen individual.

Once someone gets that to me, I'll be ready to go. Thanks!

Alternately, why don't we just admit we want to undo the Enlightenment itself and get it over with.

[steve2470]

7. extraordinarily erudite post, professor nt

[Shandris]

9. thank you, grasshopper nt

[notadmblnd]

11. Sarah Palin seems to have grasped the practice of making word salad successfully

What she says, no one can comprehend. why can't every one do it?

[Shandris]

17. I...I... You... Well darn, that's a good point!

This may well be the best argument I've ever seen. I...I'm not sure I could be the person to deny others the opportunity to make Palin-esque word salad. That would be [unconscionable!

[dumbcat]

4. Words mean what I want them to mean. Period

EOD.

[Nye Bevan]

5. The vast majority of incidents of racism in the US are perpetrated by white people

against black people. For example, I have never heard of a black cop intentionally targeting white drivers, but we all know that the opposite occurs on a regular basis.

That being said, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the dictionary definition of "racism" and "racist".

[steve2470]

8. we disagree profoundly, good day kind sir nt

[melman]

10. Ridiculous

Complete and utter bullshit.

[lunatica]

12. I work in UC Berkeley and Academics constantly make up new words.

For example I know of one who changed "Feudalism" to "Faudalizationism"

Try readying academic papers. It feels as if they want to make difficult words longer and harder to pronounce. But apparently they agree on them within their circles.

[LittleBlue]

13. Cool story bro

A dumb comic doesn't change the definition of racism.

I don't need story time from a self-important blogger who took a course ending in "studies" and felt qualified to redefine the English.

[hfojvt]

14. that got awfully long

And I personally hold to the older view. A dictionary should tell people how they SHOULD speak.

Which is not a speech restriction, but a communication one.

If I use a word like 'red' it should have a meaning. Now if some people in some corner of the English speaking world start using the word 'red' to describe the color purple that should NOT, absolutely not ever be added to a dictionary as an alternate meaning for the word red.

To do so is just to muddy the water. It causes a word to lose meaning. Now the word red could mean red, it could me blue, it could mean purple, it could be called Ray, it could be called Jay, or it could even be called Johnson. I mean what the fuck. Let's just have ANY word mean ANY thing. The dictionary is not really controlling anything by being solid. It is providing a reference point, an answer to the question - did I use the right word to convey what I wanted to say? You check the dictionary and it tells you, yes, you were right, or no, you were wrong.

If we are ever going to understand each other, then we need to agree to definitions of terms. Otherwise we are talking past each other, with one person (who uses the word seven to describe the number four) arguing that seven is less than five and the other person arguing that it isn't. A silly and pointless argument.

Most of which seems to boil down to "white males do not have any valid opinions" (unless they are helping to spread the message about how awful whites and males are).

[petronius]

15. It seems to me that a lot of confusion arises because there are two common and valid

definitions of racism: a colloquial/dictionary definition of 'racism = prejudice' and an academic definition of 'racism = prejudice + power.' (The academic definition being about equivalent to what colloquially would be 'institutional' or 'systemic' racism.)

Neither definition is wrong, but discussion doesn't work too well when half the crowd is using one definition and half is using the other. A particularly big confusion (and opportunity for derailment) seems to be when that academic definition is used in a statement that only members of a dominant group have the opportunity to be racist; a fair claim, but one that suggests to users of the common definition (i.e., racism = prejudice) that the potential to be prejudiced is likewise limited.


There also seems to be a bit of a sliding back and forth between the definitions in a lot of these conversations, when it turns to the individual level. If we say that a person is racist (versus 'just' being prejudiced), we are saying that person has power to act on their prejudice. But the implicit assumption seems to be that membership in the majority/dominant group is in itself enough to provide that power, which strikes a bit to close to the ecological fallacy IMO...

[melman]

16. Why are dictionaries useful for looking up spelling

if it's all just opinion? Make up your own spelling!