Prejudice vs. Racist

Well, you'll need to take that up with Webster.

(a) why were the other points not racist? why did you let the ones that were favorable toward blacks slide by without calling them racist too?


seems a bid hypocritical to call one of four racist. the one that favors whites over blacks, while ignoring three that favored blacks over whites.


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(b) how about this, vast majority of running backs and safeties in the nfl are black. Yet whites outnumber blacks. Clearly there is an advantage blacks have in speed and agility over whites as a group, as the over representation in football in these positions would indicate. is that racist?


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(c) now you have to say yes it is racist, just as saying whites have higher iqs as a group is racist. if not you are being a hypocrite.


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(d) my point was not ill-informed and data supports it. AS A WHOLE. not individually. I can point out people who are white living in poverty, uneducated, low class, drug ridden, violence abounding, immorality rich environments. those issues are not racially limited.

May also have to take it up with Chambers, I believe.


Prejudice: judgement or opinion formed prematurely or without due consideration of relevant issues; prepossession or bias in favour of or against anything; unthinking hostility; injury or harm; disadvantage; a prejudgement (obsolete)


(NB the "obsolete" above)


Racism: hatred, rivalry or bad feeling between races; belief in the inherent superiority of some races over others, usually with the implication of a right to be dominant; discriminative treatment based on such belief.


Neither sounds particularly nice to me. They are different, yetboth negative. One could say, for instance, that racism is a prejudice - one is a subset of the other. I say this based on the above definitions. Racism, being a belief on the inherent superiority of some races over others is a prejudice - ajudgement or opinion formed prematurely or without due consideration of relevant issues which may or may not involve unthinking hostility.


While racism can only be applied in the context of racial prejudice, prejudice has a wider application.


Does that make it any clearer?

Prejudice: judgement or opinion formed prematurely or without due consideration of relevant issues; prepossession or bias in favour of or against anything; unthinking hostility; injury or harm; disadvantage; a prejudgement (obsolete) (NB the "obsolete" above)


Obsolete hardly means untrue. Especially when they said the exact same thing three definitions earlier (prepossession or bias in favour of or against anything). Not to pick nits but you proved my definition with a slam dunk.


This dictionary is absolutely right when it said it could be any or all of those definitions (hence the semi-colons between them; as opposed to an "and/or" or the like).


Again, I stick with my assertion that there is a difference: racism by it's definition is wrong, bad and evil. Prejudice can, and often is, bad. But it is not neccessarily so.


If anyone thinks I'm picking too many nits gaze up at the title of the thread.

Bottom line. Nobody really cares about actual racism or prejudice anymore.


What our society has deemed intolerable is saying anything negative about certain protected groups of people. These people are identified by skin color, ancestry, income levels, sexual preference, gender, and other factors. This has nothing really to do with racism, except that the word racism is (usually erroneously) used to guilt-trip or fearmonger those who violate the above rule.


For instance.


You can say all the negative things you want about white men. This is culturally accepted to bash white males, you can find this in television shows, movie titles, newspaper articles, pretty much anywhere.


But the moment you say anything that's even potentially negative about a black man, you will be labeled a racist. Whether it's true or not is irrelevant - that will be debated, and your character will be attacked.


It's pretty unfortunate.





On a more positive note, fewer and fewer people give a hoot about this type of fearmongering. With each passing day, cries of racism are rallying fewer people, and before long, those protected classes of society will actually have to perform just like everyone else.

You can say all the negative things you want about white men. This is culturally accepted to bash white males, you can find this in television shows, movie titles, newspaper articles, pretty much anywhere.


But the moment you say anything that's even potentially negative about a black man, you will be labeled a racist. Whether it's true or not is irrelevant - that will be debated, and your character will be attacked.


It's pretty unfortunate.