h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

yeah racism (and other forms of oppression) is all about power differentials.

Mmmm. I'm not so sure about that Kea. Persecution is about power differentials. Racism is about race.

No...I think kea has a point. We needn't necessarily tie ourselves up in knots over refering to race or nationality. Possibly, even, banter has its place. It's only when the use of racial/ national terms serves to underline a power differential that we have a problem.

Example...I don't think I could take much offence at being called a limey by an American or un rosbif by a French person. There's no power differential.

There's not really any such thing as race though.

If someone calls me a whitey in a derogatory way, it really doesn't matter any more than if they called me a dickhead. Unless there is a context in which being white is used to take power from me, or being non-white is used to have power over me.

This is why often (but not always) accusations of reverse racism or sexism don't really hold much water.

If it was just about 'race' then I couldn't say that Kiwis are good at playing cricket.

(well, they used to be).

>>There's not really any such thing as race though.

An easy statement to make, with the advantage of being biologically supported. Not much help if you're being rounded up by someone who's defined you as being in the wrong race, though.

See also C. Hitchens on Obama:

'He's not black. He has a white mother.'

>>
Example...I don't think I could take much offence at being called a limey by an American or un rosbif by a French person. There's no power differential.
<<

Precisely.

And it's not even whether one takes offense I think. I know that I've seen some stuff on the internet about 'die whitey' that I just find very funny but that other white people find appalling. But until I live in a country where black people kill white people because they are white I can't see it as racism in the same way that saying 'die n*gg*r' would be racist if said in, say, the US. And that's because the US has and still does kill black people disproportionately due to them not being white.

So it's about power differential, and context, and history.

Which is what interests me, because the power differential exists in the patient/health practitioner relationship too, so the situation Otto was in was complex.

Ed, that's why I'll talk about racism, but generally talk about ethnicity rather than race

And of course, rejecting the notion of race, especially biologically, undermines the idiots who think that 'race' denotes inferior or superior traits like intelligence (not that Ben was using it in that way).

Edward the Bonobo

I call Obama America's first nearly-black president. Not to demean him or black people or white people but to show that he does cross the divide between black and white people and that concentrating on him being Americas first black president misses important points about the importance of his election.

Jesse Jackson said he wasn't black enough!

Oh and...



No...no, no, no, no no.

At least Hitchens never called him "Sooty" - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7826701.stm

>>
Example...I don't think I could take much offence at being called a limey by an American or un rosbif by a French person. There's no power differential.
<<

It's interesting, we both read the same sentence and come to opposite conclusions. We do agree that the dangerous bit is the power imbalance though.

I simply could not get my head around why Jade Goody et al bullying Shilpa Shetty on Big Brother was ok, until it turned into racism. Surely the bullying was out of order **because it was bullying** - but apparently not.

>dangerous bit is the power imbalance though.<

Yes thinking about things I agree with this. Eg So in one context a thick white gay person may attempt to bolster their superiority in relation to a money grabbing Jew or a highly educated black person. Eg In another a thick black theist homophobe may appear superior to a bright white atheist bisexual person and use that setting to their advantage.

The permutations appear endless.

>>
Example...I don't think I could take much offence at being called a limey by an American or un rosbif by a French person. There's no power differential.
<<

Where it's a meeting of equals, yes. But workers on the North Sea oil fields didn't call themselves "white n******s" for nothing. The foremen were all American and treated the Brits like dirt. So is that racism or bullying through the power differential inherent in the company hierarchy?

And what power differential are we talking about in particular? I've read it on these pages that the white majority cannot be racially discriminated against as they are the majority and thus have power. But what about if an Asian boss abuses a white employee - bullying or racism? And if the roles are reversed - bullying or racism?

well given that the US has significant institutional power compared to the rest of the world I'd hazard that it was a kind of racism, or I tend to think of it as imperialism. Maybe there is a class issue as well.

The Asian boss example, I think it depends on whether ethnicity is a factor for the behaviour of the boss. And whether the workplace is overtly asian or anglo. I'm not saying that oppression of the wite guy can't happen. I'm saying that if the roles are reversed there is an additional issue of racism that doesn't exist when the asian guy is the boss i.e. if we're talking about the UK, it's a culture that practices a form of white supremacy, so there is that broader context wherever the asian person goes, wereas the white guy usually has more priviledge as amatter of course.

Bullying can be a part of racism, and vice versa.

It seems like people want racism to be a conceptual thing, with an abstract definition (eg racism = when one person discriminates against another on the basis of race). In reality it's mouch more complex than that.

"firts nearly black president"

White people made up the issue of race purity and blood quantum. If Obama identifies himself as black, then he's blakc. Calling him nearly black denies the reality that mixed blood non-whites have distinct cultures that aren't white ones, and suffer for it if they live in places like the US. Thats why it's really an issue of culture and ethnicity, as race doesnt exist in the way you imply 3Dots.

OK, I'm not being awkward for the sake of it, but it seems to me the race laws are poorly written. For instance an incident is deemed racist if the victim *or anyone else* deems it to be. There doesn't have to be explicitly racist language or actions. Now, I would say that some incidents are purely motivated by the power differential, or bullying. But the law doesn't look solely at the facts of an incident, but the perceptions of the victim and/or others. An individual may refer to a colleague in racist terminology 99 times, but it isn't racist. The 100th time he does it, in the midst of a heated argument say, the self-same actions and words could be deemed racist. It's a goldmine for the petty and lawyers imo.

I'm not sure what the answer is tbh. I'm in no way trying to be a cheerleader for racism or racists, but the system is muddled. Look at today's "story" of Prince Charles calling a polo club member "Sooty". On the face of it, that is a racial epithet and if that was all we knew of the story, Prince Charles would probably be tarred a racist. But the member in question says "I enjoy being called Sooty by my friends who I am sure universally use the name as a term of affection with no offence meant or felt." But *under the law* a member of the public could now complain that this was racist and the Police would have to investigate.

Don't behavorial norms and setting an example and peer-permissions have a role here?

HRH (both of them) and their pals think their nicknames are ok because
(a) there isn't a power differential
(b) they are affectionate and
(c) they take place within closed groups.

But one thing I've learned in this life is that judgement hugely swayed by what is normal in our environment and the behaviour of people we admire and what is normal in our environment. So gentle teasing among peers can make some people think it's ok to indulge in cruel teasing between peers which can make some people think it's ok to indulge in bullying where there's a power differential.

This argument leads us to conclude that a zero tolerance policy is the only workable one.

I dislike taking judgement out of the equation, (particularly my judgement which is of course impeccable ), and I'd like to live and work in a common-sense world, but the ease with which unguarded moments can be spread around the internet means that HRH, HRH and people like them must be squeaky clean **all the time**.

B

Dottie:
>>I call Obama America's first nearly-black president.

Well, I think if you were to read his 'Dreams From My Father' (as I am currently), you'd maybe understand just how thouroughly wrongheaded that is.

Kea:
>>If Obama identifies himself as black, then he's black.

Actually...in DFMF, the point he makes (brilliantly, clearly, with panache) is that it wasn't an identity he chose for himself. It's where others put him.

On Sootygate...

I had an older Northern Irish colleague who's lived on the mainland for many years. He used to tell Irish jokes. He'd even put on a comedy Oirish accent when telling them. In this day and age, nobody found them funny - just sad that he'd learned historically that this was what was expected of him.

I suppose we have no right to critise the compromise that Mr Dhillon has chosen as the price for acceptance in high society. But...what do we think of to whom he's paid the entrance fee?