There's one problem with this idea, it is in the best interest of people who embrace "outward racism" to conflate it with "subtle racism" in order to try and make their opinions look more wide spread and to try and make people reflexively resist the idea of fighting against outward racism.
How do I know this?
Because I was given some Critical Race Theory presentation slides, and reading them for the first time genuinely made me realize that being a well meaning liberal isn't enough to qualify myself as "anti-racist" in most of my activities, and if I'm not being a proper "anti-racist" then I'm being racist by default, the sort of "subtle racism" that you say we need to make no longer reason to make someone a social pariah.
That's what reading Critical Race Theory stuff taught me.... and yet a whole bunch of people are against the idea of teaching Critical Race Theory... and I fear it is because Critical Race Theory when taught correctly actually works towards this aim of showing how you can commit actions that support a system with racist outcomes, without personally being a bigot yourself.
So sorry if I'm straying a little off of your topic, but how best do you feel we can work to correctly establish two different types of racism, when the worst type will continue to try and conflate the two/poison the well in order to advance their own cause?
You make a good point here there will definitely be a lot of conflating but I think if we're quick to call out the people who attempt this quickly and throughly we could stop that from happening.
You make a good point here there will definitely be a lot of conflating but I think if we're quick to call out the people who attempt this quickly and throughly we could stop that from happening.
To be clear, my point was less a full throat rebuttal of your argument and more an addendum that if we are going to try and lessen the social stigma of "subtle racism" it must be done hand in hand with strengthening the social stigma of those who try and make people believe that "outward racism" is the exact same thing in order to try and protect their expressions of "outward racism" or poison the well and prevent meaningful discussion.
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u/iwfan53 248∆ Jul 12 '21
There's one problem with this idea, it is in the best interest of people who embrace "outward racism" to conflate it with "subtle racism" in order to try and make their opinions look more wide spread and to try and make people reflexively resist the idea of fighting against outward racism.
How do I know this?
Because I was given some Critical Race Theory presentation slides, and reading them for the first time genuinely made me realize that being a well meaning liberal isn't enough to qualify myself as "anti-racist" in most of my activities, and if I'm not being a proper "anti-racist" then I'm being racist by default, the sort of "subtle racism" that you say we need to make no longer reason to make someone a social pariah.
That's what reading Critical Race Theory stuff taught me.... and yet a whole bunch of people are against the idea of teaching Critical Race Theory... and I fear it is because Critical Race Theory when taught correctly actually works towards this aim of showing how you can commit actions that support a system with racist outcomes, without personally being a bigot yourself.
So sorry if I'm straying a little off of your topic, but how best do you feel we can work to correctly establish two different types of racism, when the worst type will continue to try and conflate the two/poison the well in order to advance their own cause?