this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2024
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capitalism is the primary cause and engine of racism. Racialism was invented in the 17th century alongside the mercantile transition into capitalism. Capitalism and Racism were born together and will die together, they are twins.
This is class reductionism right here. Racism was around long before the 17th century lmfao.
No it was not, the concept of race was invented around this time. Perhaps you mean prejudice and ethnic sectarianism? That certainly existed. Race did not. Might behoove you to do some reading on this subject before pontificating with false confidence
Lol, now you are just arguing semantics.
The celts were considered a race apart from the anglo saxons.
The “race” part is essential to “racism”. This is not semantics this is purely the meat of the discussion
This only makes sense if you define "racism" exclusively as "white supremacism". But you're not saying much at that point. You're just saying racism as we currently experience it is a product of capitalism. Which, duh, everything is.
Racism existed before capitalism and can exist after. Examples: the Caste System, the Khmer Rouge. Shit even Christopher Columbus was about as racist as you can get and that's right before capitalism kicks off. The Racialism you're describing is just the ideological petina that capitalists put on their pre-existing racism.
No I define racism as prejudice based of the system of racialism, which was invented in the 17th century.
Other forms of sectarian prejudice existed beforehand. Not racism
And that's somehow not White Supremacism?
Not my fault you don’t know the historical literature and are redefining clearly defined words
"Its not racism without race science" is meaningless pedantry. If we accept your definitions then the broader topic of "sectarian prejudice" is the greater issue than your narrow definition to the current flavor of "sectarian prejudice". Your prioritizing dealing with racism as an ideology and not dealing with its material causes.
"It's not racism without race" is what you meant. Literally no concept of the ideas of "races" until this time. There cannot be prejudice along lines which are not yet drawn. This isn't needless pedantry, this is fundamental to understanding what racism is and how to address it.
People had concepts of different ethnicities and reasons for subjegating, persecuting, and enslaving them before race science was invented. Utterly ahistorical to believe otherwise
I never said people should not know the history and origins of white supremacism. What I am saying is people aren't going to give much of a shit about ending "racism" if you whittle it down to just "race science based persecution". They still want the persecution to end. If you get rid of the current ideological framework but don't address the underlying causes then another framework will re emerge.
This is an exercise in being able to relate to other people and not being an ivory tower pedant. If you told someone oppressed by racism that racism has ended but their oppression still remained they'll be perfectly justified to give you a beat down.
It seems like you fundamentally don't disagree with me, you're just really attached to using the incorrect words
That's why I keep calling you a pedant. If you say "capitalism invented racism" and don't specify "white supremacism" people are going to call you full of shit.
This might come a surprise to you but to mobilize the working class you have to be able to communicate to them. Being a smugly academic pedant is going to get you no where.
Except that I'm correct, and what I'm saying is basically unanimously agreed upon among historians and there's ample literature of racism first appearing at this time. So if people "think I'm full of shit" I can then educate them on reality, as I'm doing here. And while doing so, it's a great time to also spell out dialectical materialism with a concrete example. This is why the difference is significant, cause your definition doesn't challenge the idealists while mine does.
Stop trying to change definitions. Just stick to what is universally understood. It causes confusion and misunderstanding and feeds into Liberals idealism, as seen in this thread.
lol
So do you believe skin color phenotypes actually adheres to racial categories? Because that’s what racialism is, and saying that melanin levels determine a biological race is outdated pseudoscience that came out of the US and Europe in the 16th to 18th centuries.
Yes, I think that dark skin is associated with being socially recognized as "Black" or "Brown".
Your argument is the equivalent of saying continents didn't exist before 1890. I am a physical realist, I believe that things physically exist (because they do), even if someone wasn't there to properly document them at the time of existence.
Yes, Africans and Australians (real ones not mayos) have the same skin color but are totally different races on a genetic level. Racism is mostly not about genetics (although a minority of nerds will take it to that level). Yes, modern white racism is irrational on genetic grounds, but it is still real and existent, just like many modern beliefs today (people eat pigs but not dogs, which are further way from our species). I'm sure many ancient forms of racism were "irrational" too.
None of this matters because 99.999999999999% of the cattle out there being racist could not name a single ethnicity or language from Southeast Asia, India, Africa, or otherwise. Almost none of it has anything to do with science. The literal fucking global temperature has increased by 4 C or something and people still don't believe in global warming, why would biological race be even remotely relevant to anything?
This is the load bearing word, as in actuality. Do you believe that racial categories are biologically or metaphysically "real". I'm not talking about social constructs, because that's the racialism i'm talking about. Of course it exists and is widespread in our society.
Real damage was done along racial lines, a systematic oppression of people was done along these fake lines, causing real divisions to arise. The way to eliminate racism is to first right these wrongs, create a true equality between the fake racial categories - that means equality of lived existence and material conditions, not just abstract rights. Only once these things are righted, communism worked towards, can racism begin to wither.
I'm not denying the social reality of racial categories, I'm pointing to the exact moment they were constructed and pointing to all the material harm done along these lines. The point is to destroy these categories and create true equality. Moral idealists who proclaim that all racist people are evil in the core of their soul need to realize these people arise from the system we exist in, not as a justification but as an explanation of a cause-and-effect mechanism we can shatter.
All racial categories are social constructs. And all of these social constructs are biologically "real". If I want I can create an arbitrary "American" race which is composed of all citizens of America at this very second.
It would require a dataset of 300 million citizen genomes, but assuming we have lightning-fast PCR, I can test any person to check if they're "racially American". And that American race would be like 60% white 12% black etc.
Yes
There is no exact moment, because the cognizance of those categories was always there to some extent as long as the people were observed. For example in ancient Greece, some guy recorded that South Indians were darker than North Indians. It's an obvious physical difference.
The boundaries are also constantly shifting as the "bosses" change. Right now we live in mayo boss world, but there used to be an Arab boss world. There are accounts from Moor Spain where white guys wanted to darken up to look more "tough" and "noble". An Arab supremacist structure would persecute blonde/blue whites but not the brunettes (because they can pass as Arab). Just as a Euro supremacist structure persecutes darker skinned Arabs but not the light skinned ones (because they can pass as white).
Some racist people are truly evil in the core of their soul
Some aren't, and are just being "NPC" cattle skinner boxes of Garbage-in-garbage-out (seeing the effects of having half a planet's worth of wealth concentrated in 10% of the population, and thinking "white superior", without actually analyzing or understanding anything about why this reality exists)
The anglo saxons had apartheid laws against the celts in 6th century britain.
Sectarian and ethnic strife are nothing new. The concept of “races” is the secret sauce that makes racism racism