John Terry Again

@jen_jen wrote:

…..I hear people making innocent comments . . . and vilified as being racists when they are amongst the most peaceful, tolerant, respectful people I have ever met, then there are people who make comments with the sole purpose of antogonising etc. based on race but they are not seen as racist. . . . .

That’s one problem, Jen, words are bandied around, denied and misused, without meaning. For some people racism means violent attacks, and almost any accusation of racism short of that would be denied, so some quite serious racist behaviour would be excused. For others, even unintentional, minor offence would be slammed so a mere slip-up could result in sacking, arrest or worse. So the same incident can elicit reactions from a pat on the head to an angry mob.

Perhaps a better way is to get away from either/or/is/isn’t and use a continuum from verbal slip-ups at one end to genocide at the other. (This has been written up by Allport and others). Racism could be recognised and responded to proportionately.

Another difficulty is that racism can be cultural or institutional rather than personal. So racist behaviour might be a legacy of some long-forgotten (or suppressed) history. in those circumstances, punishing an individual might be meaningless if the structure within which they operate is not changed and the historical legacy managed.