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vijayjohn wrote:I just searched through all 11 pages of the Politics and Religion forum. Strangely enough, there is not even one thread on racism, so I decided to start one. Considering that we have threads on such broad issues as feminism, sexism, and international affairs (and that we have other threads talking about specific kinds of racism), I figure it makes sense to have a thread on racism as well.
Levike wrote:One thing that I'm not sure about: Is racism only about skin colour?
For example if Croats hate Serbs and vice-versa, is that racism?
vijayjohn wrote:For example if Croats hate Serbs and vice-versa, is that racism?
Yes, at least as far as I know.
IpseDixit wrote:AFAIK the case of Croats and Serbs is just a case of historical and political resentment. I'm not sure I would call it racism... (however it's not hard to imagine that a conflict started because of political reasons can also become a racial one after a while...)
That gets into the question of what constitutes a race. And ideas about that vary across just about any dimension you can conceive of (time, geography, culture, age, race …). There's no particular reason why we couldn't call Croats and Serbs separate races, based on "biological" factors.IpseDixit wrote:I'm not so sure . I mean, isn't racism driven (or motivated) by "biological" reasons? That is the idea that certain races are ineherently inferior to others because of their genes and "biological traits".
If you lived in a country that wasn't 97% white, you wouldn't say that. Racial issues are huge in the United States. They aren't so much here, but racism certainly does exist (especially where Aboriginals are concerned) and it's a far bigger problem than linguistic discrimination (sorry Quebec) which is not racism.Levike wrote:I don't think the definition of a "race" matters anymore.
Racism has already been used to describe the hate
between people who differ for example in only the languages they speak.
Dormouse559 wrote:There's no particular reason why we couldn't call Croats and Serbs separate races, based on "biological" factors.
Nope. Already in the 19th century, Ante Starčević, the leader of a Croatian political party in Austria-Hungary, wrote that Serbs were an "unclean race" and that "there could be no Slovene or Serb people in Croatia."
Dormouse559 wrote:It's short-sighted to assume that racism can't stem from historical/political/cultural disputes.
(however it's not hard to imagine that a conflict started because of political reasons can also become a racial one after a while...)
Levike wrote:Would you call the hate towards Gypsies racism?
Since some of them do have browner skin than the rest of us.
vijayjohn wrote:anti-Semitism and antigypsyism/antiziganism/whatever you want to call it are racism and don't necessarily have anything to do with skin color.
IpseDixit wrote:I'm not saying that you couldn't be right (I'm no expert on this issue), but you haven't offered a very strong piece of evidence. Can we prove that this guy's opinion was really shared by at least a good chunk of the Croatian people?
Yes.Levike wrote:Would you call the hate towards Gypsies racism?
They do have to do with imagined differences between white people and those groups that assume their gene pools are unrelated and therefore they have different traits which make them inferior. Racism is based on the delusional belief that different social groups have different genetic lineages (partly true) and that these differences give certain groups advantages over others (again, a grain of truth in that, but vastly overstated and abused). The fact that all humans come from a common ancestor and have always mixed with other in-groups is conveniently ignored.vijayjohn wrote:anti-Semitism and antigypsyism/antiziganism/whatever you want to call it are racism and don't necessarily have anything to do with skin color.
I'm sorry, I didn't see that you'd written that. I would say that while it's not necessary for such a change to occur, it is very easy, especially if the parties involved are thought of as historically distinct anyway. It's just a matter of extending the separation from culture, politics or what-have-you into race, which has happened countless times before and which vijay's link indicates happened between Croats and Serbs.IpseDixit wrote:Erm... indeed I wrote this:(however it's not hard to imagine that a conflict started because of political reasons can also become a racial one after a while...)
But I would also say that this is not something that has to happen necessarily.
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