Thanks for the response.
In my personal experience what you describe as R(2) is used mainly by people of color who actually have to live with the negative experience of racism and R(1) is mainly used by white people who benefit from the white privilege they have.
This has not been my experience in the South. In the south, the black people I know use R(1), and the liberal college educated white elites use R(2) when attempting to weaponize racism politically, within the Social Justice culture war framework.
If you look at the engagement for the article itself, it bears that out. Of the people who’ve “clapped” for the article for whom a race can be determined from their profile picture, 12% are black, which is right at the national average, and quite honestly probably higher than the rate of black Medium subscribers.
Most of the complaints I’ve seen of the analysis presented here aren’t of the analysis itself, they are “question the motivations of the author” complaints. That’s not argumentation at all, that’s poisoning the well, but it’s a routine practice within the Social Justice framework because it’s taught to be the appropriate response:
If I’m going to engage with you at all on this, you have to back off the “reveal motives!” attack, because it’s not conducive to actual constructive dialog.
Your definition R(2) unfortunately lacks quotes and definitions of scientists and researchers who have basically described and developed the scientific methodology that led to this analytical definition of racism.
I referenced Bivol-Pavda in the article, and her work doesn’t reference any actual science when it redefines the term. [prejudice + power] is simply a “stipulative definition” for the purposes of her theoretical analysis, nothing more or less. People picked it up and ran with it because it means that anti-white racial prejudice doesn’t count as “racism.”
And fine. No big deal. Whatever.
But that also means that anti-semitism isn’t racist in Israel. And depending on where you put the Jews in the intersectional “Matrix of Oppression,” antisemitism might not even be racist here, by the R(2) definition. That’s something that the Jews need to be very worried about, by the way. Once the intersectionalists start throwing around phrases such as “privilege is contextual,” what that means is that no group is safe from having privilege in certain circumstances, and Bivol-Pavda lets us be as racist (well.. ..prejudiced) as we like to the privileged group without it being “racism.”
And if the most important circumstance is “socioeconomic,” and the SJ folks finally get around to realizing that Asians and Jews are both richer than whites, and also score higher on IQ tests, then they might get their marginalized status revoked.
IQ is a sticky one. An individualist like me might say “sure, Jews are kicking ass in the economy because they’re smarter.” But Social Justice thinks IQ doesn’t matter, or it’s a racist test, or it’s a test that purely reflects environmental privileges. And some of that “environmental heritability” stuff might even be true. But the conclusion it must point to, when you look at the IQ by race table, is that Jews are the most privileged of all. Again, this doesn’t bother me because I’m R(1) and treat everyone equally, but if the R(2)s pull the Jews off of the “marginalized” side of the table and stick them in the “privileged” side, anti-semitism becomes “woke.”
Then the Jews will be taking hits from the alt right and the SJ left simultaneously. For what amounts to be the same reasons.
Because judging people by the color of their skin, or their sexual preferences, or similar, to stick them in an oppression matrix, only leads to fighting. I disagree with basically everything you typed, and I can point to the unraveling of the current Social Justice program as evidence. Trans vs TERFs, BLM women’s march vs Jewish women’s march. Etc.
But I do want to circle back to this:
Because ultimately I strongly believe everyone wants to arrive in a world where it doesn’t matter how you look, how you love, what your gender is or what you are able to do with your body and mind to be a fully respected in our societies and communities. Actually, I don’t think there is true power in forcing people into certain circumstances, true strength comes from free choice and empowering people to be themselves and respected for it.
I agree with this. But the only path which will work, is to treat everyone with the same respect and dignity, not carve the universe up into groups based on skin color and make them fight with each other.
