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Comment by erikpukinskis | Hacker News Reader

I have been a longtime advocate of the "I am racist, and you are racist, and we are all racist and that's very bad, like as bad as murder, but it's also OK because that's how the universe is and we can get better at being less murder-y, but let's still keep calling this thing I'm talking about racism" camp.

But this essay makes a compelling argument that racism as used colloquially refers to bad intentions.

I'm willing to concede. I'll stop using racist except in a situation where there is an indication of conscious intent for racial subjugation, thus relegating the word to essentially disappear from modern parlance, but...

What word am I supposed to use instead? I guess I just have to use complete sentences. But that's hard.

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> What word am I supposed to use instead? I guess I just have to use complete sentences. But that's hard.

There are many issues that I feel this way about. One of the side effects of our social stratification is difficulty in having even basic conversations with one another.

I'm glad you're reconsidering your views as well. It's pretty clear that 'racist' starts with a scarlet 'R', meaning people use the label for social punishment: see Mel Gibson, Michael Richards, George Allen, etc. That sort of shaming, punishment, and ostracization makes no sense if we mean they also contribute to a very bad but mostly diffuse oppression.

The reason your first definition of racism is having problems being universal is because the word is used as a form of labeling for the purposes of punishment. It's not generally used as a sort of mutual confession leading toward renewed resolution.

Perhaps "prejudiced" might be an appropriate substitute for the situations that you're thinking of?

It's similar to "discrimination".

It's a very useful word. "Bob has very discriminating tastes in wine."

Do you discriminate in your hiring practices? Hell yes we descriminate! The only reason we have a hiring/interview process is to discriminate between good and bad candidates.

But by and large it's come to mean only "bad" forms.

I think the overuse of the word "problematic" is a result of this dilemma. I think any popular synonym would have it's meaning appropriated by people who man different things when they use it. Being specific is all we've got, I guess.

I'm not sure we're doing the world a favor by ignoring unconscious racism.

Actually, what the essay proposes wouldn't result in ignoring it, it'd result in making it more obvious. The idea of trying to understand and/or address the rational reasons behind a seemingly racist behavior is the process of stripping excuses that a person might have.

But it's only when you look beyond just assuming "oh, they're racist", that this sort of process can begin. And, as linked and explained in the article, there's no guarantee that you actually understand what motivates a person, especially if you haven't tried (or been forced to).

If you actually read the essay, Scott says that we should seek to find the underlying causes of unconscious racism, and treat those. Most racism without intent means that, presented with a better option, people would choose to discriminate less.

What he didn't mention in this essay is institutional racism, which in his terms must be racism by consequence, because institutions don't have beliefs or motives. At least not in this context. Institutional racism is something that needs addressing, but it's not the same racism by motive, nor should we expect the same solutions to work.

Institutions do have motives. Institutions want to keep being relevant. Institutions want to see the influence grow. Institutions want to continue existing.

Those that survive anyway. Most institutions should die earlier than they do. Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy and all that.

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