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Comment by jlawson | Hacker News Reader

The power of the word "racist" (like all woke-words) is that it has lots of definitions, which the speaker can slip between depending on the needs of the moment.

In this case, the two definitions and their purposes would be:

Definition 1. "One not actively working to create equal outcomes for non-white groups (even simply being neutral/disinterested is racist in this definition)". This is the definition of racist in the popular How to Be an Antiracist. This would be used to attach the word to the target.

Definition 2. "One directly and intentionally harming people of non-white races out of conscious and deliberate hatred". Basically the KKK definition. This is the implication that's attached to the target, after definition 1 is used to "stick" the word onto the target.

It's an amazing "stick and stab" tactic that, somehow, we haven't yet developed cultural antibodies against.

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When did “non-white” get included into the definition of racism exactly? Those definitions are…I can’t find the word…

The modern redefinition of racism is that it requires someone both be classically racist as well as having a higher privilege than the victim. So if you are racist to someone perceived as being higher privilege, it isn’t racist.

To be fair people of "higher privilege" probably don't care too much what the unfortunates think of them.

But what annoys me is that class is now equated with race. There are millions of poor whites in America who are not nor ever will be privileged.

> "stick and stab" tactic

Nice. I have heard the term motte and bailey used to describe that tactic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy

Motte and bailey is defensive, stick and stab is offensive.

Who considers "not actively working to create equal outcomes for non-white groups" racism?

I would be surprised if this reframing is accepted by enough of the population for a court to accept it.

That’s literally the thesis of a very popular book that appeared on a bunch of corporate reading lists in 2020: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibram_X._Kendi

I think the point is that, while the book was popular, one doesn’t just get to redefine a word using a new opinion.

The entire premise is ludicrous but it’s shocking how many just adopt that line of thinking without any critical thought.

“If you’re not actively fighting against illegal rhino poaching, you are a literally a poacher. It’s not enough to simply “not poach”. You must actively go around physically stopping other poachers.”

Point being you can’t just pick one pet issue and proclaim that anyone who isn’t actively involved in irradiating that issue is necessarily complicit in the issue. There are just too many causes one might be interested in.

There is an example that always comes to my mind regarding this “logic”, and which I think used to crop up from other commentators around this. It’s potentially even more powerful since it comes from the other side of the political fence: The beginning of The War On Terror (™), and “if you aren’t with us, you’re with the terrorists”. This is exact the same manipulative fallacy. However, pointing this out would need to assume those using it are good faith actors, whereas I’d suggest this argument is evidence of bad faith

Yep, it's entirely based around the equivocation fallacy. "Bats are small flying mammals. Baseball is played with bats. Therefore, baseball is played with small flying mammals."

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