Racism vs Prejudice

Racism and Racial Prejudice in today's English are two totally different things. I keep having to explain this to people over and over and over again. One of the main purposes of this blog is for me to have links to my explanations instead of having to repeat myself over and over.

When I was living in the Columbia City neighborhood of Seattle, some of the young black children ages 10 to 13 affectionately called me their "Racist Dad." Them not being my children, I kept them at arms length. If I wasn't 100% sure their mothers knew they were at my place they were not allowed inside, but we had many frank conversations through the screen door of the door of my apartment - or if I wasn't answering the door that day - through the screen of the window closest to my computer.

Topics included largely sex questions. Why won't the Muslim girls at school give hugs? Is it good to watch Hentai? How old should I be when I have my first girlfriend? How old should I be when I have sex? (Hentai: ask your mom. Muslims: there are real cultural differences that need to be respected if we want to have nice things. Everything else: dating is for college, not high school, because in high school you aren't adequately empowered to make your own decisions yet, so it's not really dating, just making dating-like mistakes. This is WA, everyone goes to college, ideally community college.)

At this same time I had an altercation with a Neo Nazi at a local clothing store, who was trying to cut in line, who became upset with me when I didn't back him as a fellow white man. While he was stink eyeing me in the back of the line, I accidentally let the word "boy" slip out of my mouth while we were arguing, and like most of my altercations I have been in I solved this problem with strategy and footwork. The end result was I almost ran him over with my car as he was trying to follow me out of the parking lot on his old broken BMX (I had already ascertained he must have recently been released from prison based on his appearance, body language and lack of social resilience.) This was not my proudest moment when it comes to martial arts.

At the time I was only recently retired from left-wing activism with Seattle Indymedia. So the next time the black kids wanted to know if "Racist Dad" was there, I said "common guys, why are you always calling me Racist? Is it my haircut? What did I do? You know my kids, they are half Chinese, I can't be the most racist person you have met!"

They gave me this look like "you need to learn to be cool white boy" and explained "you need to see the Racist Cat." It didn't take them long for them to convince me I had NO idea of what they were talking about when they said "Racist":

Racism - to them - was a total ignorance around ethnicity, and a pure focus on skin tone preference. Beyond that they believed it had to do with a deep part of the primitive brain - it was a base instinct that couldn't be helped. To them, someone being overtly racist wasn't an insult - it was just being mammalian. This is part of why they were coming to me with tans-cultural questions around Muslims and Hentai, because they were running into questions about race that didn't make sense to their preadolescent world view.

And they were calling me Racist because I was White. They couldn't very well call me the N-word, could they? White people are notoriously not-offended by the most sincere hisses of "cracker," "honkey," "white trash," "wigger," "Opie," or even "Alabama." The only thing that REALLY offends white people is being called racist because they are white. Therefore, the best racist term to use against whites IS "racist", what I call "spelling 'racist' with at 'w', W-H-I-T-E."

In an era where people are calling for "anti-racism" instead of "multiculturalism", appealing to individual organizations for reparations instead when democracy has not delivered at the government level, it is really important for people to understand the difference between racism and racial prejudice. The word racism CAN mean a hundred different things in today's world, but if we are going to communicate with others in any way that makes sense, we have to use the word in the most common way that it is used. That way is this: racism means the negative side effects (usually mistreatment from other human beings) on the planet Earth from not being born white.

A "racist black man" then is not a black man who is prejudice against white people, but a black man who is prejudice against people for NOT BEING WHITE:

What then is discrimination against white people? That is racial prejudice. Racial prejudice can be had by anyone of any race against anyone of any race for being whatever race they are. If you are "ashamed to be white," you are being racially prejudiced against yourself. If you are a black person hating on an Asian for being Asian, you are being racially prejudice. If you are a black person hating on an Asian for not being White, then you are expressing racism.

We don't live in a fair world, and it is not advantageous to think that we do. Our modern world is built on a backbone of European Colonialism. Most countries on Earth have the political boundaries they do because some white dude said it should be that way. This is not because most of the Earth is white people, the world is over 50% Asian. This is because the economically globalized world as we know it today was established by a succession of European Empires. The world is a better place for it, but this process was not without its negative consequences - all progress has a shadow of unforeseen consequences that becomes the next generation's challenges to overcome. A global power structure that prefers whites was a very real thing, and to this day you are better off being born white than being born any other race.

When we talk about racism in today's world, it's this white vs everyone else dynamic that is being referred to.  Whites don't experience racism unless you are using the word racism in a very informal way that is ONLY slang for racial prejudice. Yes, people can be racially prejudice against Whites, and in the part of Columbia City where I lived I was in the minority as a white person. 

Now, according to my taxonomy here "anti-racist" could be considered "anti-white." And what the workplace reparations are asking for is for white workers to accept less pay than non-white workers, in order for the organization to be able to afford higher wages for non-white workers. To be clear, the vast majority of my friends who are not white are against that when it is spelled out clearly, but I myself personally support it. And that is where I am guilty of almost genocidal racism.

I once embraced the corporate lifestyle, occasionally working such long hours that I would sleep in my employers emergency shelter instead of going home to sleep, until I was fired for in retaliation against a union I helped to establish. When I was fired I had a chance to see what the lifestyle had done to my family and my own body - and it was not good. When I realized my children's health had been negatively impacted by my career choices, that was it, I snapped, and I have only worked on call or part time positions ever since. We have to live our lives, enjoy the time God has given us, be the people who were were born to be, not spend every waking hour helping someone else get richer. The way I do that is working part time.

With advanced training and competency in management and leadership, there is always pressure for me to do more for any organization I work for. However that is the cost of having me as an employee, you get my talent, but it's part time, and you will simply have to endure your lust for that time which you can not have. One of the most important things I do to maintain my lifestyle is to always be training my next supervisor, and to always be helping my current supervisor to be the best they can, helping them with their long term career goals whenever possible (within my established limitations.)

So guess what if you aren't white? I trained my female, Asian, LGBT replacement at that corporate style job I was fired from. I spent about six months getting her better at my job than I was, sensing already that the lifestyle was not working for me. Time after time my coworkers have since been trained by me to lead me, and then become my leader. And in today's world, non-whites have an advantage to getting promoted, and so that means I am more likely to help a non-white or non-male work their way up. 

So yes, I use non-whites as cannon fodder to protect my privileged lifestyle, guilty as charged. I am not proud of it, but it's not the 1860's anymore and you can't rape the willing. This is mostly all due to institutional forces beyond my control. Meanwhile I love other cultures and the advantages of living in a multicultural environment. 

There you have it: racism is ALMOST BY DEFINITION "institutional," where as racial prejudice is a personal feeling an individual has. Racism is the fall out from European colonization, where as racial prejudice is unfair stereotyping based on ethnicity. Racism and prejudice are not the same thing, and it is time to start using your big boy words.