[Peace-discuss] [sftalk] Re: Racism and sexism [CORRECT URL]

[C. G. Estabrook]

Mike, are you really calling for the "gov't to ... act" to prevent people "communicating ... to foster and encourage their racial prejudices..."?

I think Chomsky is right when he says, "If you don't believe in free speech for people you despise, you don't believe in it at all." 

But it's true that the current administration has multiply violated the Bill of Rights, including the First Amendment. 

If you approve of that, I suppose it's reasonable to ask them to do more violence to the First Amendment - in a good cause...


On Jul 25, 2013, at 8:33 AM, Mike Lehman <rebelmike at earthlink.net> wrote:

> ...People can think all they want, but once they start 
> communicating and acting to foster and encourage their racial 
> prejudices, then I think there is plenty of room for gov't to 
> legitimately act...
> 

> On 7/24/2013 8:46 AM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>> Mike--
>> 
>> Unless we distinguish between racism as (a) a structure of law and government, and (b) popular attitudes, it's difficult to describe what the Civil Rights movement accomplished. You and others have suggested that racial prejudice among whites in America is not substantially today different from what it was two generations ago.
>> 
>> SNIP
>> This distinction - similar I think to the one made in the article cited below - may seem like "faux-intellectual drivel," but it makes a difference whether "fighting racism" is seen as changing laws and governmental practice - or unleashing the diction- and thoughtcrime-police to stamp out racist attitudes (at which you seem to agree they've been singularly unsuccessful).
>> 
>> SNIP
>> 
>> On Jul 24, 2013, at 7:35 AM, Mike Lehman <rebelmike at earthlink.net> wrote:
>> 
>>> Carl wrote:
>>> "...racism - taken to refer to legal and governmental practice..."
>>> 
>>> Well, maybe by you -- and a whole bunch of Republicans and Libertarians who don't really want to have an honest discuss about race at all.
>>> 
>>> So I guess you've joined that crowd by embracing an implicit association with it? I'm not sure who you believe is persuaded by such faux-intellectual drivel, but your assertion that racism is an entirely gov't-sponsored project was only possible to even fake beginning with Jim Crow and, thus, is laughable.
>>> 
>>> I know we've had discussions about your ahistoricality before, so I'm sure you'll have some interesting spin on how I'm wrong in coming to the conclusion that you should stay away from invoking anything with much of a history to it given it seems to only weaken the basis for your argument when you do.
>>> Mike
>>> 
>>> On 7/23/2013 1:47 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>>>> Thea article appears at <http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/07/201371483756428989.html>.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On Jul 23, 2013, at 1:19 PM, "C. G. Estabrook" <carl at newsfromneptune.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> "Are Arabs sexist? The institutions, perhaps, but not the people
>>>>> Institutions, and not popular beliefs, cause the political and economic inequalities faced by women in the Arab world."
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> The distinction offered here between "institutions and power relations" on the one hand, and "popular preferences" on the other, is parallel to that proposed between racism - taken to refer to legal and governmental practice - and racial prejudice.
>>>>> 
>>>>> The former refers to the crimes of public policy - the latter to thought-crimes - and so the former is far easier to eliminate.
>>>>> 
>>>>> --CGE
>>