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Is racism inherent?

Debate Information

 racism is inherent in humans; we are born with it. Even animals are born with it. it predates humans; however let us walk into pre-history, back when the tribe was the important thing. any stranger or anyone different was a cause of concern. other people who were not of the tribe brought war, they stole resources, and brought disease. of course, as humans spread, they encountered many who were different and in order of self preservation of the family tribe would shun those who were different; even fighting with them. this eventually led to the type of racism we see today.  even animals will abandon their young if they are born differently than the others. Some individuals will say I am not a racist, yet they bring color into play. For instance, assume a white person sees a black person climbing a tree. they will more-than likely tell others that they saw a black man climbing a tree, yet if it was a white person climbing the tree, they would simply say they saw a person climbing a tree. Yet what about my 8 year old son, he has many friends who are different. yes but in growing up with them, they are part of his tribe, they are not different to him.  racism is inherent in humans. change my mind.
Zombieguy1987



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  • MayCaesarMayCaesar 5967 Pts   -  
    I think you are projecting a little bit. I personally do not see race, it is non-existent to my eye. I do tell an Asian person from a Black person, but it is a very superficial characteristic in my eyes, of the same category as eye color, hair style or voice tone. 

    With your tree example, I am a white person, and if I see someone climbing up a tree, I will say that it is a person climbing up a tree. I do not have the urge to describe the person further, since what matters to me is that they climbed up a tree, and "who" climbed up a tree is irrelevant to the discussion.

    Besides, there is a difference between paying attention to one's race and being a racist. Being a racist means that you believe that some races are inferior to some other races. Simply stating that there are different races with different statistical distributions, or that a given person is of a given race, is not racism.
    maxxAlofRIZombieguy1987
  • maxxmaxx 1131 Pts   -  
    @MayCaesar I can agree with you up to a point; save for the idea that it is believing that racism is believing a race is inferior to yours; I am sure that many inferior down-trodden races have racism as well. I do not believe it is as much superiority as it is hating what is different. my idea though is still that humans are born into it for the reasons I described. and of course, I never said that there are different races with different statistical distributions. however if you are one of the few individuals who never bring up race in conversation, then I salute you; yet you so far have failed to give a satisfying argument as to why humans and animals are not born with racism. it is not just superiority, it is hating and fearing those who are different, and humans are born with that.
  • PlaffelvohfenPlaffelvohfen 3985 Pts   -  
    @maxx

    I disagree that humans or animals are inherently racist... Racism is a learned behavior, it is something that is taught, either consciously or not... 
    Animals do not even have the ability to conceptualize racism.

    Now, if you're saying that humans and animals are born with the ability to discriminate, then yes but not all discrimination is racism... Every choice one makes follows a sequence of discrimination until there is only 1 option left.
    maxxAlofRIZombieguy1987piloteerCYDdharta
    " Adversus absurdum, contumaciter ac ridens! "
  • DeeDee 5395 Pts   -   edited June 2019
    You say .....

     racism is inherent in humans; we are born with it.

    My reply .....You base this assertion on what exactly?

    You say .....Even animals are born with it.

    My reply ..... That statement is nonsense animals do not recognize race 

    You say .....it predates humans; however let us walk into pre-history, back when the tribe was the important thing. any stranger or anyone different was a cause of concern. other people who were not of the tribe brought war, they stole resources, and brought disease. of course, as humans spread, they encountered many who were different and in order of self preservation of the family tribe would shun those who were different; even fighting with them

    My reply .....If one’s tribe  is being attacked one tries to defend against such attack race doesn’t come into it as it’s defensive and nothing else 

    . You say .....this eventually led to the type of racism we see today. 

    My reply .....Another assertion without proof 

    You say ..... even animals will abandon their young if they are born differently than the others.

    My reply .....What’s that got to do with racism if true?

    You say .....Some individuals will say I am not a racist, yet they bring color into play. For instance, assume a white person sees a black person climbing a tree. they will more-than likely tell others that they saw a black man climbing a tree, yet if it was a white person climbing the tree, they would simply say they saw a person climbing a tree.
    ...... For instance, assume a white person sees a black person climbing a tree. they will more-than likely tell others that they saw a black man climbing a tree, yet if it was a white person climbing the tree, they would simply say they saw a person climbing a tree. 

    My reply ....... For instance, assume a black  person sees a white person climbing a tree. they will more-than likely tell others that they saw a white man climbing a tree, yet if it was a black person climbing the tree, they would simply say they saw a person climbing a tree. 

    This is using your example so are both groups racist?

    You say ......Yet what about my 8 year old son, he has many friends who are different. yes but in growing up with them, they are part of his tribe, they are not different to him.  racism is inherent in humans. change my mind.

    My reply .....There are indeed what’s called racists in every society ,so what? I don’t believe it’s inherent in humans you have yet to make a case demonstrating such 

    CYDdharta
  • AlofRIAlofRI 1484 Pts   -  
    @maxx: I think part of what you are calling racism is the inherent wish to defend oneself OR his "tribe" or "herd" or "pride". 

    For sure, racism is learned, or the result of bad experiences with a certain human (or animal) entity. Certainly if you are white and are frightened by someone black, or vice-versa, you may very well hold that against the "race". If you are frightened by a dog, you may hold that against all dogs …. because you learned, or taught yourself, to do that.

    I hate to bring religion into everything, but, the same applies to them. How many "Christian Americans" are grouping all Muslims together as evil, because some of them are "frightening" (and vice-versa)?? One "tribe" hates the other. It's not because they have necessarily done something to you personally, it's the whole "tribe", and you have LEARNED that they may be different and dangerous. Racism is learned. When we become completely "mixed", there will be no "racial" racism. With religion, it's different. As long as there are "different gods" they will never "mix". The bad thing here is, the teaching and learning are constant. That can never be overcome. When we mix, from the beginning, racism CAN be overcome. Kids playing together don't see color … unless they are taught.
    maxxpiloteerCYDdharta
  • piloteerpiloteer 1577 Pts   -  
    @maxx

    Ummm, so we are genetically predisposed to being racist?!?!? First off, even if that were true, genetic predispositions in social characteristics are still a learned action that wasn't always inherent throughout the history of human kind. Also, those kind of predispositions in genetics are only theoretical, and there's no real proof it exists. But, you actually make a good argument that racism is something we're not born with, without you even realizing it. 

    ---"any stranger or anyone different was a cause of concern."----

    Why were they a cause of concern? Whatever answer that you or anybody could come up with here will stem from a learned phenom. For instance, ---"other people who were not of the tribe brought war"---. So the cause of concern here is because other people brought war, but we are not born with this knowledge that other people "bring war". We are taught this. This is a representation of a learned social "belief", not a natural knowledge that we were born with.
     
    ----"they stole resources, and brought disease".----  Again, these are also instances of learned social "beliefs". Just as children are not born with the knowledge to not play in traffic, they are not born with the "knowledge" to be concerned about people who are different. 



    CYDdharta
  • maxxmaxx 1131 Pts   -  
    @piloteer perhaps at one point it had to have been learned but through-out history it evolved into humans as a genetic trait. 
  • maxxmaxx 1131 Pts   -  
    @piloteer even children as young as two will recognize who are what is different than them and I believe this is how bully starts in children
  • maxxmaxx 1131 Pts   -  
    @piloteer however it t may have been built into human and other animals as self preservation for even in lower animals we immediately recognize what is not our kind and our fear kicks in and we go into a fight/ flight mode, which is not learned. We normally do not do that today because we have more reason and we replace that fight/ flight mode into anger. Racism is but a word; it is more than a feeling of superiority; it is fear of what is different which is built into us. One cannot be racist without discrimination and even lower animals discriminate other animals. Racism began before humans among animals, just through flight/ fight mode of animals not of their kind
  • AkhenatenAkhenaten 106 Pts   -  
    Racism is a product of creating a slave class of people. If you want to get rich, you need other people to do all the arduous work so that you have more leisure time.
    Thus, in times gone past, clever people created a class system which is based on the concept that other races are inferior. Now, if other races are inferior to your race, then, that gives you a moral right to treat other races like they are dumb animals. You can give them all the menial tasks to do, like housework, manual labour, digging holes, farming, washing clothes and cooking food. Thus, the rich and superior race will then have plenty of spare time to play sport, go hunting, see entertainment and go on holidays overseas.
  • maxxmaxx 1131 Pts   -  
    @Akhenaten that is only what it evolved into
  • AkhenatenAkhenaten 106 Pts   -  
    @maxx

    Racism is a product of a slave system economy. Humans are clever and can easily over-ride their instincts. Humans saw that other humans disliked strangers so clever humans found a way of putting that fear and hatred to good use. thus, people in positions of power would harness this fear for their own profit and advantage.
  • maxxmaxx 1131 Pts   -  
    @Akhenaten read my replies to piolteer
  • AkhenatenAkhenaten 106 Pts   -  
    @maxx
    Well' I'll be. I just got shunted.
  • maxxmaxx 1131 Pts   -  
    No , I just did not want to write the same reply twice. I was not talking about what racism is or what it is today; I am talking about the idea on how it is built into humans @Akhenaten
  • piloteerpiloteer 1577 Pts   -  
    @maxx

    So a two year old can recognize differences, that doesn't prove they're racist. They can recognize the differences between dogs and humans too. Does that make them want to burn a cross and lynch dogs? Recognition of  differences isn't automatically a racist trait. Racism needs to be taught to them. Self preservation isn't inherently racism either. Ourselves are the most important entities we know, and anyone else could potentially be a threat to you, including family members. If you have any evidence that racism is genetic, feel free to demonstrate that.
    Plaffelvohfen
  • maxxmaxx 1131 Pts   -  
    @piloteer behind the word itself ( racism) are the emotions and traits that make it up; frustration, anger, hate and so on which are built into humans. According to psychology, traits are genetic inherited. We apply these traits and emotions into what we perceive. Racism is built upon these traits and predates the human race. One does not have to have a thinking process to be a racist. Discrimination , and fear of others are in all animals and that is the first stage of racism 
  • AkhenatenAkhenaten 106 Pts   -  
    @maxx

    Well, yeah, I have acknowledged that. But, if you had read my statement more carefully, you would have noticed that I stated that humans can over-ride instincts because they are clever. Thus, it doesn't matter if racism is instinctual because humans are capable of over coming it through the use of self control and group based morality. Not only can humans over-ride racism through mind control they can manipulate it in others to their own advantage.
    maxx
  • piloteerpiloteer 1577 Pts   -   edited June 2019
    @maxx

    I fail to see how you got the words "frustration", "fear", or "anger" out of the word racism. Racism is just a recognition that the human race is made up of separate races (which is scientifically false), and those terms you listed have nothing to do with it. That's just you projecting your empirical feelings onto the word. Actually, according to psychology, emotions are not genetically received, and racism isn't even an emotion, it's a learned social belief. There's evidence that we are born with the capacity of cognitive function, but emotions stem from environmental influences. One does indeed need a thinking skill to be racist. I'm not sure how the social actions of modern animals gives us a window into the natural makeup of modern humans. All we could possibly assess from animal behavior, is how or why animals act the way they do in a social manner.  We still haven't seen any evidence from you that racism is practiced socially among animals, or that racism is genetic. Interesting topic none the less. 
    Plaffelvohfen
  • maxxmaxx 1131 Pts   -  
    @piloteer well you are looking only at the definition of the word racism as it relates today. as well, you are correct in saying an emotion is not genetically inherited; sort of. all chemical reactions are evolutionary based so all humans are hard wired at birth with the entire evolutionary traits and emotions of the human race and beyond. perhaps some emotions are governed by social and environmental influence but not fear. fear is born into us all for fear is designed for self preservation. aside from that, I cant agree we have to actually think to dislike anything although it helps. studies have shown in children that racism will occur if an outsider shows up who is different. the original children will bond together and attempt to outcast the intruder. even in primary school such as first grade when a new classmate comes to school, they are generally the subject of ridicule and giving taunting behavior; and these children are not learning to do this. it has been shown to be automatic. It is a territorial aspect and designed to rid those who are different, and we see this in animals as well. I think this is a given that children are not learning this behavior.
  • piloteerpiloteer 1577 Pts   -   edited June 2019
    @maxx

    I'm not sure which studies you're referring to. Studies have shown that babies younger than six months aren't even able to differentiate between races. This is clear evidence that racism is not something we're born with, it's a learned social belief. Any preference that infants older than six months show toward people of their own race has been shown to simply be a preference for familiarity, not outright racism though. That's why those same studies have shown that when babies are raised in an environment where they are exposed to people of other races everyday(parents of different races), they excel with cognitive skills. As far as "children bonding together to outcast an intruder", there's no evidence that those social behaviors were there when they were born. There's much evidence that those behaviors are learned. 

    We are born with the capacity to have emotions, but the emotions we get in certain situations are learned, and not everyone will react the same in those circumstances. Just because we are born with the capacity for emotions, doesn't mean that we are genetically pre-disposed to feeling the way we do in any given situation. Also, we are not controlled by our emotions, we are only influenced by them. In some circumstances, we can feel two or more opposing emotions which will cause us to betray one of those emotions, no matter what we do. If my house was burning down, my fear of burning would stop me from going in to save my stuff, but if my dogs were still inside, my fear of knowing they will suffer and I will no longer have them will override my feelings of self preservation, so I will betray my feelings of self preservation, to save my dogs. I also may chicken out, and not be able to save them, so my feelings of fear for myself  will override my feelings of sadness for my loss and their suffering and I will betray my feelings of sadness for my dogs (I don't actually have dogs, so that will not happen if my house burns down). We aren't controlled by our emotions, and our emotions aren't governed by our genetic makeup. Our emotions of self preservation or fear are not racism, it's just a natural want to not get hurt or die. The racist side of those emotions are propagated on us by social beliefs, not our genetic makeup.  
  • PlaffelvohfenPlaffelvohfen 3985 Pts   -  
    @maxx
     you are looking only at the definition of the word racism as it relates today.
    We have no choice but to work with a common definition or else we cannot debate coherently... Racism is a belief, belief implies thought processes otherwise it's not a belief... And thought processes are not genetically determined.

    Racism is a very specific form of discrimination, like the US dollar is a very specific form of currency...  
    piloteer
    " Adversus absurdum, contumaciter ac ridens! "
  • piloteerpiloteer 1577 Pts   -   edited June 2019
    @maxx

    Oooops, I forgot this little bit too. The word racism, is just a word that we use in society. It's a social construct. It isn't any kind of indicator of the inner workings of racism, or what causes racism, or if we are inherently racist at birth. It's just a word.
    Plaffelvohfen
  • maxxmaxx 1131 Pts   -  
     @piloteer ok let us switch roles a moment. you do not like the idea of it pre-dating humans. let us scratch that. now we are left with it beginning with humans. It had to occur long ago for we seem to find evidence no matter how far into history that we look. So when, why and how did it begin in your opinion? As well, let us assume that you walk into a room and suddenly find yourself face-to-face with someone of another color and or race. Now there is an instinctive pause you would not have if it were of someone of your own race. correct?
  • piloteerpiloteer 1577 Pts   -  
    @maxx

    "Racism", as we know it today is a psuedo-scientific belief that the human race is made up of separate races. The idea of separate races in terms of genetics, cannot have predated 1905. If what you're actually talking about is discrimination, and prejudice based on the color of a persons skin, I also don't see how that could have predated humans. If we go back far enough, we'll find that all humans lived in Africa. If all humans lived in Africa, all humans were relatively the same color. If we go back even further, to when humans first stepped out of the trees, there's genetic evidence that the human population dwindled to its lowest numbers in human history. Possibly less than 100. If the human population was that small, I'm not sure what genetic differences, or even visual differences there would have existed to discriminate against. I'm not sure of what evidence you're talking about that goes back as far as we can see that racism existed. You'll have to produce evidence for us on that one. 

    I live with people who have different color skin than I do, so no, I wouldn't instinctively pause. I would only instinctively pause if I saw someone I didn't know, even if they were the same color as me.  
    Plaffelvohfen
  • maxxmaxx 1131 Pts   -   edited June 2019
    @piloteer basically i am talking about differences; there were many diversionary races back then and we may yet find more; we inter-bred with many and fought with others; again ,i ask you then, whence did racism begin? why in your opinion did it begin? you keep using the word as the idea of a type of nationalism. in my humble opinion, I think the origins of racism began as terriotial protection. yet you are correct in that I can not give proof in the idea that it predates human in so far as back as language. even the lower animals reason in their own way; so you are stating that racism could never have evolved until the advent of language? if so, then lower animals could and may have it.

    Plaffelvohfen
  • piloteerpiloteer 1577 Pts   -  
    @maxx

    Ummmm, so if humans bred with other races, that doesn't seem very racist to me. I mean, maybe they were into some kinda freaky hate sex, but I'm not feelin' it. 

    I think your argument is derailing a little bit now. Your arguing from a collectivist point of view, but we are individuals. We can identify as a member of a race, or social grouping, or tribe, but we are individuals within those groups. Those groupings are only a social construct, they are not backed by any scientific evidence. Genetically, a white person can have more in common with an African person than their white neighbors. Race is not backed by any real science. It's a social construction only. All differences in skin color are just variations of the genes in skin color that are found in Africa. Humans are made of one race only, the human race. I don't think racism has anything to do with nationalism, it's simply just the recognition of different races, which don't actually exist. 
    Plaffelvohfen
  • maxxmaxx 1131 Pts   -   edited June 2019
    @piloteer yes you are correct in where this argument is winding down to fine points if not derailing. yet I ask the question. do you believe it requires language to be racist? if it only requires reasoning and intelligence, then most animals have it.

    Plaffelvohfen
  • piloteerpiloteer 1577 Pts   -  
    @maxx

    If you're talking about "scientific racism", it would have to had come about after the discovery of genes. Before that, there was no concept of race, it was just cultural discrimination, or prejudice against people with different skin color. The other types of discrimination probably has nothing to do with race, and we can't know for sure if any of it was based of visual differences. It was probably discrimination based on skepticism of people from other tribes. We aren't even aware if early human tribes were even aware of other tribes that were so geographically distant that they would have had obvious visual differences. As far as the other human species, I'm sure their was discrimination amongst each other. But even you pointed out that the species of human that we are today mated with other human species, so some sort of acceptance of other species must have taken place. But as far as your original proposition on whether we are born racists, I don't think science or social or historical evidence shows that to be true.
    Plaffelvohfen
  • piloteerpiloteer 1577 Pts   -   edited June 2019
    @maxx

    Although, in all fairness, if discrimination and prejudice were apart of human history, probably even dating back further than written history, you may have a sliver of an argument. I pointed out earlier that we are born with cognitive skills to be able to learn language. That skill is not taught, but if we go back beyond human history, to our very distant animal relatives, the art of speech may not have been present. I mean, logically, if we go back far enough to when we were still just one celled organisms, language certainly was not present. But yet we have a cognitive skill of speech recognition before we're born. How did it get there? Over many millions of years, language must have become a part of our genome, therefore it caused us to be genetically predisposed to  the skill of learning it. If that is true, maybe prejudices have influenced our genome. This could shift this discussion to a nature vs nurture kinda thing now. But that's only if you can prove that discrimination has been so deep seated in our history that it's actually influenced our genetic makeup. The ball is in your court now maxx
    Plaffelvohfen
  • AkhenatenAkhenaten 106 Pts   -  

    IN THE FIRST half of the 19th century, one of America’s most prominent scientists was a doctor named Samuel Morton. Morton lived in Philadelphia, and he collected skulls.

    He wasn’t choosy about his suppliers. He accepted skulls scavenged from battlefields and snatched from catacombs. One of his most famous craniums belonged to an Irishman who’d been sent as a convict to Tasmania (and ultimately hanged for killing and eating other convicts). With each skull Morton performed the same procedure: He stuffed it with pepper seeds—later he switched to lead shot—which he then decanted to ascertain the volume of the braincase.

    Morton believed that people could be divided into five races and that these represented separate acts of creation. The races had distinct characters, which corresponded to their place in a divinely determined hierarchy. Morton’s “craniometry” showed, he claimed, that whites, or “Caucasians,” were the most intelligent of the races. East Asians—Morton used the term “Mongolian”—though “ingenious” and “susceptible of cultivation,” were one step down. Next came Southeast Asians, followed by Native Americans. Blacks, or “Ethiopians,” were at the bottom. In the decades before the Civil War, Morton’s ideas were quickly taken up by the defenders of slavery.

    “He had a lot of influence, particularly in the South,” says Paul Wolff Mitchell, an anthropologist at the University of Pennsylvania who is showing me the skull collection, now housed at the Penn Museum. We’re standing over the braincase of a particularly large-headed Dutchman who helped inflate Morton’s estimate of Caucasian capacities. When Morton died, in 1851, the Charleston Medical Journal in South Carolina praised him for “giving to the negro his true position as an inferior race.”

    Today Morton is known as the father of scientific racism. So many of the horrors of the past few centuries can be traced to the idea that one race is inferior to another that a tour of his collection is a haunting experience. To an uncomfortable degree we still live with Morton’s legacy: Racial distinctions continue to shape our politics, our neighborhoods, and our sense of self.

    This is the case even though what science actually has to tell us about race is just the opposite of what Morton contended.


    piloteer
  • piloteerpiloteer 1577 Pts   -  
    @Akhenaten

    Well done, but you copied and pasted the whole thing. I actually posted this very article on a different debate here. But it's worth a read.
    https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/04/race-genetics-science-africa/
  • maxxmaxx 1131 Pts   -  
    @piloteer racism: prejudice, discrimination, and the belief of superiority one race feels toward another race. hold onto that definition. in every race we have various and distinct social classes; different caste systems so to speak. by its very definition, a person can be racist to one of these classes. for example; I could feel superior, and discriminate and be prejudice against a social class of individuals who drink, smoke, do drugs, and or cover themselves with body art. just by the definition, I am be racist to these people.   now, in the animal kingdom, we have the same thing; among themselves. wolf packs, the feline family, and non-human primates all have their hierarchies, their upper and lower classes. for example, the apes. among themselves we see the alpha members, then the middle class and on down to the lower rank in their tribe. the lower ones are discriminated against by the upper echelon and are denied favors by the females and not given the choice of food, all because of their social status. so just by the definition this is racism among their own kind. more-than- likely I will lose this argument, but I am giving it a good try.
  • PlaffelvohfenPlaffelvohfen 3985 Pts   -   edited June 2019
    @maxx
    for example; I could feel superior, and discriminate and be prejudice against a social class of individuals who drink, smoke, do drugs, and or cover themselves with body art. just by the definition, I am be racist to these people. 
    Alcohol, cigarettes and drugs are not races, therefore you cannot be racist (discriminating based on race) toward people that drink, smoke or use drugs... It makes no sense to think so... You'd be "drinkist", "smokist" or "drugist" maybe but not racist...  Words have precise meaning and a proper usage for a reason...
    " Adversus absurdum, contumaciter ac ridens! "
  • maxxmaxx 1131 Pts   -   edited June 2019
    @Plaffelvohfen people are racist for a reason and these are reasons. other wize people would be racist merely for the sake of being racist. there are under-lying reasons as to why people do not like other races; they may simply not like their color. does that make them a colorist? There are people who are racist against those who are Islam simply because of the values they hold; so there are those who are racist against those who drink and do drugs simply because of the values that they believe they have
  • WordsMatterWordsMatter 493 Pts   -  
    Absolutely not. Different cultures have different numbers of races in the world. In the US Hispanic is one big racial term for nearly all of South Americans that are not as black as blacks, not white, but not the same kind of brown as middle easterners. Yet if you go to Brazil you will find that their culture has dozens of races that would all fall under the US' Hispanic. If racism were inherent then there would be little variation in cultures definitions of how many races there are.
  • PlaffelvohfenPlaffelvohfen 3985 Pts   -  
    @maxx
    so there are those who are racist against those who drink and do drugs simply because of the values that they believe they have
    They discriminate yes, but they do not discriminate BASED ON RACE, in these case they are discriminating based on what they drink or drug usage... It has nothing to do with race, therefore by definition it cannot be named racism... 

    Is English your first language? Not that it matters to the point, but debating will be difficult if you can't understand some fundamentals...
    " Adversus absurdum, contumaciter ac ridens! "
  • maxxmaxx 1131 Pts   -  
    @Plaffelvohfen well this was a nice debate until the insults rolled in.  perhaps you should find dee and join her. as far as I am concerened this debate is over.  I give it to piolteer
  • PlaffelvohfenPlaffelvohfen 3985 Pts   -  
    @maxx

    I was asking a serious and legitimate question, I can't assume everyone is american, or their age, or sex or anything, it's the internet... It would be understandable to make mistakes when debating in a second language or even a 3rd, it's not demeaning at all... Linguistics is an essential part of argumentation, and linguistic structures are different from language to language, so translation mistake are common... It's just that it could explain why you still make the same mistake, post after post, after being shown your mistake but still using discrimination and racism as if they were interchangeable terms, they are not... It wasn't an insult, it was a legitimate question at this point in the debate... 
    " Adversus absurdum, contumaciter ac ridens! "
  • piloteerpiloteer 1577 Pts   -  
    @maxx

    There are some differences between racism and prejudice or discrimination. The latter two are umbrella terms which racism would fall under, but discrimination over people who drink or smoke, is in no way racism. Someone can discriminate against anybody who drinks, no matter what color they are, or cultural heritage they stem from. People can discriminate against every living being if they feel fit, but racism is a specific kind of discrimination that only applies to race. It can be stretched to also be about cultural heritage, or religion, but by and large it really has to do race. Those other forms of discrimination aren't racism, it's just plain discrimination. There is one user on this site who gets SO worked up about people who drink or use drugs. I will not use this person's name because if s/he were to get involved in this, they'll constantly be replying to every single post I make, and this person is insanely annoying, and s/he only spews rhetorical nonsense, and doesn't understand when they've been shown to not have any logical ground to stand on, so they should just give up. But aside from all that unpleasantness, I don't think I could call them a straightforward racist just because they hate people who drink or use drugs. 

    As far as your argument on those supposed social rankings go, I think we pretty much covered that aspect of this discussion. There's no proof that infants under 6months old can even recognize racial differences, let alone discriminate. Fears about different people is unreliable as an indicator of racism at birth because tose fears may be social constructs, and fear, and anger, and hatred are emotions, and emotions don't absolutely control us, they only influenced us. So there's no psychological, or sociological proof that we're born racist. 

    Your argument that racism is genetic, can still be explored. Like I pointed out earlier, we may have cognitive functions before we're born, but they didn't just poof into existence. They probably got there from many years of evolution. This means that racism, or discrimination against people who are different, can't be ruled out as becoming, or already being a pre-learned phenomenon. If you can build on that aspect of this discussion, you may be able to come up with some interesting points. 
    PlaffelvohfenDee
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