No one is saying capitalism is the sole cause of racism, that’s completely ahistorical. But what is historical fact is the capitalism greatly exacerbates existing racisms.
capitalism is the primary cause and engine of racism. Racialism was invented in the 17th century alongside the mercantile transition into capitalism. Capitalism and Racism were born together and will die together, they are twins.
No it was not, the concept of race was invented around this time. Perhaps you mean prejudice and ethnic sectarianism? That certainly existed. Race did not. Might behoove you to do some reading on this subject before pontificating with false confidence
This only makes sense if you define “racism” exclusively as “white supremacism”. But you’re not saying much at that point. You’re just saying racism as we currently experience it is a product of capitalism. Which, duh, everything is.
Racism existed before capitalism and can exist after. Examples: the Caste System, the Khmer Rouge. Shit even Christopher Columbus was about as racist as you can get and that’s right before capitalism kicks off. The Racialism you’re describing is just the ideological petina that capitalists put on their pre-existing racism.
“Its not racism without race science” is meaningless pedantry. If we accept your definitions then the broader topic of “sectarian prejudice” is the greater issue than your narrow definition to the current flavor of “sectarian prejudice”. Your prioritizing dealing with racism as an ideology and not dealing with its material causes.
“It’s not racism without race” is what you meant. Literally no concept of the ideas of “races” until this time. There cannot be prejudice along lines which are not yet drawn. This isn’t needless pedantry, this is fundamental to understanding what racism is and how to address it.
People had concepts of different ethnicities and reasons for subjegating, persecuting, and enslaving them before race science was invented. Utterly ahistorical to believe otherwise
I never said people should not know the history and origins of white supremacism. What I am saying is people aren’t going to give much of a shit about ending “racism” if you whittle it down to just “race science based persecution”. They still want the persecution to end. If you get rid of the current ideological framework but don’t address the underlying causes then another framework will re emerge.
This is an exercise in being able to relate to other people and not being an ivory tower pedant. If you told someone oppressed by racism that racism has ended but their oppression still remained they’ll be perfectly justified to give you a beat down.
The concept of race as a categorization of anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens) has an extensive history in Europe and the Americas. The contemporary word race itself is modern; historically it was used in the sense of “nation, ethnic group” during the 16th to 19th centuries. Race acquired its modern meaning in the field of physical anthropology through scientific racism starting in the 19th century. With the rise of modern genetics, the concept of distinct human races in a biological sense has become obsolete.
So do you believe skin color phenotypes actually adheres to racial categories? Because that’s what racialism is, and saying that melanin levels determine a biological race is outdated pseudoscience that came out of the US and Europe in the 16th to 18th centuries.
So do you believe skin color phenotypes actually adheres to racial categories?
Yes, I think that dark skin is associated with being socially recognized as “Black” or “Brown”.
Your argument is the equivalent of saying continents didn’t exist before 1890. I am a physical realist, I believe that things physically exist (because they do), even if someone wasn’t there to properly document them at the time of existence.
and saying that melanin levels determine a biological race
Yes, Africans and Australians (real ones not mayos) have the same skin color but are totally different races on a genetic level. Racism is mostly not about genetics (although a minority of nerds will take it to that level). Yes, modern white racism is irrational on genetic grounds, but it is still real and existent, just like many modern beliefs today (people eat pigs but not dogs, which are further way from our species). I’m sure many ancient forms of racism were “irrational” too.
None of this matters because 99.999999999999% of the cattle out there being racist could not name a single ethnicity or language from Southeast Asia, India, Africa, or otherwise. Almost none of it has anything to do with science. The literal fucking global temperature has increased by 4 C or something and people still don’t believe in global warming, why would biological race be even remotely relevant to anything?
So do you believe skin color phenotypes actually adheres to racial categories?
This is the load bearing word, as in actuality. Do you believe that racial categories are biologically or metaphysically “real”. I’m not talking about social constructs, because that’s the racialism i’m talking about. Of course it exists and is widespread in our society.
Real damage was done along racial lines, a systematic oppression of people was done along these fake lines, causing real divisions to arise. The way to eliminate racism is to first right these wrongs, create a true equality between the fake racial categories - that means equality of lived existence and material conditions, not just abstract rights. Only once these things are righted, communism worked towards, can racism begin to wither.
I’m not denying the social reality of racial categories, I’m pointing to the exact moment they were constructed and pointing to all the material harm done along these lines. The point is to destroy these categories and create true equality. Moral idealists who proclaim that all racist people are evil in the core of their soul need to realize these people arise from the system we exist in, not as a justification but as an explanation of a cause-and-effect mechanism we can shatter.
Do you believe that racial categories are biologically or metaphysically “real”. I’m not talking about social constructs,
All racial categories are social constructs. And all of these social constructs are biologically “real”. If I want I can create an arbitrary “American” race which is composed of all citizens of America at this very second.
It would require a dataset of 300 million citizen genomes, but assuming we have lightning-fast PCR, I can test any person to check if they’re “racially American”. And that American race would be like 60% white 12% black etc.
The way to eliminate racism is to first right these wrongs, create a true equality between the fake racial categories - that means equality of lived existence and material conditions, not just abstract rights. Only once these things are righted, communism worked towards, can racism begin to wither.
Yes
I’m not denying the social reality of racial categories, I’m pointing to the exact moment they were constructed and pointing to all the material harm done along these lines. The point is to destroy these categories and create true equality.
There is no exact moment, because the cognizance of those categories was always there to some extent as long as the people were observed. For example in ancient Greece, some guy recorded that South Indians were darker than North Indians. It’s an obvious physical difference.
The boundaries are also constantly shifting as the “bosses” change. Right now we live in mayo boss world, but there used to be an Arab boss world. There are accounts from Moor Spain where white guys wanted to darken up to look more “tough” and “noble”. An Arab supremacist structure would persecute blonde/blue whites but not the brunettes (because they can pass as Arab). Just as a Euro supremacist structure persecutes darker skinned Arabs but not the light skinned ones (because they can pass as white).
Moral idealists who proclaim that all racist people are evil in the core of their soul
Some racist people are truly evil in the core of their soul
Some aren’t, and are just being “NPC” cattle skinner boxes of Garbage-in-garbage-out (seeing the effects of having half a planet’s worth of wealth concentrated in 10% of the population, and thinking “white superior”, without actually analyzing or understanding anything about why this reality exists)
I am. Race isn’t real. It is an artificial construction we shape to whatever we please. There is no connectivity tissue to it. If capitlaism didn’t enforce it it would wither and die on the vine.
Yes race is totally artificial, and capitalism has invented an intense apparatus to justify it. But the belief in it and the economic forces that drive that belief will exist as long as there is inequality and scarcity. Communism would eliminate that but there are other systems than communism and capitalism. They just wouldn’t be all pseudo scientific about it like the capitalists would.
capitalism has invented an intense apparatus to justify it
You have the causality backwards. Capitalism doesn’t invent things to justify racism, racism is invented to justify Capitalism. Capitalism required slavery, so it required an ideology that made it OK for certain people to become slaves. The racism was post hoc justification for what Capitalism already intended to do.
Europeans didn’t go “look at these black Africans, I hate them so much I might as well enslave them” and then stumble accidentally into capitalism. They realized they required cheap start-up labor for the primitive accumulation of fixed capital and went out looking for it.
Ethnic sectarianism. Tribalism. Xenophobia. Chauvinism existed. I’m not saying nobody was ever tribal and thought they were better than everyone else.
What didn’t exist though was racialism, the entire constructed ideology of a hierarchy or races strictly defined by “black” and “red” and “yellow” and “white” where a pyramid was constructed and scrambled over for rights. Where everyone understood that “white” was on the top, etc.
There’s a difference between a free-for-all of selfishness between tribes, and an enforced system of hierarchy built on invented racial categories that is universally recognized and enforced. Where people are forced to accept they are on the bottom tier, or in the middle, and that’s their lot in life.
This is also a modern ideology used by Liberals in the modern age, so it is more important to deconstruct it and attack it than “tribal selfishness” or “chauvinism” more broadly as it existed throughout history. We are not living among tribals, we are living among modern Liberal racists.
That isn’t racism. The defining characteristic of racism compared with cultural chauvinism is that race is a permanent biological feature that is transferred from generation to generation. In other words, once a [racial slur], always a [racial slur]. For cultural chauvinism, there was a broad understanding that barbarians can be civilized if they adopted the civilization of their civilized superiors and the civilized can regress to barbarism if they adopted the savagery of their barbarian inferiors.
Racism was originally invented to persecute Jews (the Spanish had to find a way to say “once a Jew, always a Jew” when Jews were converting into Catholicism in order to not get expelled for being Jews), but it found much greater use in the enslavement of Africans. There was a general understanding at the time that Christians couldn’t enslave other Christians, and while the rule was never fully observed, the Atlantic slave trade was at a level where you couldn’t sweep that under the rug. Obviously, Africans who caught wind of this would try to convert into Christianity in order to not be enslaved. So, that’s where racism comes into play. It’s with racism that an ideological justification can be put into service for the sake of chattel slavery.
Once Europeans can say, “once a n-word, always a n-word,” they have the ideological justification to enslave as many Black people as they see. That’s also where you start seeing other bullshit like how Black people are stupid (so they can only be used as beast of burden) or how Black people can’t feel pain (so crackers don’t feel as bad when they turned a disobedient slave’s back into ground beef). But more importantly, the racial character of their oppression meant that the status of slave transfers from the mother to her children. It doesn’t matter if the mother can read or is only 0.05% Black because as long as she’s a slave, her children will be slaves too.
No I meant what I said, capitalism is a system which has outputs. The profit motive can never be fought. Capitalists are pretty much just along for the ride. If the capitalists opt out, then another will take their place.
I’m having to describe dialectical materialism 101 in here because there are several non-marxist Liberal Idealists who are making very stupid arguments. I’m just spelling everything out very clearly because it seems some people don’t know much at all about this subject
Sure, it’s possible depending on the specific features and contexts which are so detailed that I won’t even go into them. As well as family connections, accents, etc.
But if your Latinx friend is blue eyed and pale, and you’re a very swarthy curly haired dark eyed “white” Sicilian, the friend can benefit from “white-passing privilege” relative to your white ass
Is it because of thr fair complexion? Or is it because of the resources and the legacy of being decident from the colonizer classes that provides that privilege?
both. Some people (of all races) would treat him better bc they mistake him for white, and everything nice and good they know is white, bc whites have had all the money/land since 1492
Some white people would treat him better not only because of the above implicit bias association, but consciously and explicitly because he’s “one of their own”, and this would be “evil” racism
I have never heard of Doug and Ben and don’t know what they’re all on about. Class reductionists are a thing but idk if that’s what they are without reading their words.
Forget about class reductionism, how about any class analysis whatsoever? OP’s “analysis” is pure race reductionism and moralism without a single ounce of Marxist thought instilled.
Apparently using any class analysis whatsoever or referencing factual historical origins of things is “class reductionism” now?
Im not beholden to marx like you are, i just want better outcomes for everyone and saying racism would “disappear with capitalism” is dangerously ignorant of history.
i have no problem saying im just a non sectarian leftist who wants the best for everyone.
I don’t want to hear anything about “class reductionist” from non-Marxists who reject Marx and reject class based analysis entirely. Go off and live in your idealist fantasy world of eternal platonic evils and leave material analysis of history to us who care to connect our ideas with reality and alter the world. Stop stealing our words and aping our ideas poorly. Stay in your own lane or learn.
There was racism against celts and people perceived to be “others” long before the advent of capitalism dude, by all means keep screaming at me obnoxiously about how im a liberal who hasnt read marx (idgaf lol)
im not saying class doesnt play any factor at all, contrary to your weird straw-mans.
No one is saying capitalism is the sole cause of racism, that’s completely ahistorical. But what is historical fact is the capitalism greatly exacerbates existing racisms.
capitalism is the primary cause and engine of racism. Racialism was invented in the 17th century alongside the mercantile transition into capitalism. Capitalism and Racism were born together and will die together, they are twins.
This is class reductionism right here. Racism was around long before the 17th century lmfao.
No it was not, the concept of race was invented around this time. Perhaps you mean prejudice and ethnic sectarianism? That certainly existed. Race did not. Might behoove you to do some reading on this subject before pontificating with false confidence
Lol, now you are just arguing semantics.
The celts were considered a race apart from the anglo saxons.
The “race” part is essential to “racism”. This is not semantics this is purely the meat of the discussion
This only makes sense if you define “racism” exclusively as “white supremacism”. But you’re not saying much at that point. You’re just saying racism as we currently experience it is a product of capitalism. Which, duh, everything is.
Racism existed before capitalism and can exist after. Examples: the Caste System, the Khmer Rouge. Shit even Christopher Columbus was about as racist as you can get and that’s right before capitalism kicks off. The Racialism you’re describing is just the ideological petina that capitalists put on their pre-existing racism.
No I define racism as prejudice based of the system of racialism, which was invented in the 17th century.
Other forms of sectarian prejudice existed beforehand. Not racism
And that’s somehow not White Supremacism?
Not my fault you don’t know the historical literature and are redefining clearly defined words
“Its not racism without race science” is meaningless pedantry. If we accept your definitions then the broader topic of “sectarian prejudice” is the greater issue than your narrow definition to the current flavor of “sectarian prejudice”. Your prioritizing dealing with racism as an ideology and not dealing with its material causes.
“It’s not racism without race” is what you meant. Literally no concept of the ideas of “races” until this time. There cannot be prejudice along lines which are not yet drawn. This isn’t needless pedantry, this is fundamental to understanding what racism is and how to address it.
People had concepts of different ethnicities and reasons for subjegating, persecuting, and enslaving them before race science was invented. Utterly ahistorical to believe otherwise
I never said people should not know the history and origins of white supremacism. What I am saying is people aren’t going to give much of a shit about ending “racism” if you whittle it down to just “race science based persecution”. They still want the persecution to end. If you get rid of the current ideological framework but don’t address the underlying causes then another framework will re emerge.
This is an exercise in being able to relate to other people and not being an ivory tower pedant. If you told someone oppressed by racism that racism has ended but their oppression still remained they’ll be perfectly justified to give you a beat down.
lol
So do you believe skin color phenotypes actually adheres to racial categories? Because that’s what racialism is, and saying that melanin levels determine a biological race is outdated pseudoscience that came out of the US and Europe in the 16th to 18th centuries.
Yes, I think that dark skin is associated with being socially recognized as “Black” or “Brown”.
Your argument is the equivalent of saying continents didn’t exist before 1890. I am a physical realist, I believe that things physically exist (because they do), even if someone wasn’t there to properly document them at the time of existence.
Yes, Africans and Australians (real ones not mayos) have the same skin color but are totally different races on a genetic level. Racism is mostly not about genetics (although a minority of nerds will take it to that level). Yes, modern white racism is irrational on genetic grounds, but it is still real and existent, just like many modern beliefs today (people eat pigs but not dogs, which are further way from our species). I’m sure many ancient forms of racism were “irrational” too.
None of this matters because 99.999999999999% of the cattle out there being racist could not name a single ethnicity or language from Southeast Asia, India, Africa, or otherwise. Almost none of it has anything to do with science. The literal fucking global temperature has increased by 4 C or something and people still don’t believe in global warming, why would biological race be even remotely relevant to anything?
This is the load bearing word, as in actuality. Do you believe that racial categories are biologically or metaphysically “real”. I’m not talking about social constructs, because that’s the racialism i’m talking about. Of course it exists and is widespread in our society.
Real damage was done along racial lines, a systematic oppression of people was done along these fake lines, causing real divisions to arise. The way to eliminate racism is to first right these wrongs, create a true equality between the fake racial categories - that means equality of lived existence and material conditions, not just abstract rights. Only once these things are righted, communism worked towards, can racism begin to wither.
I’m not denying the social reality of racial categories, I’m pointing to the exact moment they were constructed and pointing to all the material harm done along these lines. The point is to destroy these categories and create true equality. Moral idealists who proclaim that all racist people are evil in the core of their soul need to realize these people arise from the system we exist in, not as a justification but as an explanation of a cause-and-effect mechanism we can shatter.
All racial categories are social constructs. And all of these social constructs are biologically “real”. If I want I can create an arbitrary “American” race which is composed of all citizens of America at this very second.
It would require a dataset of 300 million citizen genomes, but assuming we have lightning-fast PCR, I can test any person to check if they’re “racially American”. And that American race would be like 60% white 12% black etc.
Yes
There is no exact moment, because the cognizance of those categories was always there to some extent as long as the people were observed. For example in ancient Greece, some guy recorded that South Indians were darker than North Indians. It’s an obvious physical difference.
The boundaries are also constantly shifting as the “bosses” change. Right now we live in mayo boss world, but there used to be an Arab boss world. There are accounts from Moor Spain where white guys wanted to darken up to look more “tough” and “noble”. An Arab supremacist structure would persecute blonde/blue whites but not the brunettes (because they can pass as Arab). Just as a Euro supremacist structure persecutes darker skinned Arabs but not the light skinned ones (because they can pass as white).
Some racist people are truly evil in the core of their soul
Some aren’t, and are just being “NPC” cattle skinner boxes of Garbage-in-garbage-out (seeing the effects of having half a planet’s worth of wealth concentrated in 10% of the population, and thinking “white superior”, without actually analyzing or understanding anything about why this reality exists)
The anglo saxons had apartheid laws against the celts in 6th century britain.
Sectarian and ethnic strife are nothing new. The concept of “races” is the secret sauce that makes racism racism
I am. Race isn’t real. It is an artificial construction we shape to whatever we please. There is no connectivity tissue to it. If capitlaism didn’t enforce it it would wither and die on the vine.
Yes race is totally artificial, and capitalism has invented an intense apparatus to justify it. But the belief in it and the economic forces that drive that belief will exist as long as there is inequality and scarcity. Communism would eliminate that but there are other systems than communism and capitalism. They just wouldn’t be all pseudo scientific about it like the capitalists would.
You have the causality backwards. Capitalism doesn’t invent things to justify racism, racism is invented to justify Capitalism. Capitalism required slavery, so it required an ideology that made it OK for certain people to become slaves. The racism was post hoc justification for what Capitalism already intended to do.
Europeans didn’t go “look at these black Africans, I hate them so much I might as well enslave them” and then stumble accidentally into capitalism. They realized they required cheap start-up labor for the primitive accumulation of fixed capital and went out looking for it.
I am slightly upset you said it way better than I could.
so then why did the Indoeuropeans kill every European male 4700 years ago
idt capitalism existed back then
Ethnic sectarianism. Tribalism. Xenophobia. Chauvinism existed. I’m not saying nobody was ever tribal and thought they were better than everyone else.
What didn’t exist though was racialism, the entire constructed ideology of a hierarchy or races strictly defined by “black” and “red” and “yellow” and “white” where a pyramid was constructed and scrambled over for rights. Where everyone understood that “white” was on the top, etc.
There’s a difference between a free-for-all of selfishness between tribes, and an enforced system of hierarchy built on invented racial categories that is universally recognized and enforced. Where people are forced to accept they are on the bottom tier, or in the middle, and that’s their lot in life.
This is also a modern ideology used by Liberals in the modern age, so it is more important to deconstruct it and attack it than “tribal selfishness” or “chauvinism” more broadly as it existed throughout history. We are not living among tribals, we are living among modern Liberal racists.
That isn’t racism. The defining characteristic of racism compared with cultural chauvinism is that race is a permanent biological feature that is transferred from generation to generation. In other words, once a [racial slur], always a [racial slur]. For cultural chauvinism, there was a broad understanding that barbarians can be civilized if they adopted the civilization of their civilized superiors and the civilized can regress to barbarism if they adopted the savagery of their barbarian inferiors.
Racism was originally invented to persecute Jews (the Spanish had to find a way to say “once a Jew, always a Jew” when Jews were converting into Catholicism in order to not get expelled for being Jews), but it found much greater use in the enslavement of Africans. There was a general understanding at the time that Christians couldn’t enslave other Christians, and while the rule was never fully observed, the Atlantic slave trade was at a level where you couldn’t sweep that under the rug. Obviously, Africans who caught wind of this would try to convert into Christianity in order to not be enslaved. So, that’s where racism comes into play. It’s with racism that an ideological justification can be put into service for the sake of chattel slavery.
Once Europeans can say, “once a n-word, always a n-word,” they have the ideological justification to enslave as many Black people as they see. That’s also where you start seeing other bullshit like how Black people are stupid (so they can only be used as beast of burden) or how Black people can’t feel pain (so crackers don’t feel as bad when they turned a disobedient slave’s back into ground beef). But more importantly, the racial character of their oppression meant that the status of slave transfers from the mother to her children. It doesn’t matter if the mother can read or is only 0.05% Black because as long as she’s a slave, her children will be slaves too.
Okay so the caste system isn’t racist either then
By “capitalism invented” I meant “capitalists invented”, which is what you stated. Doesn’t really change my point.
No I meant what I said, capitalism is a system which has outputs. The profit motive can never be fought. Capitalists are pretty much just along for the ride. If the capitalists opt out, then another will take their place.
What is the disagreement here? I’m tired of you telling me shit I’ve already known for decades as though you just learned it.
I’m having to describe dialectical materialism 101 in here because there are several non-marxist Liberal Idealists who are making very stupid arguments. I’m just spelling everything out very clearly because it seems some people don’t know much at all about this subject
the famous artificial construction of your skin’s albedo
The race realist has entered the chat. Get your calipers out everybody.
I’m asian and paler than many of my “white” co-workers. Aren’t I supposed to be Yellow?
True, we should call “white” something else. Let’s call it northwest asian, since europe’s not a real continent
Yes, I am white but I am darker than several of my latinX friends. I still get white privilege they do not.
Sure, it’s possible depending on the specific features and contexts which are so detailed that I won’t even go into them. As well as family connections, accents, etc.
But if your Latinx friend is blue eyed and pale, and you’re a very swarthy curly haired dark eyed “white” Sicilian, the friend can benefit from “white-passing privilege” relative to your white ass
Is it because of thr fair complexion? Or is it because of the resources and the legacy of being decident from the colonizer classes that provides that privilege?
both. Some people (of all races) would treat him better bc they mistake him for white, and everything nice and good they know is white, bc whites have had all the money/land since 1492
Some white people would treat him better not only because of the above implicit bias association, but consciously and explicitly because he’s “one of their own”, and this would be “evil” racism
Ive seen plenty of people even prominent marxists say this, doug and ben from Zero books for example, repeat this line.
I have never heard of Doug and Ben and don’t know what they’re all on about. Class reductionists are a thing but idk if that’s what they are without reading their words.
Forget about class reductionism, how about any class analysis whatsoever? OP’s “analysis” is pure race reductionism and moralism without a single ounce of Marxist thought instilled.
Apparently using any class analysis whatsoever or referencing factual historical origins of things is “class reductionism” now?
Im not beholden to marx like you are, i just want better outcomes for everyone and saying racism would “disappear with capitalism” is dangerously ignorant of history.
i have no problem saying im just a non sectarian leftist who wants the best for everyone.
Ok liberal idealist, have fun never solving racism
Onto the block list you go.
I don’t want to hear anything about “class reductionist” from non-Marxists who reject Marx and reject class based analysis entirely. Go off and live in your idealist fantasy world of eternal platonic evils and leave material analysis of history to us who care to connect our ideas with reality and alter the world. Stop stealing our words and aping our ideas poorly. Stay in your own lane or learn.
I’m disagreeing with their “race reductionism” too if you read my earlier comments.
There was racism against celts and people perceived to be “others” long before the advent of capitalism dude, by all means keep screaming at me obnoxiously about how im a liberal who hasnt read marx (idgaf lol)
im not saying class doesnt play any factor at all, contrary to your weird straw-mans.
There was ethnic prejudice and strife. Can’t be racist if the concept of race has yet to be conceived