If you've had the experience of being physically assaulted by random blacks high on drugs, had other random blacks break into your car, and still others accost you at night and ask probing questions designed to test how soft or hard you are as a robbery target (not to mention been pickpocketed by other blacks you tried being nice to), as I have, and you relocate yourself somewhere there are not so many of these people, as my family has, does that make you racist?
Genuinely asking, as I'm unclear how this term's defined these days.
As far as I'm aware, racism used to be defined as "believing one race is superior to another."
However it seems most of its users use it now to mean "protecting oneself from populations with, on average, markedly higher violent crime rates than other populations." You're not supposed to do that - you're supposed to grin and bear it.
According to Merriam-Webster[1], racism is defined as one of the following:
1. a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race
2.a. a doctrine or political program based on the assumption of racism and designed to execute its principles
2.b. a political or social system founded on racism
3. racial prejudice or discrimination
As far as your comment you are simply "protecting oneself from populations with, on average, markedly higher violent crime rates than other populations," if that population is defined by race, you are being racist unless there is some newly published study I have yet to hear about that "blacks love crime."
Yeah, except that in reality, socioeconimc conditions are often tied closely to race. That doesn't mean that e.g. blacks are inherently more likely to commit crime than Asians, but certainly blacks are a more impoverished race in general. That leads to higher crime rates, so it's certainly not racist to be more fearful of that group of people in general, it's just a learned behavior and a reflection of reality.
Dude, the 80's called. They want their cliches back.
I personally have had the experience of being physically assaulted for being a white nerd who dared 'diss a clique of blacks in my high school. It was 1993.
First of all, things have changed, and changed radically. If you want your car broken into and rifled through, you;re more likely to get that joy in a small rural town, thanks to the opiates epidemic.
Secondly, the cities have become remarkably safer, though no less diverse.
The problem with that argument is that white collar corporate fraud is far more of a social problem than small-scale mugging. It's hugely more destructive of security and prosperity.
The list of corporate crimes, especially in finance, is not short. Just because (e.g.) LIBOR fixing doesn't threaten you with a gun doesn't mean you're not still a victim of theft, and that you haven't lost real money as a result of it.
So if you're arguing that crime is bad, then yes - it's racist to limit your definition of dangerous and anti-social crime to direct physical assaults by poor black people.
You're just ignorant for labelling the race instead of the pertinent attribute: criminal. Are you OK being victimized by whites in Appalachia robbing you for pain pills or white rednecks in Tennessee high on Meth? As long as "blacks" don't do it?
I don't think this is a very good argument. The term blacks was likely arbitrarily chosen and wasn't meant in a derogatory or disrespectful manner.
Also, where in the world have you lived? I just moved out of Harlem a few months ago and experienced everything the OP mentioned and more. The fact is, Harlem (at least East Harlem) is a dangerous and predominately black community. Crime there is driven more by circumstance (upbringing, low income, environment, etc.) than skin color, obviously, but I don't blame anyone who wants to move out of a dangerous area.
Also, "don't live around poor people" is basically saying "why don't you just make more money?", and is incredibly thoughtless. I didn't choose to live in a crumbling walkup in the bad part of town, I had to because that was my only option, and I got out as soon as I could.
> "In many parts of the developed world, suburbs can be economically distressed areas, inhabited by higher proportions of recent immigrants, with higher delinquency rates and social problems. Sometimes the notion of suburb may even refer to people in real misery, who are kept at the limit of the city borders for economic, social, and sometimes ethnic reasons. An example in the developed world would be the banlieues of France, or the concrete suburbs of Sweden [...]. Thus some of the suburbs of most of the developed world are comparable to several inner cities of the U.S. and Canada."
More seriously. Suburbs may be the trendy area in the English speaking world but that's not the case everywhere else. Watch out when you go to holidays/business trips abroad, there are 'suburbs' you don't wanna end up for your own safety ;)
You can pretty much draw a line from English veneration of countryside manors to modern suburbs in the anglophone world and clearly they are quite popular in the US. Calling French banlieues "suburbs" probably obscures more than it clarifies.
First off, yes, racism and classism have influenced and continue to influence many things around the world [we can go to South Sudan, for a contemporary example].
Yet, I find it quite interesting that many people ascribe quite a few things they are against (for whatever reason) to racism --but when you look further many of these phenomena also exist in generally homogenous paces, so it's not intrinsically racist, although it's possible racism contributed to some of these phenomena or that racism finds some of the phenomena a useful expression or vehicle. It still does not make the phenomenon intrinsically racist.
Occasionally, then some will say, well America exported it with their imperialism, so of course you find it elsewhere --yeah like Russia where they were all out anti-US!
You're absolutely right I mentioned this earlier, but racism and classism have become confounded in America. But it doesn't really matter what we call it, they're all just other names for hate. We humans love to get granular in our definitions and categories. Especially in how specifically we hate other people and for what reasons, as if to justify it... I guess it makes it easier to kill them
"A greater percentage of whites and lesser percentage of citizens of other ethnic groups than in urban areas. However, Black suburbanization grew between 1970 and 1980 by 2.6% as a result of central city neighborhoods expanding into older neighborhoods vacated by whites.[27][28][29]"
"The English word is derived from the Old French subburbe, which is in turn derived from the Latin suburbium, formed from sub (meaning "under" or "below") and urbs ("city"). The first recorded usage of the term in English, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, was made by John Wycliffe in 1380, where the form subarbis was used."
Generally in the west, being below something is a sign of weekness or inferiority. Traditionally only poor/ surfs/ peasants/ redneck country folk / barbarians (which has a great etymology btw), lived outside the city walls... Hence sub urban areas. They developed originally primarily for economic reasons you're right not racist. Or maybe we're taking about two different things with the same name? Because I'm talking about the vast droves of concrete waste in America inhabited by isolated individuals who exist in echo chambers of their own creation and defend them vehemently. #yesallsuburbs
If they're "inferior" then it's hard to see them as a fortress for the wealthy to hole themselves up in so I think your argument is self-contradictory.
New York's a great town if you're not racist and only slightly classist.
Let's not forget why suburbs became popular in the first place. cough cough https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight