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  • From: Rain Tenaqiya <raincascadia@yahoo.com>
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [permaculture] What is meant by "racism?"
  • Date: Mon, 21 May 2007 12:20:04 -0700 (PDT)

I usually skip Martin's comments on this list, so I missed the original
email. Racism is usually not very well defined, and it means different
things in different cultures. I would consider what Martin said to be racist
because he said "fucking Jews," as if he hates all Jews, not just corrupt
bankers (not that there is anything wrong with fucking, but unfortunately it
has a negative connotation in this context). It is too easy to use
racist/hateful terms when criticizing behaviors we don't like. Sometimes we
grasp for any negative words when angry at someone, even if we think we don't
really believe in the inherent inferiority of the group that person
ostensibly belongs to.

On the other hand, it is ridiculous that in mainstream society you can't
make generalizations or criticisms about groups of people without being
called a racist. Israel has even been successful in getting the mainstream
media to regard any criticisms of its policies as racist! Generalizations
are what language and science are based on. Generalizations are not true
across the board- there are always exceptions. But generalizations help us
to understand and negotiate reality. Pattern recognition is a major aspect
of permaculture. And while recognizing that groups of people are always
fuzzy and shifting, we should be able to criticize each other and make our
preferences known without being called "racist."

So let's not get overly sensitive about critcisms of those without pure
European ancestry. But let's also recognize the racist and imperialist
history of those with European ancestry and not tolerate any truly racist
language on this list!

Thanks,

Rain


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  • [permaculture] What is meant by "racism?", Rain Tenaqiya, 05/21/2007

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