I have just finished reading Mr. Peacemaker’s Are Muslims racist post. I assume you are a male Peacemaker, if not I apologize. I found something very essential to the dialogue lacking. Which is the definition of a being a racist. Mr. Peacemaker does not define racism and neither do the rest of the posters.
So I would like to discuss that issue. I personally believe that all Humans are racist to various degrees. Now I don’t mean racist in the sense that you hate the group or think they should die like the Nazis and the Jews. There are some people like that. But racism for me encompasses all the generalization people make about another ethnic group or nation. The common refrain in western nations is that Muslims are all fundamentalists and terrorists, which is racist in my opinion. But the generalization that all westerners are atheist and don’t have any morals is just as bad.
Racism is an inherent feeling or concept within the human psyche. This has to be short as I have some work to do, but I would welcome any comments or criticism, and I will post again to explain my point further.
I have not read Peacemaker Baji's post but I'd agree with you in that racism is discrimination against ones race, language or ethnicity. I remember discussing this in my politics class last year, and our lecturer asked us, "what is race?", for even that is difficult to define as there is no real homogeneity when it comes to race definition.
I do agree that defining a race is a very difficult task particularly in today's politically correct world. However I need to know how exactly are you using the term race, is it to define an ethnic group or is it to describe a wider field, like for examples black people are a race so are white people. Is that how you are using the term?
As for xenophobia, I personally see that as a form or aspect of racism in other words they are one and the same.
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Originally posted by IB: .....The common refrain in western nations is that Muslims are all fundamentalists and terrorists, which is racist in my opinion. But the generalization that all westerners are atheist and don't have any morals is just as bad.....
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This is example of "stereo-typing". Racism would be like, you don't want any black american as a friend (or any other relationship)...
If you discriminate (upto the level of 'hate') in dealing with people based on 'religion', 'color', 'nationality' then it is racism.
If you just classify (for identification purposes), it may not necessarily fall under racism.
Mr. Changez I see all the mentioned aspects as part of racism. I believe that there are varying degrees of intensity when dealing with racism. Stereotyping is a mild form as it usually deals with a specific characteristic of a race of ethnic group. Saying all Arabs are lazy and stupid is a racist comment in my book and it is also an example of stereotyping. Discrimination in any form, be it hate or a lesser form I think is racism as well.
Mr. Pristine I have no problems with that paragraph as I see racism as a part of everyday life, and also see that comment as racist. However my comment was directed to Mr. Peacemaker who started the thread and described all Muslims as racist, then in turn he would be calling himself a racist if he were a Muslim. Also the word Muslim could be interchanged for various other ethnic groups or races, like say blacks in the US. They tend to exhibit similar characteristics.