Spinozasgalt wrote:When it's science, everyone's all like, "We'll we're steeped in biases and science gotta control for that blah blah blah. Dunning-Kruger yadda yadda." But when it's racism, everyone's all like, "Whoah, whoah, whoah, all that bias talk is bordering on original sin."
If we're going to talk about science, perhaps we should start from falsifiability.
So racism (in the classic sense, and I did note the video was more than a touch revisionist on that one) "
is the belief in the superiority of one race over another, which often results in discrimination and prejudice towards people based on their race or ethnicity. ". This the video reduces to individual/conscious/intent and it definitely exists, we can definitely falsify that - if someone expresses or does not express an attitude of superiority to people from another ethnicity.
Institutional racism also clearly exists, either in patterns of behaviour resulting from systems, from companies or from laws. It's much harder to falsify, because now we're not in an analogy of science, we're doing actual science - we have to look at outcomes compared to expectations, and those expectations are based on assumptions. Still, like any social science there are cases where we can establish a large body of evidence, where we can expose a specific discriminatory law, or a legacy from one. With some work we can still do falsification, so the corresponding failure of falsification still acts as evidence for the charge.
But what about this hybrid of the two? What about this accusation of "that specific event" was racist "that specific person" is being racist? How are we going to falsify that one, when intent doesn't matter, when being conscious of what's happening doesn't matter, where we're accusing an individual and there's no larger pattern to analyse?
When such lengths have been taken to avoid all possible rebuttals, all possible falsifications, then the comparison with a doctrine of original sin isn't quite such a stretch. And when that definition goes further and makes a special exception of the speaker themself (e.g. I can't be racist, I'm black and only white people can be racist)? Then it's no stretch at all.
If an institution is racist, then call it racist. But that doesn't extend to pointing at individuals within that institution, assuming they must be racist and calling them racist too. Of course when someone points the finger people will take that personally. Pointing the finger
is personal. Group trends do not necessarily apply to every individual within a group and individuals do not necessarily represent the group they are part of. It's just not necessary to misapply group trends to individuals, in any circumstances, including when it comes to controversial topics.
Just to add: I'm not saying anyone here is or is not behaving in the way described in the third non-falsifiable example here. What I would say is that it's my impression that at the very least the response that things are bordering on original sin generally has such a situation in mind.