Apples wrote:The A+ Primer (from basket o' links) wrote:The purpose of these forums being the discussion of social justice issues within the context of atheism, we use the social justice definitions of words like "racism", "sexism", and other -isms. You may have seen the terms "Institutional Racism", Systemic Racism, Institutional/Systemic Sexism, etc. The short version is -isms = prejudice + power. In social justice terms, marginalized groups cannot be guilty of -isms because they don't have the power to institutionalize their prejudices.
Bolding mine. I finally poked around their basket of links. The last sentence is a remarkably stupid and revealing statement to put in print, amounting to a license to be an aggressive bigot if you can claim to be "marginalized." Of course, since the poor are obviously marginalized, according to A+ dogma poor white skinheads cannot be guilty of racism. :? Since gay/black people are marginalized, gays and/or blacks can't be guilty of classism/ableism/pick-your-ism. And if atheists are marginalized, white/cis/male/straight upper-class atheists can't be guilty of sexism. Etc. I guess it's just what you'd expect, given the incredible sloppiness and superficiality of everything they've done.
http://atheismplus.com/forums/viewtopic ... 441#p33441
I have seen this more than once over the years.
It is a tenant of belief within certain circles. Here is an example (picked at random) which delves into this type of reasoning a bit more and explains it so that everyone can understand (the underline is mine). Basically it illustrates the kind of mentality you are dealing with over in A+ and I daresay baboonland.
Why Reverse Racism Doesn’t Exist
Let’s start from the beginning. Your first step is to accept that “a hatred or intolerance of another race†is not the definition of racism. The dictionary is wrong. Get over it.
Racism is when intolerance in government laws, attitudes and ideals of a society are ingrained in a culture to the point where patterns of discrimination towards a certain race are institutionalized as normal. If you keep this in mind, you’ll understand that reverse racism doesn’t- and can’t- exist.
There is another saying “Racism (or sexism) = prejudice + power. POC (people of color) can be prejudiced against white people. But they can never have power, i.e. a whole system of structured support that backs them. White people often don’t understand how much power they have. Just ONE white person has more power to do actual harm to a black person than one hundred black people do to that white person. A white person can KILL a black person without any consequences, while if the situation was reversed you can bet the killer wouldn’t see the outside of a prison cell for a long, long time.
When white people complain about reverse racism, they are not complaining about losing their RIGHTS. What they are complaining about is losing their PRIVILEGE.
It is a whole different universe that these people inhabit. Attempts to communicate with them are generally exercises in futility, because you do not share the same precepts, never mind that the same words have different meanings to the ones you may be accustomed to.
Your first step in any attempt to communicate with them is to throw out the dictionary you are using and use theirs, because they have long since abandoned yours.
(I have also heard that some people have issues with "dictionary aethists". I wonder what that means?)