Re: racist vs racialist?

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--- Andreas Johansson <and_yo@...> wrote:
> I've run across the form _racialist_ a few
> times lately (in history and
> sociology books) - is there any difference from
> plain old boring _racist_? I
> know this's off-topic, but I figured you
> conlangers are the group of people
> that I know with the best chance of being able
> to answer. (MY lexica won't
> recognize the word "racialist".)
Sounds like one of those academic doublespeak
words to me (somewhat like "islamism", to mention
another recent addition to the lexicon).

I would take it to mean some kind of preference
for the people of one racial group over another
that is not necessarily xenophobic or racist in
nature. Like racial quotas (which I think _are_
racist) or simple association patterns that
happen to all of us naturally whether we hate
other groups of people or not.

I am probably wrong in that definition, but then
again, I am not an academic. If I've got the gist
of the thing, then I think it's a good word to
have around in the US, because as things stand,
you're either a hate filled racist because you
prefer to associate with other white people
(blacks, of course, can't be racist, on account
of the 380 years of persecution, slavery and
bigotry they've been burdened with every single
day of that time in the territory of the USA) or
you're an open minded decent person who hangs out
with everybody. This allows us to safely hang out
with white people and _not_ be labelled a bigot.
It also allows blacks to hang out with whites
without being labelled Uncle Toms or sell-outs;
though I expect they will still be labelled Uncle
Toms anyway.

It probably also has political and even PC
overtones. For example, at the University of
Maryland, there is a student union - nothing
special there, every uni has one, being a
building where meetings happen, houses the
bookstore and student services, etc. There is
also an "African-American Student Union" right
next door. It might safely be called racialist
(now that I know the word). On the other hand, if
the Uni were to even whisper the words "White
Student Union", the whole place would explode
over the racist scandal proposed by the White
Administration and how there's already a white
student union and all the rest of that kind of
rhetoric.

Personally, I find the whole thing disgusting -
as if They are better than everyone else and
deserve their own little place to the exclusion
of the rest of us. Or worse and more insidious,
They're still suffering from victimisation
(another academic word!) and think that the White
Administration and the white student body as a
whole are either out to continually enslave
blacks or else that the student services found
next door in the Union are insufficient to the
needs of black students. Total horseshit.

Padraic.


=====
fas peryn omen c' yng ach h-yst yn caleor peryn ndia;
enffoge yn omen ach h-yst yn caleor per la gouitha.




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