I think the core thing that both sides of an argument like this need to agree upon before engaging, is defining the word racism. As an observer, it's clear that you both have different understandings of what you're discussing. The traditional view of the word is different to how progressives typically mean it.

That's with no judgment intended on either argument :).

>The traditional view of the word is different to how progressives typically mean it.

Racism is discriminating others based on their RACE

100% correct. Beware that the social justice movement wants to add "from a position of power" to that definition, so that only white people can be racist. It excuses the poor choices, actions, and ideas of non-white people and ascribes their situation to their non-whiteness.

>You're trying to weasel out of this conversation by blowing out the scope to confuse yourself and others into thinking you had a cogent point or substantial argument. Anyone that lets you re-frame an argument so that you can feel like you've won is doing you a massive disservice by patronizing you.

I actually feel like I've lost at this point, especially because now I've come back after I said I wouldn't. If you came into this expecting there to be a winner, my apologies. I also don't think you actually mean cogent as it is rigorously defined, because if you do, neither of us has a cogent argument. (that is, a well-formed inductive argument) I'm also not trying to weasel out (whatever that means) by acting like I had an argument. I was only trying to say that I'm really not the first person to make this argument and that it's extremely well-trodden ground in the social sciences, and that the social sciences are too often unfairly dismissed by technologists like you and myself. I used to do it a lot too, then I decided to minor in philosophy ;).

>If you want to apologize, do so to yourself for getting wrapped up in such nonsense and for allowing yourself to be manipulated out of critical thinking.

You mean my whole fallacy is wrong?

Just to clarify my argument here and make sure we actually disagree on the fundamentals before we go any further:

Hypothesis: People of color are oppressed in American society in ways that white people aren't.

For the purposes of the following, "fighting oppression" is defined as taking those actions which eliminate structures and attitudes that perpetuate racial oppression, such as supporting affirmative action, properly investigating and if necessary indicting cops that kill people, directly protecting people of color from violence and discrimination, teaching black history in public schools, etc.

Deontological proposition: Not fighting the oppression of people of color violates the categorical imperative. ("act as if your actions were to become universal law")

Utilitarian proposition: We are obligated to fight the oppression of people of color because the human cost of this oppression in bodies is high and consistent and it will decrease if we fight oppression.

My intuition is that you disagree more with the initial hypothesis than my belief that if the hypothesis is correct that action is justified in either of the two dominant moral frameworks, though I could be wrong (in which case it's kind of silly we're still arguing at this juncture). In the interest of focus, would you mind articulating what specifically you disagree with in my specific hypothesis? You'll probably say I'm trying to shift the burden of proof here, and I'll admit that it can have that effect but moreover I've lost track of the actual disagreement between us in all this.

My best guess is that mjolk perceives that your hypothesis is the following:

* Americans (as individuals) are racist,

whereas your hypothesis is:

* America (as a society) is racist.

The latter acknowledges that a society can be racist because of past actions even if all present members are non-racist, whereas the former assumes every member to be guilty of racism unless proven innocent. That's a very strong (and in my opinion, inaccurate and unfounded) accusation towards individual Americans, and it shifts the burden of proof in a way that is unjust towards the accused.

In short, the challenge is to diagnose and fight systemic racism without unjustly blaming individuals caught up in that system, even if said individuals appear to be the beneficiaries. The same is true for the fight against sexism.

As for the "all people can be racist" issue, remember that because systemic racism against white people is minuscule, the personal majority of racism that white people do experience is personal racism, an in this area minorities are just as bad as white people, if not more so. As an Asian-American I have encountered some personal racism, the vast majority of that from blacks and latinos while in middle and high school.

This ambiguity with the usage of the word 'racist' is part of a common motte-and-bailey gambit used by progressives when discussing race and discrimination. After starting with accusations of racism (meaning that the individual will discriminate against others according to their race), they retreat behind their redefinition of the word, claiming they just meant that systemic bias does exist. When this claim (which is hard to refute) is accepted, they take the acceptance as an admission of individual discriminatory behaviour.

You can see this in action above where jolux starts out using the first definition ("there is a high probability you have at the very least some implicit bias against non-white people") then switches back and forth.

Yah, I don't actually think mjolk or you are willfully discriminatory, and I think you misunderstand. Because implicit bias is subconscious, it requires conscious effort to recognize and and correct it. I'm not saying and will not try to argue that people say and do things that they know to be racist because they want to be racist, because nobody does want to be racist. However if it is so probable that you have implicit bias against non-white people I would ask why is it a bad thing to try and change that?

Also it doesn't really matter to the person being discriminated against whether it's a question of individual will or implicit bias, and we are still responsible for both. I will even argue that there's a high probability most white people have a lot of explicit bias as well, the reason I didn't mention that is because you can't test it empirically in the same way as implicit bias.

> However if it is so probable that you have implicit bias against non-white people I would ask why is it a bad thing to try and change that?

It's because most people by default adhere to a toxic combination of virtue ethics and retributive justice. Under that system, if you do bad things, the obligation isn't on you to improve yourself and your actions, but on others to make you suffer because you are a "bad person". People don't want to suffer, so they reject the initial premise.

Virtue ethics has its positives, but retributive justice needs to die in a fire.

> whereas your hypothesis is:

> * America (as a society) is racist.

If that is what jolux meant I have misread too.

To me it reads like jolux is speaking about us as individual racists, which more or less obviously is easily interpreted as an attempted insult.