Instead, racists use their platforms to intimidate at-risk minority groups and intimidate them into silence. White supremacists are actively trying to silence those they disagree with, often with violence, not trying to have an intellectually honest and open discussion.

Read about Karl Popper and The Paradox of Tolerance.

Therefore, a black person prejudiced against white people (as an example) is meaningless because black Americans have historically had very little power in the United States.

Racism by white americans has historically been backed up by the power of every institution in the United States, which often has meant state-sponsored violence against people of color.

It's probably better if people used "structural racism" to define what you mean here. Similar to how "sex" retained the original definition of sex, and "gender" was used for the social construct. If people tried to say "There is no such thing as being born with a binary sex, because sex is a social construct" then it would be equally confusing.

Today we understand that that kind of stereotyping is a universal attribute of human cognition and therefore not explanatory. That is, you can't get from that definition of "racism" to the society we see around us today. Every human does it--everyone is "racist" by that definition--yes, including black people. And yet black people are still far worse off, on average, than whites in American society.

So that definition of racism is useless. It doesn't explain why things are the way they are, and we can't change the way our brain works at such a fundamental level anyway. It has even become a joke--see Stephen Colbert's riffs on "I don't see color."

So yes, the concept of racism has evolved to include power. Without power, stereotypes don't have an opportunity to cause actual harm. You have to consider power to understand why American society, on average, treats white people and black people so differently.

The academic feeling among people who study these topics (socioloists, anthropologists, philosophers) is much closer to what GP defined as racism than the definition you (probably) had in mind.

Conflating racism with the power to put the supremacist wishes and ideas into practice is somewhere between pointless and negligently dangerous.

Another example is how people of color in the US are far more likely to be incarcerated than white people are, especially for non-violent offenses.[2]

There's a reason the George Floyd protests have been so intense: His death was no isolated incident, but a pattern of continuing discrimination against people of color in America by those who control the power structures.

Sources:

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/protests-sprea...

[2] https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/color-of-just...

My feeling is that a "platform" on Twitter where you abuse and troll people is very different from a platform where you have to step up in public, make a speech, have people challenge your points and so on.

People are pretty susceptible to passionate speech by charismatic figures; much more susceptible, in fact, than they are to facts. This just seems like an opportunity for racists to win hearts and minds.

And anyway, there's tons of open and free debate on college campuses (at least, there was, when they existed in The Before Times), but generally it's debate about methodologies, not ideas. Everyone's more or less on the right (which is to say, left) side of history, they just have different ideas about, how to, for example, dismantle systemic racism, or end homelessness.

Though probably the more frequent topics for debate are more along the lines of beer pong strategy.

The unstated assumption of this premise is that some people (never us, always others) cannot be trusted to make good decisions, and thus need to have their decisions made for them, for their own good. It advocates for human subjugation.

You can make good decisions if you have full information and you put a lot of time into it. I hope you're aware that not all racists are dedicated to the search for truth. Sometimes they tell partial truths, mislead, and lie.

ok pal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln%E2%80%93Douglas_debate...

It’s like letting the flat earthers continue to teach science classes even though we know the earth is round.

Sure, but there are many racism-adjacent topics that are not so clear cut. For example, affirmative action is a "racist"--in the sense of discriminating based on race--policy, but there are serious, intellectual arguments made both for and against it. I put "racist" in quotes there because there's also presently a debate on the changing definition of racism: is it racist if a policy or stereotype is race-based but well-meaning and positive? Is "power" required, and does this immunize minorities from being racist? Is it racist to criticize a long-held cultural belief or practice such as circumcision?

I think all of these topics are worthy of open and honest debate. (Incidentally though, I think that the best way to shut down flat earthers and other conspiracy nuts is also through open debate...)

Also, I would love to see a single example of serious flat earther changing their mind.

> The "debate" on racism was lost a long time ago.

When is the last time you asked someone who is a strident racist to explain their ideas in the form of a full essay or 30 minute presentation? Have you ever seen this done without the implicit or explicit assertion that the target of their animus is a lesser human or perhaps not human at all? Anyone with two brain cells to rub together -- including and ESPECIALLY impressionable young people raised in racist environments -- can see the absurdity of such an argument. The very act of exposing the ideas to open discussion and forcing the proponent to defend them with logic and reason is what ultimately undoes them. Will some still recalcitrantly cling to such ideas? Sure, but that but by that point it will be clear to anyone paying attention it's not for a reasonable purpose.

The problem with modern debates is that they are not honest representations of the subject matter. They are exercises in tactical bullshit, meant to be rapid-fire, points-winning pseudo-arguments instead of constructive, intellectual discussions of the subject matter.

The only way for such an absurd system of beliefs to exist is to either rely exclusively on morally bankrupt individuals, or to heavily lean on confirmation bias and reject any anti-racist ideas.

Simply said, own supremacism feels good. Even if you know it is based false argument it can still feel good. Compliments do feel good even if false. It is definitely not a threat.

Also, my own supremacism is practically beneficial to me. I gain from that even if if is based on false arguments. That makes the supremacist arguments much more easy to accept.

The current President doesn’t want immigrants from African countries but is ok with immigrants from Norway. Is that racist?

And so, the debate over racism won’t be over for a while.

Absolutely disagree, the appeal of racism is well understood, it's only effect on society is to subjugate people, separate along racial lines.

> healthy discourse over the politics and economics of the matter.

"healthy discourse" implies that there is some kind of equivalency between racist and anti-racist, to believe that is to be willfully ignorant of situation and power structures which exist in the US today.

Allow people to point at one of the nonwhite people in the audience and say, "I don't think this person belongs in the country, who's with me?"

Because that's what it is: for one side, it's a debate with no stakes, but for the other it's their exclusion from the university and all the things that are subject to gatekeeping by getting a degree. Potentially for being allowed to live in peace, or live in the country at all.

Letting that kind of speech be platformed is just a more subtle way of hanging a "whites only" sign on your university.

The opportunity existed to put statues of racists behind glass, for example, away from their positions of public prominence and celebration. I don't think too many people would object to the university of Oxford having a statue of Cecil Rhodes that they kept in a cupboard.