Quote:
Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague
I think it was "xenophobe", not "racist", which is bad for different reasons.
|
Well, let's be clear about this, since you seem to not quite follow my actual point here.
The distinction between "bigotry" and "racism" that Buster (and you, I suppose--though feel free to clarify) is insisting on is actually not based on any particular facet of the attitude, or the behaviour. Rather, it is predicated on an altogether different distinction: the distinction between "race" and "ethnicity."
Language does matter, so let's unpack this. What Buster is saying (and I want to be fair--I don't think you have gone this far) is that whether someone is a "racist" depends entirely on a feature of the person they are discriminating against. That is, if they hate Latinos, they are bigots, while if they hate black people they are racists.
Trump does both of these--that is quite clear from his comments and his history. So in his case the distinction really is unimportant.
But it's also unimportant for a very different, and perhaps more fundamental reason: there is no "bright line" between "race" and "ethnicity". Both of these are simply ways of categorizing people, and both are actually primarily cultural. Race is of course theoretically biological, but this is something of an illusion. In actual fact, how we look at race is conditioned by our culture.
As an example, 19th-century discourse on race routinely characterized Italians, Jews, and Eastern Europeans as "non-white" in the US. According to a strictly semantic definition, this is wrong, right? Well -- not really. It turns out that racism is really not about accurately classifying the other into the right categories--it is about marginalizing all people who fall outside of the idealized ethnic group.
That leads to perhaps the most important reason why this false distinction is silly, and why that matters. Someone isn't a "racist" because of the special characteristics of who they choose to hate. They are a racist because they hold attitudes of cultural and racial exceptionalism and superiority about their own race, and because they view people outside of that group as "other" and "less than."
Racism and xenophobia are different terms, yes. But sometimes they are just a chesterfield and a sofa. Hitler was a racist, yet he persecuted members of a religious group. David Duke is a racist too, even though "European American" isn't really a race by anyone's definition.
And yes--Donald Trump is also a racist. He has called black people "lazy" and has twice been sued by the government for discriminatory practices in renting apartments. He (reportedly) required black casino workers to be removed from the floor of his casino when he and Ivana were there.
And he also participated--vocally--in the "birther" movement, which was about as racist as any conspiracy theorist cult can be.
He also plainly dislikes Mexicans and Muslims. You say that isn't racist because these aren't races--but do you actually think Trump views "Muslims" as being of the same race as him? Latinos?
No chance.
Language matters. And that is why we need to call things what they are, and not allow the wishy-washy relativism of our current political discourse wash away what is maybe the most important fact about this presidential candidate. He is a racist. Is he also a bigot, and a xenophobe? Sure, I can agree with that. But in the end, that distinction is not important. It might be important in other contexts, but it's not important here.