well i was responding to this:

that is your claim when you state that any definition of racism that doesn’t cover what the KKK does is meaningless or ‘problematic’

and the claim you were reponding to is:

claim the only racism that exists is “3rd grade definition of racism as a white pointy hood and absolutely nothing else”

ergo, i was exposing your strawman leap of logic, that b/c my definition of racism includes the KKK, that it is restricted to the kkk

you’re stupid if you think an individual power can compete with institutional power.

another strawman. no one made that claim

this is a double negative. speak english.

the kkk is intitutionally racist.

what does this have to do with what YOU STATED as “a definition of racism not including the KKK as problematic” absolutely nothing. its not a straw man, its manjuman. Im saying a definition of racism can exclude the KKK and still be pretty fucking problematic if not more so.

“and every individual has power. and blacks themselves have power and can institute it.”

you’re stupid if you think an individual power can compete with institutional power.

“i agree. i wasn’t claiming the kkk was not institutionally racist,”

this is a double negative. speak english.

to assume b/c someones definition of racism includes the KKK means that it is restricted to the kkk (“white pointy hood and absolutely nothing else”) is a leap of logic into strawman land. You clearly don’t want to deal with the argument at hand, just your strawman contruction of it.

racism has always included an element of power within it

and every individual has power. and blacks themselves have power and can institute it. in fact, this very thread deals with non-white, presumably insitituinal, racism (especially since he was denyed a university job). often the instituional/ideological distinction is a distinction withput a differnce, since power is not a static concept.

And even the KKK are reaching back to the historical institutional power they’ve had in the past as fuel for their ideological hatred, look at their language “we’re losing the country”, “white christians built this country, we must defend it”,

i agree. i wasn’t claiming the kkk was not institutionally racist, i was just going by your reasoning, which you’ve now conceded, after a lot of bluster, was not a misrepresentation of your thinking. so see, i know you now even better than you know yourself.

And even the KKK are reaching back to the historical institutional power they’ve had in the past as fuel for their ideological hatred, look at their language “we’re losing the country”, “white christians built this country, we must defend it”, etc… ‘the n8ggers are taking over everything” etc.. even though they might not have direct acces into those institutions anymore, the hatred is being catalyzed by the state when they did. Racism without institutional power behind it can only do so much (and when itt does, it’s to much fanfare, like the violent acts you cheerily bring up as to ‘prove’ that blacks can be racist)

it’s not redefining of the word. racism has always included an element of power within it (and blacks were victims of that institutional power), it’s only when ideology separated from institution that the two needed to be identified as such. up until recently racism has been both ideological and institutional, they are one and the same. now, because groups like the KKK still exist, a distinction in terminology must be made.

claim the only racism that exists is “3rd grade definition of racism as a white pointy hood and absolutely nothing else”

that is your claim when you state that any definition of racism that doesn’t cover what the KKK does is meaningless or ‘problematic’ instead of posting your nonsense and saying ‘lets let other people decide” how about you actually think about what you’re writing.

We’re getting bogged down in an argument-by-defintion. One of my earlier points was that the much ballyhooed “blacks can’t be racist” argument, which at first seems like a radical psychological insight, is merely an argument-by-definition, ie a simple redefining of the word to exclude blacks. but such exclusion, since it relies on relations of power, would arguably exclude the KKK, as you more-or-less agree, though Akshay has different thoughts.

So its important not to get too hysterical over definitions, as is your tendency. Just because Askhay or I define racism using a different paradigm than you doesn’t mean the only racism we acknowledge is the KKK’s, as is obvious from the fact that i identified some Korean storeowners, among others, as racist on this very thread. Nor did anyone argue that institutional racism is causing the kkk’s disenfranchisement, caricature the KKK as “redneck hicks in shooting ranges” or claim the only racism that exists is “3rd grade definition of racism as a white pointy hood and absolutely nothing else” or claim that you said the KKK are not ideologically racist.

either you can’t seem to figure out when people are in agreement with you, as i’ think you’ve admitted before, or you’re accustomed to only fighting strawmen.

Obesity is something visually defined with an objective metric (weight on a scale), much less complex than something like racism is, someone who had more than a 3rd grade understanding of the term would comprehend that. Your comparison is completely ridiculous but indicative of your general statements on the topic. so no surprise.

A better example is something like ‘peculiarity’ – a socially defined term with complexity attributed to it.

for example, something could be strangely peculiar (a UFO landing in the middle of yankee stadium) or funnily peculiar (you actually attempting to make a cogent argument regd’ing racism/civil rights movement in the USA)

But both are peculiar. the existence of one doesn’t preclude the other.

The only reason institutional racism excludes groups like the KKK is because ideological racism (Dinesh Dsouza bullshit definition) shrank from the public sphere., when it was no big deal for a KKK member to hold public office (and publicly state that) there was no reason to coin a term like “institutional racism” because overt, biologically based racism WAS replete within institutions. Pity you couldnt have been born a white person during these times.

Any definition of racism that manages to exclude the KKK is, in my view, problematic; just as any definition of obesity that manages to exclude Marlon Brando makes no sense. After all, how fat does one then have to be to make the cut?