The term "racist" seems to mean something different these days, it seems to have drifted from what it used to mean say 5 or 10 years ago. It used to be reasonably clear that discriminating against someone purely because of their race (i.e. the immutable fact of their origin and therefore certain aspects of their phenotype) was bad (and illegal). Nowadays though it seems that using the wrong adjective on twitter or (legitimately) disagreeing with activists who claim to be anti-racists can be worthy of the label. This "lightweight" application of the term is frustrating to many liberal minded people.
Surely something as serious as this shouldn't be thrown around willy-nilly and logically, the more it's used as a trivial put-down the less weight the accusation carries. At some point "real" racists are going to be protected because no one takes the claim seriously any longer. Unfortunately, for those looking to take a shortcut to censorship or virtue signal their opposition to something on social media, the real world is much more complex and nuanced than this! It seems to me that clarity of thought and evidence having sufficient weight to carry an argument or accusation needs greater intellectual investment than many are willing to apply.
No comments:
Post a Comment