Talk:Racialism

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[edit] Archive

[edit] Unprotected

Two weeks is long enough. First edit war I see and it goes back in the can. --Golbez 22:50, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks much, I tried hard to take your suggestions into account. ¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸ 23:54, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Anthropology,

User:Bcrowell was good enough as to advise us to expand on the scientific aspect of the article, specifically regarding anthropological history. I think he's right. He specifically suggested :

"Gould's The Mismeasure of Man, ... in comparison with the opposing points of view expressed in Steven Pinker's books and Matt Ridley's Nature Via Nurture."

¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸ 01:25, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV marker

I've added an NPOV marker to the article. When I came across this page earlier tonight, it was in an extremely POV state, clearly pushing the POV of white supremacist organizations that white "racialism" is simply the white analog of the black civil rights struggle. For instance, the external links section listed the NAACP, followed immediately by David Duke's NAAWP; this is extremely misleading, since the NAACP does not describe itself as "racialist." Likewise, the article had a lead image of Marcus Garvey, despite that fact that black separatists and black nationalists do not refer to themselves as "racialist," and reject the analogy, implied by the term, between white supremacist movements and black civil rights movements. I've made some edits to try to make the article a little less ridiculously POV, but it needs much more work. I would also like to see some verifiable sources for the article's assertions that the term is used in academia; I'm going to delete those claims and see if someone comes forward with some evidence. I suspect that "racialism" is only used in academia by people who are explicitly discussing the ideology of white supremacist movements.--Bcrowell 04:42, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

For the most part, I liked FeloniousMonk's edit of 07:05, 19 August 2005. Using the Hitler photo in the lead is a good idea, and the discussion of Nazi Germany and Rwanda makes sense after being inserted into the lead, rather than in its old context where it didn't make sense (which was why I'd deleted it). I've reinserted some of the text about the fact that in the U.S. today, the term is mostly used by white supremacists; I think this text is very important in order to keep the article from being a POV soapbox for white supremacists.--Bcrowell 14:22, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

I've deleted this quote:

"While Mandela, like the others, is clearly not racist, he also must be counted as racialist, because his struggle against apartheid was predicated on the race-based solidarity of those who were enslaved, based on race, under the system of apartheid: you cannot fight racism without introducing race as a predicate of your action. So Malcolm and Mandela, both, have to be counted racialist." (Grisso, Africans Unbound Magazine[1])

I see several problems with it. First of all, it doesn't connect in any intelligible way to the surrounding text. Also, it misleadingly implies that Malcolm X and Nelson Mandela are widely seen as racialist. Malcolm X was in fact known for trying to bring Elijah Muhammad's racist version of Islam into the mainstream of Islam, and Mandela is the president of a multi-racial republic, and has spent his whole life trying to overcome racialism. The link is thoughtful and complex, and the use of this quote, taken out of context, is misleading. Finally, if the point is to try to show that some people view Nelson Mandela and Malcolm X as racialist, then it should be established that Grisso is notable or influential, which I suspect he's not.--Bcrowell 14:34, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Sam Spade reinserted the quote without responding to this argument on the talk page. I've deleted it again.--Bcrowell 18:05, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

I've deleted the Reggie White quote again. No attempt had been made to relate it to the rest of the article. I see it as simply an attempt to promote racialism as a POV, and to legitimize racialism by attributing it to someone who, I suspect, would reject the label. The problems with this quote, in other words, are very much like the problems with the Grisso quote: POV, not connected to the article, and portrays people as racialists who aren't.--Bcrowell 17:55, 19 August 2005 (UTC)


I've deleted the "Human rights and racism" section again. It had read like this:

(1) A century ago, virtually every nation on the planet officially employed racial policies; today none formally do. Two unpopular examples of racist regimes were Nazi Germany and Apartheid South Africa.
(2) Some feel the genocide carried out by Hutu extremists in Rwanda against Tutsis and moderate Hutus, which resulted in the murder of 900,000 people between April and June 1994 was a result of racialism. Others feel that racialism necessarilly leads to social stratification.
(3) While many nations are today accused of promoting policies which resemble racialism, the idea is so unpopular that not a single nation claims these policy choices accentuating racial differences as based on 'race.'
(4) Prior to the 20th century, nearly all nations had strict laws promoting racial distinctions. This became increasingly unpopular, especially after the 1960s, and no nation today admits to having an official racial stratification or racialist hierarchy. However, there are wide arrays of race-based policies in place in nations today, but since the word racialism has negative connotations, the term used for these policies is racial rather than racialist. These include affirmative action, racial quotas and reverse discrimination. These policies are said to attempt to correct inequalities and are sometimes referred to as "positive discrimination".

I gave detailed justifications for deleting all this stuff in my earlier edit summaries. To recap:

(1) The first sentence is untrue. The second sentence reads as a POV attempt to suggest that racialism is often popular.
(2) "Some feel that..." and "Others feel that..." are unverifiable and meaningless. This paragraph doesn't make sense in this context.
(3) This sentence is not true. Plenty of countries, including the U.S., have legal codes that are not race-blind.
(4) The first sentence is not true. The second sentence is an attempt to project the U.S. experience onto the global scale. The third sentence is a POV attempt to equate affirmative action to racism or racialism.

I feel that the article is too chaotic for me to exert much enegry on it for awhile. I guess I was too optomistic about the unproitection. I have an idea, however. I think I'll take a break from the article for a month or so, let new editors freely edit, and then I'll come back and see what I can do. ¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸ 18:48, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Lovecraft

GURPS Cthulhupunk is a roleplaying game from the 90's. Lovecraft died in the 30's. The author of Cthulhupunk, in a side note, describes what racism and racialism are. The gamebook describing Cthulhu mythos, references to Lovecraft are mandatory and this note about racialism is written in order to better respect Lovecraft's Cthulhu's universe. From memory, text starts with something like

“Lovecraft was a racist, not a bigot. In our time, this is hard to make a difference, but it was not always like that”. Here, racist actually refers to racialism, as it is made clear in the rest of the text.

I'm not a native English speaker, so if you have a hard time understanding what I'm talking about, please reply. Reply to David Latapie 01:40, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

A sidenote from a roleplaying game rulebook is not authoritative enough to merit reference in an encyclopedia article on a topic unrelated to the game itself. A citation from a biography of H.P. Lovecraft would be better, but then again Lovecraft's views on race are not particularly noteworthy beyond his fan base, and don't really merit inclusion in this article. --Kevin Myers | (complaint dept.) 18:29, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "Race" and "Ethnic groups"

Lapaz recently changed the instances of "race" to "ethnic groups". Now whether or not one believes the term "race" has any scientific usage (there is a vigorous debate about this still), using it to describe "racialist" thinking is entirely adequate. Racialists do not believe in differences in ethnic groups, they believe in differences between races. If one wants to say that race is a contested concept, that's fine, but a separate issue. --Fastfission 02:43, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What does "racialism" means?

I just quickly read the peers' review... I must tell you that i'm quite surprised by the definition of racialism given in the current entry. In my humble opinion, but of course i may be wrong, "racialism" is the exact synonym of what is being written at "scientific racism". This POV is based in particular in Pierre-André Taguieff's works, which I understand hasn't probably crossed the Atlantic yet... However, could someone look up a definition in a good English dictionnary? If you want i'll look up Taguieff's precise ref... If some other serious scholars use the same definition as Taguieff, I would suggest merging both articles, under this "racialism" name, which is more... scientifical! Lapaz

Interesting... The French Wiki states: "Je deplace cette phrase ici, car je ne trouve le mot racialisme ni dans le Larousse, ni dans le dictionnaire de l'academie francaise. Si le mot existe, je remetrai les ligne en place. Aoineko Le racialisme est relatif à la conviction qu'à une personne de l'existence de races. Le terme est utilisé dans les sciences humaines et en particulier par Pierre-André Taguieff. ("... i can't find the word "racialism" neither in the Larousse, nor in the dictionnary of the Académie Française. If the word exists... - The term is used in human sciences and in particular by PA Taguieff"). It also says (i have no idea if it's correct): "in English the word is even less used, and is more or less a synonym of racism". In any cases, the distinction between racism and racialism as in the current English entry is quite debatable... Lapaz

[edit] racialism wasn't limited to germany in europe

wouldn't it be better to say that in that in the 19th and early 20th century racialism was popular all over europe, north america and australasia. As a british citizen i feel it would be rude to leave out our own history of bigotry; after all Mosely was a very populer figure in the 30's.

[edit] Removed white supremacist groups...

That is completely a POV violation. It does not belong in the article. For racism would I add a section saying that Racism is used by liberal groups such as the ACLU, Anti Defamation League, Southern poverty law center etc? Its trying to smear the credibility of the word. If you add it back I am adding the nonsense about the ACLU using the world racist to the racism article. They are both ridiculous to add and dont belong on either article.

JJstroker 05:23, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Something to take into account is that white supremacist groups are ignored in mainstream discussions, meaning it's probably POV to give them a position of emphasis in an article like this. (NPOV doesn't mean giving fringe viewpoints equal time with mainstream viewpoints.)--Nectar 06:03, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
I may be mistaken about the removal of this section relating to a comment on another talk page. However, whatever the history, documenting the usage of the term "racialist" among white supremecists gorups is important (though minority) aspect of its usage. The term "racialist" is indeed quite distinct in meaning from "racist", in sociological and political science circles. Not 100% unconnected, of course, but certainly non-identical. Playing off the sociological usage, white supremicists have vocally and deliberately appropriated the word in order to say "We're racialist not racist". Not to say I believe them, but there is a strong subcurrent of this usage. That said, the best place for this paragraph is in a subsection underneath the "identitarian" section. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 21:54, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
While that's probably a good description of things, the groups and their argument that they're merely being ethnocentric[2] don't have notability themselves, which I think means this usage doesn't meet the notability requirements of an encyclopedia unless it's been written about in notable published sources. There seems to be a tendency on WP for minority or fringe views to be given undue prominence, and this was one of the problems noted in Nature's comparison[3] of WP and Britannica.--Nectar 23:35, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
A few citations discussing the use of the term "racialist" by white separatists, by sources other than the separatists themselves: [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12]
Some of those are a bit too bloggish, I admit, but it's a quick search. The Village Voice source is a regular printed magazine of noteriety. And Political Research Associates is a minor, but notable think tank, with a real magazine called "Public Eye". The Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture seems to be a real and legitimate academic journal. I have no attachment to any particular one of these sources, but the fact the usage is so easy to find suggests it's notable. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 04:37, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
The notability criteria I apply personally is to ask whether a topic would be notable enough to survive (deletion by) AfD if an entire article were written about it. A related criteria for cases such as this -- where we want to see whether the intersection of two topics should be included in an article about one of them -- is to ask whether the information is reciprocally found in the other article or would be appropriate in the other article. Is language use by white identity groups an encyclopedic topic? Should the related articles include information about this topic? As per Nectar's suggestion, finding a published author who mentions their use of this language in this fashion would be sufficent to answer resolve the question. --Rikurzhen 00:08, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
I like Rikurzhen's way of stating notability judgments. To my mind, the paragraph in question survives these tests: (1) An article on White seperatist use of the term "racialism" is one I would vote "keep" on. Well, maybe not quite if it were just a single paragraph; but that's not an issue of verifiability or notability, just a merge issue (which is effectively what we have, a merge). (2) Something close to the same content would be perfectly at home in an article like Aryan Nations, assuming they do use the term and such is verifiable. Followup: the article White separatism currently does mention the use of the term "racialist" as a self-description.
Nectraflowed's observation on the relative weight of topics on WP not accuarately matching their importance in the world as a whole is quite true. But it's nothing special to political topics or groups. In my mind, a minor character in some science fiction novel doesn't merit its own 5000 word article... especially when you might see real life scientists, politicians, novelists, etc. who have much shorter articles than do these fictional characters (or no articles at all). But that's how it goes: volunteers write about what they want to write about. If someone writes at length about a fictional scientist (in a NPOV manner), we cannot force them to spend equal time writing about a real-life scientists instead. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 03:55, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
Its clearly POV. Would I go to the racist web page and say - Used by groups the NAACP, ACLU- That is ridiculous. This is leading the reader down a certain path to a certain conclusion which is clearly violating NPOV policy. It is nonsense to add this to either page. The goal is to define the word and not who uses it regardless. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.131.205.182 (talk • contribs).

PS- If white supremacist groups say that they are racialist and are in fact racist, it will show. You dont need to tell the reader that they are racist let them draw their own conclusions. Everyone one wikipedia tries to shove viewpoints down other peoples throats. The use of the word by white groups is completely irrelevant and does not belong to the article. If you keep adding it I vow that I will go to the racist defintion and add that the word is used by the NAACP, ACLU, Civil rights groups etc. They are both nonsense and dont belong to either article.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.131.205.182 (talk • contribs).

This sounds like a threat to violate WP:POINT, which would only result in an IP block. The inclusion of material in any article must not be to "get even" for some other content in a different article. That said, if you can document a usage for the term "racist" by the NAACP, ACLU, or whomever that is verifiable and distinct from usages outside those groups, by all means add that to the Racism article. Actually, looking now, the NAACP is in fact mentioned in that article, in an appropriate manner. No one on WP would claim that the word "racialist" is used only by white supremacist groups; just that their usage as self-description is both verifiable and notable, and is conceptually distinct from uses by more mainstream sociologists and media. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 21:48, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
agreed--Nectar 23:35, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
This anonymous editor who has taken out the comments on white supremacist use of the term "racialist" has also edited a number article on communists or leftists to add the spurious and unevidenced claim that they were Jewish, with few other edits outside these. FWIW, I've noticed a pattern on WP of anonymous addresses adding the claim that various people are Jewish without any evidence or background information, just an adjective added to the lead, and sometimes a category slapped on the article. I'm pretty sure this is intended as a negative characterization of these biographies in most cases. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 22:04, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I am not trying to "get even". Its just the standard should be applied to all articles and I am only trying to show what a joke it is to add such nonsense to an article. Secondly it is factual adding people who were Jewish. It even says it on their page I just categorized them as Jewish Americans. That is not against the law. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.131.205.182 (talk • contribs).

This anon editor is not telling the truth. For example, s/he changed the characterization of former CPUSA chairman Gus Hall's family background from the accurate "Finnish" to the false characterization "Jewish". It only started "saying it on his page" when 71.131.205.182 invented the claim. Obviously, only to an anti-semite is there anything wrong with being Jewish, but as it happens, Gus Hall was not. Exactly the same thing in several other biographical articles. Being mistaken about one particular person in a random way is kinda neither here nor there... but being mistaken about a whole bunch, always by adding the non-verifiable claim that they are/were Jewish is... well, peculiar. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 04:04, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Biased

This article is, IMO, biased because it discusses racialism on the part of white supremasists, but not on the part of black separatist groups like the Black Panthers. Black people are equally guilty of using racialism as a tactic to excite political activity or other sentiment. Does this make sense? pygmypony

Yes, because racialism is an idea largely invented and only purported by white supremacists. Black power groups are forced to emphasize "race" because it is the only way for them to unite and topple their white oppressors; meanwhile, white supremacists emphasize race because of a desire for "racial purity". -- WGee 15:21, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
In this context the Rastafari and other organisations for black nationalism advocate that racialism facilitates "racial pride" and cultural rebirth.
Says who? The editor who inserted the statement? This is original research and will be removed. -- WGee 15:24, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
Black nationalism is frequently described as "racialist", with connotations ranging from disapproving to neutral to approving. It's not uncontroversial, but it's not original research either. A simple google search for "black panthers" racialism turns up among the first few results several journal articles discussing the matter. --Delirium 14:19, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Factual basis

This article could be improved by listing some agreed-upon examples of measurable differences between races in modern world.

  • Supposed black-white IQ gap in USA
  • as a concrete example of this gap, average GRE scores of white / black / asian students ( IQs are highly correlated with GRE scores )
  • Racial composition of NBA ( only around 20% of players are white )
  • Olympic medal statistics ( do you know that the last time a non-black male athlete won an Olympic medal for 100 m sprint was in 1980? )
  • etc. --Itinerant1 07:21, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I think it's pretty silly to confuse race with color. If it was possible to give a proper definition of race, it sure wouldn't be as dull as a color criteria. Color is deceiving in genetics.

Also with the agreed idiot-proof facts, you can add :

  • Why there's no Senegal Bobsleigh team ?
  • Why there's no women in NBA ?
  • Why there's no black baroque music composer ?
All of these statistics have nothing to do with the concept of Racialism, Racialism is an emphasis on race or racial considerations. These events and ideas, such as the IQ test, the NBA, the Olympics, or Baroque music; do not stipulate racialism; it is coincidental that the statistics are the way they are. It could be viewed as racialism of the general population to associate NBA with people of African American heritage, but there is no racialism of the NBA because the NBA hires on the criteria of performance ability. Also, citing the general population would be difficult. But the fact is that these events and ideas do not advocate racialism in themselves, but the general population does.

Btw, race and color I agree are different. Race identifies the area that a person's heritage comes from, thus identifing the limited gene pool (isolated populations caused by natural geography) that suggests the possible inheritable traits for them. Color is just a feature of that limited gene pool. It is a fallacy then to suggest that color indicates race which indicates ability. Though genetics does influence ability; and race does influence genetics to a certain extent, color is only a subset of genetics thus can't be used to identify someone's latent ability. Xlegiofalco 19:35, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

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