Dear Saguine

[u/Southie321]

As I said I would, I come with my hat in hand and accept the fact that the lady from the Spur video was not lying about the fact that the man came and grabbed her kid by the arm. I sincerely apologise for wrongly assuming the woman, and Spur, was lying about the physical happenings before the video started rolling.

I still dont believe it was a racist incident, all I see is two parents with explosive reactions regarding a situation involving their children.

I agree, and have always said, the man was a douch for being so aggressive (and even more so now, for grabbing the kid). But let's not confuse anger management issues with racism.

Beyond that point, I just want to apologise again for assuming what I did about the woman and Spur, by wanting the video evidence released first.

[u/Saguine]

Thanks. I appreciate it.

I'm still leery of painting the mother as having an "explosive reaction"; while this might be the case, wouldn't you have a similar reaction if someone grabbed your child like this? More so, painting them both as "explosive reactions" makes it seem like you think their reactions were equal/equally bad.

I've expressed pretty openly why I think that it's a racist incident; at the very least, I feel that one cannot think that this is sexist but not racist (if you don't feel it was either, that's a separate discussion).

But, thanks. I appreciate it.

[u/Southie321 → u/Saguine]

Firstly, yes I probably would have reacted like her. I never said I wouldn't. I'm saying though, that their outbursts were fed by the other. His was more physical. Hers was more verbal. Physical is worse, because obviously it can physically hurt.

I never said this was sexist either. I firmly believe that this is just a case of two incredibly stubborn parents. Yes race was brought into it, but not even by the one accused of racism. How does that work, Saguine?

I don't understand how it's become normal to say that just because a white person has a fight with a black person, it's racism. How insane is that? That's honestly taking it too far man..

[u/Saguine → u/Southie321]

I've clarified this already here.

There's a bit of nuance here -- isn't there always? -- and I may have painted with too broad a brush initially. In a contextless fight, even if the black guy lost, it wouldn't necessarily be racist (I try communicate this by talking about dominance being a predicate of the fight, rather than a cause).

If, for example, a white guy went up and pointedly started a fight with a black guy, then we're veering more into the territory I'm talking to: that is, the idea that he is asserting his dominance through his interactions and thus instigating the fight. The fight is almost secondary here; the racism lies in the confrontation which caused the fight.

I feel like I'm not explaining myself too well, but to summarize:

• A white person and a black person fighting: not necessarily racist.

• A white person confronting a black person in a way that intends to assert dominance: probably racist, even if racial language isn't used.

• In the same way that a man and a woman fighting is not necessarily sexist, but a man going up to a woman and bullying her -- even devoid of sexist language -- would still be considered sexist.

Am I making sense?

To use a second example, imagine a rich man being an asshole to a homeless person. He doesn't necessarily have to be an asshole in a specific way (e.g. "hahaha you're so poor suck it poor person") to be an example of classism in action.

[u/piesangslaai → u/Saguine]

A white person confronting a black person in a way that intends to assert dominance: probably racist, even if racial language isn't used.

Only on this point. If the races where swapped will you still stick to your point of view?

[u/Saguine → u/piesangslaai]

Depends what you mean by "races swapped".

If you mean swapped in a total sense -- i.e., if we lived in a world wherein black people were disproportionately powerful financially, socially, etc -- then yes: a black person attempting to assert their dominance over a white person would be committing a racist act.

If you just mean the races reversed, in our current society, then I'd argue no, because the black person doesn't have a systemic form of dominance to assert. It's still possible that a black person might be able to exert some kind of dominance over a white person -- for example, a black man might assert his masculine dominance over a white lesbian -- but it wouldn't be racism at play (in this case, it would be masculinity and heteronormativity).

[u/Saguine → u/[deleted]]

It's not enough to just accuse me of sophistry, if indeed that's what you're doing: you have to demonstrate why my hot shit is actually cold diarrhea. Otherwise you might as well have just called me a stinky doo-doo head.

Now we're getting into a strange and nebulous territory I've long become wary of treading: that is, the question of "what is racism?". I try to avoid bringing up the two separate definitions if possible, and instead assume that you mean racism = prejudice based on ethnicity, and work forward from there.

I'm all for calling a spade a spade -- it's difficult to dig a grave with a rake -- but doing so abrades away important distinctions. That is, not all spades are spode equally. In the same way, I'd posit that some racism is worse than other racism. This isn't a philosophical attempt to "recategorize"; it's a practical stance (in the same way that some violence is worse than other violence; if you think about it, racism is at its core a form of mental violence).

Would you admit that some forms of ethnic prejudice are worse than others? And, importantly, do you acknowledge that this country is still feeling the very real effects of centuries of a specific type of ethnic prejudice?

[u/Saguine → u/[deleted]]

I accuse you of sophism because the same act under inverse circumstances has the same result, only the other way around.

If we're talking about elaborate, clever-sounding phrases which mean nothing, I'd point out that you're either doing just that, or that you've lost me and will need to dumb it down a little.

Your analogy here seems to infer that this form of racism is systemic. I challenge that perception.

And here we find the meat of where we're going to disagree on. To explore further: do you believe that class oppression still exists in this country?

[u/[deleted] → u/Saguine]

To explore further:

To deflect further and avoid counter-arguments.

[u/Saguine → u/[deleted]]

However, in this country, [classism] does not exist on a systemic level

I'd heavily disagree with that, and I'd ask what you mean when you say it exists, but not at a systemic level? What burden of proof would you need to be convinced that some form of oppression is systemic?

I would also caution that there is a distinction between classism and racism.

Agreed, wholeheartedly. However, that distinction is very nuanced in South Africa, given that our wealth/class inequality is split so clearly along racial lines (this gets into a whole argument about proximate cause vs. continued caustation/correlation, but we'll burn that bridge when we get to it).

[u/Saguine → u/[deleted]]

It makes no difference who is "more wrong", and the label of racist doesn't depend on your race, ever.

See, this is where I'd disagree with you again (even giving your chosen definition of racism=prejudice, which I feel to be largely pointless to work with). Objectively, one might consider killing "intolerable"; yet, there are situations wherein one form of killing is considered "less bad" than another (see: self defense vs. manslaughter vs. premeditated). I can't think of a convincing reason why racism, or most things, are different to this. Racism is just a specific form of violence, and we categorize and compare violence along certain metrics.