This Italian "newspaper" wanted to depict the "indian heritage" of an US candidate. Chennai, Cherokee, the same.

Mildly Infuriating@lemmy.world – 384 points – 3 months ago

Can you notice that it's a bit leaning to the right?

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Racism doesn't have to have intent. Racism can't exist in a vacuum- that's true- but the only context it needs is the concept of race.

A fantastic example would be rolling up all the Native American tribe into one group. Or attributing anything, even conceptually, to that group.

You don't have to be aware that this is incorrect for it to qualify as racism, and you don't have to have an intent about making that attribution to be wrong in doing so.

In which way this image rolls up every Native American into one group, considering that is a cultural reference to some specific movie genre (so it has to do with the group represented in those movies)?

Can you also point me to how you distilled this definition of racism? I just looked up https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/racism

And I see:

a belief that race is a fundamental determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race
the systemic oppression of a racial group to the social, economic, and political advantage of another
a political or social system founded on racism and designed to execute its principles

To me in the definition above seems clear that there is some ideological scaffolding of racial superiority behind racism, or a precise goal of discriminate or oppress based on such ideology.

Could you maybe elaborate how this image is racist? Would have been as racist if they used a western hat instead?

EDIT: Ironically, the top level comment in this thread mentions "Europeans", compressing many different people and cultures into one single viewpoint. Is that racist?

"Indians" don't merely exist as a cultural concept in spaghetti westerns, and even if they did, fantastic racism is still racism.

Buuuut for fun, I'll engage with your pivot to definition, and I'll just add this quote for context that appears in the link you provided. Juuuust below your listed definitions.

Dictionaries are often treated as the final arbiter in arguments over a word's meaning, but they are not always well suited for settling disputes. The lexicographer's role is to explain how words are (or have been) actually used, not how some may feel that they should be used, and they say nothing about the intrinsic nature of the thing named or described by a word, much less the significance it may have for individuals.

Isn't that amazing? "They say nothing about the intrinsic nature of the thing named or described by a word." Your authority explicitly states that they shouldn't be used as an authority in this context! Remarkable...

And now, in addition, I'll provide the rest of that passage, which is also the absolute end of me interacting with you in this manner.

When discussing concepts like racism, therefore, it is prudent to recognize that quoting from a dictionary is unlikely to either mollify or persuade the person with whom one is arguing.

Not only not meant to be used as an authority, but also unlikely to settle any dispute you might have about the word.

I'll take their advice. You can reply however you like- my interest in this conversation has vanished. Hopefully someone more patient will come along.

“Indians” don’t merely exist as a cultural concept in spaghetti westerns

But this is a referenced to those, specifically. You can't make a reference and at the same time capture the plurality, can you?

even if they did, fantastic racism is still racism.

You can argue that western movies are racist, but using them as reference now that they are established culture is different.

Not only not meant to be used as an authority, but also unlikely to settle any dispute you might have about the word.

Sure, but you will have noticed that I first provided my own view and you provided yours - which I disagree with - so if we want to have a conversation, we need to have some fixed points, otherwise it's impossible to understand each other if words mean different things to the both of us. I didn't use the dictionary definition to build my argument, I have simply shown how the definition I use is consistent in some aspects (the intent, for example) with a formal definition.

At the same time, I asked explicitly to provide your own, and instead you spent all the time to quote a fairly irrelevant (in this context) passage, without ultimately showing why I should accept your definition that to me seems completely arbitrary, way too vague and generic.

So let's just sit in this pit of ambiguity, in which anything can be anything, if you are creative enough.

Here is the fixed point they are arguing from, from an academic source, with a dive into the cognitive nature of it.

https://cognitiveresearchjournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s41235-021-00349-3

Thanks, I don't have the time to read it all.

I checked the abstract and I read:

This tutorial reviews the built-in systems that undermine life opportunities and outcomes by racial category, with a focus on challenges to Black Americans.

(and more). The focus seems to be very strongly on American culture, and on institutional racism against black people in America.

Then I read:

Unconscious inferences, empirically established from perceptions onward, demonstrate non-Black Americans’ inbuilt associations: pairing Black Americans with negative valences, criminal stereotypes, and low status, including animal rather than human. Implicit racial biases (improving only slightly over time) imbed within non-Black individuals’ systems of racialized beliefs, judgments, and affect that predict racialized behavior.

Considering that in this case there is no association of any characteristic with the race, it doesn't concern American culture nor black people, I am struggling to adapt this point of view to the case being discussed.

Replace black, and America, with African refugees, and Italy, or whatever. Just because it uses this particular instance as the example, does not mean that it doesn't apply to systems of power everywhere. This is specifically how it went down in the US. However this template of behavior can be seen everywhere. If you read the whole thing you will find that it is discussing how a society's majority, that is in control (a population minority can be the ones for whom the system is built, so it is those in the majority of positions of power, that matter), builds its structures, and, consciously or not, this negatively impacts minorities within their borders, as it selects a preferential treatment of the majority demographic of it's power structure.

Sure, I am very well aware of racism towards immigrants and other symilar dynamics. I am also conscious of fascist history and the consequences of African inferiority in general in culture. I understood the general gist of the source you shared.

Still this doesn't explain to me how a cultural reference to a group of people as per a popular movie genre, that have absolutely no contact point with Italian culture fits into the same dynamic.