Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-25641997-20140803061618/@comment-7472785-20140804112737

No, not really, indeed.

As for walking a mile in someone else's shoes - if it's proposed to you, do it! Because, when you do, you have gotten somebody else's shoes - and you're a mile ahead...

Above someone said 'racism is racism' - that is true only if you define 'racism' as inherently discriminatory. Now that is a far spread understanding of the meaning, but context does matter and differentiation (by race) may not always be discriminating.

When I say that some of my friends are Asian, African-American, 'of colour' or otherwise Non-Caucasian, I'm differentiating them, but I do not value them (unequally). Not least we have countries here in Europe where a Non-Caucasian portion of the population is an infinitesimal portion of the population, and as such 'racism' isn't the issue - being a 'foreigner' however may well be, even of the same race. That's discriminating, but not racism. Same is true for religion(s) - they are a cause of discriminations, but not a matter of race.

Therefore there is gender discrimination, religious discrimination, racial discrimination and an abundance of other x-discriminations - but correctly spoken, in the original, literal sense of the word, racism is at first hand differentiation by race and only in certain contexts synonymous to race discrimination.