A potential issue with the phrase: All white people are racist

Ideas I started to explore recently (In completely the wrong place for which I have apologised - my only tweet today) that I think are worth continued reflection here on the blog, not directed to anyone in particular.

I do not disagree with the meaning of this statement but I think there is an issue of language that in practice is counterproductive to anti racist action.

“If a society is tolerant without limit it will be seized upon and destroyed by the intolerant”

- Karl Popper.

We use the intolerant left because it also speaks of not just what we want to see the left do but, crucially, what we believe it must be: Anti racist.

Bigotry of any kind is to be ejected from anti racist causes and spaces.

Here is where the issue arises:

If we use the same word of racism to describe both the racial bias that is internalised in all a white people, as well as to describe people who do and say racist things, then we loose the tools necessary to define what is welcome and deal with the intolerant when we find them.

The most obvious fault in the language at present is seen by the acknowledgment that white people can be anti-racist.

Fundamentally though, if you believe that white anti racists exist then that’s another reason to reassess the use of the Same term of racist to describe racial bias (I’m not settled on “racial bias” as a term, it’s merely an example) in all white people.

The only aim of expressing these thoughts is to better my anti racist action within my political circle (dont really have a social ones) and beyond.

Feel free to leave comments but please not if it is anything to do with the exchange in which I first voiced these ideas, only on the merits of the concern I raise around this particular phrase.