How would one distinguish between perceived -isms (racism, sexism etc.), and real -isms? Are discrimination and prejudice quantifiable?

With over 8 million Jews murdered by Nazis, racism is most certainly real. I know of now way to measure it in ounces or Rontgens of whatever. You can’t measure love in quantifiable units either, but it’s as real as anything I know of.

We must realize that discrimination is not in the eye of the beholder, but in the mind of the perpetrator. If someone discriminates for legitimate reasons (e.g. a boss discriminating against a lazy worker) then there is no problem even if the people against whom they discriminate also happen to be a member of a group that is often discriminated against for illegitimate reasons (e.g. race). However, sometimes we think we have reasons, but hidden prejudices affect our decisions.

Edited for grammar

What you seem to be asking for is a definition of racism. Something to make acts of “real” racism distinct from similar but unrelated behaviors.

What racism is

I’ve always found racism is best understood as a label for a family of logical fallacies. Specifically, fallacies that produce invalid and unsound conclusions about race. This is to suggest that when someone concludes something like:

All Chinese eat broccoli
Jim is Chinese
Therefore, Jim must like broccoli.

They are committing what I find to be definable as a racist fallacy. You’ll notice that the fallacy doesn’t have to be malicious, though it certainly can be. Racism is a matter of making ignorant mistakes in our thought processes that produces ill conclusions in government, corporate as well as personal decisions. These fallacious conclusions can often be quite harmless but can often lead to outright segregation, abuse, and sometimes even murder in society.

What racism isn’t

It’s easy to fallaciously conclude sometimes that some statements or arguments are racist when they actually aren’t. I hold that race related conclusions that are actually correct cannot be counted as “racist” since they lack the aformentioned and necessary ignorance and/or logical mistake to make them such. For example, if an african man with dark skin decides that he won’t wear sunscreen on a day with a medium-high uv index. He’s not making a mistake when he concludes that he likely won’t suffer sunburn. When a man enters a “Traditional German Food” restaurant and orders a schnitzel without looking at the menu, he’s not making an ignorant suggestion and hence not a racist one even if the restaurant doesn’t happen to serve schnitzels.

In short I would say racism requires verifiable mistakes in logic (fallacies) in the race related conclusions that are drawn.

^ the above works for all kinds of isms, by the way.

ignorant (not necessarily malicious, not necessarily innocuous) conclusions about race, sex, age.. etc.. fallacy is the soul of all such isms.

I agree racism/prejudice is in the mind of the perpetrator. The intent of hatred or the supposition other races are superior or inferior to another. However, the feelings of discrimination are in the mind of the victim. Seemingly innocuous generalizations can and often do lead to racism or perceptions of racism even in subtle ways. You mentioned 10 people in a situation and half see it as innocuous and half as discrimination. Sometimes this can happen because of how or where a person was raised. When living/working in Georgia, I saw and heard things I was really surprised still existed. An example: in my job all of the office workers were white and most of the outside workers were African American. I spoke to everyone. One of the older African American gentlemen would always look at the ground when I spoke to him and would only say, “Hello” when I said it to him. I figured he was just shy. I was later told he did this because “when he grew up black men did not speak to white women because of the risk of being beaten or killed.” Wow! Did that change my perspective. I grew up all over the world; the ‘big’ divide for us was whether you were an officer or enlisted kid and that really only matter if the kid decided to pull daddy or mommy’s rank. The point being some people are more sensitive to racism and what they perceive as racism or prejudice.

This holds true for many ideals though. I was in the USN when the Tailhook scandal occurred. We had to have an 8 hour stand down on sexual harassment. This ranged from the blatant of sexual favors for professional favors to the subtle of bawdy jokes. Although they tried to provide one, there was no real definition because it was ‘if it made you feel uncomfortable.’ Because it was a small command with small watches, we were able to have fairly good discussions. We found there was such a disparity among all the sailors (both male and female) about what would cause discomfort (I am talking about the subtle side) we could not even come up with a real definition in a small group.

With statistics. The only way to do a scientific job is to attempt to measure the presence of the “isms” and then, using statistical analysis, see which one plays how much of a role in any particular outcome. If you don’t do that, you’re shooting craps.

But yes, social scientists do these kinds of analyses all the time for a wide variety of subjects. If you look up the academic literature, you’ll be overwhelmed with various different findings. So much research has been done on these topics that so few people hear about. They can provide answers for policy makers, but not if the politicians don’t believe in evidence and science. Few do.

Part of racism is believing one race is superior to another race. Therefore, racism can be inherent and never displayed (in my opinion).

@wandayatta: there are limits with scientifical study that may be present in an analysis or statistical research; there are hidden factors that may produce an outcome, so to say a particular outcome is the result of one factor may be erroneous.

to walk in someone’s shoes is an understatement and has passed the test of time for a reason

@keelymama As I’m sure you know, the results of a statistical analysis are shown as probabilities. There is a margin of error for every prediction. All predictions will be “erroneous” in some cases.

And yes, science is limited because there are always further refinements to make, and other factors to put in a model that make it more accurate. Sometimes science studies what is obvious, but it is important to confirm “common sense” with supporting data. Far too often, common sense turns out to make no sense.

In areas like this, anyone’s opinion is as invalid as anyone else’s. There is no way to distinguish between the verity of someone’s personal model of how things work compared to the next person’s model. The only way to know is if you use the scientific method to try to study it. All else is bloviation.

A small study on social or psychological structures (including stereotypes) doesn’t make an argument more sound to me (proves the validity of a stereotype), either, is basically my point.

@wundayatta Overall, I agree with you.