Leandro Cardoso Profile picture
Endlessly curious about almost everything and a lover of Science, Philosophy, History and some little silly things.

Sep 28, 2020, 11 tweets

Racial centrality in politics (1/n)

It should be simple and somewhat obvious: any political movement that keeps race as the most important thing (or very important) in politics and how to deal with people in day-to-day life is a dangerous, racist ideology that will harm society.

Even when an ethnic or religious group is struggling against genocidal policies, the decent people will try to stand by the UNIVERSAL Human traits these oppressed held. Reckognising the Universal Human traits is the way we can overcome racism.

We can't impose over people special rights or duties based on their phenotypes or ancestrality — that's simply racist. We must offer basic equal rights and demand basic equal duties to anyone, regardless how they looks like.

If your ALLEGED "anti-racist" ideas keep you in ideological touch with openly racist people/ideologies/policies, then you are not standing for "anti-racist" proposition, but for RACIST ideas. That's why racial issues shouldn't be central in politics.

Surely we can — and we should — assure that any people, regardless their race or ancestrality, have the same rights shared by anyone else. And we achieve that avoiding ANY laws that treat people based on their race/phenotype/ancestrality.

And some cultural issues remain "problematic" (provoking): there are no people specially linked to this or that cultural trait, as there is no magical bond between language/music/food/dance/art and actual human beings.

Actually we ate and grow food first grown by ancient people that often aren't that GENETICALLY related to us. We spoke languages that come from ancient people that aren't always genetically related to us. We wear fabric firstly created by people not always related to us...

... and we hold technologies and ideas from an ethnic diverse milieu: be them our numerals, our core political system, our intellectual traditions, etc.

We must also recognise the Universal Human Traits, being able to apply reason on a daily routine.

Without rational thinking in a personal level, our ancestors wouldn't be able to survive. It is silly and utterly false when someone claims "rationality was created by X type of people", or when "they" claim any other human universal trait was "invented" by X or Y people.

The most important idea about race we must keep in mind is "race should not be a thing in a better society". If we want to keep our society good or make it better, we should not rely on racial issues, but overcome them and make sure we are dealing with human universal traits.

It is somewhat funny to see profound racist people claiming to be "anti-racist", while proposing clear racist policies that would be a "dream-come-true" to old defensors of racist shit. But let them unchecked is dangerous.

END

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