It seems as though you see racism or non-racism as a binary category: you're either 100% racist, or you aren't at all. Like being married or not, alive or dead, male or female*. I think, however, that what racism really is consists of views. If you say someone is racist, what that actually means is that they hold racist views.

Now, I think one of the main problems with the media today, especially in the US, is that they don't like to admit nuanced viewpoints. You're either a conservative, through-and-through, or you're a liberal, through-and-through. They have trouble with people who are fiscally conservative and socially liberal, even though they are quite a lot of those. It's as though anyone who is against big government must also be against abortion and gay marriage.

So, if a person holds one racist view and four non-racist views, it's fair to say that their view on that issue is a racist view without it meaning that the person is good recruiting material for the KKK. In my earlier posts, all I was doing was claiming that "AAE is bad English and people shouldn't speak it" is a racist view. I wasn't claiming that all who hold such a view are 100% racist, or trying to slap a label saying "This person is a racist" on such people. However, to someone who thinks of racism in all-or-nothing terms, it would appear that I was making that far more radical claim.

*Yes, there are a very few hermaphrodites, XY females etc, but you know what I'm getting at .



To pick holes in your particular examples:

1. There's nothing necessarily sexist about being pro-life. The fact that abortion affects women and not men isn't our fault – it's biology's fault. I think most pro-lifers (and definitely the pro-life women you mention) would agree that the issue isn't really about women, nor indeed men – it's about babies.

2. It's not racist to be in favour of stricter immigration policies, unless you think people of certain races should be able to get in more easily than others. A "tighten our borders" view could arise from valid concerns about overpopulation. A "keep those dirty Hispanics out" view is very different.



If Hitler honestly said that, then he wouldn't be racist on that issue. The reason your example is absurd is not because racism is an all-or-nothing status like being married or not – it's because ability at carpentry isn't a very important issue in comparison with the many other issues on which Hitler was racist.



As I said above, what you suggest is exactly what I intended. I think such people hold one racist view due to their ignorance about language in general and AAE in particular, even though all their other views may be non-racist. I apologise if I wasn't clear enough – I hope, however, that this discussion has cleared up any misunderstanding based on different underlying assumptions which I didn't realise we were making.

I hope we see a bit more eye-to-eye now.