Irrelevant arguments set back actual race discussions in blog
This article essentially argues that the creation of the word “race” is fundamental to racism, and without it’s usage and inception into language, racism would… well, he doesn’t really leave us with what potential alternative benefits would be gained from the nonexistence of the word racism, however I suppose it is assumed that things would be better. Unfortunately, this article is another example of false racism, a phenomenon I am finding quite prevalent in blogs discussing the subject. William Cook gives us the flaw in his argument himself:
“Until the word “race” came into existence, people defined themselves by ethnicity.”
Can you see the gap in his logic? He is disassociating the idea that people have always defined themselves by ethnicity with the creation of the word race. This is not the case, following Occam’s Razor, rather than the term race being a loaded word created with a conspiracy to demean members of our community, it seems more likely that the term race came into use in order to easily identify the difference in ethnicity. The problem of racism is not with words, rather the ideas behind them. Attempting to blame a word is creating an ancillary conflict that does not address racism and is mainly in the author’s own head.
