Residential zoning is just so wrong. It’s trendy on the left to say it’s “racist” and it is that, but it’s also classist and elitist and WASP supremacist (e.g. banning multigenerational families, which are common among both Hispanics and lower-tier whites).
I live in a pre-zoning code suburb in Maryland. The current minimum lot size is 20,000 square feet. Our house and most of the neighboring houses are on 2,900 square foot lots. At least on this side of the neighborhood, nobody tattles on each other for doing unpermitted work. The result is real diversity and a tightly packed community. (Though as housing prices increase, our neighborhood, being so close to DC, is under threat from PMCs.)
Incorrect. In ordinary usage, “racism” means prejudice based on race. There are efforts by some to muddy its meaning, to encompass both racial prejudice and “disproportionate effect,” but that’s not the common usage.
> In ordinary usage, “racism” means prejudice based on race. There are efforts by some to muddy its meaning, to encompass both racial prejudice and “disproportionate effect,” but that’s not the common usage.
Thank you. For some reason I've never been able to explain it so succinctly when two people I respect get into an obviously semantic argument around something being or not being racist and then getting lost in the weeds of the intentions of the long dead.
Just so we're all clear, the racism of prohibitions on intergenerational housing --- which is what BLM is talking about when they talk about the "nuclear family" or whatever it is they said to spook the normies --- is racism, not disproportionate impact. Single family zoning was designed to keep specific ethnicities out of "white" neighborhoods. It's not an accident.
> I'm just saying these policies were motivated directly, maybe exclusively by racial animus
We have similar motivations to thank for our cabaret laws in New York, which literally fined restaurants without the proper licences if their patrons danced.
Sounds like you are referring to a connotative value which is common to a subculture of English speakers. I learned to use the dictionary definition from sociology 101.
You definitely didn’t learn the “dictionary definition” in any sociology class, but rather a redefinition of the term developed in social sciences circles that’s used mainly there.
> noun
prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against a person or people on the basis of their membership in a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized.
"a program to combat racism"
The definition you quoted included discrimination which is another umbrella term like disproportionate effect. Why is it so hard to understand that racism is what racism does?
Discrimination is also another term that in ordinary usage requires intent to discriminate.
I don’t find the concept “hard to understand” I’m just talking about what commonly used words mean. “Racism” is a word that describes individual animosity. It’s confusing to try and overload it with other meanings.
Disagreed. Our laws about discrimination against protected groups do not care about intent, nor do I care about intent when I am talking about a piece of code that serves to discriminate between one chunk of data and another in some fashion. In fact, even when I talk about people who discriminate, I rarely care about their intention.
I find the dictionary definitions suitable. I believe you have been arguing in favor of the overloaded social (connotative) meaning on this thread. Color me impressed.
When I was poor, I just wanted a home I could afford in a safe neighborhood. Now that I have money, I just want poor people to be homeless.
/mockery