It's not about "giving excuses." It's about scientifically analyzing and breaking down the reality of the world around you.
For example, I (hope) you'd never say "I'm not giving that thief an excuse for stealing!" You understand that society, under a capitalist economic system, drove that person through a variety of ways to desperation that led down that path. We all recognize that attributing actions like stealing to "human nature" is inherently a reactionary way of viewing humanity. People, for the most part, would much rather cooperate than compete.
Further, racism the way it exists in the modern world was essentially invented. No that doesn't mean white Europeans in 1400 meeting darker skinned American continent natives didn't immediately have whatever crazy thoughts about their nature and wonder "Are these even the same as me?" We know pretty absolutely that they did have racist thoughts, beliefs and of course actions.
However, the way racism evolved from that time period up to today follows a deliberate path set out by people who weren't capitalists, correct, but also not far off in their views of humanity, human nature, exploitation of human labor from any capitalist that came along shortly after them (couple hundred years or so).
For example, without rewriting books from memory (trying not to anyway...) Catholics, the religion of the first Europeans in the Americas, at the time basically had a system that was Catholic-exclusive. Ie you could enslave a non-Catholic. But if someone converted to Catholicism they could no longer be enslaved. That's what the Church laid out basically. Race was irrelevant on paper. A black Catholic or indigenous American Catholic was supposed to be treated the same as a white European Catholic.
Obviously that presents a problem if your name is Cortez or Columbus and you want to enslave and rob entire continents. So long story short, "race"-based (skin color-based) systems were soon implemented to override the "problem." Instead of religion determining your worthiness of freedom and rights such as they exists society shifted to race, skin color, ethnicity being the determining factor. This was a great change for those involved in the slave trade and generally involved in exploiting labor. Now people were permanently locked out of personhood, legally, based on their skin color. A system the United States took its inevitable heights in the hundreds of years prior to the civil war. And clearly the remnants of that system of American Apartheid still exist.
Anyway, none of this gives excuse to anyone, then or now, for their actions and beliefs. But if you have a system that at its core is built upon exploitation of labor, as we do, and that exploitation of labor leads to horrific outcomes like extreme poverty causing starvation, homelessness, lack of medical care, etc. Meanwhile you have "opportunists" telling the exploited masses "Hey, you know why your life sucks? No, no... not your boss! It's actually that transgender teenager in another state on the swim team! Isn't that fucked up?! Aren't you really angry about that?!" Mix in purposeful defunding and de-emphasis on education for decades and decades resulting in functionally illiterate adults, living in ever-shittier standards, with no material analysis or knowledge to guide them... and you get people freaking the fuck out, some cynical and some legitimate, about "transgender Mexicans" invading the US.
It's a long path to get people to this point, and obviously they are, due to their actions and beliefs, an enemy of humanity currently. It's still extremely important to always understand how people get to that point. And understand that society and economic systems organized by political forces drive to these reactionary tendencies. If we change the political system, we change the economic systems, we will see differences in how people act.
ill just say i fundamentally disagree with your premise that the advent racism was in the 1400s.
There were apartheid laws against the britons in britain by the anglo saxons and against the gauls by the franks in france.
Racism has been around long before modern capitalism and we will still need to fight it after capitalism is gone. I feel like its a moral obligation and is also praxis.
i think class trumps everything at the end of the day of course.
It's not about "giving excuses." It's about scientifically analyzing and breaking down the reality of the world around you.
For example, I (hope) you'd never say "I'm not giving that thief an excuse for stealing!" You understand that society, under a capitalist economic system, drove that person through a variety of ways to desperation that led down that path. We all recognize that attributing actions like stealing to "human nature" is inherently a reactionary way of viewing humanity. People, for the most part, would much rather cooperate than compete.
Further, racism the way it exists in the modern world was essentially invented. No that doesn't mean white Europeans in 1400 meeting darker skinned American continent natives didn't immediately have whatever crazy thoughts about their nature and wonder "Are these even the same as me?" We know pretty absolutely that they did have racist thoughts, beliefs and of course actions.
However, the way racism evolved from that time period up to today follows a deliberate path set out by people who weren't capitalists, correct, but also not far off in their views of humanity, human nature, exploitation of human labor from any capitalist that came along shortly after them (couple hundred years or so).
For example, without rewriting books from memory (trying not to anyway...) Catholics, the religion of the first Europeans in the Americas, at the time basically had a system that was Catholic-exclusive. Ie you could enslave a non-Catholic. But if someone converted to Catholicism they could no longer be enslaved. That's what the Church laid out basically. Race was irrelevant on paper. A black Catholic or indigenous American Catholic was supposed to be treated the same as a white European Catholic.
Obviously that presents a problem if your name is Cortez or Columbus and you want to enslave and rob entire continents. So long story short, "race"-based (skin color-based) systems were soon implemented to override the "problem." Instead of religion determining your worthiness of freedom and rights such as they exists society shifted to race, skin color, ethnicity being the determining factor. This was a great change for those involved in the slave trade and generally involved in exploiting labor. Now people were permanently locked out of personhood, legally, based on their skin color. A system the United States took its inevitable heights in the hundreds of years prior to the civil war. And clearly the remnants of that system of American Apartheid still exist.
Anyway, none of this gives excuse to anyone, then or now, for their actions and beliefs. But if you have a system that at its core is built upon exploitation of labor, as we do, and that exploitation of labor leads to horrific outcomes like extreme poverty causing starvation, homelessness, lack of medical care, etc. Meanwhile you have "opportunists" telling the exploited masses "Hey, you know why your life sucks? No, no... not your boss! It's actually that transgender teenager in another state on the swim team! Isn't that fucked up?! Aren't you really angry about that?!" Mix in purposeful defunding and de-emphasis on education for decades and decades resulting in functionally illiterate adults, living in ever-shittier standards, with no material analysis or knowledge to guide them... and you get people freaking the fuck out, some cynical and some legitimate, about "transgender Mexicans" invading the US.
It's a long path to get people to this point, and obviously they are, due to their actions and beliefs, an enemy of humanity currently. It's still extremely important to always understand how people get to that point. And understand that society and economic systems organized by political forces drive to these reactionary tendencies. If we change the political system, we change the economic systems, we will see differences in how people act.
ill just say i fundamentally disagree with your premise that the advent racism was in the 1400s.
There were apartheid laws against the britons in britain by the anglo saxons and against the gauls by the franks in france.
Racism has been around long before modern capitalism and we will still need to fight it after capitalism is gone. I feel like its a moral obligation and is also praxis.
i think class trumps everything at the end of the day of course.