markjs said:
There you're wrong. I'll agree that everyone has prujudice (pre concieved notions about other races) but not racism (A feeling of superiority based on one's race). I all boils down to the words you use and their actual definitions.
The problem there , is that as I said earlier, contemporary society and culture is built on foundations of racist ideologies.... quote "a feeling of superiority based on ones race"...and it is this underlying history and background that determines most pre concieved notions about other races, as well as some implicit and taken for granted ways of speaking, acting, and seeing the world ...It dosn't matter if you INTEND to be racist or not - what matters is that we are all fundamentally here because of underlying racist ideologies and it is important to recognise that this is why the world and society is operating as it is today - not much has changed, just the arrangements of power structures and the very definitions and understandings of the very definitions of certain terms - and our awareness or ignorance of the facts - whenever it suits us.
In fact, their actual definitions are precisely the center of this argument - because you've then got to ask who is it exactly that is responsible for the definitions in the first place?
thats not neccesarilly to say that everyone today feels they outwardly subscribe to the
dictionary meaning of what racism actually means, and in fact this is a very offensive and untrue comment for any decent, well meaning, open-minded person. What I'm trying to say is, that the very fabric of our western social organisation is racially defined - so intrinsically so, that most of us are oblivious to the fact that it is blatantly masked by PC rubbish that defines someone as racist by a clear-cut meaning that identifies someone that is with someone that is not. This is as stupid as calling every middle eastern a terrorist and every american soldier a saint.
The very fact that we are sitting here happily typing away on our computer's where people in other parts of the world are fighting for their lives because they happen to be born in the - wrong place at the wrong time - is an example of the consequences of some of the intrinsic ideologies which have lead us to be where we are today. There is no point in ignoring that - whether or not people are deliberately racist or ignorant of the degree of racism that they have learned within their social understandings or are outspokenly anti-racist is another point, I agree - but I don't think it is fair to say that, where we are living in a privileged western society looking at the world with our own democratically defined lense - that we can honestly claim to be not racist where our social framework and structure relies and
thrives on that very carefully concealed idea.
Turk is a contraction of Turkish. That must make Brit, Scot etc racial slurs too then?
well, dead right...Almost... with "Turk", there is a specific significance and connotation from the historical context which determines it, it calls to mind a certain idea that serves to catergorise a certain type of people: It is a a derogatory term for people of middle eastern descent, and also used within middle-eastern countries because traditionally the quote/unquote : "turks" were a much despised nation of people even within the middle east. The slur extends to the matter-of-fact usage of racial slurs under the culture of the British Empire, and its underlying and not to mention christian belief in the superiority of western, white, and in particular BRITISH culture, which justified colonialism.
Brit or Scot is a bit different, but even the idea here can be easily scrutinised where you look at the way the term is been used and whether it originates from something especially derogatory...Despite the fact we use these terms most commonly these days with an innocent and colloquial purpose: the important thing to remember is that their use has been naturalised through a history of use as a deliberate racial slur, innocent or otherwise...
It all depends on the context in which the term is being used, and its historical origination and exactly who is using it for what purpose.
What is a problem is, that people too habitually use these terms without second thought about where they might have come from, the power relations involved and why they have come to be used in the way that they have.
However, somebody of turkish descent is entitled to call himself a "turk" because this is adopted as a reference to his/her culture from the historical use of the reference and his/her identification with it. Therefore, in the same manner, a homosexual can legitimately call himself "queer" despite the fact that this term would be derogatory in another context and if someone was using it to label that person, the same goes for "nigger" or "negro" in exactly the same way.
There would be some that would object to even this cultural adoption of prejudicial slang, but then those that use it to identify themselves are merely reflecting on the very nature of the word that has been used to categorise that person for so long...and therefore it is a naturalised aspect of that persons identity and can be remodelled into something positive, through his/her individual identification with it...
errrrm....helloo? since when was the world ever not racist? Racism is a primary structure which our society and culture is built on. ESPECIALLY in 2004... its about time people stopped pretending to be so outraged by it and realising that everyone is racist to some extent...because of this. 
yah gonz yah-know, we forget here that.. at least, i actually still am, y'know still liiiiike...yknow a "teen"?! 
