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What then? This:

"it seems like you are missing the point: in a pervasivly racist society, discriminatory behaviors creep in the subconscious of everyone, black/white/antiracist/whatever, and we have to consciously struggle with them."

?

I have recently argued against my own misunderstanding of someones explaination and find that embarrassing so I am actually listening.



Yes, that.

We all hold prejudices that we all need to be mindful of. Getting tangled in the weeds of arguing about semantics completely derails that point.


If there's miscommunication due to semantics that's preventing people from reaching understanding on an important issue, the semantics are indeed important. There has to be some area of common understanding to make that happen, which includes agreed-upon semantics.


To be clear: Racism is important but arguing about its semantics isn'?




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