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Well, OTG, I never would have suspected this thread to pop up. I appreciate it.
An observation: the imprecision of language around this gets us in trouble.
My preference is to use "racism" to apply to institutional and cultural practices that work against people because of their race, and "bigotry" to apply to individuals who are ignorant and scared. It helps with the scale of the offense. True racists do a lot of harm. Most bigots are just tilting at windmills and leave people shaking their heads.
I don't think Romanowski is in a position to be racist; he just doesn't have access to that kind of power. But is he an unapologetic bigot? I've believed so ever since the rational he provided for taking steroids was that he needed to "do something to keep up with the black guys" or something like that. And that's part of the context OTG speaks of; Romanowski has a history which makes the use of "boy" more than just a one-time event for him.
An observation: the imprecision of language around this gets us in trouble.
My preference is to use "racism" to apply to institutional and cultural practices that work against people because of their race, and "bigotry" to apply to individuals who are ignorant and scared. It helps with the scale of the offense. True racists do a lot of harm. Most bigots are just tilting at windmills and leave people shaking their heads.
I don't think Romanowski is in a position to be racist; he just doesn't have access to that kind of power. But is he an unapologetic bigot? I've believed so ever since the rational he provided for taking steroids was that he needed to "do something to keep up with the black guys" or something like that. And that's part of the context OTG speaks of; Romanowski has a history which makes the use of "boy" more than just a one-time event for him.