(no subject)

[rm]

phrases that piss me off:

"male prostitution" and "reverse racism"

meanwhile:

Forced prostitution in the Russian army: http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/02/13/russian-soldiers-sold-for-sex/

Comments

[magnetgirl.livejournal.com]

Sorta depends on your definition of racism. I'm pretty sure that I've heard arguments made that true racism has to do with the majority exercising prejudice against the minority. If you truck with that, reverse racism makes sense as a term.

[rm.livejournal.com]

yeah, but neither I nor the American Heritage Dictionary feel that way:

The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.
Discrimination or prejudice based on race.

I'd also add that numbers are a poor way to try to add to a perfectly adequate definition. Note that apartheid South Africa was ruled by an oppressive white minority.

I'm a major hard ass about words though. As in, I have had at least two dozen arguments about "decimate" but that's a different drama.

[rezendi.livejournal.com]

I always used "reverse racism" to mean someone discriminating in favour of somoene because of their skin colour (eg, staff at a five-star hotel treating a bedraggled and smelly traveller well just because he's white). Which I think would be a reasonable and useful phrase; alas, no one else seems to use it that way.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Oh hey, now that makes sense.