Quote:
Originally Posted by The Batlord
I mean you talk about essentialism and then show someone not essentialising race. Maybe explain why saying Jews are white people is essentialising? Saying that Jews are inherently greedy or black people are inherently criminal or Asians are inherently good at math is essentialising.
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Ahh I see: I meant “essentialist” as a property of discourse, as opposed to “historicist”. A discourse that's by definition ahistorical and deals in essences and reifications as opposed to a discourse that in some sense refers to or allows for historical contingency and specificity. I was not implying WG was guilty of stereotyping the Jews somehow or that the US race discourse tends towards that. That, indeed, would’ve been very strange and anti-historicist.
Another way of saying it is that it's a metahistorical or metadiscursive comment, not one against racial stereotyping.