I see where you’re coming from, and I also wish I didn’t have to do the extra work to remember the correct technical definition of racism when I read White Fragility. That said, I expect that when I read a book in a particular discipline that I will need to be more attentive to the terms of art in that discipline. For instance, when I read a book of physics, I don’t expect the author to cater to my folk definitions of “work”, “energy”, “power”, “momentum”, and so forth: instead, I expect that I will need to learn how to use the terminology of the field precisely as its practitioners do if I am to follow its arguments and learn what they have to teach.
For instance, when I read a book of physics, I don’t expect the author to cater to my folk definitions of “work”, “energy”, “power”, “momentum”
Since you assume that physics book authors won’t cater to the laymen’s ordinary definition of the physics terms of art you may be surprised then reading most books on classical physics. The authors go to painstaking effort to make their content accessible to laypersons. I have not yet read a textbook on classical physics that didn’t take the time to explain that “work” in a physics context means Force x Distance and only refers to what you do at your day job if you’re pushing a cart around or lifting a tray of food. I know this because I was a computer science undergrad who took a few physics courses as electives and was surprised at how accessible the textbooks were given that they were of course designed for physics undergrads.
Also no physicist claims that their definitions are the “correct technical” ones or are somehow better or more useful than the ordinary definitions. Many physicists I know feel that physics terms which share a spelling with colloquial terms should be changed on the physics side of things to prevent confusion. Or at the very minimum the distinction should be kept clear.
I see where you’re coming from, and I also wish I didn’t have to do the extra work to remember the correct technical definition of racism when I read White Fragility.
There’s nothing technical about the definition of racism that gets used by people like DeAngelo. In physics a definition becomes technical when it’s well defined enough to objectively measure the resulting effect. There’s nothing that makes their definition more inherently correct either.
In the civil rights area a lot of laws were passed to combat racism and I would say that the resulting legal concepts of racism are the nearest we have to a technical definition of racism and that definition is about discriminating for people based on the their race (perceived race).
I see where you’re coming from, and I also wish I didn’t have to do the extra work to remember the correct technical definition of racism when I read White Fragility. That said, I expect that when I read a book in a particular discipline that I will need to be more attentive to the terms of art in that discipline. For instance, when I read a book of physics, I don’t expect the author to cater to my folk definitions of “work”, “energy”, “power”, “momentum”, and so forth: instead, I expect that I will need to learn how to use the terminology of the field precisely as its practitioners do if I am to follow its arguments and learn what they have to teach.
Since you assume that physics book authors won’t cater to the laymen’s ordinary definition of the physics terms of art you may be surprised then reading most books on classical physics. The authors go to painstaking effort to make their content accessible to laypersons. I have not yet read a textbook on classical physics that didn’t take the time to explain that “work” in a physics context means Force x Distance and only refers to what you do at your day job if you’re pushing a cart around or lifting a tray of food. I know this because I was a computer science undergrad who took a few physics courses as electives and was surprised at how accessible the textbooks were given that they were of course designed for physics undergrads.
Also no physicist claims that their definitions are the “correct technical” ones or are somehow better or more useful than the ordinary definitions. Many physicists I know feel that physics terms which share a spelling with colloquial terms should be changed on the physics side of things to prevent confusion. Or at the very minimum the distinction should be kept clear.
There’s nothing technical about the definition of racism that gets used by people like DeAngelo. In physics a definition becomes technical when it’s well defined enough to objectively measure the resulting effect. There’s nothing that makes their definition more inherently correct either.
In the civil rights area a lot of laws were passed to combat racism and I would say that the resulting legal concepts of racism are the nearest we have to a technical definition of racism and that definition is about discriminating for people based on the their race (perceived race).