Ok, I've been waiting until I can come up with a 100% coherent reply, but I don't think that's going to happen, sorry :)
If I were to look for an analogy, I would say it would be akin to saying something like "it's very simple: there is a luminiferous ether" but "sometimes what we think is the ether isn't, and sometimes what we think isn't the ether is, and the things that fill the roles of realising the ether may change randomly and at any moment depending on what I decide." The most obvious conclusion to draw from someone who proposed this would be "there is no ether."
The thing is, most scientific theories are like that to some extent, and the fact that it's flawed doesn't mean it's not the best description so far. Most of the alternative explanations I've heard about how racism works ("It's just individual bad eggs" or "Really, black people control everything now") match up even more shoddily to reality.
Also, my first thought would be: that person does not understand what they're talking about. And that's pretty much the issue here: I'm still very much figuring out what I think, and do not have an arts student brain so find it a bit tricky sometimes. I used to not post about race for this reason, but people seem to enjoy my posts on the whole and it leads to less issues where people suddenly realise what my opinions are mid-conversation.
Something I tend to blur, though, is the difference between widely-agreed upon anti-racist principles and my own opinions. Assuming that the wikipedia page on "virtue ethics" gives the gist of what you're talking about, I tend to place more emphasis on the consequences of actions (though I don't think they're all that matters!), but I'm sure you could figure out a way to frame the same basic ideas in a more virtue ethics-y way. I mean, I guess I think you should work from the motive of considering what effect your actions have :)
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If I were to look for an analogy, I would say it would be akin to saying something like "it's very simple: there is a luminiferous ether" but "sometimes what we think is the ether isn't, and sometimes what we think isn't the ether is, and the things that fill the roles of realising the ether may change randomly and at any moment depending on what I decide." The most obvious conclusion to draw from someone who proposed this would be "there is no ether."
The thing is, most scientific theories are like that to some extent, and the fact that it's flawed doesn't mean it's not the best description so far. Most of the alternative explanations I've heard about how racism works ("It's just individual bad eggs" or "Really, black people control everything now") match up even more shoddily to reality.
Also, my first thought would be: that person does not understand what they're talking about. And that's pretty much the issue here: I'm still very much figuring out what I think, and do not have an arts student brain so find it a bit tricky sometimes. I used to not post about race for this reason, but people seem to enjoy my posts on the whole and it leads to less issues where people suddenly realise what my opinions are mid-conversation.
Something I tend to blur, though, is the difference between widely-agreed upon anti-racist principles and my own opinions. Assuming that the wikipedia page on "virtue ethics" gives the gist of what you're talking about, I tend to place more emphasis on the consequences of actions (though I don't think they're all that matters!), but I'm sure you could figure out a way to frame the same basic ideas in a more virtue ethics-y way. I mean, I guess I think you should work from the motive of considering what effect your actions have :)