The conservative press seems consumed by the idea that white people are having their voices silenced, both unofficially and officially, while the liberal press (what liberals think of as simply "the press," like NBC or WaPo) continually reminds us that racists still abound everywhere, keeping black people from reaching their full potential.
There are real racists still out there, plenty of them. My experience is that most of them are powerless and ignorant people who don't affect much. From their existence, liberals conclude that there must also be many powerful racists as well, who merely hide their tracks better. This may be so. I don't see the least evidence for this among the powerful people I know, but A) I live in NH, which is less diverse than just about everywhere, measurably less violent, and I think less visibly rude than other places* and B) If they were racist I would be unlikely to be among the people they would reveal this to.
There is also the belief that many aspects of our society are simply racist regardless of the intent of the current citizens, many of whom benefit from the ancient racism continuing and therefore not motivated to change things much. That's a different topic, which I am not engaging here. For the record I believe that is true but overstated, brought out as an explanation when more uncomfortable ones are not allowed.
*This is likely related to a cultural approval of privacy and decorum ("don't make a scene" was perhaps the main value I absorbed from my mother's side of the family) rather than more societal kindness. We are always among the lowest in charitable giving, after all, along with the other states with low church attendance.
6 comments:
Is there a clear meaning for "racist?" The word has acquired an awful lot of freight, but even if we chuck the "systemic" stuff and the use of the word as a political club, I'm not sure but that there isn't a spectrum of attitudes there.
It once wasn't terribly hard to find people who didn't display an ideological framework of superiority/inferiority, but who "just didn't like their kind." The ideologues left behind quite a body of work to explain themselves, though they're mostly out of fashion in this country--at least the "white" varieties are.
Some people don't trust strangers from an alien culture, and some don't trust strangers with high rates of violence.
One label to rule them all...
James asks a key question that is rarely asked. I'd say racism is the imputation of behavioral characteristics based on skin color or other inherited traits of physical appearance, and that there are many flavors and degrees of racism. In practice the term "racist" often is shorthand for: This person brings up group differences of any kind, especially of crime rates or other negative behaviors. "Racist" has become a broad-spectrum epithet, like "fascist", that many people use without necessarily being able to define.
There are two recognised definitions, with a third being attempted. The oldest definition is the imputation of any characteristics, good or bad, to however one defines a race. Remember that "race" used to mean "Irish" or Scandinavian" or other tribal group, so that saying "The Chinese and Japanese races are not as identical as most Englishmen think" would have been an understandable statement a hundred years ago. A second definition is structured entirely around acting with prejudice against others. A lot of mischief still occurs by pretending those two definitions are identical. The third, new definition is getting a lot of pushback for the reasons noted - it seems to mean whatever the hell someone wants it to in the moment, being used primarily as an insult rather than a descriptor. We see similar things when calling someone a fool or a jerk. What do we mean, exactly, other than to insult? We share only approximations of meaning and use the terms differently.
I always have the feeling that people will feel free to express racist sentiments to me, once they know that I am a white Southerner of relatively right-wing leanings. I have to say that either I am wrong about that, or else overt racism is extremely uncommon in our society. I have almost never heard anyone express such ideas or thoughts in my entire life. I travel in reasonably wide circles, work with a lot of blue-collar guys through the fire and rescue service, know a lot of professionals and academics through my own education. You just don't hear it. It's been thirty years, probably, since I heard someone so much as express disapproval of an interracial dating relationship, and that was one guy one time in passing.
That leads me to believe that there probably are also fewer structural issues than advertised, as well. The analysis of them isn't necessarily wrong: historically things like zoning laws may well have been set up exactly to enforce racial segregation. Yet these things must be applied by currently living people, and they're just not going to do it in the ways intended. If anything, they'll probably be mindful to work against such intentions.
When I hear people talk about racism in society, it's almost always out of a concern that others won't do the right things. This is true both of conservatives worried about concerns of reverse racism hurting their kids, or white liberals whipping themselves and their society over 'anti-racist' considerations (which somehow work to their advantage of their class, even if supposedly not to their race). But all this is social pressure to act against racism, not in favor of or aligned with it. In general there is alignment against the idea of treating race as a defining factor except for the purpose of helping the groups disadvantaged in the past (e.g. affirmative action programs at colleges).
I haven't worked in a single place where enmity towards countrymen of different genes wasn't a theme across society. In West Africa, I worked in a country that had been a jumping off point for the slave trade, and consequently there were literally dozens of tribes represented there as a legacy of those left behind (mostly for concerns their health wouldn't survive the journey). But now there is occasional real hatred deep and implacable that colors their interactions - but between tribes, all black - and they were experts at instantly identifying each other where I could see little difference. Then in the far east, the ethnic Chinese are often targeted for racial abuse by those that are more-Polynesian. In North Africa, it's animosity by Arabs and colonial mixes against darker skin tones (sub-Saharan). In the Caribbean, it's animosity between African and East Indian races (the East Indians replaced plantation slaves after abolition, working as indentured servants), with both being against ethnic Chinese.
In all of the above cases, it seemed to me that the racism was a product of the fears of unsophisticated and under-educated people - but there were lots of exceptions too, white-collar deeply racist people. And of course a lot of people that are not racist in any way, or in minor degrees. In all cases, where there was racism it was much more up-front and openly hostile than anything I have ever come across in the US. In the US it's now fashionable to demonize white people on general principle, but this is not sustainable - it's just another dominance gambit.
I notice that "racism" always seems to be a characteristic of one's political or social adversaries. "Systemic racism" means it's an integral part of our very society and any contrary features of the system -- affirmative action, minority set-asides, relaxed university admission standards for minorities, etc. -- don't count. There are definitions of "racism" that stipulate that "marginalized" groups literally cannot be racist . . . because reasons.
To me racism is a special case of xenophobia, the fear of and antipathy to The Other. I think it is a universal human quality, one we have evolved with. (I believe some sociologists claim that the ideal unit for human society is a tribe of a few hundred people -- an extended family, in other words -- and anything larger leads to conflict.) There need not be any racial element at all; it's easy to demonize the residents of the next village over who are racially identical -- see the Balkans, Ireland, and the examples cited by Aggie above, to name a few. Thomas Sowell famously suggested asking academics who brag about how inclusive their universities are, "how many Republicans are there in your Sociology Department?" Or ask the next preening "anti-racist" you encounter how many evangelical Christians, NRA members, or military veterans they count among their friends.
I think that in this respect everybody is "racist" in some way. Al Sharpton is a racist. Barack Obama is a racist. And so are you and so am I; we're all human. It's just a question of what "race" we choose to despise.
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