Maybe I should avoid looking things up on Google, but I looked something up and found yet another incidence of abuse of the word "racist," using the very special left-wing belief that, since all of America's "social institutions" (by which they mean cultural ideas like marriage, not just hospitals, schools, research facilities and suchlike) developed in an era of racism, all of our social institutions and all of us who've been shaped by American culture are racist.
Of course, the reason why people would use this idea is obvious. It doesn't help to correct any real abuses. It does make people who don't particularly admire the speaker feel annoyed, and people who do admire the speaker (or who have guilty consciences) feel guilty.
Gentle Readers, I hope none of you feels guilty of being a racist. Or a sexist, which is the same thing with regard to women. Or an elitist, which is the same thing with regard to people who have less than you, and, unlike the other two, has not been extensively called out and challenged and made into something people are proud of not being and/or feel guilty if others think they might be. Elitism is alive and well in our culture today, and is responsible for most of the non-criminal behavior that is mislabelled as racism and/or sexism. But I hope you are not any of those things.
It may be helpful to think clearly about what reasonable people call racist, sexist, or elitist:
Racists...
* Can identify and describe a particular group, or groups, of people they don't like and don't want to treat equally with everyone else. In practice this group may be defined by something other than physical descent from a common ancestor ("race") or physical type ("race"), or sex, or income level. "Racist" necessarily means that the criterion for hate is one definition of "race" or the other. This kind of hate can be based on other criteria; the more subjective and esoteric, the less sympathy the hater is likely to find, but people can adopt a belief that all men called James are subject to some sort of mystical curse causing their granddaughters to be vile human beings, and practice "racist" hate against granddaughters of men called James, if they really want to. (We are such an interesting species that, whatever comes to mind when we try to think of an example of something nobody could possibly do, someone Out There is probably doing it.)
* Are probably "really" reacting to some muddled memory of something in their early childhood, but invent all kinds of rationalizations for hating Group X. These rationalizations can be rational--racist baby-boomers, in the literal sense of White Americans who hate Black Americans and Black Americans who hate White Americans, probably were treated unfairly by someone in the other category during the color wars of the 1960s and 1970s. In the 1930s many Germans were poor as a direct result of actions taken by banks, many of which were Jewish-owned, too. What's irrational is the projection of emotions from the person who may have deserved them to the entire group. Instead of wanting to find the banker, strip him down to his shorts, and pay what he owed to those affected by the bank's actions, people wanted to send Anne Frank to prison. We are a very interesting species.
* So they may do dastardly and detestable things, like bombing churches...
* Or petty and tacky things, like making a point of serving customers of a certain type last regardless of who started waiting first...
* Will find ways either to avoid hiring a member of Group X, or to avoid promoting one who's already been hired, or to sabotage the member of Group X and get person to leave the job.
* May be able to like a member of Group X in a racist way: "Tracy's nice, not like the typical member of Group X, I've known Tracy for a long time and enjoyed lots of benefits from our 'friendship,' but really they're all [whatever undesirable way of "being" Group X is blamed for] and in a crisis I wouldn't trust even Tracy."
* Generally have no friends in Group X, and don't want any.
* Actively reject books and other products they associate with Group X's culture, although they may snap up the products if the products are being retailed by someone who does not belong to Group X.
* If Group X are generally richer and more influential than their own group, may internalize racist beliefs and at least try to convince themselves that Group X are rich because they are evil and their own group are poor because of Group X's collective wrongdoing, in the face of all evidence. The fact that this kind of rhetoric was prevalent in Germany in the 1930s makes it alarming that it has supporters when found among Black Americans today.
* Are not politically more conservative or more liberal than people whose besetting sins, or cherished errors of thought, are different from theirs. In the mid-twentieth century it was true, for one generation, that "conservative" thinking, questioning the need for any change and wanting to make even desirable changes slowly, clung to segregation in a typically "conservative" way. However, fiscal conservatism has nothing to do with race and appeals to Black Americans who have used fiscally conservative personal discipline to reach some level of wealth and successfulness.
People Who Absorbed Racist Ideas but Are Not Actively Racists:
* May hold stereotyped beliefs about Group X. They consciously wish Group X well but they almost fall out of their chair when they hear a member of Group X, who they always thought didn't study foreign languages, speaking a foreign language fluently. It is important, if you know people who still commit this kind of gaffes, to remember at all times that the STEREOTYPES are "racist." The people are trying to practice good will.
* Are probably not interested in any traditional culture associated with Group X. Typically think their own group's, e.g., music is richly varied and nuanced and beautiful while Group X's musical tradition consists of "monotonous chants" or "elaborate overproduced efforts to reproduce something from the past" or some other wide-sweeping disparagement.
* C.S. Lewis had the fortitude to write about the literature from other cultures that was available to him, and that he couldn't resist trying to read, "so far as I understand them" and "I am not sure that I understand..." Few other people of narrow education but good will have the confidence Lewis had. When he was younger Lewis probably wouldn't have had it either. After writing an official literature book for the leading university in your country, then you can admit that the reason why you didn't enjoy a foreign book was that you're not sure you understand it. I personally did admit that sort of thing even in college, because I was a Lewis fan. Most people won't admit it, although it will be painfully obvious. It is important to remember that, although not admitting you don't understand a work of art shows vanity, it has nothing to do with "race."
* Don't have close friends in Group X. Would like to have such friends, but aren't sure how to begin and probably don't impress the members of Group X they've met. Their good will is showing but so is their nervousness, and there may be no shared passion from which real philia would grow.
* Probably will commit what members of Group X perceive as microaggressions. May or may not be willing to admit that these gaffes build up resentment and prevent friendship.
* If they are members of "privileged" demographic groups, they don't see themselves as especially privileged, so they don't know how to react to calls to action that address their privilege. This web site tries from time to time to increase understanding: "White privilege" mostly consists of the sort of thing that White people classify as common courtesy, except that stereotyping may cause them not to extend this common courtesy to Group X. "American privilege" means that, even when Americans are unable to pay their bills and feel burdened by a lot of possessions that won't even sell fast enough to pay the said bills, they probably are enjoying (unless they've already thrown away) digital watches and color TV sets and show-off cars and stereo systems and personal computers and so on, and they might at least minimize poor-mouthing in the presence of people from socialist countries whose annual income is less than the Americans pay for monthly rent. Another "White American privilege" is the freedom of association that allows White American millionnaires to hang out mostly with White American billionnaires and feel that they're not especially rich. These things are accidental by-products of belonging to an interesting species, and nobody's fault. Screaming "racist" at the privileged does not increase their consciousness, gratitude, or generosity.
* Are not yet sure, in a solid experiential way, that the racist ideas they absorbed are false. Don't want to believe that all members of Group X are hostile to them...but if people scream "racist" at them, they are likely to think that the hostility is real all right. Maybe other things their racist grandmother told them about Group X are also true. Maybe segregation, or war, or some other official policy of intolerance, was the right way to deal with Group X.
People of Good Will:
* Do not accept guilt trips on any demographic basis. Today's men never denied anyone the right to vote, even a hundred years ago in Old China men never bound anybody's feet, and likewise today's White people never owned a slave or violated the treaties under which indigenous Americans allowed North America's oldest White families to immigrate. In some parts of the United States a majority of the White population have ancestors who immigrated after the Civil War and the undeclared war on indigenous Americans. "Move over, share, extend the same privileges to other people" are things that can reasonably said to members of privileged groups. "You are racist or to be blamed for racism" is not such a thing, and should not be said.
* Will, in fact, defend their own side against collective taunts, insults, and accusations. German people of good will could hardly defend Hitler but they will maintain that there are good things about being German. We in these United States were doing most of the world's pollution, which was bad enough, and then we exported the high-polluting technology to poorer nations, which was vile, and we do owe the world--planet and its Maker as well as its people--apologies for that, but apart from that we can still give thanks for the great blessing of being American.
* Groups organized around "White Pride" or "Black Power" or "Gay Pride" or similar themes, to the extent that such groups are organized, may well be platforms for expression of something other than good will. That can happen. The most usual way it happens is that groups are organized for the purpose of transferring money to the pockets of a person or small group who are, on the spectrum between avarice and generosity, probably on the end with avarice. They're not about hate but they are about grift. A demographically based group may, like the place-of-origin clubs at colleges, serve worthy purposes like helping people find and pay for transportation back home on breaks, or it may exist just to line the organizer's pockets. We do well to limit our involvement with all such groups. But "White Pride" is not necessarily about hating non-White people. Although I've seen web sites where groups of highly educated, sophisticated, American leftists insisted that their White families were able to celebrate their ancestral pride in much more specific ways than merely being proud of being White, and although my family's like that too, that is privilege some White families have and others lack. It's a mistake to assume that someone who flaunts his White pride, or his Confederate heritage, or similar, is expressing ill will. In fact, if your basis for making such assumptions is that your White and/or Southern relatives celebrate the ancestors who make great stories by standing out from the masses of White and/or Southern people generally, failing to consider that other White and/or Southern people didn't have the benefit of that kind of ancestors is elitist bigotry. Some people's stories really do start with a mixed bag of ancestors whose stories weren't preserved, from which sprang these individuals or their parents, and their sense of heritage pride starts with a demographic.
* People of good will generally want to be polite in public, but when they see efforts toward politeness pushed to the point of absurdity, they do laugh. Songs specifically written in opposition to racism, for example, contained the lines "Red, Brown, Yellow, Black, or White, all are precious in God's sight" and "Who knows the color of God? Black or White or Yellow or Red, all or any or none of the above?" Considering that the difference between what used to be called the Yellow and Red "races" never was literal skin color, and in fact the list of genetic quirks thought to distinguish those groups overlaps considerably--and yet the typical profile of Asian immigrants in North America remains very different from the typical profile of indigenous North Americans--most people of good will, most of the time, seem to prefer to identify specific nations rather than the old color labels. But that does not mean anyone of good will would ever want to censor those songs. Write better ones, if they can. People of good will don't censor.
* People of good will do care, and get involved, when they hear of real injustice toward some person, whether it was based on "race" or income or something else. Their standards for whom they're willing to defend may differ, and not always satisfy everyone. People of good will are perturbed by reports of police brutality, but such reports lose their impact when people like Rodney King or Breonna Taylor turn out to be guilty. That does not stop people of good will continuing to practice good will as best they can.
* People of good will tend to be wary of tokenism, and don't usually go out of their way to talk to people for the sake of demographic diversity alone. If they happen to be biracial themselves they might be attracted to multiethnic city neighborhoods. If they have a single solid ethnic identity that matches their physical type, they might be attracted to places where that group is in the majority. Physical traits are not the primary bases of their identities; they're more likely to identify with jobs or hobbies or religious traditions. They may or may not want to preserve their physical looks by having children with spouses who look like them. That's the standard psychological explanation for two facts about this web site: (1) my circles of acquaintance, friends, and chosen family members are madly multiethnic, and (2) I don't expect that yours needs to be, in order to prove good will. It's not all that big a deal.
* People of good will do at least read about different cultures...though how much time they spend reading anything may depend on what else they do with their lives. Not all White Americans of good will have had the experience of voting for a presidential candidate from a different "race" category. Most have been fans of entertainers from different categories, though, and most read books written by authors from different categories.\And when they discover a literary heir to Thomas Sowell or Amy Tan, they spread the good news far and wide.
* People of good will are open to the possibility of friendship when they do meet people from different demographic groups. While recognizing that the civil rights movement and the color wars that went on in its wake are over, they do take claims of ongoing racist abuse seriously. They're up for a round of the Equal Opportunity Enforcer game. They'll walk with people who feel the need for an escort in their neighborhoods.
* People of good will don't pad grades or promote workers for the sake of "diversity." But they do coach people who need and deserve it.
* People of good will have probably consulted health care providers of different ethnic types than their own, probably do business with other service providers of different types than their own, and, when they can, they recommend those businesses to others. They're as likely to go to India for medical treatment as to go to Europe to see the ruins or the Galapagos to watch the birds.
* People of good will give thanks for whatever privileges they've inherited. They can properly be proud of being born in one of the English-speaking countries that have generally been so much better off, largely because more Protestant, than the rest of the world. They can give thanks for the blessings of knowing about the ancestors who did and didn't make good stories. of living where their ancestors have lived (however small the house or acreage may be), of having had books at home, having gone to university, having had parents who stayed married to each other. They're not ashamed of wherever their ancestors came from, however monotonously homogeneous or wildly mixed their ancestors were. They do like to share the blessings. Even if they're poor relations who have very little but "background," they share the benefits of their background when they can.
* People of good will don't become racists because left-wing rhetoric calls them racists. They do recognize the insult, though, and they repay it as it deserves...by thinking a little longer and harder on each occasion before they vote for Democrats. The D Party does need to call a halt to the offensive rhetoric. If their own positive arguments are weak, Ds need to look for ways to build stronger ones rather than screaming "racism" every time they encounter ideas different from their own.
It seems to me that I've written most of the content on this web site in such a way that this web site is read only by people of good will.
Racism still exists in the way some individuals treat others, although a person reading publishers' specifications for what they do and don't want to see could be excused for thinking that its primary victim group is heterosexual White men. Give enough White men enough reason to feel that way and, no doubt, they'll get defensive and want to persecute some other group of people. We need to end the insanity by practicing good will both within and across demographic boundaries.
That will not be accomplished by using "racism" to mean anything and everything about any country with a history of racism. It will not be accomplished even by using "racism" to describe elitism, even when there is some overlap (as when Jeff Hobbs documented more severe sentencing for children of poor families as being the reason why reform schools were majority-minority). We need a word that means, specifically and exclusively, intentionally treating all people of some "race" category less well than people of some other "race" category. That word is going to amount to an ugly accusation when applied to people, and should be used with care even when applied to things and ideas. We need to make sure that word can be published only cautiously, after fact-checking; we need to know that, while all sorts of ethics questions may be part of election mudslinging, calling a candidate a racist (or whatever word we adopt to replace "racist") is like calling the candidate a thief We need to hold editors to a very firm rule that the word for "ideas that don't conform to the current Democratic Party platform" is most likely to be merely "Republican."
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