Racism is Alive and Well in America

It's just a variety of racism that's politically incorrect to discuss because the perpetrators aren't white. Eric Holder was right when he said we're a nation of cowards for refusing to have an open discussion about race. But it's guilt and fear and shame and condescension and politics that keeps us from having this discussion.

GUILT

White people in this country are pathologically guilty about the sins of the past, even though most white people today had nothing to do with lynchings, Jim Crow laws, slavery, institutional discrimination, etc. We are also guilty about the economic disparities between whites and Hispanics and blacks, even though these disparities have far more to do with productivity disparities than racism, which in turn has everything to do with cultural differences and virtually nothing to do with race. Guilt forces white people into only wanting to have discussions about race that adhere to the white oppressor narrative, and eschewing any other.

FEAR

It is part of school curriculum everywhere to spend a lot of time reading, discussing, and watching films about racism in American history. Mississippi Burning, In the Heat of the Night, Separate But Equal, Brother Future, countless documentaries, etc, contribute to the American school student's understanding of what race relations were like in the old days (or at least, we are getting one part of a much larger story). Blacks and possibly Hispanics are seemingly unaware of just how terrified white people are of being called racist, partly as a result of this. Once, when I was working at a drive-through, the kitchen was taking too long to prepare a customer's order (nobody in the kitchen could have a clue what race the drive-through customers were and were not in a position to drag their feet, more to the point we had an racially diverse staff), and as I was finally handing the customer his order, he said "I hope it's not because of my color that it took so long." I was terrified at being associated with lynch-mobs, hood-wearing rednecks, George Wallace, shouting low-life mobs, etc., so I instantly put an extra order of fries in his bag to make up for the wait. Giving the customer a lagniappe is ordinary when the customer had to wait too long or there was some other problem, as a way of keeping customers happy. But what I did with the fries was solely a white guilt move.

After he drove away it occurred to me how powerful white guilt is, and how, if I were black or Hispanic or American Indian, I could exploit the heck out of it for personal gain. And I strongly believe that many many people do exploit white guilt for personal gain. An otherwise unemployable humanities PhD (but I repeat myself) could exploit white guilt to be given a professorship (or a whole studies department) where other humanities PhDs have to settle for working in book shops, for example. I don't see how any good can come about by lessening the incentives for an entire ethnic group to educate itself and become productive. Booker T. Washington was right, and his approach was the approach adopted (not according to any grand plan but due to people following the incentives they faced and adhering to the work ethic they group up in) by Jewish, German, and Chinese immigrants to this country, or to Brazil, or to Argentina, or to South Africa, or to Malaysia, etc. But I'm getting off-track. Many non-whites are also afraid of being called a "race traitor" or some such thing for discussing openly things that need to be addressed, which leads me to.....

SHAME

Here I'm speaking primarily of the shame felt by blacks, Hispanics, American Indians, and other economically disparate racial groups about the dysfunctional cultures that have gripped them. To a certain extent, these dysfunctional cultures formed as a reaction to the institutions of society. An entire cultural shift happened in many American Indians groups as a result of forced resettling and segregation onto reservations. An entire culture shift happened as a result of huge masses of blacks resorting to welfare instead of work, making illegitimacy and absentee fathers the norm among blacks where once it was the exception.

The particulars are for a whole other post (indeed I've talked about this before on this blog as the interplay between culture and economics is a favorite subject of mine), but the long and short of it is that many black people feel deep shame about the high crime rate, high illiteracy rate, widespread improvidence, uncouthness, even "loud-talking." It is something that many minority groups do not discuss in front of white people, but only in racially uniform company. And it is shame that keeps people from discussing this dysfunctional culture openly.

CONDESCENSION

This is one you don't hear about much but it was introduced to me by reading a Larry Elder book (The Ten Things You Can't Say In America). It is the concept that whites hold non-whites to lower standards. For example, he tells the story of an attendee of some conference on minorities in film who spoke to the group about how hard it was for him to find work in the industry, and how the attendee (who was a black guy) believe he was the victim of racism from would-be employers. Larry Elder asked a white woman who was in attendance, during the drive home, what she thought of the speaker. Her answer was that she felt sorry for the guy, and that he may have a point about racism. Then Larry asked her what her opinion would be if the guy was white, but said the same things and spoke in the same way. She realized her mistake. She said that if the guy were white, and spoke in the same way, she would say that the guy came across as uneducated, uncouth, and speaking bad English, and that she wouldn't hire a guy like that either. She realized she had two standards, one for black people, one for white people.

For black people, her standards were lower. Her attitude, and the attitude I see from many whites, is verging on subconscious but it goes like this: "I shouldn't really expect black people to speak good English or be all that educated or work hard or have a good job, that would be expecting too much from a black guy." You saw this white condescension on display when Obama ran for President and people couldn't stop talking about how incredibly bright he was because he said "before" instead of "befo" (unless he was speaking to an all-black audience) and because he used proper English and had been to Harvard. It's like how when people say their dog is really smart because it can open a door, when if the brightest thing a human could do is open the door you'd call them mentally retarded.

A lot of white people just have lower expectations for black people or Hispanics and don't even see it as a racist attitude, when it totally is. "Oh, they couldn't learn proper English because it wasn't spoken in their household." That excuse never held back Asian immigrants. I've met more Asian immigrants than I can count whose parents are from another country and who themselves were born elsewhere and grew up in Asian-American communities but who speak flawless English. But people have one standard for one group and another standard for another.

It is this white condescension that prevents people from saying things like "you know, maybe we should stop glorifying rap stars who have been unrepentant gang members, pimps, murderers, thugs, etc." Because white condescension will make white people think "nah, this is normal for black people, in their culture it's okay so we shouldn't say anything." You simply let all of the gangsterism, thuggery, misogyny, crass materialism, criminality, illiteracy, innumeracy, etc. pass because after all, "they're only black."

White people often don't realize they're doing this until it's pointed out to them.

POLITICS

And the last thing that keeps us from having an honest discussion about race is politics, which is another way of saying it's about power, ego, and money. I suppose, since racism was prolonged in this country by politics in the first place it shouldn't be a surprise that because of political reasons, we still haven't sorted all this race stuff out. It was the government that sanctioned slavery as a legal institution and Africans as property, it was the government that put into place keeping blacks from moving into this or that neighborhood, or owning land, or marrying whites, or voting, or using this or that park or public facility, and it was the government that decided to make up for these shameful acts by swapping out black fathers and installing the welfare state instead (don't agree with me? Lyndon Johnson, one of the architects of the modern American welfare state, agreed with me), and it was the government that lessened incentives for underachieving minorities to do better by enacting racial quotas (either real or de facto) in hiring and promotion and subcontracting.

There's a lot of politics invested in the racial status quo, a lot of people in positions of political power or with cushy jobs who might find themselves forced to get a real job if we could move past our obsession/fear/guilt/shame/etc. over race.

False Accusations of Racism

Like most white people, I've been called a racist at least once in my life, and as always, it's not for doing or saying anything racist but for saying something that is taboo for a white person to say in a politically-correct environment. As an example, pointing out the high level of crime among male black youths. It's an innocent little statistical fact, not a smear, and yet for a white male to point it out is like walking across a mine field, you never know what you'll set off. And I'm talking about just pointing it out, not making some kind of white supremacy argument.

This kind of thing has got to stop, but I don't think it will stop until certain ethnic groups more or less achieve economic parity with the majority of the population, and I don't think that will happen without some major cultural shifts. And I don't mean cultural shifts among whites.

If I point out that white southerners (excluding Yankee-fied pockets such as parts of Florida or Texas) on the whole do not earn as much as white Northerners, or that they tend to read less, or do worse in math or reading scores, or tend to attend or complete college less, or when they do get a college degree they tend not to major in STEM, medicine, economics, etc. but in other softer degrees, or that they tend to be fatter, or even such things as pointing out that white southerners are often louder than many white northerners, I would just be reciting a bunch of statistics which point to some aspects of white southern culture that "hold back" the South, for lack of a better term.

Southerners like to pin all of their woes on Northerners, it's common to hear that the South is still suffering from the devastation visited upon it by the North during and especially after the Civil War. And there was plenty of devastation. This mirrors the argument made by many black people that many of their woes (lower than average job earnings, high school graduation rates, college graduation rates, representation in medicine, engineering, science, business, and higher rates of crime and single-mother households) are legacies of slavery.

But past devastation alone cannot account for the earnings and other disparities between rural white Southerners and the majority of the population, or between blacks and the majority of the population, etc. After slavery was abolished, it was actually the Chinese immigrants who faced the worst kind of racism and segregation laws, not the blacks, but these days the Chinese-American population earns more than the averages, learns more than the average, is way over-represented in the sciences, academia, etc. One place they are greatly under-represented is in government.

Likewise, the Jews were almost wiped out by Hitler, but many of them came to America, rebuilt their lives and families, and they too earn and learn more, are over-represented in society's upper-echelons, etc.

The point of this is to illustrate how with the right cultural background, an ethnic group can thrive even after the most extreme oppression possible. As bad as slavery and Jim Crow laws in America were, they were a whisper compared to the Holocaust. Nor can white Southerners just blame Northerners for everything. I suppose I should point out right now that I believe the effect of white racism is a minimal contributor to the economic disparities between blacks and whites, or hispanics and whites, etc. The disparities between Asians and whites certainly aren't a result of Asians being anti-white. I think such disparities exist because, on the whole, blacks and hispanics have not made themselves as productive as the average person--they haven't gone to college as much, or when they do they tend to major in lower-paying degrees, and they tend not to open businesses as much as white people, or Asians for that matter. For lack of a better way to put it I believe these disparities are the outcome of problems in "black culture." Black people are allowed to talk about these problems amongst each other (higher rates of illiteracy, low graduation rates, high crime rates, drug problems, lower rates of savings, lower workforce participation rates, higher illegitimacy rates, low pants, etc.), but it is still taboo for a white person to talk about these things. Even black people will take heat for bringing up these things. Barack Obama and Bill Cosby have both been criticized for comments they've made.

Getting back to the main topic, one wonders why false accusations of racism are so common from certain ethnic groups but not from others. Where is the Chinese-American equivalent of Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson, immediately flying to any part of the country where an asian guy had his toes stepped on and holding protests, vigils, and threatening to sue unless changes are made to the system? Too busy having a real job, I suppose. I think the reason these false accusations fly from blacks and Hispanics (I'll cover false accusations from white people in a bit) are chiefly because of the existing economic disparities between them and the rest of society, and merely pointing out an tragic truth like the high black crime rate is pouring salt on a wound. Like Zora Neale Hurston said, "my people, my people!"

I think that people in general think of themselves as part of a larger "tribe" and when the tribe has its dirty laundry aired, the shame can instantly metamorphose into anger at the airer of said laundry, and the anger can be confused, by the person who feels it, as justified anger at real racism, or if the airer is black, at being "talked down to" by a guy who "acts white."

Everybody does this. How often did you, as a teenager, react with anger at your parents for them pointing out how you hadn't done your chores or your homework? That was you turning your shame into anger, and you will quickly rationalize the anger you feel however you need to. Events from the past and existing disparities provide a very convenient rationale for the person who wants to call their anger a reaction to racism.

Coming from white people, I think the reason is almost entirely political. Leftists use the word "racist" as a club, and it's got to stop. I think most accusations of "racist!" coming from a white liberal are obvious rhetorical ploys and not expressions of genuine feeling. There is also "definition creep," the way words change on us. There are people using the word "racism" in bizarre ways, ways the word never meant before. Now, if you criticize Welsh people, you're being "racist," as if the Welsh were a race and not just a nationality. McDonald's was criticized as being racist for celebrating black history month and having some kind of advertising campaign centered around this (the accusation I heard came from white conservatives, for what it's worth). There is nothing racist about selling hamburgers to black people, or saying "all Italian men are sluts." The other big way in which "racist" and "racism" is being changed is to apply it to religion. Criticize Jews or Judaism and you're a racist, or criticize Hindus and you're racist. Criticize Muslims and you're definitely racist.

I think part of that has to do with the Holocaust, and people like Hitler making popular the belief that Jews were somehow a race, when there are black Jews, white Jews, Persian Jews, Arab Jews, etc. Jews are defined by their faith, as are Muslims. I find anti-Jewish rhetoric offensive when it is made racist by the people who make it, when the people making the statement adhere to the Jews-as-race belief (either extremist Muslims or extremist white nationalists). But is it racist when the New Testament of the Bible points out that Jews who do not believe in Christ have separated themselves from God and do not have salvation? That is a theological point, not a racial one.