This was originally published at Intellectual Conservative on February 12, 2009.\u00a0 In light of the national farce that has engulfed the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, I thought it may not be such a bad idea to reprint it here:<\/p>\n
In St. John\u2019s gospel, the evangelist says of the wondrous deeds of his Master that so great are they in number that not all of the books in the entire world could contain them. It seems something similar could be said with respect to the virtually infinite claims of \u201cracism\u201d to which we are incessantly exposed.<\/p>\n
But what exactly is \u201cracism\u201d?\u00a0<\/p>\n
It seems to me that while each admits of a multiplicity of variations, there are essentially but four definitions or models of \u201cracism\u201d: (1) \u201c\u2018Racism\u2019 as \u2018Racial Hatred\u2019\u201d; (2) \u201c\u2018Racism\u2019 as \u2018Racial Discrimination\u2019\u201d; (3) \u201c\u2018Racism\u2019 as \u2018Doctrine of Innate Inferiority\u2019\u201d; (4) \u201c\u2018Racism\u2019 as \u2018Institutional Racism\u2019\u201d.\u00a0 For convenience\u2019s sake, unless otherwise stated, I will refer to each model in terms of the following abbreviations: (1) RH; (2) RD; (3) II; and (4) IR.\u00a0 However it is specifically understood, in the popular consciousness as well as in the precincts of contemporary politics, the media, and academia, there is something on the order of a consensus that \u201cracism\u201d is something at once pervasive and immoral.<\/p>\n
In what follows, while exploring these four accounts of \u201cracism,\u201d I establish two things.\u00a0 First, they are mutually distinct and irreducible to one another\u2014i.e., \u201cracism\u201d isn\u2019t the unitary phenomenon that the singularity of the term suggests.\u00a0 Second, and most importantly, each model, beset as it is with perhaps insurmountable difficulties, fails to accommodate the conventional conception of \u201cracism.\u201d\u00a0 Because of spatial constraints, however, I will have to consider only some of these problems.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018Racism\u2019 as \u2018Racial Hatred\u2019\u201d (RH)<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0On its face, this seems as obvious a definition of \u201cracism\u201d as there is.\u00a0 Yet intellectual seriousness demands that we look beyond surface appearances.\u00a0 When we heed this call, what we discover is a model of \u201cracism\u201d that gives rise to more questions than answers, questions that, I submit, it cannot adequately address.<\/p>\n The key question with which proponents of this model have to contend is the following: Is hatred always <\/em>immoral?<\/p>\n To my knowledge, in spite of its central importance to the RH model, this question has never been raised by any of its proponents.\u00a0 It is not hard to see why.<\/p>\n In posing this question, the defender of RH is thrown onto the horns of a dilemma from which there is no escape.\u00a0 If he grabs the first horn and takes the position that racial hatred is immoral because hatred itself is immoral, then the fact that the hatred is racially oriented is incidental and, as far as its moral worth is concerned, irrelevant: it is the hatred, regardless of the reason(s) underlying it, that is immoral. \u201cRacism,\u201d thus, loses the distinctive moral significance that had been attributed to it.<\/p>\n If, on the other hand, our proponent of RH opts for the second horn and denies (what most religious and moral traditions outside of Christianity deny) that hatred itself is not always impermissible, but only racially-oriented hatred, then he risks similarly relegating \u201cracism\u201d to the moral periphery, so to speak. Racial hatred is usually condemned on the grounds that race is as irrelevant a characteristic as eye color or left handedness and, thus, undeserving of hatred.\u00a0 But if this <\/em>is what makes racial hatred immoral, then it is not racial hatred itself that is objectionable, but hatred invoked by anything <\/em>irrelevant.\u00a0 In keeping with our examples, racial hatred\u2014\u201cracism\u201d\u2014is neither more nor less objectionable than hatred of brown-eyed and left-handed people.<\/p>\n So, regardless of which horn the defender of RH embraces, he inevitably marginalizes the distinctive moral significance typically attributed to \u201cracism.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cRacism\u201d as \u201cRacial Discrimination\u201d (RD)<\/strong><\/p>\n The first thing to note here is that this model in no way relies upon the forgoing and, in fact, denies the latter: \u201chatred\u201d is but one motive among many in which a person could engage in racial discrimination, but it is in no wise necessary for it.\u00a0<\/p>\n Secondly, there is scarcely a person with an iota of intelligence willing to deny that \u201cracial discrimination\u201d can, under some circumstances, at any rate, be permissible. Who objects to the owners of Chinese restaurants employing Asian workers so as to add an air of authenticity to the atmosphere?\u00a0 Or who would object to EpcotCenterat Disney World hiring only people of the related ethnic backgrounds to work at its various \u201cLands?\u201d In fact, the most zealous of \u201canti-racists\u201d are especially<\/em> disposed to favor racially discriminatory practices under what they deem to be the appropriate conditions.<\/p>\n \u201cAffirmative action\u201d\u2014race-based policies favoring non-whites, particularly blacks, over whites\u2014is a legalized form of racial discrimination. Whether this type of racial discrimination is justified or not isn\u2019t a question with which I am currently concerned. The point, rather, is that the \u201canti-racists\u201d who demand \u201caffirmative action,\u201d asserting not just that it is morally permissible but morally obligatory, acknowledge, then, that racial discrimination can be morally legitimate.\u00a0 But insofar as they unequivocally condemn \u201cracism,\u201d they concede, however implicitly, that \u201cracism\u201d and \u201cracial discrimination\u201d are two distinct phenomena, the one at all times immoral, the other not at all times immoral.<\/p>\n In response, it could be said that it isn\u2019t always \u201cracist\u201d to discriminate on the basis of race, but only when race is as \u201cirrelevant\u201d as eye color or left handedness.<\/p>\n There are two quick counter-responses to this objection.<\/p>\n First, the notion of \u201crelevance\u201d is anything but self-interpreting.\u00a0 A white employer may concede that any given black applicant is just as qualified as any given white applicant to do the job that he is searching to fill.\u00a0 However, he may, reasonably enough, find the races of the respective applicants to be of extreme \u201crelevance\u201d if he is concerned about avoiding the astronomical costs in time, money, and reputation that would accrue to him in the event that, upon hiring the white applicant, the black applicant files a frivolous \u201cdiscrimination\u201d suit against him.\u00a0 Or maybe for fear of merely being suspected of being a \u201cracist\u201d by a prospective black employee he may decide to avoid hiring him. On the other hand, a black employer, though aware that the job description in question is race-neutral, may nonetheless prefer a black candidate over a white one because he suspects that the latter will ultimately not be as harmed by being denied this one opportunity because of the more abundant opportunities that he thinks exists for whites.\u00a0<\/p>\n Second, if we accept that racial discrimination is immoral when race is as \u201cirrelevant\u201d as eye-color or left-handedness, then, as is the case when \u201cracism\u201d is equated with \u201cracial hatred,\u201d \u201cracism\u201d loses its distinctive moral significance, to say nothing of its special awfulness, for it is the \u201cirrelevance\u201d of the characteristic being exploited for discriminatory purposes and not the characteristic itself that assumes moral import.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cRacism\u201d as \u201cDoctrine of Innate Inferiority\u201d (II)<\/strong><\/p>\n The belief that the members of another race are innately inferior to one\u2019s own no more need be accompanied by either hatred or a disposition to discriminate against such persons than hatred for the members of other races and a disposition to discriminate against them need be attended by the belief that they are innately inferior to one\u2019s own.\u00a0 These ideas, in other words, stand or fall all on their own.<\/p>\n So, if the belief in the innate inferiority of races other than one\u2019s own need not translate into bitterness and cruelty toward their members, then how or why can the mere possession of this belief be immoral?<\/p>\n Now is neither the time nor place to explore the complex relationship between belief and action, but suffice it to note that it is to our actions primarily that we ascribe the properties of \u201cmoral\u201d and \u201cimmoral.\u201d Our beliefs, we ordinarily think, may be \u201ctrue\u201d or \u201cfalse,\u201d \u201ccorrect\u201d or \u201cincorrect,\u201d but not \u201cmoral\u201d or \u201cimmoral.\u201d<\/p>\n Take, for example, the belief in \u201cequality.\u201d As the (black) author, Thomas Sowell, noted in his book, Black Rednecks, White Liberals<\/em>, this belief has been enlisted in the service of such just and noble causes as the abolition of slavery, but it has also been used to justify the worst sorts of abuses in societies throughout the world.\u00a0 What seems clear is that there is no way to ascribe any moral weight<\/em> to the belief on the basis of what has been done in its name.<\/p>\n As I said, the relation between belief and conduct is a vexed question, and I am not sure whether I am altogether convinced that beliefs in themselves are devoid of moral value. However, one powerful consideration in favor of the view discussed here is the phenomenon with which mostly all of us are all too familiar. As we grow older, most of us realize that much of what we previously took for granted is false. In fact, in looking back over the history of our nation and the world, we realize (or at least believe) that much of what whole peoples in past eras and other places have thought is simply false. If the possession of just one <\/em>false belief, to say nothing of many such beliefs, is sufficient to convict one of immorality, then there is not one among us who can escape condemnation. Ptolemy was no less immoral for having held that the Earth was at the center of the universe than was Hitler for believing that the Jews were the ruin of Germany.<\/p>\n The proponent of the II model of \u201cracism\u201d is in a dilemma. If he concedes that beliefs are of no moral import, then he must admit that \u201cracism\u201d (as he defines it), contrary to conventional wisdom, is not <\/em>a moral phenomenon. If, on the other hand, he maintains that false beliefs are immoral by virtue of their falsity, then like his counterparts, the proponents of the RH and RD models of \u201cracism,\u201d he robs \u201cracism\u201d of its distinctive and particularly dreadful character, for it is the erroneous character <\/em>of this conception of \u201cracism,\u201d and not <\/em>its substance per se, <\/em>to which he objects.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n From this dilemma I foresee no escape.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cInstitutional Racism\u201d (IR)<\/strong><\/p>\n In order to sustain their charge, in the face of an ever shrinking number of instances of overt racial hostility toward blacks, that \u201cracism\u201d remains a nearly insurmountable obstacle to black success, the proponents of the IR model have shifted their focus off of individual white \u201cracists\u201d and onto something more abstract, less visible, but potentially much more formidable: society\u2019s fundamental institutions.<\/p>\n The reasoning here is basically as follows.\u00a0 While individual whites may be (at least) consciously filled with nothing but good will toward blacks (and other minorities), the very institutions of which American life is constituted and within the framework of which its citizens\u2019 worldview(s) have been formed are profoundly \u201cracist.\u201d<\/p>\n So, \u201cracism,\u201d then, doesn\u2019t require hatred of other races, a willingness to discriminate against them, or a conscious belief in their innate inferiority.\u00a0 In ways of which the best of intentioned whites are utterly unaware, their society\u2019s institutions, like the Devil in some imaginings of the Christian narrative, determine their every wicked thought, word, and deed. The comic Flip Wilson used to say when he succumbed to temptation: \u201cThe Devil made me do it.\u201d\u00a0 Apparently, whites can say when others accuse them of \u201cracism\u201d: \u201cSocial institutions made me do it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n This theory of \u201cracism\u201d is immune to refutation.\u00a0 This isn\u2019t because it is true, though. It is immune to refutation for the same reason that Solipsism, the theory that only one\u2019s own mind is real and everything else but figments of it is impervious to refutation: it is designed to absorb all criticisms. There are, however, damaging claims that can be made against it.<\/p>\n First, institutions, though human, are nevertheless impersonal entities.\u00a0 The three branches of government, the family, and boxing, are alike institutions. To impersonal entities it is improper to ascribe moral characteristics, whether positive or negative.\u00a0 The persons who engage in those institutions may be \u201cjust\u201d or \u201cunjust,\u201d \u201cvirtuous\u201d or \u201cvicious,\u201d \u201cright\u201d or \u201cwrong,\u201d \u201cracist\u201d or not, but the institutions themselves are \u201cuseful\u201d or \u201cuseless,\u201d \u201cefficient\u201d or \u201cinefficient,\u201d \u201cantiquated\u201d or \u201cnovel,\u201d \u201cnecessary\u201d or \u201cgratuitous,\u201d etc.<\/p>\n In other words, this model of \u201cracism\u201d involves a fundamental confusion of categories<\/em>. It makes no more sense to speak of an impersonal institution as being \u201cjust\u201d or \u201cracist\u201d as it does to speak of an impersonal knife in these terms.<\/p>\n Second, the IR model relies on persistent statistical disparities between blacks and whites with respect to a number of social indicia\u2014rates of crime, illegitimacy, unemployment, education, incarceration, etc.\u2014where the former is at a disadvantage relative to the latter.\u00a0<\/p>\n Analyzes of this data are in no short supply, so I won\u2019t bother reiterating in detail what has been said already.\u00a0 But plenty of respectable thinkers, black, white, and other, have shown that the categories \u201cblack\u201d and \u201cwhite\u201d are fictional monoliths that obscure crucial intra-racial <\/em>differences that, when taken into account, produce a dramatically different picture of race relations from that painted by the proponents of the IR model. For instance, when blacks and whites of the same description<\/em>\u2014e.g., married, college-educated, etc.\u2014are compared, such statistical disparities nearly vanish completely, and in some instances, blacks fare better than whites.\u00a0 Economist and nationally syndicated columnist Walter E. Williams, for example\u2014a black man\u2014showed over ten years ago that for every $1.00 earned by college educated white females, their black counterparts earned $1.25!<\/p>\n The IR model of \u201cracism,\u201d like the others, flounders.<\/p>\n Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n The list of the aforementioned models or accounts of \u201cracism\u201d I contend is comprehensive. Every notion of \u201cracism\u201d is some variation or other of one or more of these four models. I argued that each is distinct from and irreducible to the others, and none of them are adequate. Where does this leave the concept of \u201cracism?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n It is undeniable that racially-oriented injustice is a real and dreadful phenomenon that has plagued our world for as long as there have been distinct racial groups.\u00a0 Yet the term \u201cracism\u201d\u2014understood as denoting a phenomenon that is at once pervasive and immoral\u2014is a word whose time has expired.\u00a0 It should be retired, for it possesses no clear meaning and it is much more often than not employed as a rhetorical device whereby whites <\/em>are bullied and intimidated into making concessions of various sorts to the uncompromising demands of our \u201cpolitically correct\u201d orthodoxy.<\/p>\n Jack Kerwick, Ph.D.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This was originally published at Intellectual Conservative on February 12, 2009.\u00a0 In light of the national farce that has engulfed the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, I thought it may not be such a bad idea to reprint it here: In St. John\u2019s gospel, the evangelist says of the wondrous deeds of his Master that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n