Race-relations have intrigued me from at least the time I was a young teenager.\u00a0 Since I started writing four years ago, I have written my share of essays on this topic\u2014including essays in which I sail unchartered waters by subjecting the notion of \u201cracism\u201d to interrogation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Recently, to my surprise, an editor for one of the sites for which I write decided to pass on publishing my latest submission.\u00a0 In this article, I argue both that \u201cracism\u201d is not the unitary concept that typical usage of the term suggests, and that none of the mutually distinct conceptions of \u201cracism\u201d\u2014none of the \u201cracisms\u201d\u2014succeeds in showing how or why \u201cracism\u201d is the especially horrible thing that we treat it as.<\/p>\n
My editor chose to pass on it because, he contended, it lends itself all too easily to being read as coming dangerously close to sanctioning \u201cracism.\u201d In other words, in arguing that \u201cracism\u201d is not the Mother of all Abominations that our political orthodoxy would have us believe it is, I imply that it is not an abomination at all.\u00a0 \u201cRacism\u201d is <\/em>an evil, my editor assured me, because it is a species of \u201ccollectivism,\u201d and all expressions of \u201ccollectivism\u201d deny the worth of the individual. <\/em>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n My editor is a good man, a friend, who has always been generous to me.\u00a0 That being said, he was mistaken on a couple of scores.<\/p>\n The purpose of my article was not to suggest that \u201cracism\u201d isn\u2019t evil.\u00a0 Nor, for that matter, did it mean to imply that \u201cracism\u201d is <\/em>evil.\u00a0 I simply wanted to do what no one, shockingly, has thought to do: I wanted to pull back the proverbial curtain on a word that inspires unprecedented fear.\u00a0 I wanted to determine whether this fear was warranted.\u00a0 My article was meant to be descriptive, <\/em>not normative.\u00a0 <\/em>Just as an analysis of the concept of God does not necessarily reflect belief or disbelief in God, so neither should my analysis of \u201cracism\u201d be read as a function of my own attitude toward it.<\/p>\n Furthermore, it may or may not be true that \u201cracism\u201d is an evil because it is a form of \u201ccollectivism.\u2019\u00a0 This is because it may or may not be true that it is properly classified as a specimen of \u201ccollectivism.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cCollectivism,\u201d not unlike virtually every other ingredient of our political-moral vocabulary, is anything but an unambiguous term.\u00a0 A collectivity<\/em> is a group.\u00a0 Presumably, when our focus is on the collectivity, it is set upon something that is supposed to be greater than <\/em>its individual members.\u00a0 So, according to my editor, \u201cracism\u201d is evil because if \u201cthe racist\u201d sees the individual at all, it is only inasmuch as the individual is a member of the collectivity known as race. <\/em><\/p>\n To this line of reasoning, a few quick replies are in order.<\/p>\n First, if \u201cracism\u201d is evil because it is a form of \u201ccollectivism,\u201d then my thesis remains in tact, for it isn\u2019t \u201cracism\u201d as such that is the Mother of All Evils, but \u201ccollectivism.\u201d\u00a0 That \u201ccollectivism,\u201d in this instance, <\/em>happens to possess a racial character is irrelevant.<\/p>\n Second, the line between \u201ccollectivism\u201d and \u201cindividualism\u201d is not nearly as hard and fast as this objection indicates.\u00a0 Marxism is regarded by self-avowed \u201cindividualists\u201d as the prototypical version of \u201ccollectivism,\u201d yet even Marxists deny that they are collectivists.\u00a0 It is <\/em>indeed the individual <\/em>who the Marxist wants to protect and strengthen.\u00a0 The difference, though, between the Marxist\u2019s idea of the individual and that of the libertarian is the difference between their respective thoughts on \u201cfreedom,\u201d \u201cliberty,\u201d \u201cequality,\u201d and \u201cjustice.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n For the Marxist, liberty, equality and the rest are substantive.\u00a0 <\/em>Justice requires that there exists an equal and, thus, equitable, distribution of material and \u201csocial\u201d resources so that liberty can be a reality for each and every person.\u00a0 For the libertarian, in stark contrast, liberty, equality, and justice are procedural. <\/em>\u00a0Resources are to be earned or otherwise acquired\u2014most definitely not <\/em>supplied by the government. <\/em><\/p>\n The point, though, is that, theoretically at least, the individual is as much valued by Marxism as by libertarianism.\u00a0<\/p>\n Third, while the libertarian is certainly entitled to question the Marxist\u2019s understanding of the individual and \u201cindividualism,\u201d before he casts stones he should make sure that his own house isn\u2019t made of glass.\u00a0 Is it really the case that any <\/em>of us ever see just <\/em>the individual?\u00a0 After all, \u201cthe individual\u201d is an abstraction.\u00a0 In actuality, what we encounter\u2014even when we look in the mirror\u2014are complex, concrete beings with distinctive histories and experiences.\u00a0 It is impossible to make sense of our world\u2014indeed, it is impossible to coherently speak of the <\/em>world (i.e. a single, self-continuous reality)\u2014in the absence of categories <\/em>according to which we can classify its limitless phenomena. \u00a0\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n The libertarian, no less than anyone else, navigates his way through life by means of categories.\u00a0 When he makes a claim, like, \u201cWe are all <\/em>Americans,\u201d he sees the collectivity\u2014America\u2014before he sees the 300,000,000 or so individuals who compose America.\u00a0 When the libertarian affirms patriotism<\/em> as a virtue, whether he realizes this or not, he casts his vote for something that a certain sort of \u201ccollectivist\u201d will just as readily embrace.\u00a0 The reason is simple: the country to which the patriot pledges his loyalty is the collectivity to which his own interests will now be subordinated.<\/p>\n \u201cRacism\u201d may very well be a meaningful term, and it may well be an evil, but until we determine exactly what \u201ccollectivism\u201d is, we would be well served to avoid linking the former to the latter.\u00a0 An investigation of \u201ccollectivism\u201d is due first.\u00a0 For that matter, we need to revisit the term \u201cindividualism\u201d as well.<\/p>\n Let me say, finally, that while I put the concept of \u201cracism<\/em>\u201d on the hot seat, I have not and would not think to deny either the reality or the awfulness of inter-racial cruelty. The thing of it is, though, is that I abhor cruelty whether it is inter-<\/em>racial or intra-<\/em>racial.\u00a0 And I abhor it regardless of the racial backgrounds of the perpetrators and victims.\u00a0<\/p>\n As a Christian, I have an obligation to God to renounce \u201cSatan and all of his works.\u201d\u00a0 For this reason, to say nothing of my own devotion to liberty, I am committed to using all of my resources to the end of retiring the agents of the Racism Industrial Complex (RIC) once and for all.\u00a0 All of us are all too familiar with RIC. Its agents are those peculiar creatures who seem to exist for the sole purpose of discovering \u201cracism\u201d in every nook and cranny of American life.\u00a0<\/p>\n While some of its more na\u00efve agents doubtless believe that they are doing good work, its veterans know by now the many benefits to be had from furthering their industry.\u00a0 They know as well thatAmerica\u2019s white majority lives in perpetual, paralyzing fear of being charged with \u201cracism.\u201d\u00a0 There is no single accusation other than that of \u201cracism\u201d that most white Americans dread as much. \u00a0And RIC agents continue to exploit this fear for all that they can\u2014regardless of the cost in bloodshed at which it has come.<\/p>\n RIC agents, like those who are either demanding George Zimmerman\u2019s head on a platter, or those in the media who have labored inexhaustibly to provoke them to demand Zimmerman\u2019s head, are guilty of evil.\u00a0 <\/em>They are evil, or at least it is true that they act evilly, because they could care less whether Zimmerman is really culpable of any crime.<\/p>\n RIC agents are concerned only with advancing the mission of RIC\u2014the mission of exposing and combating \u201cracism\u201d (white <\/em>\u201cracism,\u201d to be exact).\u00a0 And since this in turn requires stoking the belief that \u201cracism\u201d not only continues to endure, but that it is ubiquitous, instances of \u201cracism\u201d must be invented.\u00a0 <\/em>As the specific case of Zimmerman proves, RIC agents have reached a point at which they feel the need to invent whites, <\/em>for just a brief glance at Zimmerman reveals him to be a Hispanic.<\/p>\n The threat posed to our liberties by \u201canti-racists\u201d is much larger than any posed by \u201cracists.\u201d\u00a0 In the name of combating \u201cracism,\u201d our professional \u201canti-racists\u201d have managed to transform America from a civil association\u2014an association of laws specifying liberties\u2014to an association of a fundamentally different kind\u2014what the philosopher Michael Oakeshott referred to as an \u201centerprise association.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Thanks to our \u201canti-racists,\u201d our laws<\/em> have largely been replaced by policies, <\/em>instrumental devices designed for the sake of advancing the goal, not <\/em>of justice<\/em>, but of \u201cracial<\/em> or social <\/em>justice.\u201d<\/p>\n For as unpleasant as he finds it, the Christian and the lover of liberty must\u2014he must<\/em>\u2014spare no occasion to reckon with the evil of the Racism Industrial Complex for what it is.\u00a0 If not, evil will prevail and liberty will continue to vanish. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Jack Kerwick, Ph.D.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Race-relations have intrigued me from at least the time I was a young teenager.\u00a0 Since I started writing four years ago, I have written my share of essays on this topic\u2014including essays in which I sail unchartered waters by subjecting the notion of \u201cracism\u201d to interrogation.\u00a0 Recently, to my surprise, an editor for one of…<\/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-441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n