Sunday, August 18, 2019

Problems with Racism



The problem with race and words related to race is the lack of a precise meaning and the attachment of strong emotions to certain terms like racist.

We can turn to dictionary definitions to find out how people generally use the words, but there will still be local applications that are far from what academics mean. Racist and racism mean different things, but it is certainly an insult in a democracy.

Race and Links to the past
Before the 20th century, scientists thought there were different races of human beings. People used to believe humans could be identified by race based on physical characteristics and people believed that traits like personality, intelligence, and morality were the result of their race.

The problem is, it is difficult to make a case for different races of human beings. Surface differences like shapes of facial features and skin color are not scientifically linked to traits like personality, intelligence, and so forth.

Besides, it is common knowledge that two people in love who have different physical appearances, mate and produce offspring who share characteristics of both parents. It doesn’t take a lot of pairings before many people have a mixed heritage.

Racism
Nowadays, racism refers to negative actions toward people considered to be of a different race. The negative actions include prejudice, discrimination, and antagonism. See for example lexico.com.

Racist
Calling someone a racist is an insult and usually means that a person has a pattern of acting in a prejudicial, discriminatory, or antagonistic way toward people of another race. Racists view their group as superior to groups labeled as of a different race.

One problem with the word racist is that human beings are often wary of people who do not look like they belong to the same group. Groups can be defined by skin color, but they can also be defined by cultural markers like languages, foods, clothes, and religions.

Another problem is the failure to consider ranges of beliefs and subtleties. People use the word racist as if it is an all-or-nothing thing. It isn’t all-or-nothing. Extremists make it look like all-or-nothing, but nonextremists may still hold less extreme beliefs that can make a difference if they are in a position to make laws, policies, and decisions about hiring, serving, or treating other human beings who look or appear different than people from their usual group.

Context
In the United States, race is often defined in terms of black and white–an obvious reference to skin color. Sometimes another race includes people identified as brown. Sometimes race refers to the perceived continent of origin like Africa, Asia, or Europe. If you live elsewhere, you may have different ways people refer to races.


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What Matters?

Fairness. In a nation or organization, the principle of fairness, usually considered as equality, is germane to peaceful relationships between people who appear to be from different groups. It is difficult, though not impossible, to change attitudes, but it is possible to enforce laws that require the equal treatment of all human beings when it comes to the benefits and punishments present in laws and policies.
Unfair treatment breeds discontent and even violence.

Language. The language of leaders also matters.

Leaders can use insults to “paint targets on the backs”
of people they do not like.

Leaders insult groups of people based on where they live, where they came from, or other characteristics that make it seem that the disgusting behavior of a few people from a certain place, or having a certain characteristic is true of others from the same place or having the same characteristic. Leaders can inspire people to greatness or terrorism.

Integrity. Let’s be straightforward. When leaders attack a few people, who acted in a deplorable way as if all people who are like those bad actors are also deplorables or less than human, society has a problem. People will be divided and fear those who look like bad actors. Integrity means refusing to suggest that all people who look like a criminal or “bad actor” is just as bad.

Vigilance. It will take strong opposition leaders to attack the language (not the person) who seeks to divide people into preferred and not preferred groups. Social leaders who care about living in a peaceful and nonviolent society will need to constantly speak out against attempts to divide people based on rhetoric that identifies certain groups of people as targets and simultaneously engenders hatred toward those targeted people. Free speech is of critical importance to a just society.

A free press is vital to bringing cases of discrimination and injustice to the public. However, one must also fight against both an over-zealous press and poorly informed writers on one hand and powerful leaders who discount carefully researched press reports on the other hand. Just societies will always need alternative voices from vigilant people.

Groupishness. Human beings constantly form special ingroups and reject some people who are by default in an outgroup. Any progress in racism won’t solve the problem of human nature in other areas of a culture. Sexism, genderism, ageism, ableism, ethnocentrism, and other "isms" are among the ways people band together and make life better for themselves at the expense of another group. Even in societies that purport to offer liberty and justice for all, enforceable laws have been important to protect the rights of certain minorities. Sadly, if your group is not listed as a protected group in law, you might not be able to count on justice or fairness. Of course, even if a minority group is listed as protected, it does not mean they will be protected when no one is looking.

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