If We’re All Racists, It’s a Useless Term

A recent article in The Atlantic Monthly argued that American whites are all racists.  (As a mark of consistency, the author, a white law school professor from California, included herself.)  The article cited a poll which found that a significant portion of white Americans admitted to having used the “N” word recently.  [Why is it that the PC code requires that the derisive term for blacks be unwritten while highly offensive (to many) vulgarities, obscenities and sacrilegious expressions are tolerated and approved of?]

As far as those who didn’t utter “nigger”, they qualified as racists since polling showed they were more likely to favor one person over another if the latter was using a “black-sounding” first name.

Many years ago, bias against blacks was known as racial prejudice.  That was, and is, I suggest a far more useful term to describe a person’s attitude toward a group.

To presume anything about an individual because of his membership or association with a group is a pre-judgment which may or may not be accurate.  They are generalities and as such are prejudices which influence one’s judgments and actions.

Some years ago, Jesse Jackson received considerable publicity when he acknowledged that he crossed a street in Washington, D.C., to avoid crossing paths, at night, with a group of young blacks coming from the opposite direction.

Was he displaying prejudice – a pre-judgment – concerning the potential risk by the possible encounter?  Of course.  Was it racist?

Sounds like a silly question, doesn’t it?  How could a famous civil rights leader be such?

So why would similar conduct by a white person be labeled racist by so many?

To “automatically” accuse that person of racial hostility is, in itself, a sign of anti-white racism.  Some of the perpetrators undoubtedly are sincere in their prejudices others, when the accused is a political foe, are malicious.

Back to the Jesse Jackson episode.  It is a fact that young blacks did – and do -  commit a disproportionate  number of assaults when compared to young white men in the nation’s capital.  Jesse Jackson knew that.  Others of different races have the same knowledge.  Factually-based prejudice dictated the response. The group of young blacks was understandably perceived as a threat.

Thus, prejudice is not necessarily a negative.  (Racism, properly defined, in contrast, equates to hostility towards, hatred of, members of a racial group.)

Consider the case of a white recruiter for a software company who is looking for a mathematically-inclined new employee and has only the names of candidates, Nguyen and John.  From his experiences and knowledge, would he likely be prejudiced in favor of the Asian?  Probably, since people from that group generally outperform whites in mathematics. 

Would that be a wise decision to select an individual only because of generalizations about the group to which he belongs?  No.  But would you label the white recruiter a racist for doing so? 

Lumping all whites into the racist category is ridiculous and gives a pass to those people truly hostile to members of different races.  “We’re all racists, after all.”

Conservatives are true allies of all who strive to be judged on individual merit, not group affiliation.  Thus, it’s sad indeed to note that the Left, in practice, has rejected the hope long ago (or so it seems) expressed by Martin Luther King, Jr:

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”