It’s time to have it out. I’m sick of the quarreling, especially as so much of it is motivated by a simple lack of comprehension.
A preference for one’s own race is not racism.
A desire to live among members of one’s own race is not racism.
The recognition of statistical differences among the races is not racism.
Racism is the assignment of different rights to different races. That and only that is racism. It is especially noxious when enshrined in law.
A simple test suffices to dramatize this truth:
Behind a screen, completely occluding your vision, stand three men. One is Caucasian; one is Negro; one is Mongolian. (Yes, those are the three anthropological terms for the recognized races of Man.) It is your responsibility, based on that tiny amount of information plus what you know about people generally, to select:
- A chief executive for a business;
- A center for a basketball team;
- A stepfather for your children.
Choose.
Well? Whom did you select for each of those roles? Did it have anything to do with the rights of the three people behind the screen?
If you were to select simply on the basis of the races’ statistically observable aptitudes, how could anyone fault you? If you were to select in some other fashion, what would it be? Some notion of “equality?” If you were to select on someone else’s behalf – e.g., for pay – how would you justify your choices?
It’s all right to prefer your own race. It’s all right to want to live among members of your own race. It’s all right to acknowledge the statistical differences among the races, and to make decisions based upon those differences. Just concede that members of other races have the same rights to life, liberty, and honestly acquired property as do yours, and everything will work out. Now stop with the nonsense. Life is tough enough.
2 comments
Stereotypes are valid first-order approximations. It isn’t racism to note the prevalence of crime in certain neighborhoods, nor the ethnic breakdown of those violent neighborhoods. (That’s nothing more complicated than statistics, such as noting that 42% of murders in the US occur in less than 1% (31) of the counties*, and that more than half the counties (52%) have no murders at all. Objective data simply IS.) It would be racism if and only if you ascribe that violence to nothing more than the ethnicity of that neighborhood, and are forced to cherry-pick data to explain why that assignment of motives doesn’t apply under other sociological conditions in other areas. (ProTip: It ISN’T higher percentages of gun ownership that drives the violence.)
* — they have managed to break down those county areas into ZIP codes and specific neighborhoods where the violent crimes are even more concentrated, such as the breakdown where Los Angeles’ most-violent 10% of ZIP codes accounted for 41% of that county’s murder count and the next 10% group adds another 26%.
Indeed, stereotyping applies everywhere to everything. It is a natural human coping echanism and sometimes one of self-preservation. Studies have shown that infants overwhelmingly prefer to associate with others who resemble them. It is merely an extension of their group affinity, i.e, their parents and family members. Only with time and experience can one be more accepting of strangers and even then, at best the rule is, as Reagan advised, “Trust, but verify.” Today, with the possibiity of violent confrontation being greater than in the past, the sequence is reversed. It is now wiser to distrust until verified otherwise.