When is Racism Actually Racism?

 When is racism actually racism? 

    I was recently considering the statement, “that is racist,” describing a countless number of behaviors, people, ideologies, and judgements.  I have encountered this occasionally in public, on social media, and in the world of entertainment.  I think it is important that, we as a society, do not degenerate into referring to racism as a colloquialism for all actions and behaviors that relate to the enmity between races.  I am making this distinction because I believe that words matter.  I believe that it matters that we call something what it is, rather than to rely on the Faustian Bargain of synonymy for convenience. *

*Note* - At the time the author wrote this, he did so under the educational background of a person educated in the late 1990s and early 2000s.  According to further research on the topic, the definition of racism has expanded to cover more than individual ideology and intolerance based on racial differences.  While I can see where there are important distinctions to be made for the substantial task of addressing systemic racism, I will still stand by a few key arguments.  Most specifically, the fact that changing of words to expand their definitions leads to confusion. (in my esteem) 

    Let us take an example:  A security guard lets a white person pass by in a shopping mall unmolested, then he turns and stops a young black person and interrogates him, hellbent on discovering some wrongdoing.  What we are looking at here is racially prejudiced action, based on a racial bias.  The guard has already determined, in his mind, that a black person is more likely to commit a crime.  This is a foundation in a racial bias that the guard has been collecting in his mind anytime he discovered a black person committing a wrongdoing.  That same bias will cause him to overlook a white person doing the same.  Maybe he is operating on racial stereotypes of criminality or the racial myths created to attempt to legitimize those stereotypes.  He is minimalizing one race’s action, for the sake of preserving his tainted viewpoints.  

*Edit* - All of the guard's mistakes, prejudices, and biases, are all rooted in racist ideology despite key specific terms under the penumbra of racism.

    To call the security guard “racist,” and leave the conversation there, is dismissive.  Racism refers to the hatred of a person (or perceived inferiority of given race) or group based entirely on race. ** Not that what he did is ethical behavior, or that he isn’t racist.  Being racially prejudiced and biased are not exclusive of racism but they are certainly not equal synonyms.  The guard may suspect black people as guilty but does not actually hate or wish them ill will.  Prejudice would indicate that he has already passed a morality judgment on the person based solely on race.  The fact remains that there are numerous words that, as schoolchildren (in my day as a millennial,) were used to identify specific criteria of determining problematic behavior in people.  This can be especially troubling to those suffering from biases, prejudices, stereotypes, racial myths, discrimination, bigotry and racism in positions of authority or power. 

**Edit**:  The definitive concept of racism as hatred of a person or group based on race is limited to individual acts or ideologies. This doesn't mean that prejudice, discrimination, bias, etc. aren't rooted in racism, but that there is a distinction therein.  It is kind of like how all similes are metaphors, but not all metaphors are similes. I understand the argument that the definition of racism was expanded to cover the effects of systemic racism, but it makes sense that the two should be regarded as exclusive terms.  Again, I think labeling all things that negatively affect one race as "racist," makes for one word to carry the burden of far too much meaning.

    There is a concept known as “unconscious bias,” that is implicated in behaviors in which people are acting that they truly are unaware of.  The fact that they are unable to determine that they are targeting one race or ethnicity is not entirely their fault.  They need to become more conscious of their behavior and become more active in making decisions based on facts rather than preprogrammed nonsense.  If we label people as racist, we can put them on the defensive and the conversation will only degenerate from there.  It is a very difficult rope to walk to convince someone to revise how they approach situations.  Most times they will deny out of fear of being labeled an evildoer and the next social media pariah. 

    So why all the phobia of racism?  It comes down to the inception of racism.  It has, is, and will be a tool used for warfare and subjugation.  From the period of slavery in the United States to the end of the civil war, racism was used for exploitive purposes rather than divisiveness purposes - though it was still divisive.   It was assumed that there was an inferiority to black people, and an inherent superiority of white people (ethnocentrism.)  This was used mainly by elite politicians, planters, and wealthy merchant class that stood to gain monetarily from this divide in people.  It was used to make the masses complicit of something that seemed so antithetical to the values and Constitution of the United States.  **Edit**: in a previous version of this post, I referred to racism during the slavery period as "more docile."  This was due to the fact that I had considered the viewpoint that slaves were considered "helpful," rather than the association of blacks as dangerous criminals, which was the case post-Reconstruction.  I sincerely hope that the confusion on my part did not create trouble or unrest.  I certainly don't think that slavery was better, but I also think things that followed were not so ideal.  

    While the walls of the inferiority/superiority dilemma came crashing down with the end of the Antebellum period in the United States, trouble reared its ugly head again by the doing of the wealthy elite in America.  Creating a troubling narrative of the criminalized black community, allowed elite groups to sow division in a community they feared the most.  It was the lower social-economic class.  Poor white farmers and newly freed slaves had something in common – poverty.  Racism was a tool to keep a massive populist uprising from creating a far more egalitarian America. 

    The release of the film Birth of a Nation, the inception of the Ku Klux Klan, pseudo sciences of phrenology and eugenics all gave a massive credibility to the notion that black people were the enemy of a reasonable and tolerant society.  The American Colonization Society, which was a very old organization that included prominent members of the Early Republic’s founders (James Madison and Henry Clay) was predicated on the notion that free blacks and whites could never get along.  The ACS was responsible for sending many free blacks back to Africa to prevent miscegenation and was responsible for the corrupt foundations of Liberia.  This shows that the problem of racial strife crosses oceans both ways over a long period of time.

    Racist ideology became more entrenched and grew into the ominous associations with what is commonly called today as, “systemic” * This is a term that gets thrown around a lot today with not as much concern given to its meaning, and more of a term to generalize groups or isolate certain ideologies.  Sometimes the application is justified, but other times, it is being used as a buzz phrase to raise fear and suspicion.  We must be careful what demagogues on both sides of Liberal and Conservative spectrum say.   Some might think that the sins of the past have made the institutions unsavable.  Some may also argue that those institutions are based solely on the cultural values of only a particular group.  It is possible to reconcile terrible past with its tainted foundation when moving forward.  Or so I hope.

*Edit* - Systemic racism refers to larger structural items like red lining, jerrymandering, and other broader social constructs that affect races negatively.  While this again is rooted in racism as the root word, simplifying the outcome and the intent as singular leads to problems in developing a deeper understanding of the problems.  Systemic racism is a product of massive group think all directed at disparaging one race.  I would argue that simply because significant social efforts have been undertaken with racism as a motivating factor, does not mean that all intent becomes racist when observing the effects of an individual.  Still, all things are connected, and therefore systemic racism is pervasive in a way that it must be addressed, labeling individual actors as racist is not the solution I believe that will change things.  We must also consider the fear that people will use the label of racism to grant carte blanch to attack their way or quality of life, to justify causing harm, destroy reputations, demonetize online personalities, and otherwise attack one another. It makes me also wonder why systemic discrimination or systemic prejudice aren't conceptual items that get inserted into public discourse.  I think it is the severity of systemic racism requiring the suffix of "ism." Words with that suffix have the most dubious connotations.  (Communism, Socialism, Nihilism, etc.)  I think it's more important to identify and target specific problems than to raise fear with another "ism."

    This all brings us to the modern age of information transfer and instantaneous labeling.  It is in the interest of very few elites to keep the majority of people fighting no matter what race they are.  It is not simply one group perpetrating racially motivated attacks and ideologies, it is a huge cluster. People leading difficult and challenging lives are pitted against one another over the harsh realities of surviving a hostile society.  More often than not, it is easy for people to lay the blame on their ethnic makeup or the makeup of others than to apply a more critical Lense to a situation.  Too often facts and information are withheld by those who stand more to gain by letting people degenerate into bitter fighting.

    This doesn't even begin to dissect the complex issue of what a race actually IS compared to both the biological similarities of people and their vast cultural differences.  Describing people as white doesn't begin to dredge the significant differences between Anglicans, Mediterranean, Slavic, Norse, and countless other ethnicities that have enough differences that lumping them all together is a peril.  And to think that the term "Black" or "African American" provides sufficient detail about Southern African, Northern African, Western African, etc. is sadly lacking as well (Not to mention Asian and Hispanic.)  The fact of the matter is that the grouping categories divide people and they themselves have divides within themselves.  Ethnicity, race, national origin, cultural hegemony, and innumerable other factors can indicate how we can oversimplify what we think we know about another person or group.  Can someone who's family emigrated to the United States from Ireland during the potato blight be held, in some way accountable, for the wealthy elite of America's planter class?  It is predominantly due to the increased inclusivity of the term white that changed what actors get labeled as such.  Previously a few generations ago, Italians and Irish did not fall under this category and were marginalized like the rest.  Now they take the blame for marginalization that is still perpetuated by the elite classes.  While educating and changing the narrative is crucial for members of those demographics, it is still unfair to blame them in the same capacity.  We really have to watch what fingers we point at.

    There are two examples of erasure that I will focus on at this point to demonstrate the need to consider, with all due care, what the damage might be.   Should certain or any voices be silenced when approaching this discussion.  Should the focus of the discussion be based on somber and stern attitudes while broaching the topic of racist, prejudiced, biased, or ethnocentric behavior?  It seems that attempts to entertain or use humor can become mired in complication. 

    Take the popular show, Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia, as an example of censorship to avoid the topic of racism in a humorous light.  In season 9, episode 9, the characters in the show create a sequel to the Lethal Weapon series using an all-white cast.  Since they wanted to portray Danny Glover, they used black face to try to emulate him.  The show took a humorous, albeit offensive, look at the world of black face to point out that it is a sore spot in the world of entertainment.  Disney/Hulu have removed that episode from their collection of the show's episodes.  Does removal of this show make the issue go away?  Does its removal strike the knowledge of its existence?  Was this poor attempt at humor really that poor?  Perhaps the entertainment business has been caught up in a Red Scare of its own.  Also note:  The show’s portrayal and humorizing of gay people never warranted a removal from the list. 

    There is also the topic of Magic the Gathering, which banned several cards released in the early and mid 1990s, which were intended to be edgy for the time, but many didn’t consider to be over the top.  The game was already extremely unpopular for displaying violent and satanic imagery on the art by the Christian right.  The game already had a disposition for being politically incorrect.  Wizards of the Coast, seeking to curry favor with the mainstream, removed the more occult aspects of the game.  The game took a more cookie cutter approach to the world of fantasy and magic.  The company wanted to display their commitment to cleansing their past by putting a tournament ban on a relatively short list of cards that were considered heinously offensive or racially insensitive.  Someone showed me a far longer list that could result if a progressively more fine-tooth comb were applied to the situation.  The slippery slope of censorship could make a very complicated mess for the sake of political correctness and cultural sensitivity.   

    This got me thinking of my own story, the one in which I have been slowly releasing chapters of on this very blog.  I posted, in “Chapter 4,” a part of the story including an antagonist character by the name of Wayne Ackerman.  Wayne showed up at the house of an African American in black face to try to inspire fear and out of perverted insanity pressing him onward.  He maniacally claimed that he wanted to fit in a black urban area by wearing black face.  This was a satirical attempt to generate a character who’s rational thinking was so distended with insanity that it was a bit humorous.   For the sake of argument, the reader could become offended by this passage. 

    I struggled with this passage for some time while typing in a small apartment alone in a city that was actively protesting racism outside my doorstep.  Personally, the fear of crowds was still far too great for me at the time to consider joining.  Despite the wrestling with the angst of including such a scene to my story, my instincts told me not to drop it from the story.  It seemed more than funny and more than offensive...It just seemed epic.  Like we, as a community, need to take these frightful concepts and beat them with a metaphoric baseball bat.  That is what Dayton did. 

    It wasn’t an attempt to be funny alone, and it wasn’t an attempt to be educational alone, but rather, a mixture of both items to draw attention to a person going to such extremes.  I think the fact that Wayne was duly punished for his actions, and for trying to attack Johnny, Clarence, Laurie, and Dayton, meant that vindication was obtained.  I would both be surprised and unsurprised by a reader who might come away from this part of the story offended.  The film Tropic Thunder also dealt with this topic featuring Robert Downey Jr. Playing a person portraying blackface.  It was a bit of meta humor.  Still, the movie entertains and offended many.  There is a fine line between comedy and offense.  

    What will this mean for my blog?  Will it be judged unsuitable for publication and to be buried with so many other written works?  Does it actually bring any points to light that are actually constructive for the discussion at large?  Does this, plus the rest of my still unreleased tale, prove to be what I had hoped – a tale where racial harmony triumphs over demonic forces of hate?  Racism is a demonic force of hate itself.  The fabricated demon that inhabits this fictitious world would feed on and use racism, along with so many other tools of discord. 

    If you are reading my story and came to the conclusion that Clarence is a side kick, or a tool for moving the plot forward, then you either haven’t finished reading the book, or you are quick to form critical judgements against my (quality withstanding) gifts to the world.  Yes, you are all the recipients of what greatness and creativity my mind can muster.  Perhaps it is a delusion of grandeur, but maybe, you might appreciate that I genuinely did this for you.  And in the case of this fiction novel, a muse, who will go unnamed.  

    The fact remains that comedy is based on irony, which is in turn based on dysfunction in the world.  It would cease to be funny if it were functional as it should be.  Still, we cannot use this humor or irony to justify the continuance of vile ideologies and poor behavior modalities.  We are left with the best outcome of laugh, think, then change the way we see or do things.

*Final Edit* - In the process of writing this update, I have tried to encapsulate a very important task ahead of all persons with the ability to affect the outcome of our collective destiny.  This is to create a safe environment for people to acknowledge the pain of American racial strife and move forward better, more well-educated people.  Sometimes being sensitive to a person's culture is required and sometimes being sensitive to a person committing a trespass are both required for progress. We must evaluate who has been harmed, and who can be harmed during the process of our collective understanding of matters of racial sensitivity.  I never meant to condone racist behavior or ideology, nor did I mean to grant someone freedom from consequence.  Learning is a painful and involved process, but there is no need for us to make it harder on one another.  I say we can all benefit from being sympathetic to each other's situation in this challenging process.

I have recovered this post for the purpose of being as forthcoming as possible to those that might have seen its removal as a sign of hiding previous statements made.  There are many edits as this is a sensitive topic, that I am still myself learning much, and due to the fact so much has occurred.  

Thank you