If You’ve Ever Said Any of These Six Things, You Might be a Racist

John, I’ve been a dedicated reader of your blog for over a year now. I saw that you linked to this post from your blog on the movie “Hop.” Upon further reflection, I’d be remiss if I didn’t attempt to explain to you, in good faith, how misguided I believe several of the statements included in this list are—and why.

I’ll forego any preliminary comments and just jump right in.

“Why don’t blacks just get over it already, and quit being so sensitive? Nobody who’s alive today had anything to do with slavery. When are African-Americans going to stop living in the past, and start taking care of the present?”

You wrap several sentences with different meanings into one convoluted statement here. The first sentence is crass and coarse. The third is hardly reasonable, but considering the diatribes and blatant racism of “leaders” such as Al Sharpton—who care for racial justice up until the point that white individuals are falsely accused of a race-related crime, such as the Duke hockey players accused in 2004 of raping a black stripper—perhaps it sounds slightly more so. The second sentence is where my main concern lies: how is this claim untrue? And if it is true, are we going to take a “sins-of-the-fathers” approach to every issue in which someone has been wronged? I’m part Irish, and it’s been almost a century since Britain annexed my native country’s northeastern corner. I don’t hold British citizens today accountable for this, or act as if this still tangibly disenfranchises me—although it affects my understanding of my history, it impacts me much less than it did my ancestors when it happened.

“If making it as a black person in America is so hard, how do you explain people like Colin Powell, Clarence Thomas, and Barack Obama?”

Again, this is a confluence of a valid idea with a crude and brutish phraseology. This question can be stated in a snarky way, which is the manner in which I assume you are caricaturizing it. However, without any specific tone, it is also a legitimate question: if a black man can be President but blacks at large still experience tangible discrimination, then what does this say about the racial complexities of America’s sociology? It injures both the privileged and the disenfranchised to relegate racism to such a black-and-white, monolithic sensibility, one that implies that even asking such a question can earn you the label of “racist.”

“All kinds of foreigners, of every color, come to this country and make it. Why do so many blacks fail, when so many Asians succeed?”

I’m not quite sure how this statement can be perceived as much more than stupidly overgeneralized, rather than racist. If you mean to imply that Asians have not endured the same level of difficulty in attaining racial autonomy as blacks, several miles’ worth of documents and testimony regarding the treatment of Chinese immigrants to California in the Gold Rush era beg to differ. Regardless, such a debate over whose suffering is greater is pointless, and is not what either of us is trying to pursue, I hope. But the underlying observation of this question—that there exists a discrepancy between the achievements of generalized racial groups—has been a concern on the sociological level for quite some time now. It seems counterproductive and primitive to deem a layperson racist for asking it.

“God forbid we should ever do or say anything that’s not ‘politically correct.’”

There is quite a huge space between what is not politically correct and what is simply crude, or an ethnic slur. The latter exist in reference to historically created contexts, i.e., the n-word derives its weight from being used in the past as a direct apparatus of hate and murder. The politically correct, however, differs greatly from so clearly a distasteful lineage. Unlike ethnic slurs, which directly demean, some words become politically correct simply on the basis of their patent inoffensiveness—their inability to divide. But in a society where we cannot or do not say what we mean, where we cannot separate a thing from what it is not, communication is futile. I remember once hearing journalist Charles Wiley give a lecture in which he outlined the concept of political correctness as the foremost danger to journalism in the modern age. He recalled the genesis of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, and the atmosphere of political correctness that he believes prevented him and other well-meaning journalists from publishing information about the ailment that could have saved potentially millions of lives. The inability to speak frankly and without euphemisms about issues as pressing as race relations seems a mortal wound to any hope for improvement.

“When I look at a person, I don’t see the color of their skin: I just see a person. Why do we have to be so hung up on color all the time?”

Is such a sentiment not the ultimate goal of all proponents of equality?

“What about reverse discrimination against white people?”

What about it? This question at face value takes on no inherent meaning, good or bad. The only context in which I can even remotely find reason for you to object to it is if you have somehow managed to assign ulterior meanings to it—such as “white privilege,” or another equally ill-defined term. But these ulterior meanings are your projections onto the asker of the question, and as such are not representative enough of the speaker to warrant your judgment of him or her. Also, consider that from 1995-2002, the FBI concluded that whites were the second most targeted group for hate crimes in New York City: http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/1/2/6/3/7/p126377_index.html

What bothers me most, though—more than any singular statement you have designated as racist—is the fact that a majority of your characterizations of racist thought or speech are questions. This indicates to me that, on a fundamental level, you are unwilling to even have a conversation with those who do not share your views before judging them; the mere presence of heretical thought brands an individual as an opponent. I cannot imagine an indictment more contradictory to the type of dialogue you encourage in your posts about the social issues Christianity faces today.

You offer judgment without demonstrating how and why these questions are patently racist—only that our hypersensitive and made-to-feel guilty consciences have been trained to feel, intrinsically, as if these things truly are racist when we hear them. This is a reliance on emotional and intuitional response, not intellectual. The consequences of shaming even the most ignorant questions is a chilling effect, and I don’t think that’s what you want.

And yes, there is a difference between ignorance (harmful actions without the intent to harm behind them) and racism (something I’d define as an active antagonism against a particular ethnic group). Although they may look the same, one is not the other. To conflate them both is to do damage to the conversation about racism at large, and to make enemies out of people with the potential for goodwill.

It is also to do damage to the past, which in turn damages the present and future. The reason I take issue with the word “racist” being thrown around so wantonly is because I believe our society quickly dilutes the potential of the word to represent true evil. Someone who asks one of the above questions is not “racist;” the Ku Klux Klan is racist. I similarly object to calling people Nazis for the same reason: the unfathomably concentrated horror and evil of the Holocaust, of the extermination of Jews, disabled, and other parties, merits a term that represents one thing and one thing only. Every time “Nazi” or “racist” is used outside of its most horrific and concrete context, the words are deprived of their power—and of their potential to teach us, to be meaningful.

I have great respect for you and your “judge not, lest you yourself be judged” approach to some of Christianity’s conundrums. And yet this post just seems to miss that mark entirely. Therefore, I’d appreciate your response. In fact, I invite it. I’m not interested in ad hominem attacks, but real discussion.

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