You’re A Racist If…
You’re a racist if you believe that you can and should seek common to find ground with racists….
You’re a racist if you believe that systemic racism and institutional racism can exist without individual racists…
You’re a racist if you believe that the support and vote for Trump aren’t an admission and manifestation of the racism inherent in such behaviors…
You’re a racist if you believe that even if black and brown lives matter, black and brown voices and votes shouldn’t…
You’re a racist if you can’t or don’t know or don’t understand why black and brown people feel constantly threatened, and feel that it’s dangerous to be black or brown in America…
You’re a racist if you deny or are indifferent or unaware of the fact of the effect and impact of historical and contemporary racism on the daily lives of average black and brown citizens of this country…
There’s more I can add to this litany but if you don’t get my point here, you’re a racist….
05/01/2023 @ 12:40 pm
I would definitely be a racist if I believed that belief has anything to do with racism. It doesn’t.
As best as I can understand it, we definitely should seek common ground with racists. This is easily defended. First of all, as bad as racism is, it is not civilizations most pressing problem. I can prioritize half a million actions that a person could take that would more immediately and more significantly damage the peace than racist acts, per se. Let’s take murder or cannibalism as one example. I prefer that an individual respect life in that most immediate sense than the relatively less serious but more frequent acts of racism. (Again, the important issues are the acts rather than the beliefs).
And as for institutional racism, it absolutely can exist without individual racists, and if you don’t understand the insidious nature of unjust practices in a social system, you are very likely part of the institutional racism, or misogyny, or other various forms of bigotry. Combatting systemic practices requires awareness, vigilance, and discipline. Different languages and cultures treat various aspects of culture, including race, gender, differently. In our culture, it is common for married couples to take the last name of the husband, and for the woman to essentially subordinate her family history to his. Some Latin cultures list the husband’s name first, and the wife’s last, and hyphenate them. Others reverse that. Which one is the misogynist?
The answer is, simplistic equations don’t provide the answer. The awareness, vigilance, and discipline have responsibility in the moment. The needs of the individuals involved, and the society within which the interactions take place take precedence. Yes, I am conflating patriarchy/dominance. That is because it most closely resembles the institutional aspects of racism.
Racism sucks. I hate it. It is a pathogen in our world. And as we deal with pathogens, we will never eradicate all of them. It isn’t possible. What we can do is develop vaccines, in some cases cures, and we can organize systems of treatment for illness. We are Sisyphus rolling the stone up the hill. Belief will never remove the stone or flatten the terrain. It will always take constant effort.
05/01/2023 @ 11:06 pm
“We refer to them as Cultural Beliefs because, taken collectively, such beliefs define much of an organization’s culture. Therefore, if you really want to change the actions of individual people on a team or in an organization, you must focus, first and foremost, on their beliefs. Pay attention to the beliefs of your people, or their beliefs may hinder your ability to achieve results.”
From Culture Partners’ Insights:
The Connection Between Beliefs And Behavior
05/03/2023 @ 6:14 am
I don’t deny that there are or can be connections between “beliefs” and actions. My point is that it is the actions that matter, and not the beliefs. One’s beliefs are a degree or more of separation from reality for a variety of reasons. Conversely, actions are reality. Beliefs, thoughts, moods, imaginings, philosophies, or any other intellectual energy must remain free in a free society, and could not be effectively regulated in any event.
Lyndon Johnson was a segregationist. The ‘Great Society’ is an example of someone having “engaged” and finding common ground with that segregationist, and others, to cause actions which brought progress. The market share of social justice in the political marketplace is expanded by propagating it where it did not, or does not exist. There is no progress when one marches in place.
Often, when parties are conflicted on some point of principle, one party will point out how the actions of one party is not consistent with their statements about principle. The term ‘hypocrisy’ arrises at these times. The thing of it is, though, this is an effort to coerce different actions to remove the hypocrisy. Their beliefs may explain where they are philosophically, and it may even be consistent with how they act, but addressing their beliefs in order to change their actions is like trying to push a rope rather than pulling it. You can’t write an effective law to control beliefs, so addressing them can only cause anger or complacency.
05/03/2023 @ 8:24 am
“Lyndon Johnson was a segregationist.”
Johnson also saw himself as a humanist or humanitarian. King was able to establish ‘common ground’ in Johnson’s innate humanitarian impulse thus creating the level of cognitive dissonance necessary to break the tension between Johnson the segregationist and Johnson the humanitarian.
For me personally, I cannot and will not seek common ground with anyone who cannot or will not first recognize and acknowledge me as a human being who is endowed with certain unalienable universal human rights…
05/03/2023 @ 9:33 am
Wow, there are a massive amount of goal posts moving with that last statement, and they have moved one hell of a long way. Your post began with, “you’re a racist if…”, and the last comment contained, “King was able to establish common ground…” (blasé, blasé, bullshit, equivocation). Now, if King “was able to…”, he either did so by accident, or he did so by design. If he set out to establish common ground, then he sought it. The word pulverize (from the Latin pulverisen, meaning to reduce to powder) fits well here as in, that particular equivocation has pulverized the first premise of seeking common ground with a qualification for making one a racist. That is the case unless you are saying that King himself was a racist. Careful accepting that premise because it would also logically mean that King was racist against Black people, since the racist that he sought common ground with was a segregationist.
As for the goal post moving, I don’t blame you for not seeking common ground with racists. I would rather not engage those who refuse to recognize my humanity. However, I separate from that the fact that those who have, like King, are making the progress, and not becoming racists themselves.
05/03/2023 @ 10:21 am
King was able to ignore ‘Johnson the segregationist’ and successfully appeal to ‘Johnson the humanist’.
If you can “first recognize and acknowledge me as a human being who is endowed with certain unalienable universal human rights…”, you may be severely prejudiced but not an abject ‘racist’…
There are no moving goal posts here…
Look at the video again and you will notice that there are audience members who aren’t applauding Johnson at all…
These were members of Congress who might be accurately characterized as ‘racists’ because of their apparent refusal to accept black people as human beings….
There is no ‘common ground’ that can be reached with such people…
Again, there are no ‘moving goalposts’ here…
05/03/2023 @ 10:58 am
Those goalposts are moving like Kenyan distance runners, coached by Salvador Dali.
You’re playing a semantic game with “ignored” to avoid conceding that the act of ignoring the segregationist characteristic in order to cooperate on another matter is the quintessence of “finding common ground”. You have been given a historical example that pulverizes the premise. You don’t need to concede it. It stands.
Furthermore, let’s use your characterization of Johnson as a “humanist”. If you stand there, Johnson negotiated with segregationists and progressive Northerners, in order to get legislation passed in 1957. Johnson the moderate brought intransigent Southerners and demanding Northerners to “common ground”. Who is the racist here? Is it the Southerners, the moderates, or the progressive Northerners? Is the Civil Rights legislation of 1957 a collective act of racism? No. It was the progressive product of three parties who had differing “beliefs”, and common action.
Oh, by the way, I will say again. Your post is titled, “You’re a racist if…” In the previous comment you said, “For me personally, I cannot and will not seek common ground with anyone who cannot or will not first recognize and acknowledge me as a human being…”
That is moving the goalposts. For you personally is a different standard from, “you’re a racist if…” The title sets up an objective standard that can’t be supported…in my view. The latter personal claim is exactly that, which is entirely supportable. They can not be conflated. To do so is to move the goalposts.
And as for “there is no common ground that can be reached…”, the 1957 civil rights bill which created the Civil Rights division of the DOJ is evidence that refutes that claim. It is a matter of fact…not debatable. Such people found a compromise on common ground.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/to-fight-for-civil-rights-lyndon-b-johnson-settled-for-the-middle-ground-180981482/
05/03/2023 @ 12:33 pm
I’m pretty much with Bitey on this. Without finding common ground you can’t get to change. Refusing to look for common ground is how Gingrich turned Congress into a barely functioning institution. The fact is that we will always have political opponents and they will always have a certain amount of power. Ignoring that doesn’t help anyone and helping people is ultimately our responsibility. It’s not my job to look ideologically acceptable, it’s my job to lessen the pain.
The actions vs. beliefs thing is very Jewish. For one thing, actions are entirely within our control while beliefs aren’t always. For a more important thing, it’s actions that help or hurt people (or animals for that matter). Judaism prioritizes action over belief and, by extension, action over faith. That’s one reason I stay put.
That “The Connection Between Beliefs and Behavior” quote addresses something I’ve believed for a very long time, a conclusion I’ve reached from experience:
Assumptions are more important than questions.
Answering a question will not give the questioner as useful an answer as figuring out from the question what the questioner assumes and addressing that. I’m sure you remember my talking about “If you believe Black people are inferior” or whatever I titled it – it was both a post and had content in Talking To The Wall. This is why I wrote that stuff, because even though it wasn’t blatantly on the table it was still in the background and still needed to be addressed if we were really going to get anywhere.
05/03/2023 @ 1:28 pm
Bitey,
The Civil Rights Act of 1957 was a hollow symbolic victory which was compromised into existence by people who had no intention of doing anything for anyone…
It didn’t even codify the Brown v Board decision of 1954 just a few years earlier…
If it did anything, it carved “…with all deliberate speed…” in legislative stone without the benefit of one black voice at the compromise negotiating table:
“Then, over bourbon and cigars, he convinced the Old Guard Democratic Southerners that they ought to give a bit on civil rights while one of their own was in charge, as legislative action on race relations could not be postponed indefinitely.”
From the linked piece you provided.
05/03/2023 @ 4:40 pm
Ron, if they agreed to divide a stick of juicy fruit gum among ten people who oppose each other philosophically…that is progress. Prior to that gum agreement, there is no agreement. The tiniest positive fraction is still more than zero.
You move the goalposts by changing the direction from which you measure the movement. The 1957 agreement got parties to agree who had never agreed before. Regardless of how small the agreement was, it started the practice of agreeing. Christ on a cracker, Ron, it’ll feel good to just say…you’re right, Bill.
05/03/2023 @ 1:37 pm
Kosh,
“Answering a question will not give the questioner as useful an answer as figuring out from the question what the questioner assumes and addressing that.”
Agreed!
05/03/2023 @ 6:32 pm
Bitey,
You’re right!
Everybody in the room got
a shot of bourbon, a free cigar, and their very own ‘participation trophy’!
05/03/2023 @ 7:06 pm
That’s cute, but you have failed to address how the fact of the creation of the Civil Rights division of the DOJ is racism, and which of the three parties is racist? According to your first premise, the Northern progressives and the moderates are racists. They are the ones seeking common ground with the avowed racists. Either that is wrong, or your first premise is wrong. Forget about the cigars and bourbon. Focus on the substance of what you said.
05/03/2023 @ 9:44 pm
“Forget about the cigars and bourbon.”
Let’s not discard the celebratory bourbon and cigars just yet…
The Civil Rights Act of 1957 did nothing and the people who compromised, framed, and passed it knew that attempts at DOJ enforcement of specific provisions of the legislation would be DOA…
J. E. Hoover had been head of the FBI since its inception in 1924.
Hoover was a white Christian nationalist who embedded race and religion into the foundations of the FBI, the enforcement arm of the DOJ, which has allowed white supremacy to fester to this day…
The history of the Civil Rights Movement from 1957 forward speaks volumes about the sum and substance of the 1957 Civil Rights Act and the rampant racism that was attendant at its inception…
If you don’t or won’t accept that, it is your prerogative not to do so…
However, just remember that black folks didn’t get as much as a slice of that stick of juicy fruit gum you spoke of from the 1957 Civil Rights Act…
05/03/2023 @ 10:26 pm
There goes another set of goalposts. If I may, can we get back to the original field. The title of your post is, “You’re a racist if…” As such, no cigars matter. No distilled libation is relevant. What matters is, what is racism, who is the arbiter of that, and to what end?
My point was, what one believes does not matter. What one does is all that matters. Now, the compromise that brought about the Civil Rights Act of 1957 is not about what good the act did or did not do…according to the premise of yours that I am addressing. What matters is that three philosophically disparate groups made a compromise. Now, taking into consideration your first premise, they must all become racists because of attempting to seek common ground. In fact, the most racist among them must be the most progressive because they have traveled the furthest philosophically to engage in the process of compromise…which you say makes them racist. I don’t care what they smoked. I don’t care what they chewed. Your post did not mention what they drank. You said, essentially, the act of compromise makes the non-racist a racist.
Look, there are countless refutations for that first premise. The United Nations exists so that common ground can be found, and tread, to bring adversaries together…at least in part. Your premise would condemn the institution of the United Nations as de facto racist. The absurdity of that notion is evident. Finding common ground, whatever the philosophical differences, is the only hope to mending those rifts. Shaming won’t do it.
And again, I completely support anyone not wanting to engage with a racist in any way. I do that in many cases myself. But, nothing is gained in those situations. Anyone who thinks of me as less than human before I ignore them will not improve in my absence. And if I did have the patience to try to find common ground with them to fix that, or some other problem, that would not make me a racist.
05/04/2023 @ 3:58 am
“Anyone who thinks of me as less than human before I ignore them will not improve in my absence. And if I did have the patience to try to find common ground with them to fix that, or some other problem, that would not make me a racist.”
BINGO!!!
Bitey,
By the working definition of who or what is racist in this country, which was litigated and hammered out incessantly through at least 2 iterations of OS, you couldn’t be a racist here if you wanted and tried to become one…
That shoe simply does not, and cannot, fit you.
The ‘racist’ moniker simply does not fit or apply to you, or me, or any other black person in this country, with the only possible exception being Clarence Thomas…
“In fact, the most racist among them must be the most progressive because they have traveled the furthest philosophically to engage in the process of compromise…”
Yes, this is most definitely true…
You’re beginning to see the light…
Why do you think that the Boston franchises were among the last to integrate their rosters?
Where do you think that the notion of ‘de facto segregation’ was most vehemently argued and fought?
In many ways northern racism was much more damaging and hurtful than the southern variety…
Many ‘northern progressives’ did not need to travel as far ideologically as they would have you believe…
The 1957 Civil Rights Act was a sham and a scam and they knew it…
The 1957 Civil Rights compromise legislation gave them all the appearance of having done something when in fact they had done virtually nothing at all…
You can almost hear, see, and feel the palpable atonement in Johnson’s voice during his “we shall overcome” speech…
The Johnson who brokered the compromise that became the Civil Rights Act of 1957 was not the Johnson who gave that speech and signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law…
05/04/2023 @ 7:11 am
I am familiar with the line of reasoning that you are referring to (from OS), but it is misapplied and ill-fitting here. That reasoning more accurately states that actions by a member of an oppressed minority is not racism, because racism involves oppression of the oppressed minority. To say that one can’t be a ‘racist’ is being a bit sloppy with the language and reasoning. (And it further demonstrates my view that labeling the “racist” has no merit anywhere).
Two things come to mind here that are of profound importance. First, the concept of race. We all understand that the concept of race is not a real thing, but rather a social construct which functions as a vehicle for certain social maladies. If race exists, how does it apply to the slide whistle variance of genetic material that represents our composition. Which gene or set of genes are the ‘race’ gene, and at what precise point is one race differentiated from another?
The other important thing is the rule of how principles of logic work. When testing a principle, if it can’t be applied across the board, then it is not a principle. The list of various statements following the title are stated as principles. If they can be applied to some, but absolutely can not to others, then they don’t serve as principles.
That being the case, either the concept of race is flawed/false, or the premises set forth are false. It is a fair requirement to demand that one acknowledge your inclusion is the group called human, but it is just as necessary for you to do the same when you set up standards to determine whether someone is a racist or not.
The state of being human exists. I think we can all agree there. The concept of race is tenuous and rather difficult to nail down. Therefore the ISM which is applied to the human can’t have more importance than the human attached to it…on either side of the accusation. It is the human and the actions that matter, and not the variable mixture of genetic material that we use to ascertain the taxonomical category of the human.
Segregation is a handy example of racism. We can all agree. But, when you switch to the subject of the segregationist, are we talking about a “racist”, or are we talking about a “humanitarian”? That one is not so easy. It kind of comes down to what one is doing at the moment. That is why the concept of racist is not as reliable as racism. When it comes to the action/ISM, it is the conduct that matters. When is comes to the individual, it is the human that matters. Even individuals vary in their genetic mixture and their conduct. You have acknowledged as much with Lyndon Johnson.
BindleSnitch - Something to Ponder on A Sunday in May
05/07/2023 @ 7:05 am
[…] You’re A Racist If… […]