The New Republic

Okay, we've established that no one really knows what racism is. And no one can definitively establish whether or not another is a racist. Not if they keep insisting they aren't. Even if he describes's Obama's health care plan as, "NIGGER RIG IT". After all, we can't tap physicists and mathematicians on the shoulder and ask them to establish it "scientifically". So, I guess we're just stuck with, say, common sense? Is Limbaugh a racist? You tell me. I'll tell you I know one when I hear one and yes, I've heard enough from Rush. He's a race-baiter. Something like Jenna or the beer summit comes along and he and Hannity and Beck et al are pushing all the predictable bottons about "what it really means". And what that is always seems to portray blacks in the worst possible light. They may not be literal racists. Instead they may just pander to the literal racism embedded in the minds of the white rednecks, the dittohead zombies who follow them religiously on Fox News and talk radio. They know how to rile them enough to keep the cash pouring in. Who Really Knows For Sure? On the other hand, with respect to these white rednecks, am I a racist too? Well, not scientifically, perhaps, but the contempt I feel for them [and their blind prejudice] is real enough. george

- iambiguous

November 2, 2009 at 2:36am

Chait - even you? Even you are you afraid of being called PC by the bigots in the Republican Party? This is an uncharacterstically pussyfooting piece that in fact, called for the Full Chait. Let's all of us meathy-mouthed liberals say it out loud and proud: RUSH LIMBAUGH IS A BIGOT. See? That wasn't so hard. The Larger Picture of Race Relations in America (snore) or Democrats Can Be Kooky Too (ditto) are not relevant points in the least, Bringing up these topics only muddle something that should not be muddled. I think of my very very British english teacher in high school frowning and saying "no, no no - being precise is all that matters. Try again please." Chait, we simply cannot help the self-serving delusions these troglodytes use to justify their bigotry by being so *imprecise.* You only give their noxious lies credibility by being so wonky and journalismy in these sorts of pieces. I disagree with your contention that its meaningless whether Limbaugh is racist or not, that feels dangerously close to moral relativism. Sometimes people are straight up bigots, as Limbaugh clearly is, and need to be called just that. Mealy-mouthing around in Broderism is unacceptable with bigotry! Courage man, courage.

- WandreyCer

November 2, 2009 at 7:08am

I'm with Wandrey. Chait cites numerous racist statements and then says ... - well I'm not really sure what he said except that liberals play the race (and sexism) card too freely. (I think he means "some" liberals, since he apparently does not include himself among the allegedly oversensitive, and may not even include his left-of-center brothers and sisters at TNR.) I'll give him that - it's impossible to imagine a world where every single thing said by every single "lefty" is perfectly calibrated and reasonable, either by Chait's standards or by mine, so there will always some people on my side - the pro-civil rights, anti-segregation, anti-hate side - who say unreasonable things. That's too bad, but excessive sensitivity to hate is not as bad as excessive hate, so I can live with it. Imagine that instead of being our first African-American president, Obama was our first Jewish president. Limbaugh says: "We are being told that we have to hope [Obama] succeeds, that we have to bend over, grab the ankles ... because his father was Jewish." "I do believe" Obama is an "angry Jewish guy." "[I]n Obama's America, the Gentile kids now get beat up with the Jewish kids cheering." "Obama is "more Jewish in his roots than he is American" and is "behaving like a Jewish colonial shopkeeper." "Obama has disowned his Gentile half ... he's decided he's got to go all in on the Jewish side." "God does not have a birth certificate. Neither does Obama"; Obama "has yet to prove he's a citizen." Limbaugh suggests Obama would not have acted on Somali pirates if he'd known they were "actually young, Jewish teenagers." "It's -- you know, it's just -- it's just we can't hit the girl. I don't care how far feminism's saying, you can't hit the girl, and you can't -- you can't criticize the little Jewish man-child. You just can't do it, 'cause it's just not right, It's not fair. He's such a victim." The previous day, Limbaugh had said that "it is striking how unqualified Obama is and, and how this whole thing came about with, within the Democrat Party. I think it really goes back to the fact that nobody had the guts to stand up and say no to a Jewish guy." Limbaugh went on to say, "I think this is a classic illustration here where affirmative action has reared its ugly head against them." (In the original, it's kind of hard to tell the difference between Limbaugh's thesis and Chait's.) "Jewish people never do anything for which they have to apologize." I feel dirty just typing this sewage. Hate is hate, and it's wrong. It's even more wrong when directed against people, like Jews and blacks, who were and still are, the victims of discrimination, lynchings. bombings, Holocausts and other physical injuries, in addition to the psychic injury of being despised.

- Geoff G

November 2, 2009 at 9:05am

Geoff, standing ovation.

- WandreyCer

November 2, 2009 at 9:28am

WandreyCer said: "I disagree with your contention that its meaningless whether Limbaugh is racist or not, that feels dangerously close to moral relativism. " Wow, Wandrey, I'm not sure you could have missed Chait's point any more than you did. He's not saying it doesn't matter whether Limbaugh is rascist; he is saying that it doesn't matter -- for the sake of this short little post -- if Limbaugh fits the definition of rascist, because the point he is making does not depend on it.

- Fishpeddler

November 2, 2009 at 9:59am

Oh, come off of it, social worker, Jonathan Chait is not soft on anything. He baldly - and correctly - states that conservatives toss deranged charges at all Democratic presidents. And he notes Rush Limbaugh's obsession with race. Now, Jonathan is about ten thousand times smarter than you are and to read your inane comments on his fine article is to once again note that you are unintentionally hilarious. You are also a Platonist of the left; the world is characterized by nuances and gray areas but this reality has escaped you. You sound like a right-winger flipped upside down with your ridiculous charge of "moral relativism. The late philosopher Richard Rorty said that relativism is self-refuting and so it is. Jonathan Chait is anything but a moral relativist. Don't you have a better use of your time, like, say, reading the excellent Stanley Fish, who in a recent New York Times blog entry wrote that people who can't write can't think? Does this resonate with you?

- liberal reformer

November 2, 2009 at 10:13am

Chait makes a point that "liberals have an unattractive tendency to casually impugn their foes as bigots", and right on cue, WandreyCer jumps in with the phrase "the bigots in the Republican Party". Next up, Geoff G who defines "his side" ("lefty") as the "pro-civil rights, anti-segregation, anti-hate side" which I guess means that anyone who is not a "lefty" (ie. a Republican) is anti-civil rights, pro-segregation and pro-hate. Chait's point could not have been made any better.

- nacnud1

November 2, 2009 at 11:23am

Riding BART this morning, as any other, I notice things: the term "race" means less and less, what with browns fucking whites fucking blacks fucking yellows fucking reds begetting beiges and ochres and mochas and every other hue this side of pomegranate. And that's just between me and the door. Also, each aforementioned Race of One is likely young. Chewing gum, earbuds in, checking each other out. Don't know as they will take as much stock in race as old farts like, to name two, Obama and Limbaugh. Not that racism is done with, of course, but in this country at least our happy habit of ecstatic squirting within the warm folds of the next available cutie (same color or no) erodes racism by the minute. What if they gave an ism and nobody came (because everybody came)? Now, cultural polarization between rich and poor--well, my friend, there's your problem, right there.

- williamyard

November 2, 2009 at 12:03pm

Now that the standard for what is and isn't a "racist" appears to be whether or not one has actively participated in a successful lynching of a black person, can we on the left try to retire the whole concept of "racism" altogether? After all, de jure racism was buried some time ago and de facto racism has taken on such strange public mutations that it's hard to follow their provenance (where we once had simple redlining to keep minorities out of certain areas, we now have a problem with sub-prime lenders having been TOO eager to make loans to minority applicants which those applicants cannot repay now). Instead, I'm with Chait in focusing more on the "race-obsessed" -- the more a person talks about how disadvantaged pure-bred white people are in today's America vis-a-vis other ethnic groups, the more they should be an appropriate target for ridicule and revulsion (and exclusion from NFL ownership groups).

- wildboy

November 2, 2009 at 12:21pm

This is a good start to the conversation. It really does seem that for many white conservatives, unless you can actually capture them wearing white sheets or hammering a cross in someone's lawn, they don't want to called racists. This cauterizes racist attitudes, perspectives, and actions down to the most blatant and unarguable standard. And perhaps there is some validity to this, given how easily people toss around the charge. However, as Chait mentions, Limbaugh is someone who is positively wrapped around his racialized perspective, and he doesn't even know it. As we just saw in the Sotomayor confirmation hearings, many white male conservatives don't perceive their white privilege/perspective as racialized, they see it as the "norm", or the way things just ought to be. It never occurred to guys like Graham or Coburn that white conservative men would bring their racial perspective to their rulings because, one, they're white so they don't have a "racial" perspective, and two, because they're white and they don't have a racial perspective, they are just implementing an inherently fair, unarguable "norma" standard to all their rulings. One can almost hear them saying "duh!". Rush Limbaugh is a dangerous demagogue and his incendiary racialized language has the high possibility of inciting violence against President Obama. That the GOP is so afraid to cross this racist buffoon just shows how degraded and impoverished the GOP has become.

- MrCookie1

November 2, 2009 at 12:35pm

First, let me apologize to Nacnud. I really didn't mean to tar all Republicans as pro-segregation, anti-civil rights and pro-hate. I did, however, mean to tar Limbaugh and his supporters as being pro-hate. In a sense, being pro-hate should not be offensive to them. They hate liberals, regardless of race, and if liberals were as bad Limbaugh says we are, I'd hate us too, just like I hate Nazis and suicide bombers. Also, I think that if Limbaugh had made the comments about a Jewish president that he's made about Obama (as litanized in my post), there would not be any question as to whether he was anti-Semitic, and I don't think you'd see a lot of commentators saying Jews were being too sensitive by pointing it out. Even so, the reason I got so worked up about Chait's post is the ridiculous generalizations, to wit: "Now, it is certainly true that liberals have an unattractive tendency to casually impugn their foes as bigots. The Democratic primary's war of attrition between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama devolved into a tedious donnybrook of accusations of sexism and racism. If Clinton had won, her supporters would no doubt have spent the last nine months discovering sexist motives among her critics. Since Obama prevailed, though, liberals have busily studied the opposition for signs of racism." Let's take 'em one at a time. "Liberals have an unattractive tendency ..." Chait is a liberal, and he doesn't have that tendency. Apparently, some of the non-conservatives posting on this thread don't have that tendency. Surely, Chait would admit that most of his liberal colleagues at TNR don't have that tendency. A lot of liberals contradicted Carter's statement too. So, it's not all liberals, just some. How many? You could do a lot of work on Lexis/Nexis and find out, but no one's going to do that. So, what you wind up with is someone who apparently is hyper-sensitive to unjustified charges of racism complaining about his subjective impressions. Every time he sees an unjustified charge he thinks "those damn liberals are at it again" but, due to confirmation bias and other subjective impediments to understanding, he somehow misses that a lot of liberals agree with him, maybe even more than disagree with him. "The Democratic primary's war of attrition between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama devolved into a tedious donnybrook of accusations of sexism and racism." Really? I was there, and while I remember that some of the massive amount of BS that was spewed all over the landscape had to with race or sex, I did not feel that the race or sex aspect outweighed all the other BS, not to mention the substantive issues, which actually seemed to get greater play last year than usual. Again, you could probably determine objectively what percentage of BS had to with race and sex, but why bother? It's pretty hard to imagine that a presidential contest in 2008 between a black man and a woman would not attract any racist or sexist comments; it's also hard to imagine that in such a contest you would not from time to time have someone come out with an unjustified cry of racism or sexism. These are salient issues in America (for the time being, as Yard notes) which draw wise and stupid comments in varying degrees. To get too worked up about the idiotic ones is like getting angry at the sun for rising in the East. It does - get over it. "If Clinton had won, her supporters would no doubt have spent the last nine months discovering sexist motives among her critics. Since Obama prevailed, though, liberals have busily studied the opposition for signs of racism." Of course, it's not all liberals, because Chait, among others, is busily studying liberals for signs of hypersensitivity to race. And, I'm not sure what "busily studying" means. Does it mean listening to Limbaugh and pointing the obvious racist things he says? Does anyone ever get exercised when a critic of Pat Buchanan says he's an anti-Semite? My impression from reading TNR is that it's worthwhile to point out anti-Semitism whenever it rears its head. Personally, I think it's worthwhile too, just as I think it's worthwhile to berate racists when they act out.

- Geoff G

November 2, 2009 at 2:17pm

I take Wandrey's point to be that the new PC is that no one can be called a racist unless one in fact acknowledges that he or she is racist. Chait points to examples in which people have said or done things that appear racist, but have denied that they are racist, and therefore concludes that "racist" or "racism" is not a useful term. Even slaveholders likely would have denied that they were racist -- if that term were in vogue at the time. After all, they loved their slaves and even had sex with them. How could they be racist? In any event, whether we use the term "racist" or "race-obsessed," we should not be cowed by the new PC into failing to confront it.

- dhurtado

November 2, 2009 at 2:18pm

OK Fishpeddler, I see your point, its a fair one. I don't think it was a good use of words on Chait's part, but I see what you are saying. nacnud1 - you are in denial about your party. The most powerful person in the Republican party is Limbaugh and he is a bigot - it is moral relativism to say anything less. Do you think the disgusting things Geoff quoted aren't bigoted? I could dig up 20 more quotes just like it over the years. What is your answer to that? Trent Lott was the head of the Republican leadership while he belonged to and regularly spoke to a well known white supremist group. He only had to resign his leadership position because Bush - who I do not believe is a bigot - insisted on it. Let's not even go in to the responses to immigration reform, all foisted on us by the right, which are straight up dangerous in many ways. I shouldn't say what's obvious and evil because I'm scared of being called names by you guys? Yeah right. I know most Republicans aren't bigots, most PEOPLE aren't. I agree that is is very important not to dilute a concept that is that is too important to dilute. But I will call is when I see it as I was raised to do (by white Republicans in fact). I was raised by a staunch Republican grandmother (German) who sat me down and taught me about the entire civil rights movement, who gave me an album of MLK Jr speeches that I still have. You can scream all you want and these conversations are almost always tedious beyond hope, but when people enjoy the fruits of demogogery and the power it may bring, without standing up for what's right (namely kicking Limabugh in his huge ass), its called complicity. Don't blame that on me.

- WandreyCer

November 2, 2009 at 2:38pm

wandrey, I think you would be stunned at just how much casual racism and anti-semitism is so prevalent (and how much do you want to bet these people generally vote Republican). Not long ago when I was visiting the states my chinese born wife went shopping and an elderly guy came up to her, asked where she was from (she was polite as she was raised) and after she told him told her to go back to China. I will say that guy was lucky I wasn't there because I would have ripped him a new one. Another time I was in a store with my 6 year old and a package only had Spanish on it, no English, and I overheard one guy say to another that if he had his way he would line up every Mexican and shoot them. This for the crime of the store selling a product without English. Yet in Mexico, as in China, I have seen many, many products that only had English packaging. I used to hope, aka Bullworth, that we would all just fuck ourselves into muttdom, that there would be no pure anything, but not long ago my 6 year old put his hands to his eyes and pulled his skin back saying he was now Chinese, and he thought it was hilarious. This from a half Chinese child whose own mother is Chinese. Maybe we are hard wired to be assholes and it takes a lot of effort to overcome it. The thing with Republicans like Rush is they will never admit it.

- blackton

November 2, 2009 at 5:00pm

Blackton - no one writes prose as honest and clear as you do. What a horrible story about your wife. Once when I was returning from Mexico through George Bush airport in Houston, a woman (grotesquely fat) yelled at me for speaking spanish to a waitress at a Mexican resturant in the airport. I was so stunned at her vulgar self I could not even respond. The waitress said she dealt with these incidents "every day" at some level. There was also the large group of people who scowled at the vulgar fat lady - all white folk. Just like my mama said, there's always one in every crowd.

- WandreyCer

November 2, 2009 at 6:28pm

Surprisingly I like Chait's tightroping in an effort to accommodate intellectual honesty. I suppose the salient question for me is at what point does being preoccupied with others propensities for racial assholishness, of whatever stripe or flavor, become counterproductive narcissism thereby insinuating its harm all cooked up in ones own kitchen. I mean, one must be realistic about human nature but then don't let this ugliness become your own to be expressed in bent ways that affirm the assholes. Limbaugh sticks his finger in those sore spots. I don't think he is racist. I do think he cashes racist checks. He would likely rationalize that such a thing is unavoidable but still...... Yeah blackie. There are some real prizes out there and I'm sorry you and your wife have suffered such insult. But let's not beat the shit out of that kid yet. Discrimination is a useful tool to maintain body. Bad dog...... good dog. It just takes a while to discover the larger scope of spirit distinctions. I'll bet you'll have plenty to be proud of.

- jacko

November 2, 2009 at 6:53pm

great post dhurtado.

- WandreyCer

November 2, 2009 at 7:34pm

As to the definition of racism, I would settle for this: Anyone who believes that there is such a thing as "race" among the human species is a racist. Biologically, there is no such thing as race. It doesn't exist. It is a fiction. Essentially all Americans born before the mid-1980s, and most but not all born after that time, are racists. Try as I might not to see race, I do, and so by my definition I am a racist. So, almost certainly, are you -- and if like Limbaugh you deny this, you are just as almost certainly both a racist and liar, as is Limbaugh. Racism is a problem, but it is not necessarily a determinative problem. I may not be able to break the bad mental habit of seeing a person whose skin betrays African ancestry as a member of the "race" of "black people," but being aware that this mental habit is wrong, I can act on a contrary basis. The determinative problem is bigotry, which I would define as actions taken on the basis of racist beliefs. Racism will disappear only when all the racists are dead, me and you included. That may plausibly happen by about 2120. Bigotry, however, is amenable to legal and social intervention and may be quashed -- mushed be quashed -- by legal and social sanction. And "actions taken" can include words spoken, particularly in the case of someone for whom the speaking of words is the primary means by which one earns a living. So while I may treat my North African neighbor's occasional drunken rant against Mexicans as mere racism, rather than bigotry, because he's an HVAC contractor, not a novelist or a politician or a radio host, and his words are not to my knowledge reified in any actions, yet Rush Limbaugh's racist words are actions for him and thus mark him as a low and dishonorable bigot.

- rhubarbs

November 2, 2009 at 9:29pm

Rhubarbs, I think the dictionary defintions of "race" and "racism" are perfectly workable. The American Heritage College Dictionary (that is the dictionary I happen to have at hand) defines "race" as "a local geographic or global population distinguished as a more or less distinct group by genetically transmitted physical characteristics." It defines "racism" as "the belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others" or "discrimination or prejudice based on race." Are you saying that, biologically, there is no such thing as human populations that are distinguishable by genetically transmitted characteristics? I have heard it said before that there is, as a matter of biology, no such thing as "race," but I have heard no one explain that statement. Would you be so kind as to explain it here? In any event, even if there is no such thing as "race," there is clearly a difference between a putatively erroneous belief that there is such a thing as "race," on the one hand, and the use of perceived racial differences as a basis for invidious discrimination, on the other hand. The latter is what most people mean by "racism." It is a particular manifestation of bigotry.

- dhurtado

November 2, 2009 at 10:50pm

WandreyCer -- unrelated to this thread, the email address you gave me does not work. Mine is jackandcorinne@comcast.net. I'll be in NYC 11/7 but need better contact info.

- JackR

November 3, 2009 at 10:10am

dhurtado, the problem with the American Heritage definition is that it ignores the fact that the American conception of race has as its root and still contains an understanding that race is a biological fact that defines differences among various human populations. This is not true. I'm not sure what you need explained about the fact that there is biologically no such thing as race; it's rather like asking me to defend the statement that there is biologically no such thing as leprechauns. Leprechauns don't exist. Neither does race. In the simplest terms, it would be useful for you to attempt to define three physical features that define race in the human species. For example, one might postulate that skin colored by brown melanin, nappy black hair, and round rather than narrow eyes make a person "black." But then if you apply any conceivable such combination of characteristics, you find that they do not line up with any accepted social understanding of race. For example, my definition of "black" above includes Australian aborigines and a fair number of south Asians, but excludes about one-third of the Africans whom Americans would commonly regard as "black", on account of differences in skin pigmentation (a fair number of "black" Africans actually have skin pigmentation that Americans would regard as Asian or "yellow", and a largely non-overlapping number of Africans have the eyelids that Americans would regard as Asian or "slanty"). You can play that game with any "race", including white folks, or Asians, or whatever. Even when one excludes mixed-race populations, there is no set of physical characteristics that can be used to align the biological reality of the human population with the American social conventions of racial identification. That's just a parlor game, I know, but the fact is that the genetics of the human animal provide an even clearer refutation of the idea that the human population can be differentiated into different races. Now, there are real cultural differences among people. This is true. But to conflate some vague and wholly social idea of cultural subgroups with the inherently biologically based notion of race is itself a racist idea. I would actually argue that it is a necessarily bigoted idea. When we talk about "black culture," we're talking about a set of behaviors and attitudes that have everything to do with socioeconomic status and acculturation and nothing to do with skin color. For example, my very white kid brother would fit well in any non-biologically determined definition of "black culture", whereas none of the black people I consider good friends do so. Another way to frame the bottom line here is that the reason some of my friends have difficulty hailing a cab is not because they are members of a particular cultural subgroup. It is because they have certain visible physical characteristics. At its bottom, American ideas about race are based on biology, and the biology they are based on is a lie. Thus to believe that there is such a thing as race is racism.

- rhubarbs

November 3, 2009 at 10:43am

Well, if we grant that racial prejudice is a form of racism, as dhurtado's dictionary confirms, then Limbaugh fits the definition. He makes bizarre judgments about Obama based on his race. My bet is that the right wing hysteria we see wouldn't be quite so hysterical if Obama were exactly the same guy but white. Conservatives cling to the first definition -- a belief in a racial hierarchy -- in order to deny any racism. They say: I'm not a white supremacist. I don't actually believe that blacks, as a race, are inferior to whites. Some do, of course, and probably more than we think, but those who say, for example, "Obama is a black radical like Reverand Wright or Louis Farrakhan," can say that and still plausibly deny white supremacy. The conservatives' definition is too restrictive. It does not necessarily include all invidious, irrational racial stereotyping, and the judgments and actions based on them. One doesn't need to have an elaborate racialist worldview like the racial theorists of yore in order to engage in that sort of every day racism. As in, he's a black guy, so therefore x horrible, scary thing based on little more than negative stereotypes or race-based narratives floating around the culture.

- jhildner1

November 3, 2009 at 2:57pm

Thanks for the explanation rhubarbs. But it remains unclear to me why you think the statement that there is no such thing as "race" requires no explanation. There is no logical syllogism to be found in the assertion that leprechauns don't exist, and so therefore race doesn't exist. Perhaps the disconnect is in how we are conceiving the term "race." If one conceives "race" as referring to groups of humans whose cultural traits are genetically determined, then I would agree that there is no such thing. And a belief in the existence of "race" so conceived could surely be called racist. But if "race" is conceived as referring not to genetically determined cultural subgroups, but to the existence of human populations who have certain physical characteristics in common that, more or less, distinguish them from other human populations, then it does exist. The fact that the differences may be blurred on the margins, or that the groups are capable of being genetically integrated, or that there may be groups within groups, does not mean there is no such thing as populations that are distinguishable by common physical characteristics. If they did not exist, they could hardly serve as a basis for prejudice and discrimination, which they surely do. Indeed, you say "the reason some of my friends have difficulty hailing a cab is not because they are members of a particular cultural subgroup. It is because they have certain visible physical characteristics." Quite so. And those distinguishable physical characteristics are what denote "race" in common parlance. To discriminate against someone based on those physical characteristics is racist. The belief that those physical characteristics genetically determine cultural or intellectual inferiority is racism.

- dhurtado

November 3, 2009 at 3:42pm

dhurtado, you sum up a potential difference between our definitions much better than could I. Nonetheless, your claim, "But if "race" is conceived as referring not to genetically determined cultural subgroups, but to the existence of human populations who have certain physical characteristics in common that, more or less, distinguish them from other human populations, then it does exist," is simply not true. The biological or physical characteristics break down not at the margins but at the core. It is not possible to define any set of two or more physical characteristics that define blackness or whiteness that will even remotely align with the population delineations Americans mean when we speak about race. Now, I understand that it can be difficult to see past one's own acculturation -- I claim no special insight, nor any enlightened freedom from the sin of seeing the "race" of persons based on inchoate physiological characteristics. But the simple fact is that to "see race" is racism, and almost all of us suffer from it, and from this nearly universal racism flows all forms of racial bigotry. The objectively correct response to claims of racial superiority is not to insist that no, the black race is not after all inferior to the white race. That response accepts the (untrue) first principle of the bigot. And the tragic thing is that once you grant the biological reality of race as the word has actually been used in America since the late 1600s, you in fact grant the validity of bigotry. If there really are biologically determined differences among "races," then it is inconceivable that these differences do not require some degree of differentiated treatment based on race, and differentiated treatment is necessarily unequal treatment whereby one will be in the superior, and another in the inferior, position. To grant the (fictitious) existence of race is to cede to the bigot his fundamental claim that unequal treatment based on race is appropriate and to contest only the particular details of unequal treatment advocated at the moment by the bigot. And while contesting the details can roll back bigotry up to a point -- for example, from Jim Crow -- we've past the point where further progress is possible on this basis. No, the objectively correct response to the bigot's claims of racial superiority is to focus on the fact that there is no such thing as race in the first place. Which is true, and which is the only counterclaim that does not concede to the bigot the general logical validity of his bigotry.

- rhubarbs

November 4, 2009 at 2:38pm

With respect rhubarbs, I cannot agree with your thesis. First, the claim that the existence of race would necessarily require differentiated treatment (which I think is untrue) does more to validate the bigot's view than does the claim that, while race exists, it does not justify differentiated treatment. Second, the belief that there is such a thing as race, even if mistaken, is not the same as the belief that persons should be discriminated against or oppressed based on perceived racial characteristics. To equate the former with the latter is not only inaccurate, but it detracts from the more practical problem of defeating invidious discrimination. Indeed, if I am drawing the correct inference from your argument, it implies that laws prohibiting racial discrimination are racist -- they obviously contemplate the existence of race -- and therefore illegitimate. That in turn implies that government cannot legitimately act to remedy racial discrimination. But let's see if we can overcome some of the semantic barriers here. I have already agreed with you that, if "race" is conceived as describing human populations having genetically predetermined cultural traits, then there is no such thing as "race," and to believe that there is such a thing as "race" so conceived is a form of bigotry. (I would hesitate to call it "racist" -- if there is no such thing as "race," then the term "racist" would be a non sequitur.) On the other hand, I have posited that what most of us mean by "race" is something akin to the American Heritage definition: a "population distinguished as a more or less distinct group by genetically transmitted physical characteristics." So let's throw out the word "race." Let's just use the term "distinguishable populations." I think it would be difficult to deny that there are distinguishable populations. And there often might be distinguishable populations within distinguishable populations. For example, I am told that, in central Africa, a Hutu can identify a Tutsi by simply looking at him. And generally, we can identify people whose origins are in Asia, even if we cannot verbally define "Asian" in a way that includes all persons of Asian origin while excluding all persons of non-Asian origin. Likewise, we can identify as "black" or "African American" a population whose origins are central Africa, even if we cannot produce a verbal formulation that includes all persons of central African origin while excluding all persons of non-African origin. Some of the physical characteristics that distinguish the population we call "black" are: brown or black skin pigmentation, black tightly-curled hair, brown eyes, and facial features that are softer, including full lips and broader noses. Does that description include all persons whom we consider "black"? I think it more or less does. To the extent it does not, it is because they or we have chosen to place greater emphasis on the African ancestry of a person of mixed-ancestry. Does that description sweep within its ambit persons that we would not consider "black," such as the indigenous peoples of Australia (aborigines)? I am not so sure that it does. There are physical characteristics, including hair, that distinguish indigenous peoples of Australia from people of African origin. On the other hand, an aboriginal Australian living in America would very likely be considered "black." So, even though physically distinguishable populations may not be mutually exclusive or always clearly demarcated, they do exist. And such distinguishable populations have been subjected to discrimination and oppression. Now, does the existence of physically distinguishable populations necessarily imply that differential treatment is justified? Certainly not necessarily. It MAY justify differential treatment, for example, the availability of separate restrooms for men and women. No reasonable person would consider that to be invidious discrimination. But I cannot conceive of any circumstance in which cognition of the physical differences between persons of central African origin and persons of East European origin justify differential treatment, much less invidiously discriminatory treatment.

- dhurtado

November 4, 2009 at 10:03pm