It Used To Be Easy To Define Racism

As I’ve said many times, the key battles in the various culture wars are usually battles over words. Specifically, the meaning of words.

150 years ago, society argued about whether the word “citizen” should include people who weren’t white and male. More recently, people argued about whether the word “marriage” should include people of the same sex. And today, amongst other things, we’re arguing about what the word “racism” even means.

In my article, Who Cares If America Is A Racist Country?, I wrote about what a waste of time questions of this last type are. I pointed out that while we’re busy playing word games, real issues, issues that might actually be solved, are ignored.

M and I go into a little more detail.

---

M:

It used to be easy to define racism.

The dictionary definition hasn’t changed. But everyday usage has changed. When I was a kid in the 1970s there were two separate things — racism and prejudice. Racism was more like what we would call white supremacy today — people believed their race was superior (note this could be any race thinking theirs was superior). Prejudice was closer to what we call racial bias today. Note that neither of these comes out of the sky. They are based on a combination of what we are taught and what we experience in the world.

Systemic racism shapes the world we live in. The world we live in shapes us.

What I see today is people trying to call everything racism. I suspect this is because it is generally agreed that racism is morally indefensible. And everyone knows that anything a morally inferior person says can be safely ignored. I also see a lot of people confusing racism and systemic racism, which are two separate things.

I think a very helpful way to think about all this is “what would it take to increase the number of middle class blacks and other discriminated against minorities?” You could really just ask “what would it take to increase the middle class” and leave race out of it. I think a great place to start is removing the social forces that concentrate minority poverty. It is very hard to get a middle class job coming out of those neighborhoods. There are too many barriers. I think a major challenge for that, however, is it going to look like gentrification to many people.

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/racism

---

Steve QJ:

Racism was more like what we would call white supremacy today — people believed their race was superior (note this could be any race thinking theirs was superior). Prejudice was closer to what we call racial bias

Yeah, I largely agree with your comment, especially that the issue is usage rather than the dictionary definition. But of course, just as society shapes us, we shape the way words are defined. Note that thanks to years of misuse, "literally" is now its own antonym.

So while you may have believed the words meant what they described above and I would largely agree, somebody else might have thought very differently. Listen to this definition of racism by Ibram X Kendi himself, for example:

Steve QJ @steevqj

Tautology: I would define it is a collection of tautological arguments, that lead to tautological statements, that are substantiated by tautological ideas. *nervous laughter intensifies*

I think that a lot of the obfuscation of meaning is deliberate to keep people unsure of what they need to do to escape the dreaded accusation of racism. That way it's easier to get them to do as they're told.

---

---

M:

I think that a lot of the obfuscation of meaning is deliberate to keep people unsure of what they need to do to escape the dreaded accusation of racism. That way it's easier to get them to do as they're told.

Who would benefit from that, though? I do think that some people behave as if they are trying to use accusations of racism to keep white people continually off balance. I just don’t see how this tactic helps.

Let’s say I work downtown in a high rise building in Chicago. Based on observation, it is quite likely the VAST majority of the African Americans in that building work as security and wear a dark suit. Let’s say the new African American VP of marketing sticks his head in a meeting wearing a dark suit and someone says “we didn’t call security.” Ouch! But is that racism? Should somebody be reprimanded or lose their job over it? They made a mistake based on real observations of the world. If you try to accuse them on being racist, they will strongly resist it. Were they trying to put that new VP “in his place?” Was it a “micro-aggression?” No — they didn’t even know who he was. If someone were fired or reprimanded for a mistake like that, they would likely avoid AAs in the workplace and quite likely become antagonistic and resentful to AAs in the workplace. How does this help anyone?

Something analogous happened to me on my first day of graduate school. The graduate committee chair asked me to come meet him in person for the first time in his office. When I arrived, there was a middle aged woman in the very small office. She was never introduced to me and she stayed for the meeting and obviously knew his schedule well and was finding papers on his desk for him, etc. I NEARLY said out loud “I have never met a professor with a secretary before.” Obviously, she wasn’t his secretary, she was his graduate student. I found out later they were having an affair. I had never met a graduate student with that kind of relationship to their graduate advisor (I have met way too many since then). My brain was just trying to use past experience to figure out the situation I was in. It could have been very embarrassing for all of us if I said anything and I could have been labeled a sexist on my first day at a new school.

---

Steve QJ:

Who would benefit from that, though?

Grifters. The Robin DiAngelos and the Ibram X Kendis. It's no coincidence that the people who have done the most to confuse our understanding of the word "racism" are the same people who have profitied the most from that confusion.

I think the damage that's being done to our discourse in the process is just a side effect. It's people in politics and education realising, "Hey! I can use this moment to gain a little power too!"

But yeah, you're preaching to the converted on the microaggression stuff. I think it's ridiculous. There are worthwhile conversations to be had about why you might expect most African Americans in a building to be security guards instead of senior members of staff. The fact that this is true in many office buildings around the country suggests that there's a separate issue there.

But acting as if you should be immune to the generalisation is largely unreasonable. And firing somebody for it is ridiculous.

---

I’ve said this many times too, but minority groups very rarely benefit from the work done on their “behalf.”

The racial wealth gap didn’t shrink because Robin DiAngelo made millions writing about “white fragility” (in fact, DiAngelo’s newfound wealth probably increased it).

Black people didn’t get shot less often because BLM embezzled billions of dollars in donations whilst demonising the police (in fact, crime rates and murders increased).

Black people don’t benefit from the historical revisionism of things like the 1619 project (in fact, the constant messaging that black people are eternally oppressed is actively harmful to black students).

The black people most affected by racism aren’t asking for any of these things. Instead, they’re asking for safer neighbourhoods and better education. They’re asking for criminal justice reform and improved hiring practices. They’re asking for unity and to stop being patronised.

They’re asking for equality, not equity. Sadly, it seems we’re forgetting what that word means too.