by Chris Alexion, Copyright October 13, 2006, all rights reserved. 377 views
One theme that cropped up frequently in my classes last semester is racism, particularly in North America and South Africa. And though the theme is overplayed in politically-correct literature, that doesn't make it less true or less painful. White people have indeed done some crap, and racism is never justifiable.
But it's instructive to note the lack of real accountability inherent in this PC cycle of confession and penance. When our postmodern vicars absolve us of our racial sins, they place our guilt on the sacrificial White Guy. This White Man, apparently, waded ashore in North America several hundred years ago–chained Africans in tow– and proceeded to screw the Indians over.
Now, my point is not to support racial slavery or the reservation system. Far from it. What I'm trying to say is that this White Guy doesn't exist, or at least not apart from Plato's World of Ideas. The perpetrators of racial crimes were actually people. Men. Individuals. (And individuals largely connected with the US federal or state governments–hum.)
The chic multiculturalism that loads this Platonic White Guy with all of our iniquities can only hope to create the illusion that something is moving. But like Bruce Willis' magic trick in The Sixth Sense, the penny never leaves the left hand. This means less work for us. No need to re-think our federal government; no need for arduous historical work that sifts racists from ordinary people; no need to look for hatred in our own hearts. But when the fuzzy feelings subside, something's still wrong.
The biblical antithesis is always between light and darkness–right and wrong. The issue is not blacks vs. whites, Euorpeans vs. Indians, Boers vs. ANC. The issue is the pride in the human heart that lets us think one part of God's image is less than another. Until we come to terms with the proper antithesis, we'll only continue to misplace it.
And the cycle will continue.
1 • LHR • October 13, 2006 • 2:03 PM
"The issue is the pride in the human heart that lets us think one part of God's image is less than another." You hit the nail right on the head! Excellent.
2 • Jeremy Pierce • October 17, 2006 • 10:39 PM
Racism is more than just bad attitudes toward people of another race. There are also racist structures in society, some intentional on the part of those who would take advantage of less fortunate racial groupings, some not at all intentional but side-effects of past racism. For example, white people don't necessarily have more privilege, but the people with more privilege tend to be white. That means that when they hire their friends, they will more likely hire white people. So the innocent-intentioned practice of favoring people you know when you hire has the unintended consequence of leading to a disproportionate hiring of white people for jobs. This keeps non-whites out of some of the better jobs at least to some degree. These sorts of structures in society abound. This is a kind of unintended racist structure in society that doesn't reduce to bad attitudes, i.e. what we call racism in its most strict sense. When some people refer to the White Man, they sometimes mean this sort of thing. It's an incredibly misleading way to put it, but it's not as if there's nothing there.
3 • William Meisheid • October 18, 2006 • 3:18 PM
Favoring people you know exists in every culture and subculture. It is the nature of relationships and human social groupings, going with the known and comfortable, rather than the unknown. It reduces energy consumption. The way out is to make friends with those who may be of another race or culture who have the jobs you want to work in.
There is an interesting scene from an old semi-sports movie, Everybody's All-American where Jessica Lange, playing the college/NFL hero Dennis Quaid's wife, approaches a black man she has known for a job. He doesn't want to hire her because she is white (he uses the zero sum game argument). She convinces him to go ahead and because of her the company grows tremendously.
She only got the job because she knew the man, not because of her qualifications, per se. That is the nature of life and humanity. Structured attempts to deal with this issue leads to its own problems as we have seen over the last few decades.
This is not to say efforts should not be made, but it has reached the point in our culture where the "white man" is now almost a straw man argument with little validity, beyond the natural problems every group has with outsiders.
4 • jpe • October 22, 2006 • 3:02 PM
What Pierce said. There is more than men in the world: men create culture and institutional structures, and it's inevitable that those entities will have been loaded with racist norms and ideas during the heydays of racism. Those structures are related to but independent of individuals.
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