To people of all “races”: this essay lays out the reasons why we should reject racism and accept our common humanity.
Whether the category of “race” is real is irrelevant to the substance of my argument. The category is real enough as a socially constructed unit of identity, and in any case that there are people who look physically different from other people is not in dispute. My point is that these categories should not be used as the basis for identity and prejudice — that they should not form the basis of an individual or a society’s ideology.
It just so happens that historical and social forces in virtually all societies today perpetuates inequality among people based on these categories — namely, “race” and ethnicity. This inequality and, in a twist of irony, attempts to fight back against it, both raise the salience of “race” in a society’s group consciousness. Thus in a multi-ethnic society, a person, no matter on which side of the “racial” divide they are on (either advantaged or disadvantaged) feels the significance of ethnicity raised up. And since it is in the nature of the human psyche to divide people into “us and them” and to hold to an identity juxtaposed against someone else, even a well intentioned person can easily succumb to the temptation to begin to identify with their ethnicity. It is said that everyone is “a little bit racist,” and the difference is only in degree. As a person asks themselves “Who am I?” their race starts to come first, and from here it is but a short hop to the ideology of racism. But identification with one’s “race”, like hate and jealousy, is self-destructive and self-limiting, doing harm to both the self and others.
First of all, “racial” identities are not chosen, but are chosen for you. Hence it is a surrender to society’s definition of who you are, rather than an assertion of your own individual will. Yes, we all have things about ourselves we can’t control, but as far as we are our “race,” we are merely acted upon objects. Our “race” represents not personal accomplishment; it is just an accident of birth. It barely if at all reflects our personality or individuality. Compare this to other possible identities a person can actively join — an occupation, a political party, a member of a subculture— membership in these identities have value in part because, at the very least, the person, as a thinking and acting human being, saw some merit in it and actively sacrificed other alternatives to join it. There is drama in the choice, and because there is drama and sacrifice, the choice has value and meaning. A person’s membership in a chosen identity lives in a part of the person’s active life — the part of one’s life that depends on who you are as a human being; an agent; an active doer and impact-maker in the world. In contrast, a person’s “race” represents only the conditions that we were given by the world. The accomplishment of someone else of my own “race” has nothing to do with me as a person, not even tangentially —rather the opposite: too many people rely on “racial” pride or nationalistic pride as a psychological crutch that substitutes for personal achievement and thus, ends up crippling their own growth. Alternately, the ideology of racial identity opens the door to collective guilt where innocent people must feel guilty for crimes they had nothing to do with. Thus, to adopt such a trait as “race” as an identity or ideology, as an end, political or otherwise, is a form of worshipping our own passivity. Life has more to offer than this.
Secondly, racial identities have very little content. What “race” a person belongs to tells you very little about them — other than how they look or perhaps certain features of their genetics. Hence some “white” Americans strongly support Black Lives Matter, while some non-whites can be found in the ranks of the alt-right. Who would a racist align with — a person of their own “race” who is diametrically opposed to their politics, or a person of another “race” who basically agrees with them? A person’s “race” by itself tells you nothing about whether they are industrious or lazy, smart or dumb, funny or boring, what their interests are, and what values they have. Very few people actually trace their racism to a preference for certain patterns of physical features that are about the only things that people of the same “race” have in common. Usually racial identity emerges from the psychological instinct to split society between in-groups and out-groups, combined with the social salience of “race.” In other words — it’s the instinct for division, and the irksome notion of being alienated from the “Other,” not the categories them selves, that drives racism. The categories themselves are hollow and meaning-less. Why should one devote one’s ideology or personal identity to such an empty category? Compare this, again, to other potential identities that could be chosen — a personality type, a hobby group, or even a religion — all have more content. A cycling enthusiast can talk about the joys and the fulfillment of riding for miles with his fellow cyclists. A follower of stoicism can talk about how stoic thought helps her achieve better things in life. But the only thing that unites all people of a given “race” are patterns of physical appearance — a level of meaning that does not distinguish people from objects.
Third, “racial” identities generate prejudice against outsiders. Unlike chosen identities, which may generate prejudice against outside ideas — which can be debated, “racial” identity compromises the humanity of people by excluding them solely based on the circumstances of their birth. This is why racism has been understood historically as so unjust. The worst atrocities — whether it be cheating, stealing, killing, lawbreaking, and so on — have been justified just on the basis that the victims are of a different “race.” This is a natural result of excluding other people based on an identity that they cannot help. Accepting such injustices reflects back on the racist themselves — for they themselves do not want to be on the receiving end of such treatment on the basis of their ethnicity. Yet in either doing or accepting it done to others, they lose moral authority to protect themselves in the event that they find themselves at risk. Moreover, in admitting that horrible treatment is justifiable for any group of people based solely on the circumstances of their birth, the racist implicitly lowers the bar for how human beings can be treated. Since they themselves are a human being, they also indirectly degrade themselves in doing so. The pleasure of placid openness to the human community unburdened by one’s conscience is closed off to such people.
Racism minimizes or erases everything that makes us individuals and human beings: our thoughts, our choices, our actions, our character, our values. In its place it substitutes totally arbitrary factors of chance: who were born to, where we were born, our biology, and so on. It has a tendency to reduce people to objects defined by immutable properties. And it does all of this in the name of concepts that are ill defined constructs (what is “this nation”, what constitutes “this race”?) or grossly simple categories with no intrinsic meaning (what is the intrinsic meaning of being a Hutu or a Tutsi?)
Why do people still subscribe to such a hollow and dehumanizing ideology in modern society? As I wrote in the beginning, in a modern multiethnic society where racial inequality is still real, people feel that “race” is a significant category and may feel irked by a sense of alienation from people who are assigned to a different part than themselves in this categorization. But the temptation to turn to racism as a salve for this irksome feeling is unfortunately a false solution: the cure is worse than the disease. Like the alcoholic who takes another shot, it may help a person feel better temporarily, but ultimately it degrades her humanity and makes the underlying problem worse.
Nonetheless, this irksome feeling of alienation is enough of a problem that some now advocate “racial” separatism: the call for an ethno-state. The idea seems to be that if one can only separate oneself from all the “Others” and create a society where people are only surrounded by members of their own “race”, this troublesome category will vanish. This is not so much an assertion of “racial” identity as a flight from the problems of a multi-ethnic society. In a separate society, supposedly, if everyone is of the same “race,” the significance of the category will fall away and everyone will be happier. Unfortunately, this is really just another form of “racial” identity as described above — implicit in this idea is that people in other categories cannot be members of the same society as people in my category, solely on the basis of “race,” or looks. And if someone else cannot exist as members of the same society, what value is their humanity to me? For the very purpose of society is to organize human relations in a way that is suitable to everyone. To say that someone else, due solely to the circumstances of their birth, cannot even participate in one’s society is to dehumanize them to the utmost degree. Further, separating people into different ethnostates will not solve the “racial” problem because these states will still have to deal with each other as coexistents in the same world. That France was mostly French and Germany mostly German did not prevent two horribly destructive world wars from breaking out. Ethnostates would just put racism on stereoids, as the entire modern architecture of the nation-state would be enlisted to reinforce the divide people based on these arbitrary categories of “race.”
In reality, this category of “race” does not, and ought not, have any real significance. The fact that it does today is largely an artifact of historical divisions that humanity found ourselves in for almost our entire history. It was not until the last 250 years that mechanized transportation really made interaction between people of different parts of the world practical on a mass scale. When people who have not encountered each other for a long time first do, it is only natural that there is an initial division between “us” and “them.” But that does not mean that as we move forward in the modern world, these divisions are still rational. We can choose to take advantage of our times and move into a future where these divisions are less important. This choice itself can be an identity — a chosen one, that anyone can adopt: the identity of an anti-racist.
It is true that one may always feel at times alienated and different from other people on account that they look different. But this difference does not have to have meaning on the level of an ideological identity. For instance, in our society some people are short and some are tall. And this difference even has social significance: tall people are seen as better leaders, make more money, and in some cases have better chances with the opposite sex. But you do not see tribes being organized on the basis of height, because society has chosen not to imbue height category with the same social significance. In a rational world, it would be no different with “race.” Only with “race,” because people of different “races” are still divided into separate communities, inequalities can become more systemic and need to be addressed — but this need not imply an ideology of racial identity, only an ideology against oppression based solely on “race.”
If you feel alienated, or resentful, of others on the basis of “race,” there are some strategies that you can apply against these feelings. It is important to understand that feelings of hate are self-destructive: They distort and damage the personality of hater. A person who hates roots for the worst and becomes anti-social. Hate makes what is beautiful ugly, and turns the ugly into seeming beauty: it inverts the natural order of things. One way to prevent hate is to take note of your own faults. Recognize that other people looking at your own ethnic group could probably find some things to dislike as well — no ethnic group is associated only with positive stereotypes, after all. And virtually no one is a moral angel themselves. Another way is to see the good in the hated. No matter how much you dislike a group or person, there is likely something good about them. If it’s a “race,” focus on a member of that “race” who you like. Think about a time a member of that “race” did something nice that you appreciated or created something that you enjoyed. In reality, no “race” is totally one-dimensional. Everyone is a part of this complex world that keeps spinning and changing every day.
In some cases, I believe finding romance can be a solution to racist feelings. Our love and attraction for another person is one of the most fundamental and the most powerful of human urges, just as powerful if not more powerful than our tribalistic urges. And while racism is often the result of a feeling of alienation, romantic love is one of the most fundamental, perhaps even the most fundamental, way of connecting to another human being. In interracial romance, one can discover that another “race” is open to you in the most intimate and profound way.
In conclusion, everyone deserves to live a life worthy of their humanity as a complex human being — and certainly it is in the self interest of any given person to try to do so in their own lives. A passive, arbitrary, empty, and dehumanizing category as “race” is but an illusory pied piper — one that feeds into our basest, but powerful, instincts, to lead us down a path not worthy of ultimate identity, meaning and value in life. As a society, accepting everyone in our common humanity apart from any circumstances of birth such as one’s ethnicity will move us towards a world where we all have more dignity.
