Race vs. Culture & The New Non-Racial “Racism”
“Since race is social construct, not a biological or theological one, some people reject that terminology altogether”
-K. Edward Copeland, on “Public Justice” at The Gospel Coalition
Yeah, try figuring out what that’s supposed to mean. For a clue, check out this great (and revealing) article by Walter Hudson on the recent trend of counting “Black” as an ideology, rather than a skin color.
Do you see what is happening? The left has, for years, successfully peddled their ideology under the auspices of being the “non-racist” party, and recently has ramped up to hyper-speed the racial rhetoric to condemn any and all detractors as racists, even if the issue had nothing to do with someone’s skin color. The right is (finally!) catching wise to the game and calling them on it, both by pointing out that skin color (i.e. race) has nothing to do with most of these issues, and by presenting many conservative racial minorities, or “people of color,” who flat out contradict the left’s “narrative”.
Non-Racial “Racism”
You’d think this meant the game was up, but oh no! They’re just getting started. You see, because race doesn’t have anything to do with “biology” or “skin color” anymore — it’s a worldview, or an ideology. Therefore, if you disagree with whatever amorphous thing they are calling “race” today, then you’re still guilty of racism before their demented tribunal.
But isn’t the whole evil behind racism the act of judging people based on their skin color / biology, rather than based on their worldview or ideology?? If being racist now means opposing an ideology, regardless of skin color, then racism isn’t racism anymore; racism has lost its sting. Of course, the left will still use that term (as long as conservatives allow them) in order to connote the very evil which it no longer represents (and which those being accused are no longer guilty of). And what will be the cost? A lot of actual racial tension, born from all kinds of confusion over a highly emotionally charged word, which liberals have despicably twisted to serve their own nefarious advantages.
Race vs. Culture
One of the ways that conservatives (and particularly Christians) have been complicit in all of this is in their willful confusion between race and culture. Race refers to unchosen biological traits, for which no individual ought to be judged. Culture refers to chosen intellectual and moral values, beliefs, customs, and actions — in other words, all of the things for which every individual ought to be judged, according to the rationality, or irrationality, of that which they have chosen to embrace. Conservatives, in leftist-appeasing fashion, have conceded a blurring of the lines between these two things, and thus implied that one’s values and beliefs (i.e. one’s culture) is somehow determined by one’s skin color and biology (i.e. one’s race). That is racism: the idea that race determines culture; that biology determines values and beliefs.
Either, Or
Take any allegedly “racist” action or judgment, and ask yourself this simple question:
Was it based primarily on unchosen, biological traits (such as skin color), rather than on chosen beliefs, values and actions?
Yes? Then it was indeed racist.
No? Then, by definition, it could not have been racist.
photo credit: https://tinyurl.com/m7am6xs
Originally published at www.thechristianegoist.com on May 15, 2015.
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