Race vs Culture. Is there a distinction?
I don’t follow politics, that way lies madness. I do not get my news from social media, I do not trust the editors. I also do not watch network television, this is simply because it seems odd to me that I must pay for my cable, yet they also get to make money off of the advertisements. Despite all of these measures that I take to insulate myself from the craziness of group think, I still seem to be inundated with the notion that racism remains a major problem in America. I do not dispute the existence of racism. I do contend that a large majority of the issues and tensions that are attributed to racism in fact are rooted in culture.
First, I think that it is important to make a distinction that seems to have been lost. And that is the distinction between race and culture. According to Merriam-Webster “race” can be defined as “2a: a family, tribe, people or nation belonging to the same stock” yet it also says “2b: a class or kind of people unified by shared interests, habits, or characteristics”. So according to Merriam-Webster, race means both of these things. It also seems to be commonly accept in modern America. This, I believe, causes problems. So let’s look at each of them in turn.
The first definition consists of things that no person can be held accountable for, because no person has any say about what family, tribe, people or nation they are born into. It is something that every person is powerless over. This is one reason why discrimination based upon race is morally wrong. Because it is holding someone accountable for something they have no control over. There is another reason, but first let’s look at the second definition.
Definition two consists of things that all people do in fact have control over, namely their interests, habits, and characteristics. And since every individual does have control over these things, distinct from the group, they therefore should be held accountable for them. For example, this means that since I have individual control over my habits, I am therefore personally responsible for the results of those habits, whether those results are positive or negative.
This brings us to the second reason that discrimination based upon race is morally wrong, and that is definition 2a has been demonstrated as an unreliable indicator of definition 2b. To put it more plainly, a person’s family, tribe, people or nation does not universally dictate their interests, habits and/or characteristics. So ascribing a person’s interests, habits, and/or characteristics to their family, tribe, people or nation is wrong. To come to the conclusion that definition 2b is the result of definition 2a is a false conclusion, and morally wrong.
In summary, premise one is that no person can be held accountable for something that they in fact have no control over. Premise two is that every individual can, and should, be held accountable for the things they do have control over. Premise three is that race does not dictate behavior. Premise one applies to race, premise two applies to culture, and premise three states that race does not dictate culture. And the conclusion is that people should not be held accountable for their race, should be held accountable for their culture, and since race does not dictate culture, less racism does not equal less judgement or discrimination. Let me clarify that by discrimination, I am not referring to racial discrimination. For example, a company that does not hire convicted felons is discriminating against convicted felons. But this discrimination is not the same thing as racial discrimination.
The distinction between race and culture must be reiterated and reinforced. Otherwise we see the kind of confusion that we are witnessing today. This confusion comes from the false assumption that if an individual of one race makes a value judgement on an individual of a different race then it constitutes racism. This is not true. Making value judgements is not inherently racism. Making value judgements based solely upon race is racism. Notice that I did not say making negative value judgements. That is because making any value judgement, whether it is a negative or positive value judgement, based solely upon race is racism. So even if I think the better of someone, based solely upon the color of their skin, it is racist and immoral. Even if it is someone from my own race. Racism has nothing to do with who has power, it does not even necessarily require an action to take place, it is simply basing an individual’s value on nothing more than their race.
In his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said “I have a dream that my four little chi1dren will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character”. Notice that his sentence did not end with “will not be judged”. Dr. King was not saying that because his children were black they should not be judged. What he was saying is that they should not be judged on the fact that they were black. He understood that judgement in and of itself is not wrong, but judgement based upon the wrong things is.
With that being said, value judgements are absolutely necessary for any society to be good, and every individual should be held accountable by every other member of society for the content of their character. The content of their character should not only be allowed to be judged only by people in their group, no matter what makes up that group. Whether that group is defined by race, economic status, religion, sexual orientation, or even level of education. We, as society, cannot function if only Christians can hold Christians accountable, and only the poor can hold the poor accountable, or only the educated can hold the educated accountable. We all must hold each other accountable, specifically accountable for the things we can be, and are, responsible for. Do I need to have children before I can say that it is immoral and irresponsible to have multiple children to multiple partners that you neither raise or support? Should my opinion only matter based upon which group I am relegated to, by myself or others?
If this logic was actually followed through it would mean that only republicans could debate republicans, only the Vatican could prosecute Catholic priests, and only Germany could have stood up to the Nazis. That is not a world I can imagine any person wanting to live in. We must reach agreement on what each individual is accountable for, such as values, morals, and behavior. We must recognize that whatever group the individual belongs to does not dictate their values, morals, and behaviors so it does not alleviate their responsibility for them. Since race does not dictate culture not being judged based upon race does not equal not being judged at all. And finally we must do away with the silly and absurd notion that only members of a particular group are capable of making such judgements about that particular group.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/race
https://www.archives.gov/files/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf
