On Racism
The purpose of this article is definitional, as we intend to write about Racism it will be useful to have a single source of reference to show what we mean by the term.
Racism, as is implied by the ending ism, is a system for making sense of the world, it tells its adherents what things mean, who is right and who is wrong, and what to do in any situation where the races interact, which are far more than one might originally suspect. In this way it follows other isms, like Communism and Capitalism, but there will be some signature differences in Racism from most other doctrines.
As indicated by our cover image, this view of Racism also plays into memetics and focuses on how the ideas of Racism are transmitted and help in the creation of new Racists.
What is a Race?
Nothing. A race is an artificial category created by people. People often created categories to group like objects, sometimes the grouping on further inspection turns out to be ridiculous and poorly thought out. In the case of Race the things that have been grouped together are other people and the predominant quality that selects them for a particular category is skin color, however even shallow consideration of the history of racism will cause us to realize that while skin color may be the predominant quality chosen all sorts of other qualities can cause one to be placed in a particular ‘racial’ group.
Probably you know this, but the point here is again to establish the framework from which we will write.
If one would like some defense of the contention that Race does not actually exist other than as a social construct, we refer to the well known fact that the genetic variation between people sorted into the ‘same race’ can vary greater than the genetic variation between those individuals and members of other races , as well the famous one drop rule further demonstrates that for Racism the idea of Race was a very fluid one that could not have any basis in science or logic.
Root Characteristics of Racism
Like most systems of thought Racism draws from some common characteristic(s) found in at least part of the humanity for its power, in the case of Racism it is the tendency to xenophobia.
Some percentage of every population will be prone to xenophobia just as some will be prone to xenophilia.
The existence of xenophobia can cause people to assume that Racism will always be with us, as it is easy to mistakenly assume that these two related things are the same. But the difference between xenophobia and Racism is that xenophobia is the dislike of new and unfamiliar things, this dislike may be associated with race, but it may just as well be dislike of strange languages, food, music, or fashion.
When what one dislikes are attributes of what is generally described as a race, or the culture of a race, then the xenophobe is a particularly ripe target for Racism to give a theory and system for understanding that dislike as something not just individual to oneself but something objectively true, the xenophobe dislikes the look of a race because of their feeling of that look being “alien”, but then Racism comes and tells them you are right to dislike these cosmetic aspect, because the cosmetic aspects are indicative of some inherent badness.
Racism of course was created by white people, obviously not all white people had a hand in its creation, but the principle creators were mainly white, although I am certain someone will be able to find a non-white early racist or two, the world is a ridiculous messy place, and people will do absurd things in it.
Why was Racism created?
The impetus for its creation was to lay the moral groundwork for why it was right and proper for white people to take the possessions and land of non-white peoples in the Americas and Asia, and to take black people from Africa as slaves.
If world history had been different, and China had engaged in a great colonial expansion at the same time as they were going through a scientific revolution and impetus to categorize every new thing encountered, and construct theories to explain the relation of all things, then the origins of Racism would have been in a Chinese framework, instead of primarily Western European and American. Bad luck if you’re white and don’t like to hear that white people of the past did something bad, but I suggest one deals with life as it is.
Not everyone who helped in creating the early ideas of Racism did so with an ulterior motive, only the most venal and capable writers would be able, with such a degree of cynicism, to argue a case with fervent conviction that they found obviously untrue just because doing so was to their benefit.
No, most people who helped create Racism did not do so because they wanted to take African people as slaves or eradicate Native Americans and appropriate their lands or control parts of India for their mercantile benefit and thus needed to disguise their motives as somehow good.
Most creators of Racism either felt that they actually were better people than those they met from other races, that they therefore had the right to do as they wanted with and to those other people, and of course constructed the theories of Racism because theirs was an age readily given over to the construction of theories to explain why things existed as they did. Or they fancied themselves as disinterestedly expanding human knowledge by trying to understand the differences between this categorization of people, the races.
In conclusion: Most of the creators of Racism were deluded as to what they were actually doing, but it seems evident some must have known. Let us call this the Thomas Jefferson Principle.
What makes Racism especially bad?
It is Racism as a theory, aping scientific reasoning, providing a framework for understanding the world that makes it so pernicious. As a theory Racism is abstracted from its xenophobic source, and it can be indoctrinated into minds that would themselves not be highly susceptible to xenophobia.
The difference between xenophobia and Racism should be obvious; the xenophobe says to their child don’t talk to those people, they have strange clothes and are loud and obnoxious and I don’t like them, but the child as they grow may think to themselves I like those clothes and I like when people are loud. The racist says I know that their clothes may be interesting, and their loudness can be diverting, but they are worse people than us which as you grow and learn you will see fully for yourself by reading all these wonderful books showing why we are better and they are worse.
Xenophobia is a predilection, Racism is a codification. As a codification it can appeal to people who are not xenophobic but perhaps strongly affected by rules.
An average non-xenophobe can break free from a xenophobic upbringing by meeting people and thinking to themselves it may be my parents and most of my family don’t like these kinds of people but I do. An average non-xenophobe raised as a racist is going to have to do a lot more work to break free, furthermore as Racism provides a framework for understanding how the world is even if one rejects the framework itself there are likely to be any number of racist ideas unexamined and present in one’s thinking, just because theories of the world tend to be all encompassing and to touch everything. The average xenophobe raised as a racist is completely screwed over by their upbringing.
Inculcated in Racism from an early age it is almost certain one thinks racist things without oneself being a Racist — that is to say one may have some of the ideas that Racism has spread into the world while not wishing to have any of these ideas and wishing quite fervently not to help the cause of Racism in any way.
The Difference between Racism and racism
The lower-case racism is just these memetic transmissions of ideas and thoughts that have been brought out of the Racist mind, and set free in the population at large. They can accidentally help the cause of Racism, but the connection between the racist and the Racist can often be tenuous.
As an example one can say socialist or communisti things without being a Socialist or Communiist. One could easily be imagined saying “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.” without any realization that the phrase originated with Karl Marx.
This is also how one might describe a book as being racist that was written in the 1600s or earlier, before the main process of building up Racism was in play, because obviously many of the tropes of Racism can be found before they were used as props for the Racist worldview.
The benefit of lowercase racism and racists for Racism itself is that when Racism falls out of favor as an organizing principle for a large portion of the population, there are still millions of little racist ideas floating around and people who carry those ideas in their heads and pass them on to their children.
The Differences between Racism and Other Isms.
The main difference between Racism and other isms around that attempt to describe reality, is that Racism was not actually conceived in a desire to describe reality, but instead to maintain an order of reality that put some people in charge and others subservient. As such Racism could be pragmatic in choosing beliefs about the various races, and constructing narratives that proved efficient and salable, much like astrology, a belief system that often attempts to don a pseudoscientific disguise and with such a disguise catch the easily misled and naive.
As a consequence of this the narratives and media regarding the races must be continually replenished in the way that media of what capitalism is , for example, does not.
Capitalism as a system of thought has as one of its benefits the fact that by using capital one can accrue power in this society, that is to say the beliefs and words of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations are as understandable today as they were when written, this is not an assertion that Capitalism is a true and complete understanding of the world, but that if you follow the earliest Capitalist writings you may be persuaded that it was, whereas following the earliest Racist works you would be laughing too hard to give them any credence.
Astrology, because it is a fraud, cannot make do with just one book of lies extolling its wonders, it must have millions and produce always more or the faithful might have to use their own minds and conclude — wait this doesn’t make any sense. The same thing applies to Racism.
This is the strength of Racism. Although one would normally be tempted to conclude it was a failing. But because Racism can pursue its goals, subjugation and denigration of other races to a chosen in-narrative superior race, without any actual logical ties to reason, science, logic or rationality of any kind, it can change its narratives and text at will.
Thus when a particular narrative breaks down as the stereotypes it pursues no longer aligns with a large amount of the population, the Racist will just create a new stereotype in the same way when you are at a seance and your dead family member did not have red curly hair the spiritualist can get a bit dizzy and start seeing another vague figure whose hair cannot quite be made out until the audience supplies a helpful hint or two.
The perniciousness of Racism is that once you have a pseudo-scientific bit of fraud preying on the gullibility of humanity, it is almost impossible to get rid of. Hence, astrology still peddles its wares in the paper, ouija boards are spooky, and Racism will always have someone to glom onto and mislead.
So this is why we still have Racism
In the last half century a rather large project was undertaken in American society to do away with Racism. As a result of this project it became socially unacceptable for many people to be Racists (although of course Racists still existed, and were able to do quite well for themselves by catering to other Racists, but while it was a strong sub-culture Racism capitalized was no longer the dominant culture).
Racists either retreated into their publicly Racist sub-cultures, or were forced to communicate in code-words and phrases that made reference to the racist ideas that still floated freely in the population. Some organizations that were created largely to serve Racist purposes or had a long time history of Racism were still pursuing the Racist agendas of their origin, even if that original purpose was no longer acknowledged or perhaps for younger members of the organizations even understood as being of a racist origin, examples of this can be seen in many police forces in the U.S.
Obviously when I say a strong sub-culture in some places it was a very strong sub-culture, as witness the ability of Racists like Jesse Helms to keep access to power, still, operating under the theory that the future is already here it just isn’t evenly distributed yet, it was totally reasonable for someone to posit that the end of Racism was probably in the near future.
However any living theory of how the world works, truly held by its adherents, has a proselytizing motive and a drive to become dominant in its society.
In short a strong sub-culture of Racism will be looking to dominate the society, to achieve dominance for its viewpoint, this in the combination with a strong memetic undergrowth of racist ideas (which will not be eradicated in the mind in the same way that Racism itself might be) and the ability to craft their message to take advantage of whatever opportunities may arise for spreading their ideas, means that any pushing back of Racism to where it is only not dominant any more is likely to be undone by a push back on a later generation. To keep Racism at bay for a long time, it needs to be brought to a standing where the population of Racists in relation to the population of racists is probably less than 20% or you would have to expect a re-eruption of the infection every other generation, just as new xenophobes get picked up and indoctrinated by the old Racists still hanging around looking for victims.
Is small racism a problem?
I suppose we can all agree, given the preceding definitions and precepts, that the lowercase racism is a problem, although not the same as Racism. The small racist does not wish to be a Racist, and probably does not realize what they are saying is racist, as such they can be convinced to re-evaluate the ideas that they hold in their head that unexamined are racist and can provide fertile ground for Racism itself.
At the same time we should be able to agree that the racist, not being a Racist, should perhaps be handled differently, and we should agree that each person, with some humility can examine their own thoughts and ideas and wonder if they do not arise from some unintentional indoctrination and memetic transference of racist ideas.
That said there are many bits of small racism floating around in the population that are ‘out of date’ and ridiculous. This is the side effect of how easy and disposable Racism’s memes really are. As an example this The Marx Brothers movies had a number of scenes of casual racism, I feel the experience of the average modern non-Racist viewer watching these scenes is two-fold:
- Anger due to an empathetic feeling for the people who would have been hurt by the scenes, contempt for the Racism on display.
- WTF, a strong feeling of the ridiculousness of the old-fashioned and for modern Racists not relevant Racism on display. These absurd tropes are not the tropes the modern public knows to be dangerous. It makes the Racism of the past, which was dominant and extremely dangerous, seem childlike and pathetically dimwitted.
However for the modern Racist viewer, or someone being slowly groomed into Racism, I suspect watching these scenes elicits the feeling of Nostalgia for the good old days of Racism. Even if the tropes do not appeal and seem ridiculous, they will still be enjoyed as light-hearted entertainment by the Racist. Nostalgia is one of the powerful emotional pathways Racists will use in their attempt to pull in new converts.
These are not the only reactions that may be prompted by being exposed to such outdated Racist memes, but it is my belief that other reactions are probably less widespread and represent outliers in the population.
So, that’s It?
Yes, that is the viewpoint we will be using when using the words Race, Racism, Racist, racism and racist. We realize that other people have other definitions when using these words, but those are ours. We suppose that there may come times when we have to address any differences between one theory of what defines Racism and our theory but as a general rule we will of course be using out definitions and not any other.
Useful reference works:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memetics
This article was written mainly by IG Agent 84 with some input from IG Agent 19 — yes 1984, we get it.
