/Racism
We’re All Racist — Or Maybe We’re Not
Defining everyone and everything exclusively by a racial dimension oversimplifies and obscures
Every person has some idea about race, and virtually every situation at least touches on or involves race. But that does not mean that every person is racist or that every situation is fundamentally about race. Unfortunately, many influential writers and media outlets use just such reductive reasoning to highlight race in a way that obscures, rather than illuminates, complexity.
What is reductive reasoning?
Reductive reasoning is where a complex situation with many aspects is “reduced” to just one aspect of that situation, thus over-simplifying it. Reductive reasoning is having a moment — here is a graph from Google of how often the term has been used (capitalized and not) in books over time:
The Oxford definition of “reductive” is
Tending to present a subject or problem in a simplified form, especially one viewed as crude.
All models are wrong
Clearly, a one-dimensional, reductive model is going to be lacking. But might it still be useful? The statistician George Box famously pointed out that “[a]ll models are wrong, but some are useful.” (This is a version of the equally profound statement that “the map is not the territory.”)
All models are wrong, but some are useful
Simple models are indeed useful, and reductive thinking about race — “racial reductionism” — is indeed useful! Authors and thinkers who focus only on race are often wrong, but they do see and show us new things that would otherwise be overlooked.
Any reductive viewpoint is metaphorically a “lens” that can be looked through to see things anew, but must also be taken off when it is important to see clearly.
An example — school suspensions have a racial component
Without racially reductive analyses, we may have never learned that Black children (and perhaps other minority kids) are disproportionately suspended and disciplined in schools, with terrible impacts. This is just one way a simplistic racial model has proved itself useful.
But if we rely on that same racially reductive model too long and for too much, things go wrong in very real ways. A study in Wisconsin found that correcting for “racist” disciplinary practices in schools actually harms Black students, resulting in lower test scores and as many as 25% of Black students in the U.S. being bullied.
The trick is to gain insight using a reductive model, but then move on to embrace complexity and nuance when it comes to policy. By balancing the racially reductive model, which suggests disciplining of Black students is “racist,” with a model that instead focuses on the harms of bullying and suggests clear rules and expectations for how we treat one another, we can develop a better overall policy.
Both models are “useful,” but both are also “wrong.”
White privilege and Black oppression
It’s a great benefit to be in the majority. In the U.S., if we divide the country up by race, we see how white people benefit from being in a racial majority, and this is often called “white privilege.” Writings about white privilege are always illuminating but are also highly reductive.
Other forms of privilege, such as class, height, attractiveness, and birth month are also impactful, but they are ignored or actively excluded by those who take a racially reductive view.
Turf wars over privilege categories
Among the most prominent racial reductionists, the racial lens never comes off. White privilege (and a few other “privileges” such as ableism, cisgender privilege, etc) are elevated into protected classes and defended as the only legitimate ways to look at the system. The typically-legitimized classes are: race, gender, LGBTQ status, and (dis)ability.
Class privilege, in particular, is often excluded by race reductionists. Identity-politics oriented progressive activists who gatekeep the categories of privilege understand that the race-reductive view is incompatible with Marxist or Socialist class-reductive views, so each group tries to block the other. In today’s universities and corporate contexts it is nearly forbidden to speak against the new “anti-racist” movement, but if you read between the lines, Marxists would like to do so.
Both advocates of identity politics and class consciousness know that only one reductive worldview can rule the roost, so a focus on race undermines Marx’s idea that “[t]he history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggles” and conversely, a focus on class conflict undermines racial awareness.
Entire industries and professional communities, such as DEI training, academic work on critical race theory, anti-racist seminars, the 1619 Project, and others depend on a racial reductionism. Unfortunately, this does mean other important distinctions are erased or de-prioritized.
As the 1619 Project and NY Times assert, we should “reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery … at the very center of our national narrative,” leaving little room for a history based on class conflict or anything else. Certainly not any analysis based on liberty, justice, equality, or Enlightenment philosophy.
Are you a racist?
Hopefully, you’re not a racist. But you do have associations and ideas around race. Everyone does — they may be positive or negative and they are almost certainly a mix of both — but you do have them. You have racial associations; but you also have associations around NASCAR, bananas, Switzerland, zoos, and penguins. None of us are completely neutral about anything — at all.
You have racial associations; but you also have associations around NASCAR, bananas, Switzerland, zoos, and penguins.
Just as you can’t think about penguins without being primed to think about snow, cold, swimming, and perhaps cartoons, you can’t think about Black people without being primed to think about jazz music, ghettos, basketball, and collard greens…. Or whatever the association is for you.
Using racially reductive thinking, this means that “everyone is racist.” Even Black people!
But you’re (probably) not a real racist in the normal English sense of the term. You might still learn important things if look at your life through a “useful but wrong” model that you are a racist; go for it! You might pick up an “anti-racist” book that will tell you you are racist and will help you to “identify and describe it — and then dismantle it.” It will be good to think about your biases and become self-aware.
But don’t take that view as gospel. Do the work, and then drop that model and consider yourself as a whole person, hopefully including your commitments to justice, equality, and the (particularly American) project of respecting all people as being equal.
Are you a victim of racism?
Probably. Especially if you are non-white. But perhaps not as much as some people would like you to believe.
If you were to spend a week (or a year) reading Ta-Nahisi Coates and Robin DiAngelo, you’d come away thinking, in true reductionist form, that race determines everything, including your life situation as either oppressed or oppressor.
Realistically, your birth month, work ethic, neighborhood, and emotional intelligence have a huge impact on you, regardless of your race. If you live in the U.S. or another rich country, that’s likely the most impactful thing about your life, if you take a broad view.
And yes, race too. It’s complex, and therefore resists reductive explanations.
Some political ideas are also wrong
Just as “all models are wrong” — and simplistic models are more clearly and often wrong than nuanced models — many common, reductive beliefs and political ideas are wrong, too. Generally, these ideas are take some sliver or element of race, and use it to claim a situation is actually all about race.
Here are some such wrong ideas, with links to sources about each:
- You’re constantly and always either racist or anti-racist. Often, a situation is not primarily about race, and is only slightly tinged or affected by race, so race is not the main issue.
- The police are slave patrols. Years ago, slave patrols existed to catch escaping enslaved people, and later, while slavery was still legal in the U.S., police also enforced these laws. This does not mean that police are all racist, or that police are a version of slave patrols.
- “Our democracy’s founding ideals were false when they were written.” If we look at the many ways America has advanced freedom and equality, from implementing modern democracy to fighting for it around the world, we see mixed success but a continual movement toward ideals of freedom and equality. It is the very nature of an ideal that it is never obtained, but always pursued.
- “Anti-black racism runs in the very DNA of this country.” The United States, like all non-African countries in the 18th century, included many racists and enacted racist laws and practices. But countries do not have “DNA” that is somehow un-changeable or corrupting through time.
- People are trying to blame Black people for antisemitism. This is pretty minor, but topical. Last week (as of this writing) Dave Chappelle said that “Jewish people have been through horrible things, but you can’t blame that on Black Americans; you just can’t.” Dave’s world must be reductionist to think that anyone is trying to blame Black people (it was probably the Germans, actually).
- Republicans are all racist. As noted above, everyone has some bias about everything, and race is always present. And let’s face it, racism is more negative and present in the GOP. But statistically, Republicans are generally in rural areas suffering from economic decline and rampant deaths of despair; that’s also a good model to explain their behavior. Many or most Republicans do welcome and publicly support Black people, unlike the caricature of racists from the 1950s.
- White people are all fragile. If you call someone a name (such as “racist”) they may be upset with you. But this does not mean they are psychologically weak or reactive. Only by excluding common sense do we ascribe push-back against accusations of racism to “fragility.”
There are many, many more, predicated on the notion that everything is all and always about race.
The harmful defense of reductionism
So a reductive model of how race works in our society is wrong, but is this actually a problem? It’s always nice to be more aware of inequities, and Black people most certainly have it rougher in the U.S. in particular. (As I wrote about here.)
One unfortunate aspect of reductionism is that it does not allow any other model or idea to be expressed. A grad student named Leslie was just forced out of her psychotherapy program at Antioch University because she challenged some aspects of the “social justice” approach they insist on for therapy, in which it is (literally) required to focus on race with all patients.
More famously, Dorian Abbot was banned from MIT because he had criticized affirmative action and diversity programs. It is important to note that Abbot has never criticized Black people or any racial group, but even speaking against certain reductive ideas in Diversity Education is enough to get someone “canceled.” Abbot studies climate change so the controversy is not only mild, but also irrelevant to his work.
There are too many to list here.
Advocates of racial reductionism seek not only to model the world in terms of race, but they also insist that everyone else do so, and they allow no other approach. The intent is to highlight race, but the effect is to erase certain kinds of nuance and complexity from our public discourse.
So yes, it does matter. Millions of Black boys and girls are being bullied. Our political discourse is descending into identity-based, tribal or quasi-religious ignorance, tweeted and echoed without meaningful debate. The robust discussions about race we need to have (and you are having now by reading this Medium article!) are being suppressed.
As always, I look forward to your thoughts on this, and please share this article with others if you find it useful.
