Modern Racism

I want to start by saying that I think there is less racism in the world than there has ever been, more tolerance, more acceptance of diversity. I think this is continuing and will continue as people get to meet more people from different backgrounds. But I want to talk about racism and how it is evolving. I'm going to be talking about race in the USA, since that is what I am most familiar with but I think humans are humans around the world and similar circumstances produce similar results.

For a start I think the number of people who are now consciously racist, the people who think that based on their race they are superior to other races, is small in the USA. What I mean by this is if asked a direct question about race a solid majority of people in the USA will reply that they are not racist. It is now taboo in the USA to be racist.

However, there is an all-pervasive awareness of race in the USA. I remember this being perhaps the biggest culture-shock for me when I came here at 18. I had grown up in an essentially all-white culture where race as a concept was absent because race as an issue was non-existent. I was shocked to discover that in the USA there is a different culture with a different dialect, different clothing, different music based on skin color. The stereotypical stand-up comedian routine is black guys do things this way and white guys do things a different way. I think this cultural difference linked to race is now where racism is based in the USA.

What is going on now is that the majority of Americans have been taught through their cultural experiences to associate black, urban culture with crime, violence, and drug-use. A great example is the contrast between how Barak Obama and his ex-pastor, Reverend Wright are viewed by people. Barak Obama is not considered a threat because he dresses like an executive, talks like an executive, doesn't use a standard "black" dialect. He seems like an extremely tanned white guy. But his ex-pastor wears African-inspired outfits (in an African-inspired church), and has the dialect, cadence and volume to his speech more associated with urban black men. The actual words that Mr. Wright spoke are only inflammatory if you read just three of them and ignore the rest, it's the tone and the look that is frightening.

But you don't have to be black to be part of this frightening culture (although it certainly helps), there are thousands of young, white men wearing the uniform

This is where we are in the USA today. There is a culture that is associated with crime, violence and fear and that culture is also associated with black people.  This association is so well established that it operates at an unconscious level.  Black men are followed around in stores by security guards more than white men.  Ask a judge if he is racist and he will reply that he isn't, but black men are convicted of the same crime at a far higher rate than white men.  You are probably somewhat racist in this manner even though you would be outraged at the idea.  Take this test and find out, I am a bit racist even though I hate the idea that I am.  By the way, while black people also have implicit bias, these biases can be for or against black people.  This sort of racism will only disappear when the associations based on culture disappear. 

This doesn't mean that black people should pretend to be white, but rather that race shouldn't enter in the equation.  When a young, black man has the same chance of liking and dressing like Green Day as Jay Z, when there is no Black Entertainment Channel, or Ebony magazine then this implicit bias will be dramatically reduced.  This doesn't mean that the change in culture has to go one way, but I think it already often goes from being black culture to being white culture (how many white guys starting playing the blues?  How many black guys started playing heavy metal or punk?)

For me the big question is when the formal recognition of differences in race should disappear?  At the moment it is said that we should talk about race and the consequences in our society.  At some point it will become important that we don't talk about race.  At the moment there are significant differences in opportunity for different races from health care to education to business opportunities and these differences probably still require government intervention.  At some point this intervention should stop, because it differentiates based on race, it is racist.  This dissolution of recognition of differences can't wait until everything is equal.  For a start, in a capitalist society things cannot be equal.  Secondly, such a recognition at some point will do more harm in promoting a racist separation than it will do good in attempting to equalize opportunity.  I don't think that time is now, but probably parts of this should start happening soon.

I have two extra points; one being that a reduction in racism doesn't necessarily mean a reduction in discrimination, the poor are becoming a group thought of as inherently inferior in character, the other being that I have started writing a post on this topic several times over the years but have stopped before publishing.  I am so aware of the dangers of this subject that I have been loathe to take the risk of writing about it, after all, I am a white man.