If you think you are not “racist”, think again because you are. Racism is not the exclusive purview of the powerful and the hateful. Though that is the kind of racism that makes our social order abusive and cruel. To deny racism exists only helps strengthen its cruelty. We all become racist when we start distinguishing differences between “us” and “them”.This is completely normal and healthy. My Scottish mother married my mostly German father. Her family referred to Germans as “Huns” because they started two World Wars. Maybe there was some resistance from her parents I don’t know, but I do know there would have been a lot more resistance if my dad had been Latino or black. She went to school with mostly Latino kids in rural Santa Barbara, so she could have married a Latino. My point is that racism is not a black and white thing, either you are racist or not, there are many grey shades in between. All of us possess one of those grey shades of racism, whether it is the white liberal who goes out of their way to praise the person of color, the southern black man who grew up with hateful racism directed at him, or the full-on hate-filled white supremacist.
The story of human history usually includes a long period of forming and living in packs. In these packs we shared everything, our life and death were bond to the pack. From what I know of human history we spent a lot more time living in interdependent packs during our evolution than we have as more loosely connected independent individuals. What we consider civilization has only taken up a fraction of our history as a species. It would not be a stretch to assume that much of what we experience emotionally as a species comes from this period of time when were animals, then humans but still strongly connected to our packs. We did not become wildly prolific as a species (a lot too prolific) until there was a breakdown of the pack mentality, with the rise of agriculture and specialization. With the rise of agriculture and specialization came the need for a more abstract hierarchy, rather than a more natural filling of roles. I contend this abstract hierarchy grates against our underlying nature as tribal beings, mostly egalitarian but willing to live out the roles given to us by natural circumstances.
This inherent desire to identify with some pack or tribe or clan may be part of our nature which hearkens back to our hunter/gatherers days. We are no longer tribes; now we divide ourselves into “ethnic groups” which do not have the same kind of bonds that packs had. I’ve heard the word “tribal” used a lot in a negative sense as something we should be above. We might consider such dividing lines and forming of empathetic groups as something we should leave behind as a species. However, we can’t deny what is part of our nature as the animals that we are. We have to live with what we are given. I think subversion as usually a better approach than conquering, when addressing such inherent conflicts.
Certainly the word “racism” is generally used in a negative context, unless maybe you are some sort of racial supremacist who sees racial separation as a “good” thing. As I’ve tried to show in past essays; words have some big limitations, their meanings fluctuate and as tools of communication they are often misused. How the word “racism” is used is another excellent example. As a social construct most of us consider “racism” to be a “problem”, but the real source of the “problem” we are trying to address is something much deeper than our identification with what “race” we consider ourselves or others to be.
Where racism is a very real thing, the thing upon which it is supposedly based; “race” is not so real. Race is more of a political word, than an accurate description of human variability. The genetic variability we observe in the human species is real and demonstrated with DNA analysis, but “race” as it has been used historically, is a very poor description of its reality. All homo sapiens have only recently (in evolutionary years) migrated out of Africa Wikipedia African origins of Modern Humans. Our DNA variations are superficial not fundamental, and the differences that DNA shows us is not neatly categorized as “races”, instead it is a complex and chaotic mixture and sharing of genetic history.
Modern scholarship regards race as a social construct, that is, a symbolic identity created to establish some cultural meaning. While partially based on physical similarities within groups, race is not an inherent physical or biological quality. Wikipedia- Race in Anthropology Wikpedia- Race in Society
The specific localities where various groups of homo sapiens have briefly evolved have given us certain superficial differences. The most obvious being the loss of melanin, an evolutionary adaptation which helps those with lighter skin absorb Vitamin D from low sunlight locations. It is not the awareness of genetic variations like this one, that creates racism, rather it is the process of considering one superior and another inferior. (Personally I consider more melanin to be more desirable because I’ve experienced problems with my own low melanin genetics, mainly serious sunburns.) When the reality of genetic variation is much more of a sidewise comparison. Yes, the differences exist and they go much deeper than the color of our skin, but our racism is making it a subconscious good vs bad dichotomy. Much like our instinctive tendency to try and quickly judge someone as friend or foe.
Trying to put up artificial boundaries between groups who share superficial genetic differences, even after the geographical boundaries are gone; is our practice of segregation. Segregation does have natural and supportive elements to it. People with common backgrounds tend to bond more easily with each other. However, more often then not, it also has the very corrosive effect of reinforcing negative stereotypes and isolating opportunities from groups who possess less wealth. These two practices; of racism and segregation, have a long, brutal and ugly history, practically everywhere in the world.
Our U.S. versions of racism and segregation is notorious for singling out African descendants as being “inferior”. The laws and practices used to enforce this racism over the years include; slavery, Jim Crow laws, lynchings, voter registration obstacles, anti-miscegenation laws, mass incarceration, prison labor, redlining etc, etc. Many of these laws and the attitudes behind them are still very much a factor in our social structures today. Most towns and cities in the US tend to divide into regions where certain ethnic groups live. Often these those regions where the so-called “minority” ethnic groups live are considered less desirable and are more prone to crime, drug use, family abuse, alcoholism and similar symptoms of poverty. Most of their members also experience disconnection from social contacts which bring wealth. Though the dangers of these communities are often exaggerated, it remains true that neighborhoods with high crime and poverty rates do exist and they are often composed of people from minority backgrounds. Unfortunately we instinctively do a thing in our minds which really has no connection to reality. We begin to associate the struggles we see in our struggling communities as being connected to their cultural backgrounds.
This is a prejudice that is not easy to refute, because the source of so-called antisocial behavior seems to be very complex and multifaceted. There does seem to be a genetic factor (on an individual level only, not on a group level) when studying “antisocial behavior”: HHS Public Access
Several candidate genes have been identified to be associated with antisocial behavior or their known risk factors. Many of these candidate genes findings have also been replicated in both human and animal studies.
However the case for exposure to toxins in the environment is strong as well: PubMed.gov
Violent and anti-social behavior is usually attributed to social factors, including poverty, poor education, and family instability. There is also evidence that many forms of violent behavior are more frequent in individuals of lower IQ. The role of exposure to environmental contaminants has received little attention as a factor predisposing to violent behavior. However a number of environmental exposures are documented to result in a common pattern of neurobehavioral effects, including lowered IQ, shortened attention span, and increased frequency of antisocial behavior. This pattern is best described for children exposed to lead early in life, but a similar pattern is seen upon exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls and methyl mercury.
as is the case for an unloving family environment: ScienceDirect.com
Thus, it is important to realize that antisocial behaviour is not only related to parenting behaviour but also to the way children attached to their parents. The bonding between parents and his/her child is important. If the bond of affection to the family is strong, the attachment formed may able to deter criminal behaviours.
I am no expert on antisocial behavior but from my untrained observations it is more often linked with poverty in industrialized nations (especially nations which have established racists policies) but not so much in subsistence or native cultures. It doesn’t take an expert to guess that it is likely that all three of the above causes contribute to “antisocial” behavior in industrialized countries, with racist attitudes being a aggravating factor. However it should be clear that “race” has nothing to do with it.
It is also likely that what is considered “antisocial” in one community is seen as normal, healthy or at least acceptable in a different community. The reality is, people do whatever they need to do to survive. Crime, addictions, family abuse, become adaptations for survival given a particular set of social, genetic and environmental circumstances, not symptoms of having darker colored skin, coming from a particular country or adhering to a certain religion.
The evolution of homo sapiens is very complex and seemingly random. It was affected by our environment, our migration patterns, our diseases and resistance to disease, and similar factors. There was a good deal of genetic mixing of peoples from different regions and even different species. Including Neanderthals and Denisovans. The color of one person’s skin or the shape of their face does not make that person more like someone else with a similar color skin and a similarly shaped face. If the region where someone’s genetic history has evolved is in the same region where another person’s genetic history was evolved, then they are probably more similar. However, that means a lot less than we might think. As people become more mobile and are finding common bonds with mates among other “races”, it means almost nothing.
The concept of “race” may have originally brought with it a long history of where your genes came from in the world; an adaptation to that particular small valley, riverbank or coastal town where all your ancestors grew up. There are still peoples who have occupied those same valleys, riverbanks for thousands of years, but they are rare in the world today. Most of the differences which the categories of “races” were attempting to define have long since faded. It was a very amorphous concept to begin with. To continue to use the word “race” in the political realm reinforces to a degree, the concept of differences, when they mean so little anymore. This is not to say people no longer align themselves with groups of common sympathies and develop resentment toward outside groups.
The concept of “race” may not have any scientific validity, but “racism” is a political concept and needs no scientific basis. Racism has a long and very real history, where its supposed scientific justification; the concept of “race” was never a valid thing. It seems to have been originally proposed as a kind of human subspecies.
Here is a quote from the American ethnologist Daniel Garrison Brinton in his 1890 book “Races and Peoples: Lectures on the Science of Ethnography”, describing the traits of the so-called “Celts”:
“Their mental traits are quite as conspicuous as; turbulent, boastful, alert, courageous, but deficient in caution, persistence and self-control, they never have succeeded in forming an independent state, and are a dangerous element in the body politic of a free country. In religion they are fanatic and bigoted, ready to swear in the words of their master rather than to exercise independent judgment. France is three-fifths of Celtic descent, and this explains much of its history and the character of its inhabitants.”
His argument is basically a collection of adjectives which in this case is applied a subset of the “white” race. What is the basis of these assumptions? And what makes him think the people belonging to this “race” are uniformly alike? He offers little in the way of observation and experiment. In this same book he systematically classifies numerous races, throughout the world. He has great praise for the beauty of the Caucasian Peoples (though he doesn’t consider it a “race”) and has little good to say about the “Austafrican races”. Another interesting quote from his book;
“It seems, for instance, tolerably certain that the cross between the white and black races produces offspring (mulattoes) who are deficient in physical vigor. It is well ascertained in the United States that they are peculiarly prone to scrofula and consumption, unable to bear hard work, and shorter lived than either the full black or the full white.”
As ludicrous as some of his declarations may sound today in the scientific realm, he obviously was no slouch and worked hard to make himself so prominent. However, he used broad assumptions (laden with prejudice about people different from himself) that were common in the science of his day. Such broad assumptions are still common today, not so much in scientific thought but in plain everyday thought. One could easily imagine the collection of adjectives a person of one clan might invent for people they saw belonging to a different clan. In fact, this is exactly what people do all the time when they start to think in a clannish manner.
Not everyone wants to overcome racism, in fact a large percentage of the population enjoys racism and benefits from it. In my California middle school I remember certain boys who would put the label of “faggot” or “fairy” on certain other boys they disliked. Sometimes these labels were accurate, sometimes not, but accuracy didn’t matter. What mattered was its function as a means of enforcing their rules on the rest of us. The boys who labeled, also threatened and carried out physical violence, not just those that they labeled as “faggots” but also those who were friends or stood up for the “faggots”. Those boys who threaten and sometimes carried out their threats were also the ones who seemed to have girls hanging around them most of the time. It is an example of “rule by fear” that is a major component of “racism”, and it has plenty of rewards.
Adults don’t always grow out of that same tendency to practice “rule by fear” and reap its rewards. In fact it is very evident in many places around the world today. It is typical of the dictator style of ruling. It is the same kind of “rule by terror” that took place in the Southern US States after the Civil War, taking the form of Jim Crow laws and lynchings, or the kind of thing that took place in Nazi Germany when people were labeled as being Jewish or gay or disabled or communist. Sure, racism often plays a large part in this type of “rule by fear”, but almost as often, it is religion or nationality or culture that creates the dividing lines between empathetic groups.
We naturally form our own empathetic groups, which is not inherently divisive, but once there is a hardening of the imaginary boundaries and a lessening of exchange between empathetic groups, things begin to change. It is almost as if one group needs to push down another group in order to lift themselves up. Sports fans provide an excellent model of this interplay empathetic groups. On the field, one team wins and the other loses. The fans might be ecstatic or inconsolable, depending on whether their team won or lost but the seasoned sports fan knows not to take it too seriously, there is always another game and another season. Ultimately, all the teams need and are dependent on each other for their existence. They learn from the other teams and adopt some of their successful techniques and they share each other’s stories. After all, the only thing which makes a team, is the uniforms they wear, and those can be easily changed.
I don’t think there is such a thing as a solution to these things which divide us and which are variously called, racism, sexism, nationalism, religious intolerance etc. I think it is a hardwired part of human nature. I do however see times in history and in life when the boundaries become lessened and there is much more sideways mixing of ideas and sharing of moments of joy, and much less trying to rise above the other one.
I’ve always felt a natural affinity for the underdog and I don’t think I’m alone. If there is such a thing as a solution, it would be staying in touch with this affinity so many of us have for the underdog inside all of us and seeing that same underdog in others. Then reaching out beyond the empathetic boundaries. This is especially needed when there is an historic aspect to the disadvantages weighing down certain groups. It is easy to forget that the kind of hatred displayed in racism is not restricted to what we perceive as “race”.
Our human lack of empathy displayed in our many forms of clannish abuse has shamed us and forced us into twisted rationalizations, emphatic denials when faced with the obvious, and all kinds of political “dog whistles”. Interestingly, it is really empathy that helps us form our empathetic groups in the first place. Can’t we simply feel empathy for the entire human race and other empathetic groups, while at the same time enjoy our small bonds of commonality? The rational mind would say we could, but that is not what we are as human beings, we are not rational.
Will we ever overcome our powerful urge toward “revenge” or “teaching”? That seems to lie as a root source of abuse between groups and individuals. I would predict not; it is even more deeply imprinted on us then racism is and the two are very much connected. What would TV or the movies be without “revenge”, it is so deeply embedded in our psyche, that its story must be told. Of course one person’s “justice” is another person’s tragedy. The psychology of revenge- or “teaching someone (or some group) a lesson” is complex but also very much a part of human nature.
Here is an article that discusses the issue in detail.
Many early psychological views toward revenge were based on the larger concept of emotional catharsis. This idea, still widely held in the popular culture, suggests that venting aggression ultimately purges it from the body. But empirical research failed to validate the theory of catharsis, and some recent work contradicts it entirely.
………
The findings suggest that revenge can succeed only when an offender understands why the act of vengeance has occurred. Among participants who chose to avenge the selfish action, those who received a message of understanding reported much more satisfaction than did those who received an indignant response. In fact, the only time avengers felt more satisfaction than participants who took no revenge at all was when they received an indication of understanding. Put another way, unacknowledged revenge felt no better than none at all.
My point is, that all acts of “terror” are actually acts of revenge that the “offender” doesn’t understand or doesn’t feel is justified. Flying a plane into the World Trade Center was an act of revenge toward the U.S.. It was an act we neither understood nor felt was justified. It was a rare example of a weaker empathetic group (Al-Queda) taking revenge on a much stronger empathetic group (the U.S.). The lynchings of blacks which took place in the U.S. are a more common example of a powerful group extracting their “revenge” and “teaching a lesson” to a less powerful group. At the time, I’m sure the people involved in the lynchings felt they were “justified” and “good” people. They were probably even powerful people in their own community.
We delude ourselves into thinking that we have changed since then, but we really haven’t, human nature is still basically the same. However, this powerful urge to extract retribution and “teach others a lesson” is certainly something that can be softened, and brought down a few degrees. I would suggest that this is the value sports and other forms of artificial and vicarious competition offer to our larger social order.
There is also hope that comes from collective stability and aging. As I grow older, in myself I can observe a shifting away from wanting “teach” other people around me, making my opinions forcefully heard, or “righting” of “wrongs”. When observing someone else experiencing the same difficulties I once experienced, I feel a wistful empathy, rather than a corrective empathy. I also observe the same thing in others as they grow older, a mellowing or growing state of ease. We admire the young, not for their achievements but for the wonderful process of getting there. It means nothing to us if a four-year-old sits on a bike and instantly starts riding. What we savor is the difficult moments as they try so hard; we remember our own difficult moments.
So maybe, as humanity ages and carries with it an aging collective consciousness, it will also mellow with time. Maybe we will become content just telling our stories. Then once our story is done, we can sit back and listen to someone else’s story.
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