What Is Racism?

The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday is racism. An online definition for racism is as follows: “prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism by an individual, community, or institution against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized.”

In his article about racism published at The Daily Signal, Victor Davis Hanson discussed “challenges to big multiracial democracies like the United States, India, and Brazil.” He said that India and Brazil do not “do very well because they accentuate a caste or a racial or an ethic spoils system.” However, the “United States is the only one in history that has bene somewhat successful, very successful.” Then he added a crucial point: “But it depends on everybody looking at their own identity as incidental to being an American, rather than essential.” He continued his article with this explanation. 

So, why am I talking about this? Recently, Joy Reid, who was an anchorwoman at MSNBC and let go, I think, not for any other reasons, because of poor ratings, but she has a podcast and she blasted, collectively, white people. And she said that “they can’t invent anything.” And then she went into a diatribe about American music, that it was solely the domain of black people.

But what I’m getting at is, we’re getting very dangerous in this DEI movement, as it starts to emit its death throes, as it’s challenged for being racist, which it is. It’s racial essentialism. People who defend it double down, and they double down in a way that’s very injurious for the rest of the country.

So, Joy Reid is basically saying that black people are cognitively superior to other people. I wish this was an isolated incident. But remember, we’ve had this controversy before, about the president of Sacramento State, Luke Wood, who, in his past, was an African American intellectual activist, as he self-describes himself. And he said he want to “eliminate” – that’s a bad word to use, given the history of it in the 20^th century – “eliminate whiteness.” Again, no repercussions.

Lately, a major writer for The New Yorker magazine …, she said some things that prompted people to look at her social media account. And a few years ago, she posted, quite regularly, about white people.

What was very disturbing was she said she’d hated them. She didn’t like them, collectively. And then she started to get into some bizarre, pseudoscientific stereotypes about white people. She said they were, basically, “dirty” and they’re “responsible for plagues” in history. And she said it seemed like everywhere they were, they brought disease.

We know that has a bad history in the 20^th century, claiming that one particular group brings disease. We know who did that in the Third Reich….

… So, she just seems to be as well historically ignorant.

She seems to think that white people have all these advantages in this world, 65 years after the onset of the civil rights movement. But as I said before, if you look at income, so-called white people are about eighth. Ethnic groups, other than whites, are doing better. If you look at hourly wages, it is true that on average, white males make more than black males, but Asian males make far more than white males.

So, what am I getting at? We have zero tolerance when racists, who are white, say such things about other groups. But in a truly multiracial, tolerant society, people who not only attack a group, collectively, and stereotype it, but they do so from positions of influence and power – like The New Yorker magazine or a former MSNBC anchor – they can do a great deal of damage, unless they’re called out for it.

And if we’re gonna make it as a society, everybody has to drop this idea of ethnic and racial chauvinism. And just because a person declares themselves a historical victim of past oppression does not give them a free hand in indulging in the utter and most vile forms of racism, which is collectively demonizing a whole group of people on the basis of their superficial appearance.

Some people claim that black people cannot be racist. However, the definition of racism located at the top of this essay does not list any race or ethnicity. It merely states that racism is “prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism” by any individual or group against any other individual or group on the basis of race or ethnicity. To me, Joy Reid, Luke Wood, and the writer at The New Yorker magazine sound like racists. There is a common saying that if something looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck. If a person sounds like a racist, they must be a racist.

The truth is that there are people of every race who are intelligent, talented, and every other positive attribute. Each person is a beloved child of God who loves every single one of His children.