I was humbled to see that this diary made the December 6 Diary Rescue list and more importantly, deeply encouraged by the ensuing discussion.
Because several people have commented that they find the discussion useful and were sorry they had missed it, I am reposting it here.
Forgive me if this is an egregious breach of etiquette, but I believe this is a discussion that merits serious attention, so I'm reposting it here.
Cross-posted at http://www.myleftwing.com/...
One of the problems with the word "racism," and I think we're all aware of this, is that the term has no clearly-defined meaning yet carries deep pejorative force.
Racism is bad.
By extension, if I call you a racist, I'm calling you bad. Immoral.
I'm reading into your heart that you have a revulsion towards people of color.
But what about the neutral definition of racism as "the mental categorization of people according to "race.""
This is why Kramer's protestation that he's not a racist is a nonsense statement.
He meant, of course, to say that he doesn't believe in his heart that black people are inferior to white people.
Who cares what he believes in his heart?--that's his business.
The problem is the categorization which reifies the concept of race in the first place.
I don't know whether the categorization of people according to race is fundamentally immoral or not, but I do know that it's not inevitable.
Evidently, contrary to popular belief about the power of clan-based identity, early Germanic society was fluid, allowing for the entry and assimilation of many peoples in a particular social group.
The point being, the idea of race wasn't fixed.
That said, I think much of our discussion of racism focusses on racism as a moral issue, which puts people on the defensive and causes them to make nonsense statements like "I'm not a racist."
We're all racists in the neutral sense: we're aware of race.
Whatever connotations that awareness has in our own minds is important, of course, but the connotations are only possible because of the mental structure that accepts race as a reified category.
Now, if Kramer's protest that he's not a racist really means "I'm ashamed of my own categorization of people by race" or "I don't believe that categorization of people by race should exist," fine.
But why are we so concerned with what's in people's hearts?
What's really important is the patterns of thought that keep racism alive as a system of classification.
I say "what's really important." I don't mean that; I don't mean to create a false dichotomy or to simplify the issue.
I've just noticed that the question of who is or is not a racist and what to do with such people inspires a great deal of engagement and I often feel like trying to identify and chastise racists in a racist society serves more to help "non-racists" reaffirm to themselves their non-racism than it does to facilitate meaningful progress.
It's ok to be a racist.
Inevitable, even.
It's a matter of degree.
If I notice and register that someone is black and not white, that's racism.
If a bunch of crackers stand around celebrating the strange fruit hanging from the poplar tree, that's racism.
It's a matter of degree.