Roots of Racism rejoined
https://rationalstandard.com/roots-racism-rejoined/
https://rationalstandard.com/roots-racism-rejoined/
This piece is a rejoinder
of David Matthews’ reply
to my piece
in which I criticized two
of his commentaries on race and racism
Dear Mr Matthews,
Thank you for your speedy and
frank reply.
I reply in kind.
No, I was not “clearly deeply upset
and morally offended by [your] interpretation of the origin
and nature
of ‘racism’”. I was and still am
saddened by it because it fails to reflect much beyond opinion based solely on
your ‘lived experience’. You need not be
“sorry” about disturbing me. I enjoy
discussion and debate.
I do, however, take offense about
your characterizing my arguments being based on outraged emotion and lacking in
calm objectivity and assessment of “facts”.
Furthermore, the only “self-inflicted”
aspects of my life are 12 years of post-school education and study in
evolutionary biology and another 30+ years of teaching and research conducted on
five continents and being relevant to my considered and objective argumentation.
Perhaps the
most fundamental difference between us is how we discuss intergroup
differentiation. You are correct in
identifying the ancient ‘otherness’ that occurs between peoples who ‘evolved’ separately
and subsequently live in close geographical proximity. Indeed, the multi-millennium-old Khoi word “San”
means: the “others” who live a hunter-gather lifestyle as opposed to one based
on pastoralism.
“Race” is a
profoundly different way of negatively categorizing the ‘others’. In extreme instances, it denies their humanity
to ‘justify’ genocide.
You are not
correct in assuming that, because most (all?) peoples exhibit some form of prejudice
against ‘others’, that “there [is] likely to be a good biological reason for
this”. Identical twins reared with
different ‘others’ are almost certain to acquire the prejudices of the community
within which they develop.
In short,
you’ve got to be taught to mistrust, hate and fear.
Perhaps in
the ‘bad old days’, trying to live a life characterized by a hybrid culture was
non-adaptive. These days, it’s the kids
who pick and choose attributes amongst cultures that succeed. The use of race, virtually without exception,
has been designed to enshrine and subsequently protect unfair privilege. We seem to agree on this one.
Given my
advanced age, high unfitness and unfettered retirement lifestyle, I don’t “eagerly
jump” to anything, let alone to “entirely false conclusions”. I don’t for a minute believe that you believe
that racism or even race is “a good thing today”. It’s just that you maintain that it might have
been in the past. This is the kind of ‘Zilleism’
that anti-white racists jump on to denigrate ‘whites’.
If you are condemning
me for saying that there is no “virtue” and “morality” in believing in “race’
and using it to justify racism, I am guilty.
If the
thesis fundamental to your argument is “that everybody is racist to some
degree or other”, then you have
lost the debate or, worse still, have played into the hands of anti-‘white’
racists. It is untenable for anyone to
prejudge a person’s character based on his/her ‘racial’ characteristics.
Racism, like pregnancy, is not a sometime or ‘bitsy’
thing.
You go on,
like Fallists, to insist that “social science [whatever that is] really has to
explain in rational terms just why it is that every human being, or,
pedantically, every normal human being, possesses this [racial] particular
behavioural predisposition.” That’s no
different from the ignorant Fallist student who demanded that physics must adapt
locally to explain how a witchdoctor can summon lightning.
Yes, most
(maybe all?) “human being[s] [are] predisposed to be suspicious or averse” to ‘those’
people – the ‘others’. But it is
inhuman/immoral to act on this suspicion/aversion to that person’s detriment
without substantive supporting evidence.
It’s even worse when one ‘justifies’ such nefarious actions because that’s
what society “naturally” does. My Irish
volk are not half-black bog-trotters. Melanistic
humans are not ni**ers or ka**irs. Melanin-deficient
people are not crackers or honkies. Southern Europeans and Middle Easterners are
not wogs or gyppos. People from India are not c**lies. Tutsi are not cockroaches.
The ‘real’
fundamental thing is that, neither from a biological perspective (on which I am
a widely published expert) nor a cultural one (just Google - Crain Soudien) are
there arguably “significant differences” between geographically definable human
entities.
The closest to
that are various peoples from Africa, especially the KhoiSan. But even they fall far shy of ‘making the
grade’.
I freely
admit that I have atavistic “prejudicial feelings” against ‘Englishmen’ (you?),
because they ruthlessly colonized Ireland for seven centuries and deliberately
caused the deaths of a million of my compatriots and the emigration of a million
more. Just to give you a crystal-clear
example of that ‘racism’, my 92-year-old grandmother justified the fact that my
cousin was dating a ‘black’ boy by saying: “Well, at least he’s not English.” I
also resent the artificial hierarchy that UCT inherited from the ethos of
certain English universities. Having
said these things, I helped to dismantle that legacy at UCT and I don’t
immediately distrust every English person I encounter. And, yes indeed, some of my best friends are
Englishmen!
Contrary to
your assertion, I have made it my business to learn “what all others feel”
about ‘others’ since I’ve educated university students from 32 different
countries, 23 from Africa alone. More
locally, a close relative by marriage was a friend of Hendrick Verwoerd. When I nursed him during an illness, we had
robust debates about the ‘merits’ of Apartheid, but we remained good friends
until he died.
You are
correct in asserting that no one is “totally without any prejudice”. But, only self-identified individuals without
sins can cast racist stones. I don’t
damn people without good reason (e.g. Hitler and his close kith), but I will
not tolerate even nuanced racism.
Now to your “second
fundamental argument”: racism has existed “throughout the whole of human
history”. Sadly, you’re wrong
again. Although slavery (resulting from
conquest) goes way back, ‘true’ racism (denigrating the humanity of a ‘diagnosably
different’ group of humans) dates to at most, to the 16th
Century. This historical fact is recently
outlined succinctly by Alex Taylor.
Race and
racism are also not the social norm in all societies on Earth. It was, and sadly remains, a phenomenon
developed largely by Western Europeans.
This historical fact is recently outlined succinctly by James Tyner.
I can’t
speak for “everybody”, but during my nearly seven decades on Earth, I have met
very few people who defended the views that it was ‘expected [for them] to be racist’. Most of these people were fellow soldiers (from
the US south) I met during the Vietnam War and hard-core Apartheid activists
some years later. Having said that,
several of these individuals have, after thinking the matter through, recanted.
Yes, since
the 1970s in the USA and the 1990s in South Africa, there has been at least a “very
brief current period of [non-racialism if not] anti-racism”. This is a very good thing. Sadly, racism in South Africa is rearing its
ugly head once again, even at my beloved UCT.
But, now most of the racists are “Black Nationalists”.
As you close
your reply, you refer to the “historical fact” of the “moral enlightenment” some
(even South Africans) “benefit from today”. Thank God, Nelson Mandela, Helen Zille, whoever
(maybe even ourselves?) for this. But, I
won’t let you get away with suggesting “that racism was socially approved of
for so long simply because it had served a biologically positive function”. It didn’t make sense in 1652. If anything, it makes ‘less sense’ today, no
matter the “different social circumstances”.
I have been
described by some as “emotional and dogmatic”.
These are, generally, opponents in debate once they run out of rational,
fact-based arguments. Others, mainly
Fallists, call me “Jim Crow”, “eugenicist”, “Apartheid activist”, “killer of
black people” or just plain “racist”. Luckily for me, it’s been ‘other’ members of
UCT’s “silenced majority that have fallen prey to Fallists’ sticks and stones.
Mr Matthews –
I don’t “damn” you or characterize you as “immoral”. I simply maintain that your arguments are
fallacious. ‘Racism’ is simply a “moral crime or
aberration”. Those who argue that it ‘once-upon-a-time’
made contextual sense are wrong at best or, at worst, racial recidivists. Those
who continue to practice (or wish to resurrect) racism, regardless of however
they self-identify, should be exposed, counselled and, if necessary, punished. ‘Racism’
cannot be “rationally considered to be an inherent (or maybe acquired) social
predisposition” today or 400 years ago no matter what the “historical
circumstances”. It was inhuman then as
it is now.
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