7 ms·

The Ironclad Argument Against Racism

29 points by yboris 5y ago

h2odragon 5y ago
I agree with the author, to the point of stomp holler and cheer for having said it so well. Unfortunately I don't think even this brilliant articulation of the point will help when there's a bunch of people who seem to honestly disagree that "collective guilt is wrong."
hellisothers 5y ago
“So suppose you wanted to construct such arguments. What would they be? Many people would start with something like, “Racism is wrong because it has been used to justify mass murder and slavery.” True enough. But…” Where we go on to a what-about, the article could have ended here but it turns out the article was about something else entirely…
tgv 5y ago
The argument based on collective guilt assumes that there are no differences between whatever is labeled race. Racists may not agree.
- nukemaster 5y ago
  Being told you should feel guilty for being a particular race is as valid as being told you should be proud for it. Moderates stepping into arguments about racism made by extremists (on both sides) might not realize how bigoted the idea of "racism" itself is. Those on the left argue that the "oppressing" race should feel guilty, not just that no one should feel pride in their race.
spacemanmatt 5y ago
It would be cool if I had ever met a racist who was receptive to rational argument about their absurd social views.
- spacemanmatt 5y ago
  Without the rhetorical flair: Who is the audience for this argument? I'm lost on that part.
  - zeeboo 5y ago
    It's for people who think racism is wrong and want a reason to avoid being introspective about what they can do about living in and benefiting from a society built on racism.
aSanchezStern 5y ago
Hmm, has anyone here met someone who espoused the argument "White people are inherently morally guilty due to racism"? I'm getting the sense that it might be mostly a strawman argument. Those I've actually talked to about anti-racism seem to fall into two camps; either white people (a very hard to define group of people, but mostly you know what I mean) aren't all racist, but they have benefited from past racism, so they hold extra power unjustly (though not due to a fault of their own); or they are "racist", but where "racist" is defined as prejudice + power, and we understand that many people are prejudiced due to societal and cultural messaging, so being "racist" doesn't mean you're individually guilty.
- nukemaster 5y ago
  My employer brought in a Harvard University professor to preach at us for ~45 minutes about how the US is awful and White people should feel guilty just for living their lives. I have absolutely met these people and have to deal with them at work.
  - philosopher1234 5y ago
    What specifically did they say? Your description sounds heavily interpreted.
- zmgsabst 5y ago
  I have — eg, people who accuse me of having “White Privilege”, even though I grew up in Rainier Beach, Seattle and was one of ten White kids in a school of 600, where not only did I suffer from the same issues of gang culture and poverty, I had the “privilege” of being robbed and beaten for my race by the dominant ethnicity in the neighborhood. The problem with “anti-racism” is that it’s racism: engaging in institutional discrimination against me, based on that statistical truth about a race I happen to belong to. The whole concept of “anti-racism” is (in practice) rich Whites excusing their privilege by engaging in “cleansing” racism against poor Whites.
  - aSanchezStern 5y ago
jmyeet 5y ago
I'm on board for arguing that racism is bad because it's collective guilt (and, by extension, collective punishment). What you find though is that most people aren't interested in ethical arguments. They're interested in preserving the power structures they have benefited and continue to benefit from. They see empowering another group as taking something away from their group. In the US in particular, fear is a huge motivator here. There's also a touch of projection: many fear some form of retribution from the newly-empowered group because, well, that's probably what they would do. It's kind of a self-report. But let's say you manage to convince people of the evils of collective guilt and punishment. Let's see if that extends to the treatment of Palestinians. Gaza is the world's largest open-air prison [1]. As an aside, this is really the point of the Republican censorship crusade against what it calls "critical race theory" because Republicans don't want people to be educated in system racism and collective punishment. That's no way to preserve a power structure. It's also worth pointing out that a bunch of states have laws on the books that teachers cannot disparage Israel (eg [2]). [1]: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/02/israels-apartheid-against-palestinians-a-cruel-system-of-domination-and-a-crime-against-humanity/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/02/israels-apart... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws
- dolni 5y ago
  > They see empowering another group as taking something away from their group. In some cases, it actually is. For example, NYC decided to phase out its gifted and talented program because it "segregated students". [1] So now, because some students aren't equitably represented in the gifted and talented programs, we take away from the (probably) white and Asian students who would benefit. [1]: https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/08/us/new-york-gifted-and-talented-education-program/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/08/us/new-york-gifted-and-talent...
  - jmyeet 5y ago
    The centerpiece for W's first term was the No Child Left Behind Act. Many described it as the No Child Gets Ahead Act.. I've heard of that partcular move by NYC and I'm not a fan. I imagine the net effect is that it will drive those with the means to put such children into private schools instead. If you're low-income you don't have this option. How does this benefit anyone? The whole policy screams of a theoretical idea of not making kids feel bad.
gunfighthacksaw 5y ago
I’ve seen takes where expecting immigrants to integrate is considered racist. Maybe I’m just a racist, but when a fellow Canadian with a heavy South Asian accent is calling me buddy and talking about going to the lake/the leafs suck, I feel good about my country. Compare to the problems in the UK where you have no-go areas in certain cities (overblown but it happens) and generations that won’t even attempt to fit in to the dominant culture. That said, the UK is much more xenophobic than Canada wrt nationality.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
jacquesm 5y ago
There is no lack of very hard evidence that racism is wrong, but there is a lack of ways to convince certain groups of people that they are wrong and that they should change their ways. To add to that: there are quite a few politicians and political parties that actively push these buttons to drive the divisions that help them to stay in power.
- tomrod 5y ago
  I sometimes ask questions that broach social norms. If my questions do so below, I apologize in advance. Right now, it appears that the US default on reparations is $0. I have wondered what amount would be considered just that the median person receiving reparations would be satisfied with. Also, what is a justifiable time horizon for inclusion? Should reparations begin for all slaves and conquered groups ever by the nation in power? (In the US, looking @ blacks, Native Americans, the govt of Mexico, Chinese immigrants in the mid-1800s, and so on). There are so many edge cases and competing philosophical justifications that the practical implementation seems very hard!
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    I don't think it is possible to put any hard figures on this. I'm from NL, and the wealth here is absolutely off the scale for a country which barely exists to begin with and which has, other than a bit of natural gas, no resources. Of course the Dutch mantra is that we got here by hard work and trade, but the reality is that we got our headstart with piracy, slavery and colonies that we robbed blind and then when things didn't go our way tried to rule by genocide. Needless to say that isn't a popular opinion and it isn't exactly part of the Dutch history curriculum in grade school, but it is the unvarnished truth. Does that motivate me to give what I've earned to others? No. Do I believe that we collectively should do everything we can to right this wrong? Yes, absolutely. So there is a substantial chunk of hypocrisy involved, I can't personally associate myself with any of this but I can easily see how collectively we've all benefited.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
renewiltord 5y ago
Automatic indemnification of children is the tool that oppressors worldwide use to transfer wealth. It is limited but useful. For instance, I can’t steal a million dollars and give it to my son and have him get away with it. However, I could put Japanese Americans in internment camps, getting their homes when they don’t really want to sell and go live in a camp, and then if sufficient time passes and my kids have now inherited the home, they can keep it! Indemnity! Personally, at some particular age, I intend to use this tool to juice my grandkids chances at life. When I’m old enough I should commit some crime that can be exploited in this manner. The problem is it isn’t scalable. I don’t want one house. I want many. But I have 40 years to figure it out.
rflec028 5y ago
Fig. A: everyone can see that collective guilt is wrong Fig. B: In the past, most whites were racist. Ah, I can see why you're a NYT bestseller.
- kgwxd 5y ago
  Why?
assbuttbuttass 5y ago
This is a moralistic argument, and may be more or less convincing depending on personal values. My argument against racism would be a practical one: racism is used to divide the working class against itself, it's another wedge issue just like gay marriage or abortion. It's necessary to combat this divisive rhetoric, because otherwise we won't have the strength to collectively resist the real evils.
adfhdfhdryheryh 5y ago
I find this pretty poorly argued for a few reasons. First, racism isn't necessarily about collective guilt. Racists can absolutely recognize that any particular person should not be lumped in with their entire race. See: "one of the good ones". One can say horribly racist things in terms of statistics while leaving open the possibility that they might not apply to any particular person. Second, policies like affirmative action aren't about collective guilt either. The justification is not that white college applicants are evil and must be punished. Maybe there is some of that lurking beneath the surface, but I have never heard the argument in those terms from anyone worth listening to. The argument is that racism is so pervasive and so entrenched that avoiding bias requires adding bias in the other direction, not mere even-handedness. There are parts of this idea that are good. I find that huge parts of our society are based around rewarding or punishing people for the actions of their family and peers (see: the whole class system). But this article in particular is flawed.
vannevar 5y ago
>For the most part, though, “racism” is a doctrine we ascribe to others in order to damn and ostracize them. No, racism is the belief that another race is inferior. It isn't ascribed to hurt people, it's ascribed when someone makes a racist statement, in order to maintain community standards of behavior. Just like we ascribe pedophilia to someone who has sexual relations with children.
lou1306 5y ago
Modern ("scientific" [1]) racism was born out of a misinterpretation of Darwinism. Under such interpretation there's no concept of "punishment" or "guilt", so saying that "racism is wrong because collective guilt is wrong" will not dissuade any bona fide "scientific" racist. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism The term "scientific racism" is very unfortunate, because it is all but scientific (i.e., it is basically entirely disproven by our modern knowledge about human genetics). Hence my use of the double quotes.
bananarchist 5y ago
This argument only works against a particular type of racism that is rather antiquated. People exploring racism contemporarily focus on presumed-heritable characteristics such as intellectual potential or "capacity" for violence and crime. Moral arguments are harder to land in modern societies, but utilitarian ones can stick on just a few statistically-insignificant quantifiers – to the purpose of racists and anti-racists alike.
jleyank 5y ago
Racism is a form or subset of bigotry. I view bigotry as bad - elevating one subgroup at the expense of another or it’s reverse. It’s a group property as well as an individual’s property. Different treatment based on colour, religion, language, …, is “bad” unless you’re in the top group. It’s really always bad, but you have to see past the groupthink to see it. I’m white, which is bad. But both sides of my family come from non-dominant European groups, which is good. The Irish portion was discriminated against in the 1800’s, which is bad. Depending on when they actually came to the us, they might have fought for the North in the civil war, which is good. So how do I parse my actual goodness/badness based on the current tv scores? Nobody I’m aware of can change the past. We all can change the future and even aspects of the present if we give a shit and try to change. It requires seeing others as people, rather than “them”.
- nukemaster 5y ago
  >Racism is a form or subset of bigotry. If you look closely you'll notice that this isn't how extremists (on both sides) use the word. Racism to them means something closer to oppression (similar to the Marxist idea of class oppression.) The idea itself, the way it's used by extremists, is bigoted. I wish the moderates arguing in good faith against bigotry would stop using it. It has an ugly genocidal history going back to the bolshevik revolution and the Holodomor that followed.
  - tomrod 5y ago
    I don't understand your comment. What is the context for "using it" in your second paragraph? Also, could you elaborate on how you see racism as being closer to oppression?
jhanschoo 5y ago
I'm so confused why the author thinks this is ironclad. I don't see why racism necessarily has anything to do with collective guilt or how it comes out of a desire to extract reparations for a wrong someone else has done. Racism can have many impulses and origins behind it, from using a race as a careless and convenient boogeyman against which to unite a community against, to a natural fear of the unfamiliar and foreign by a monocultural society. These do not involve seeking reparations for a past injustice.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
vr46 5y ago
This is not a well-thought-out post, makes a mess of things by lumping bigotry in with systemic discrimination, and the "ironclad argument that a child can understand" isn't - there's evidence of an analytical mind here, as you'd hope from a professor of economics, but this is slapdash, hastily-written stuff that starts with a flawed assumption of what racism is.
- raxxorraxor 5y ago
  I disagree, maybe you can provide something more concise. It also contains critique of current approaches against racism that should be discussed as they seem to worsen the situation. Your response makes the impression that this critique did resonate.
bradgranath 5y ago
Jesus Christ hackernews wtf?

29 points by yboris 5y ago

I agree with the author, to the point of stomp holler and cheer for having said it so well. Unfortunately I don't think even this brilliant articulation of the point will help when there's a bunch of people who seem to honestly disagree that "collective guilt is wrong."

hellisothers 5y ago

“So suppose you wanted to construct such arguments. What would they be? Many people would start with something like, “Racism is wrong because it has been used to justify mass murder and slavery.” True enough. But…” Where we go on to a what-about, the article could have ended here but it turns out the article was about something else entirely…

tgv 5y ago

The argument based on collective guilt assumes that there are no differences between whatever is labeled race. Racists may not agree.

nukemaster 5y ago
Being told you should feel guilty for being a particular race is as valid as being told you should be proud for it. Moderates stepping into arguments about racism made by extremists (on both sides) might not realize how bigoted the idea of "racism" itself is. Those on the left argue that the "oppressing" race should feel guilty, not just that no one should feel pride in their race.

spacemanmatt 5y ago

It would be cool if I had ever met a racist who was receptive to rational argument about their absurd social views.

spacemanmatt 5y ago
Without the rhetorical flair: Who is the audience for this argument? I'm lost on that part.
- zeeboo 5y ago
  It's for people who think racism is wrong and want a reason to avoid being introspective about what they can do about living in and benefiting from a society built on racism.

aSanchezStern 5y ago

Hmm, has anyone here met someone who espoused the argument "White people are inherently morally guilty due to racism"? I'm getting the sense that it might be mostly a strawman argument. Those I've actually talked to about anti-racism seem to fall into two camps; either white people (a very hard to define group of people, but mostly you know what I mean) aren't all racist, but they have benefited from past racism, so they hold extra power unjustly (though not due to a fault of their own); or they are "racist", but where "racist" is defined as prejudice + power, and we understand that many people are prejudiced due to societal and cultural messaging, so being "racist" doesn't mean you're individually guilty.

nukemaster 5y ago
My employer brought in a Harvard University professor to preach at us for ~45 minutes about how the US is awful and White people should feel guilty just for living their lives. I have absolutely met these people and have to deal with them at work.
- philosopher1234 5y ago
  What specifically did they say? Your description sounds heavily interpreted.
zmgsabst 5y ago
I have — eg, people who accuse me of having “White Privilege”, even though I grew up in Rainier Beach, Seattle and was one of ten White kids in a school of 600, where not only did I suffer from the same issues of gang culture and poverty, I had the “privilege” of being robbed and beaten for my race by the dominant ethnicity in the neighborhood. The problem with “anti-racism” is that it’s racism: engaging in institutional discrimination against me, based on that statistical truth about a race I happen to belong to. The whole concept of “anti-racism” is (in practice) rich Whites excusing their privilege by engaging in “cleansing” racism against poor Whites.
- aSanchezStern 5y ago

jmyeet 5y ago

I'm on board for arguing that racism is bad because it's collective guilt (and, by extension, collective punishment). What you find though is that most people aren't interested in ethical arguments. They're interested in preserving the power structures they have benefited and continue to benefit from. They see empowering another group as taking something away from their group. In the US in particular, fear is a huge motivator here. There's also a touch of projection: many fear some form of retribution from the newly-empowered group because, well, that's probably what they would do. It's kind of a self-report. But let's say you manage to convince people of the evils of collective guilt and punishment. Let's see if that extends to the treatment of Palestinians. Gaza is the world's largest open-air prison [1]. As an aside, this is really the point of the Republican censorship crusade against what it calls "critical race theory" because Republicans don't want people to be educated in system racism and collective punishment. That's no way to preserve a power structure. It's also worth pointing out that a bunch of states have laws on the books that teachers cannot disparage Israel (eg [2]). [1]: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/02/israels-apartheid-against-palestinians-a-cruel-system-of-domination-and-a-crime-against-humanity/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/02/israels-apart... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws

dolni 5y ago
> They see empowering another group as taking something away from their group. In some cases, it actually is. For example, NYC decided to phase out its gifted and talented program because it "segregated students". [1] So now, because some students aren't equitably represented in the gifted and talented programs, we take away from the (probably) white and Asian students who would benefit. [1]: https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/08/us/new-york-gifted-and-talented-education-program/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/08/us/new-york-gifted-and-talent...
- jmyeet 5y ago
  The centerpiece for W's first term was the No Child Left Behind Act. Many described it as the No Child Gets Ahead Act.. I've heard of that partcular move by NYC and I'm not a fan. I imagine the net effect is that it will drive those with the means to put such children into private schools instead. If you're low-income you don't have this option. How does this benefit anyone? The whole policy screams of a theoretical idea of not making kids feel bad.

gunfighthacksaw 5y ago

I’ve seen takes where expecting immigrants to integrate is considered racist. Maybe I’m just a racist, but when a fellow Canadian with a heavy South Asian accent is calling me buddy and talking about going to the lake/the leafs suck, I feel good about my country. Compare to the problems in the UK where you have no-go areas in certain cities (overblown but it happens) and generations that won’t even attempt to fit in to the dominant culture. That said, the UK is much more xenophobic than Canada wrt nationality.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

jacquesm 5y ago

There is no lack of very hard evidence that racism is wrong, but there is a lack of ways to convince certain groups of people that they are wrong and that they should change their ways. To add to that: there are quite a few politicians and political parties that actively push these buttons to drive the divisions that help them to stay in power.

tomrod 5y ago
I sometimes ask questions that broach social norms. If my questions do so below, I apologize in advance. Right now, it appears that the US default on reparations is $0. I have wondered what amount would be considered just that the median person receiving reparations would be satisfied with. Also, what is a justifiable time horizon for inclusion? Should reparations begin for all slaves and conquered groups ever by the nation in power? (In the US, looking @ blacks, Native Americans, the govt of Mexico, Chinese immigrants in the mid-1800s, and so on). There are so many edge cases and competing philosophical justifications that the practical implementation seems very hard!
- jacquesm 5y ago
  I don't think it is possible to put any hard figures on this. I'm from NL, and the wealth here is absolutely off the scale for a country which barely exists to begin with and which has, other than a bit of natural gas, no resources. Of course the Dutch mantra is that we got here by hard work and trade, but the reality is that we got our headstart with piracy, slavery and colonies that we robbed blind and then when things didn't go our way tried to rule by genocide. Needless to say that isn't a popular opinion and it isn't exactly part of the Dutch history curriculum in grade school, but it is the unvarnished truth. Does that motivate me to give what I've earned to others? No. Do I believe that we collectively should do everything we can to right this wrong? Yes, absolutely. So there is a substantial chunk of hypocrisy involved, I can't personally associate myself with any of this but I can easily see how collectively we've all benefited.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

renewiltord 5y ago

Automatic indemnification of children is the tool that oppressors worldwide use to transfer wealth. It is limited but useful. For instance, I can’t steal a million dollars and give it to my son and have him get away with it. However, I could put Japanese Americans in internment camps, getting their homes when they don’t really want to sell and go live in a camp, and then if sufficient time passes and my kids have now inherited the home, they can keep it! Indemnity! Personally, at some particular age, I intend to use this tool to juice my grandkids chances at life. When I’m old enough I should commit some crime that can be exploited in this manner. The problem is it isn’t scalable. I don’t want one house. I want many. But I have 40 years to figure it out.

rflec028 5y ago

Fig. A: everyone can see that collective guilt is wrong Fig. B: In the past, most whites were racist. Ah, I can see why you're a NYT bestseller.

kgwxd 5y ago
Why?

assbuttbuttass 5y ago

This is a moralistic argument, and may be more or less convincing depending on personal values. My argument against racism would be a practical one: racism is used to divide the working class against itself, it's another wedge issue just like gay marriage or abortion. It's necessary to combat this divisive rhetoric, because otherwise we won't have the strength to collectively resist the real evils.

adfhdfhdryheryh 5y ago

I find this pretty poorly argued for a few reasons. First, racism isn't necessarily about collective guilt. Racists can absolutely recognize that any particular person should not be lumped in with their entire race. See: "one of the good ones". One can say horribly racist things in terms of statistics while leaving open the possibility that they might not apply to any particular person. Second, policies like affirmative action aren't about collective guilt either. The justification is not that white college applicants are evil and must be punished. Maybe there is some of that lurking beneath the surface, but I have never heard the argument in those terms from anyone worth listening to. The argument is that racism is so pervasive and so entrenched that avoiding bias requires adding bias in the other direction, not mere even-handedness. There are parts of this idea that are good. I find that huge parts of our society are based around rewarding or punishing people for the actions of their family and peers (see: the whole class system). But this article in particular is flawed.

vannevar 5y ago

>For the most part, though, “racism” is a doctrine we ascribe to others in order to damn and ostracize them. No, racism is the belief that another race is inferior. It isn't ascribed to hurt people, it's ascribed when someone makes a racist statement, in order to maintain community standards of behavior. Just like we ascribe pedophilia to someone who has sexual relations with children.

lou1306 5y ago

Modern ("scientific" [1]) racism was born out of a misinterpretation of Darwinism. Under such interpretation there's no concept of "punishment" or "guilt", so saying that "racism is wrong because collective guilt is wrong" will not dissuade any bona fide "scientific" racist. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism The term "scientific racism" is very unfortunate, because it is all but scientific (i.e., it is basically entirely disproven by our modern knowledge about human genetics). Hence my use of the double quotes.

bananarchist 5y ago

This argument only works against a particular type of racism that is rather antiquated. People exploring racism contemporarily focus on presumed-heritable characteristics such as intellectual potential or "capacity" for violence and crime. Moral arguments are harder to land in modern societies, but utilitarian ones can stick on just a few statistically-insignificant quantifiers – to the purpose of racists and anti-racists alike.

jleyank 5y ago

Racism is a form or subset of bigotry. I view bigotry as bad - elevating one subgroup at the expense of another or it’s reverse. It’s a group property as well as an individual’s property. Different treatment based on colour, religion, language, …, is “bad” unless you’re in the top group. It’s really always bad, but you have to see past the groupthink to see it. I’m white, which is bad. But both sides of my family come from non-dominant European groups, which is good. The Irish portion was discriminated against in the 1800’s, which is bad. Depending on when they actually came to the us, they might have fought for the North in the civil war, which is good. So how do I parse my actual goodness/badness based on the current tv scores? Nobody I’m aware of can change the past. We all can change the future and even aspects of the present if we give a shit and try to change. It requires seeing others as people, rather than “them”.

nukemaster 5y ago
>Racism is a form or subset of bigotry. If you look closely you'll notice that this isn't how extremists (on both sides) use the word. Racism to them means something closer to oppression (similar to the Marxist idea of class oppression.) The idea itself, the way it's used by extremists, is bigoted. I wish the moderates arguing in good faith against bigotry would stop using it. It has an ugly genocidal history going back to the bolshevik revolution and the Holodomor that followed.
- tomrod 5y ago
  I don't understand your comment. What is the context for "using it" in your second paragraph? Also, could you elaborate on how you see racism as being closer to oppression?

jhanschoo 5y ago

I'm so confused why the author thinks this is ironclad. I don't see why racism necessarily has anything to do with collective guilt or how it comes out of a desire to extract reparations for a wrong someone else has done. Racism can have many impulses and origins behind it, from using a race as a careless and convenient boogeyman against which to unite a community against, to a natural fear of the unfamiliar and foreign by a monocultural society. These do not involve seeking reparations for a past injustice.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

vr46 5y ago

This is not a well-thought-out post, makes a mess of things by lumping bigotry in with systemic discrimination, and the "ironclad argument that a child can understand" isn't - there's evidence of an analytical mind here, as you'd hope from a professor of economics, but this is slapdash, hastily-written stuff that starts with a flawed assumption of what racism is.

raxxorraxor 5y ago
I disagree, maybe you can provide something more concise. It also contains critique of current approaches against racism that should be discussed as they seem to worsen the situation. Your response makes the impression that this critique did resonate.

bradgranath 5y ago

Jesus Christ hackernews wtf?