Guilty Even When Proven Innocent

Tonight, a good-natured college girl of my acquaintance reacted in a disappointing way to my online statement that some accusations of racism are false. The young woman chose to line up with a boy who thought it was clever to say that all people are racists but not all are bigots. Whatever the heck _that_ distinction means. The young woman sought to refine this dogmatic assertion by "explaining" that if someone's racism wasn't obvious, well then, it simply was _subconscious_ racism. I was reminded of satires of witch trials, like the one in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," where _every_ possible result of witch-finding tests is _equally_ treated as "proof" that the suspect is a witch. So I wrote the following to the college girl....

A belief in "subconscious" racism, in "subconscious" anything, can be a way of dismissing the need for _evidence_ of what one believes to be true about people. The people can go through every day of their lives without _acting_ like they ha...ve the quality that you insist they have--but that just means they _subconsciously_ have that quality! Then, no matter _what_ they do, it still somehow "proves" the same pre-chosen conclusion. This all-encompassing "subconscious" explanation covers all bases, trumps all contrary evidence.

________, you are the last young person I would have expected to use a "ghost in the machine" argument; but on your own showing, you see a racist ghost in the machine of every human mind. Whoever has encouraged you to think this way, must be smirking over their success--because, although your own friendly and appealing personality is NOT an arrogant and offensive one, this dogma of universally-present racism is causing you to do something which has the same _effect_ as arrogance. That is, it causes you to assume confidently that you know what is in my personality better than I know it. Well, you _don't_ know my personality better than I do.

But I believe I know why it _seems_ as if racism is everywhere. For various reasons which are not _synonymous_ with genetic heredity, certain attitudes and preferences have come to be shared by large numbers of persons who also happen to share an ethnic background. For instance, when politicians spend decades relentlessly telling African-Americans that they are automatically entitled to welfare handouts, there _will_ be many African-Americans believing that they are automatically entitled to welfare handouts. Then, when someone like me _observes_ the concrete fact that many African-Americans have been taught to expect handouts, those who have themselves been _taught_ to see "racism" in everything, will think that they are seeing racism in me. But they're NOT seeing racism in me; what they're seeing is the fact that I'm aware of a _sociological_ process going on. There is enough real racism in the world, that statements NOT motivated by racism can get mistakenly lumped together with actual racist utterances.

Tossing me a bone by telling me that my supposed racism "isn't immoral" does nothing to negate the presumption of _telling_ me I'm a racist. I'm not claiming such conclusive knowledge of _your_ insides as you claim you have of my "subconscious" racism; but if it should ever occur that you wanted to dismiss some opinion of mine as unreasonable without needing to _prove_ it was unreasonable, it would be mighty handy to be able to say, "Well, Joseph just thinks that way because his racism is distorting his thinking."

________, however you personally came to have this belief in that sneaky goblin of invisible racism, it does happen to be identical with a presupposition used by a LOT of hardcore-leftwing politicians. They use it, not to promote understanding of human nature, but to _silence_ all disagreement with _their_ agendas. "If you don't see the _same_ solutions to social problems as we see, that's your subconscious racism impairing your judgment." Only, they're not usually as nice as you are; they'll go ahead and accuse dissenters of _intentional_ racism. But I don't buy it. You shouldn't buy it either; such a well-intentioned girl as you are ought not to fall into lockstep with this politically-correct falsehood.

The young woman then "clarified" further, by citing research findings which prove that people can't easily recognize differences in _visual_ appearance among members of a different ethnic group than they were brought up with. WELL, DUH! By the same token, I could fail to see visual differences among rocks or trees or machines or buildings of types that I was unfamiliar with. But the politically-correct establishment _will_ use this irrelevant fact of sight-perception to support its race-card playing; and this girl, highly intelligent but far from wise, is prepared to let them do it.