The Legitimacy of Racism

by Seke Ballard

Over the course of fourteen months in the Republic of Georgia, I have come to accept that my daily jog will unfailingly morph into a sport that I have coined “dodge the gypsy.” The begging Roma run after me, grab my person and, as baffling as it may seem, sometimes physically assault me. My runs, therefore, are a fun game of avoiding them to the farthest extent possible. Today, however, was a special day. Instead of running, I sat on a bench and observed a local native from across the street. With her baby strapped to her back, she went door-to-door and loitered at each store front until the owner, out of frustration that she was driving business away, appeased her with a few coins. Utilizing this observation and my general experience, my mind went through a catalogue of possible analogies. The behavior of a parasite seemed to fit precisely. After coming to such a seemingly racist conclusion, my follow-up observation was certainly more introspective, but to no avail.

The progressive ethic would have you believe that it is wrong to observe behaviors and, then, characterize whole groups of people based upon such viewed behaviors. (This practice, in simple terms, is commonly known as stereotyping.) I happen to disagree, however. Human survival—in all of it’s historical glory—has been founded upon using observations to generalize events and behaviors via probabilities. For example, suppose that I stop at a light on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, California, at 3 AM and a woman donning a halter-top, an exceedingly short skirt, four-inch heels and fishnet stockings approaches my vehicle and knocks on my window. Culling knowledge from my past experience—that a woman dressed in such a way on arguably Los Angeles’ most renowned street for prostitutes—I assume the woman is probably a prostitute. (The resulting stereotype: all scantily clad women on Sunset Boulevard at 3 AM are prostitutes.) Similarly, if I happen to walk down a dark street at night and find a man following closely behind and, as Fate would have it, taking all the same turns that I take, using my past experiences and current observations, I assume that this man is trying to rob and/or harm me. (The consequential stereotype: all men who follow me down dark streets are “up-to-no-good.”)

Is such a conclusion irrational?

Believing that Asians are smart, black people are criminals and Hispanics are all Mexican is, unfortunately, no exception to this concept of human survival. Lets look at the facts: Asians, while only 5% of the US population, comprise a disproportionately large percentage of students at American universities (46% at Berkeley), in 17 states blacks represent over 50% of annual prison admissions and of the Hispanics entering my home state of North Carolina, nearly 73% come from Mexico. An objective observation would state that members of these groups of people consistently fit with one or two specific ideas, more so than those of any other group. What logically follows, then, is an assertion that a particular group, on the whole, is more likely to exhibit these traits. Stereotyping based on these particular characteristics, therefore, is no less valid than assuming that darkly clothed men who follow you in poorly lit areas likely fall into the category of robbers.

Again, I must ask: Is such a conclusion irrational?

Stereotyping and one of its byproducts, racism, are, indeed, a very natural part of the human experience. So natural, in fact, that we’ve illogically grouped the values embodied by those who stereotype and/or are racist with the behaviors that tend to follow stereotyping and racism, when in fact they are two separate phenomena: one is a value (or belief regarding another group) and the other is an action based upon such a value. The value, alone, is valid for several aforementioned reasons. The action, though, is reprehensible—assuming it harms the group to which it is applied.

The interesting part about this argument is how it relates practically, especially when applied to the deeply flawed human-race. People, by and large, are simply too stupid to be racists without pulling off some atrocity like Sudan, the Holocaust or black-American slavery. These sorts of activities are the result of stereotypes and racism that are either allowed to go unqualified or applied unfairly to the individual member against whom a social injustice is applied. Take my earlier statement that black people are criminals. Such a stereotype shouldn’t be positioned as something inherently true of blacks, but should try to explain the context for why there is higher criminality among blacks. A partial explanation may reference poverty, lack of opportunity and discrimination.

My conclusion, therefore, is that stereotyping and its resulting discrimination are not completely wrong, in and of themselves, but instead, they are made wrong because humans have proven themselves incapable of being holding stereotypical beliefs without perpetuating horrific crimes against humanity, be they large or small. Leaders, therefore, have found it pragmatic to issue blanket reprimands on the institution as a whole, rather than on the actual culprit: an individual’s choice to disregard another’s humanity.