Randy Best, the Ethical Leader of the EHST, wrote a post on this blog declaring himself a racist. One of my comments on that got way too long, so I am posting it here instead.
Randy wrote in a comment that “[a]lthough there are types and degrees of racism, as a person who is deemed by society to be white, I recognize my culpability. I do not feel guilty about this. Through the help of others I have glimpsed America’s structure of racism and white privilege. I am tarnished by it. I am part of it. It must change.”
But Randy is not complicit, as he works against racism. And while he says that he does not feel guilty, this is immediately after he says that he is culpable for racism, which he is not. The only thing he has presented that even approaches a rational justification for his claim of guilt is the obvious non sequitur from White privilege to racism.
What bothers me about this is that in Ethical Culture and Humanism we are supposed to be doing something better than mainstream religions. But this redefinition of “racist” goes against common sense and simple logic, as religion so often does. It is an “article of faith” Randy and others have, and can not back up with good reasoning, like so many religious beliefs. And it is no better than the guilt-ridden habits and dogma one sometimes finds in Catholicism, Judaism and elsewhere.
With a few exceptions, such as for an institutional setting where a person in a leadership position assumes responsibility for the organization, like the Japanese corporate executive who resigns after a scandal they were unaware of, it is obvious that a necessary condition for culpability is that you did the thing in question.
All of us are responsible and culpable for any racist things we might say or do. But Randy did not create slavery, racism or Jim Crow in America. He did not turn the fire hose on the demonstrators in Birmingham. The slave trade started long before he was even born. He is not culpable for these things because he did not do them. Duh!
I can already hear the defenders of White Guilt launch into the murky language of their discourse, saying something like “You still don’t get it. Just because someone deemed “white” did not engage in those particular activities does not mean that they are not enmeshed in a multidimensional structure of institutionalized white supremacy, and therefore participate in implicit systemic racism.” This is, of course, just a highfalutin way of repeating the non sequitur of “benefits from” implying “guilty of.”
I have some doubt that the White Guilt discourse is one that allows for genuine rational discussion, because the purpose of the discourse seems to be for the White person to express self-loathing as a response to racism, not to advance the cause of addressing the problem of racism in a rational way. It is an almost poetic use of language that seems to be all about intellectualizing shame and guilt so that, even if they are not felt as such, these emotions drive the discussion, diverting it from taking practical steps to actually help Black people and work for racial justice.
Trying to reason with someone who indulges this discourse is sometimes just like trying to talk with fundamentalists about the existence of God. Our efforts against racism should be based on reason, a desire to do the right thing, and on compassion for the victims of racism, not a false sense of being the perpetrators of racism.
I’ve encountered this discourse of self-flagellation many times before, and I think it is not driven by reason, which is part of what we are supposed to be all about in Ethical Culture and Humanism. So I expect that it does not matter that I point out the obvious facts of the non sequitur or that Randy simply did not do these things.
However, I may be wrong. If we are capable to discussing this rationally, let’s get to it. Here is a valid argument. If Randy or anyone else disagrees with the conclusion they must disagree with one or both of the premises. And so they must present a good argument that the premise is false.
(1) One is responsible only for what one has done.
(2) Randy did not do the things that constitute the history and present reality of racism in America.
Therefore, Randy is not responsible for racism in America.
Randy can not deny (2), because this is a straightforward matter of fact. So it must be (1) he denies. He will have to claim that, in this instance, one is responsible for something one did not do. The first thing to note is that there is a difference between being responsible for something and being responsible for doing something about it; thus, the position I take here against this quasi-religious self-flagellation is entirely compatible with a sense of responsibility for doing something to fight the moral evil of racism. Indeed, I think the guilt hampers the fight against racism.
But the main point is that there is no way he can make sense here unless he somehow subsumes his claim of culpability under some exception to (1), like the Japanese businessman example. There are certainly other exceptions as well. Parents are sometimes responsible for things their children do, for instance.
But what the logic of this drives him to is something very different from these common exceptions. He is going to have to argue, in part, that people are responsible for what their ancestors have done. It is not we White people, but many of our White ancestors, who are responsible for the history of racism.
Here again, we see the failure to help fashion a new approach in Ethical Culture and Humanism that represents an advance beyond mainstream religion. This idea that one is responsible for what one’s ancestors have done is a familiar “Old Testament” way of thinking. Consider for example Exodus 20, verse 5: “Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.” (Emphasis added.)
This is barbaric moral thinking, and it is the sort of thing that those of us who have rejected Judeo-Christian ethics in favor of Humanism thought we were getting away from. But this backward notion that the “sins of the fathers” project moral responsibility on subsequent generations is exactly what underlies the White Guilt discourse. This shame-based thinking is a shallow, irrational and self-indulgent approach to the moral evil of racism.
James Coley says
Albert Ellis, the founder of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, developed a technique in which he would seek to understand the pathology of his clients by formulating their illness as an argument in logic. Then, if a flaw in the argument can be revealed, the disorder might at least be identified if not cured. I think it is appropriate to apply this technique here. This is, at least, the best I can do to get a better understanding of why someone who is anti-racist would think that they should identify themselves as a racist. Here is the argument.
(1) The people who are guilty of racism are racists.
(2) People who benefit from racism are guilty of racism.
(3) I benefit from racism (by White privilege).
Therefore, (4) I am guilty of racism (by (2) and (3)).
Therefore, (5) I am a racist (by (1) and (4)).
Perhaps “responsible for” would be better than “guilty of” because the problem here might be more a matter of incorrectly identifying responsibility than it is a matter of personal feelings of guilt.
In any case, the flaw is obvious. This argument is valid, but it is not sound, and that is because premise (2) is plainly false. So is (2)’ if we choose to frame this in terms of responsibility instead of guilt.
(2)’ People who benefit from racism are responsible for racism.
Maybe another source of this is that (2)’ is confused with (6).
(6) People who benefit from racism are responsible for fighting against racism.
Now this has some plausibility, but it still does not get you to (5).
Berkeley Grimball says
I believe that the the sins of the fathers is a powerful and valid way to look at how difficult it is for us as individuals to overcome our background, history and influences. How hard it is to not become our parents and not pass on our hurts and insecurities to our children.
However where is the logical end to blaming ourselves for the sins of our ancestors as a group/society.If I find that my DNA connects me to the steppes of central Asia am I culpable for the actions of Attila and Genghis?
Michael Werner says
Interestingly I have been involved with this issue lately. Bluntly, appealing to liberal white guilt has worked. Marginalizing white people is just as wrong as anyone else. There is some truth that no white person can totally understand white privilege, but I don’t understand completely a lot of things including animal suffering, quantum mechanics, what is it like to be bat, or my even my own mind. Self degradation isn’t the answer to solving racism. Hard work is. See http://www.racialtaboo.com
Name Withheld says
This link is to a moving video and narration of a Langston Hughes poem that t I find relevant:
http://colorofchange.org/amovementgrows/?akid=4642.1468994.4nQExp&rd=1&t=2
James Coley says
Thank you for the link to the video. It is indeed moving, and it is important to remember the horrific violence Langston Hughes refers to, and the connection of that violence to racism.
However, it is not directly relevant to whether Randy Best is a racist, or the larger question of the White Guilt ideology which ignores the difference between White privilege and racism.
James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were killed by the KKK in Mississippi in 1964, and according to Randy two of these martyrs of the civil rights movement were racists, because of the color of their skin.
When Dylann Roof shot dead nine people in Charleston in June, he reportedly said “You rape our women, and you’re taking over our country, and you have to go.” This was particularly bizarre considering that six of the victims were women.
His was a violent expression of the mindset of collective responsibility, which is at the conceptual foundation of racism. This is the same mindset assumed by the White Guilt ideology, which holds all White people collectively responsible for racism and, therefore, deems them racists.
I have three questions for anyone who has been following this thread, and has read Randy’s post. Please answer these directly so that we can engage in a genuine dialectic here on this blog. It will be clear what I think the answers are, but maybe I’m wrong. If so, please reason with me and show me why.
First, does any of this make sense? Does it make sense to call Goodman and Schwerner racists? Does it make sense to oppose the mindset of collective responsibility by indulging it?
Second, what good does it do Black people, or the cause of racial justice, for a bunch of White people who are against racism to call themselves racists? Isn’t that about them assuaging their own sense of shame and guilt?
Thirdly, why should someone join, or remain loyal to, Ethical Culture and Humanism, which supposedly offers a serious intellectual community in addition to what is offered by Sunday Assembly, when the intellectual standards are so low as to countenance and even promote crackpot ideas? If we are seeking sense and goodness without God, and say that we believe in reason, shouldn’t we be careful to develop our ideas so that they make sense and stand up to rational scrutiny?
Robert F vonBriesen says
1) Do not know enough about Goodman or Schwermer to know their prejudices or if they could be classified as racists; 2) I do not agree that only white people can be Racists; my experience has revealed more people of color with hostility against whites than the other way; 3) What ‘crackpot’ ideas, or do you mean anyone who does not agree with your opinions?
I am a 2nd generation American, my roots here only go back to the early 1900’s. MY people had nothing to do with slavery or racism; however, we experienced discrimination for many years because we were of German and Slovak descent and very poor. Germans were not very popular for at least 50 years after my father’s parents arrived; Slovaks were not treated with respect either.
I know what it requires to work your way up from the bottom of the rubbish pile; it’s not by someone feeling sorry for you or guilty about them selves. It is from hard work and determination to reach a goal. Why is there no recognition in this discussion of the millions of black people who are leading successful lives ? Are we to assume that every black person is a victim of discrimination and that there are no opportunities in this country for a black person to participate in the ‘American Dream”?
That IS a ‘crackpot idea’.
James Coley says
Thanks for engaging in the dialectic. I will reply to the items in your first paragraph by number. As for the rest of your comment, I agree that there are other groups besides Black people who have suffered unjust discrimination, and that there are many opportunities for Black people in the United States. The worry is whether there is, overall, an equal level of opportunity for Black people, and it seems to me that there is not.
(1) I think you missed the point of what I was saying about the “Mississippi Burning” victims of 1964, but my presentation was compressed, so allow me to elaborate just a bit right now.
Whatever prejudices Goodman or Schwermer may have had are irrelevant. All that matters is that these two were White. On Randy’s view, any White person has White privilege and is therefore a racist.
Thus, Goodman and Schwermer, two martyrs of the civil rights movement who were killed by the KKK, were racists, according to Randy’s logic. What I’m showing is a reductio ad absurdum of his position.
It is absurd to call civil rights martyrs racists, just as it would be absurd to call an Allied soldier killed in World War II a Nazi. But that is just the kind of consequence that follows if we accept the position that White privilege equals or entails racism. This is really meant as just one possible example, and you could easily generate many more of the same type that demonstrate the obviously absurd consequences of this idea.
(2) The position Randy put forth in his “I am a Racist” blog post is that all White people are racists because they have White privilege, not that only White people are racists, although I would expect that he holds this latter view as well. I accept neither view, as I believe that racism should be understood as an ethical violation, not in terms of groups in conflict.
In my view Black people can be racist against White people, even if there is more racism by White people against Black people. (Likewise, women can be sexist against men, even if there is more sexism by men against women.) The point it that no one should ever be racist (or sexist), and this is because it is unethical, not because we should adopt the interests of one group rather than another in our ethics.
(3) Of course I’m not saying that anyone who does not agree with me is a crackpot. Crackpot ideas are those that do not stand up to even elementary rational scrutiny, or reflect psychological motivations that distort reason such as guilt, paranoia, racism or animosity against a particular religion or nationality.
Name Withheld says
I propose another proof:
1. Randy is a sincere and honesty person
2. Randy’s piece on racism, necessarily, is sincere and honest
Therefore, Randy considers himself a racist.
I think we can all agree that Randy is not and would not withdraw any progeny from an integrated school or cross the street to avoid meeting a person of another race on the sidewalk or wear a white hood with some indecipherable symbols stitched onto it. Most humanists would not do these things, but many people who can be characterized as Caucasian (although I’ve just created the term melanin-depleted Africans (MDAs) to adjust for this geographical misunderstanding) engage in racist speech, thinking and behavior on a daily basis and we MDAs who do not persistently challenge our government and corporations and communities and individuals to stop trading in explicit racist behaviors are culpable by affiliation. A person of African heritage (which includes, of course, people who are not African-American, but are from the many other countries to which Africans have emigrated and thrived) cannot be sure of how we MDAs think about them as we approach them on the street or see them in a store or driving down a road and we, the non-explicitly racist MDAs, are still wrestling with what we can do to stop the explicitly racist MDAs from treating them badly, planning to treat them badly, hurting them emotionally or physically, and allowing this grim history of ours to march forward without making it completely unacceptable for the explicitly racist to behave in ways that are morally depraved.
What can we do about this? Continue to hold our politicians, government agencies (national, state, local), corporations, communities to account when we become aware of explicitly racist or subtly racist behaviors. How are we doing? Not so well. Voter ID laws, lack of diversity in hiring, increasing tide of segregation in spite of the ’60s.
I don’t think Randy is a racist, of course. I think he is probably doing everything he can honestly think to do to eliminate racism, but I get his point and feel that this should be respected.