Sunday, March 29, 2020
Racism and Screaming “Racism!”...
The race to see who can be more stupid.
I have no reason to doubt the findings of this article but would note that the phrase “hate speech” is often used in ways that are virtually meaningless. The fact that, out of millions of people, some exhibit mean-spirited attitudes toward some groups shouldn’t really come as a shock. Some people murder, many steal, some abuse their spouse or children. Practically everyone lies to some degree at some point in their lives...like, maybe every day?
Not to justify murder, theft, or lying but I personally can’t get that excited about the fact that humans are lame to reprehensible in some contexts. There are now plenty of laws against harming others or depriving others of fair treatment in employment and economic activity. ‘Not always applied fairly but often obsessed over none-the-less. Where it gets dumb is when law is used to punish peoples’ statements, or even thoughts. Mocking a widely criticized ethnic group du jour is certainly bad manners but...so what. In an era when a major target of scorn has become strait white males it’s hard to to get excited about another random or favored group of the day being criticized, justly or unjustly.
I’m not so sure that calling the Corona virus a Chinese virus or Chinese communist virus qualifies as hate speech. As a matter of fact, that’s what I call it. I hate communism. Currently the long suffering citizens of China are under the harsh rulership of the Chinese Communist Party. I have no doubt that there are plenty of people who are dumb enough to hate Chinese people because of their indirect association with the current pandemic. There are actually people refusing to drink Corona beer because ...they’re stupid. The government of China is certainly worthy of critical analysis and scorn over their underhanded dealings during the early stages of the virus (no doubt this continues).
Racism is a weird thing. I think if Chimpanzees’ brains were just a little bigger they may write poetry, invent simple tools, and hate the other group of chimps “over there” who’s ears happened to be shaped a little different. Of course human brains are big enough that we should be more aware when we’re doing something stupid but...’not the case.
The old Marxist scheme for demanding power played upon a phony sympathy for an “oppressed working class.” In societies where that phony ploy is rendered ineffective, they had to come up with a new groups to rally resentment and put intellectuals in charge. So it is now that we have a whole swarm of victims that can act as catalysts to the control freaks’ perennial quest for power. Some of the gripes are valid but even if they weren’t, the left would invent an injustice to whine about. The descendants of slaves were treated as third class ...slaves long after slavery ended. That’s a valid gripe. Now,the descendants of slaves should get their own special dorms on a college campus — not a very valid gripe. Gays are thrown off of roof tops in some Muslim countries. That’s something to “gripe about.” It’s not such a noble cause to resist parents who don’t want their pre-teen children going to “drag queen story hour” or having them told they can choose a different gender.
In the recent supposed “hate crime” epidemic directed against China, tacky comments on Twitter are conflated with pogroms and lynchings.
President Trump’s temporary and valid moniker for the Corona Virus as the “Chinese Virus” was, like anything Trump says, immediately branded another “dog whistle” to racists but that was more about Trump derangement syndrome than anything related to “racism.”
It’s a shame that “race” ever becomes an issue at all when, in fact, real points of conflict reflect cultural differences. Certainly, by coincidence, “European” is correlated with “white” just as most Sub Saharan African culture is “black.” When any race shows prejudice toward another they are ultimately assuming the target of their “racism” possesses particular behavior or cultural attributes. These observations of mere difference are often accurate – though neutral traits may be spun as negative. If one thought everyone with red hair was a thief their bad judgement would reveal more about their fear of theft than any real hatred for the color red. Stupid either way. If I look negatively upon a Central American with MS-13 tattooed across their face you may accuse me of prejudice against hispanics but in the end my generalizing serves a purpose whether my conclusions are just or not.
Different races with identical cultural, social, and economic attributes can typically coexist with little or no conflict. People of the same race but widely different social, cultural, and economic attributes will be notably suspicious if not hateful toward each other. Should this be surprising? I've noted before the comparison with having a roommate who is very different in character and values from us. Their “race” is irrelevant. It's ridiculous to demand that people of conflicting values and cultural attributes be forced into proximity. Preaching tolerance and preaching enforced cohabitation are entirely different things. Loud messy disorganized people do not tend to seek out the company of neat quite and organized people, or visa versa.
Much of the racial conflict that occurs today is the result of social planners seeking to force people of radically different cultural backgrounds into proximity and demanding that one group change its standards to accommodate another group's sentiments. Angela Merkel is not helping anyone by demanding that the established group living in Germany — Germans — transform their culture and in effect become Middle-eastern. In the U.S. the trend inspired by Marxist academia is to now see the bad guy as the strait white male of European decent. How is it not prejudiced or hateful to simply switch the target of derision?
These issues now present serious problems to humans everywhere. Decent and intelligent people can certainly see the folly in directing vitriol at strangers with different traits from our own. I wonder if using “hate speech” or perennially accusing others of racism might, in the end, be equally stupid.
