WHAT’S THE POINT?
I guess I’m in good company these days since I’ve been labeled a racist. That puts me in the same company as Mexico’s president Vicente Fox and world-famous comedian Bill Cosby.
I personally don’t agree with that characterization, of me, or of them. I think that the sledgehammer of being called a racist is used by those who are hearing what they don’t want to hear in an effort to squash the truth of the statements.
If Social Security is the Third Rail of American Politics, then race, and its discussions, is the nuclear core that one should not go into without an asbestos suit.
Racism — the Oxford dictionary defines it as “the belief that all members of a race possess specific characteristics or abilities so as to distinguish them as superior or inferior.” It continues on, to state that racism “is also comprised of a prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed at someone of a different race based on such a belief.”
Thus, to be a racist, by the dictionary definition, one must believe that all members of a race have a specific trait, and then use that belief to discriminate against an individual member of the race.
So in order for me to be a racist, I would have to believe that all black people have one thing in common, which is unique to them as a race. According to the African Population Project — a collaborative effort between Colorado State University and the Poudre School District — the African population is 10 percent of the world. For the sake of discussion, let’s just assume it’s correct, and guesstimate that population at 200 million people.
But that is not all the black population in the world. There are black people in America — they are called African Americans. They make up 10 percent of America, so that’s another 30 million or so.
Then there are the blacks in the Caribbean, Central and South America, and throughout Europe. Let’s just pick a round number, again for discussion’s sake and call it another 30 million people.
That makes about 260 million black people in the world, or about one-eighth of the total population globally.
What kind of trait would possibly be so endemic that it could cross cultures, languages, geographic boundaries, biology, and not mutate? Beyond the obvious answer that all members of the black race are at risk for a certain type of disease, the same way that the Ashkenazi Jewish, some French Canadians, and the Louisiana Cajun people are at risk for Tay-Sachs disease, there is very little that every member of the 260 million black population has in common with each other.
As humans, we categorize. We think in pictures and we try to make life manageable by breaking it down into the smallest parts so that we can think in the quickest manner. Frequently this human trait is invaluable. We need to be able to discern who is a crazy lunatic and who is just eccentric. We need, as humans, to make decisions and determinations about people in every transaction and interchange we have.
The problem is that the trait which is useful most of the time is sometimes not so accurate. For example, there’s a man I know who has a grey scraggly beard, and long stringy grey hair, and he wears paint-covered old ratty jeans, and a well-worn baseball cap. Frankly, he looks like a homeless person. Turns out though, he is an artist, is self-supporting and leads quite a respectable life.
Judging people based on a few pieces of information is usually faulty. I’ve had business relationships with people who looked, and grew up, like me, and they lied and cheated, stole and embezzled from me and their other business partners. They committed heinous fraud and mismanagement, and then slunk away in the middle of the night without the good manners to at least forthrightly tell us that the business had been run into the ground.
I’ve had business relationships with people who were nothing like me superficially, and they were the nicest, most honest, trustworthy people I could imagine.
It is a mistake to say that all people of any group are a certain way.
True racism comes from ignorance and an inability to look at one’s self squarely. The inability to face facts and truth is the heart and soul of the racist.
This is not to say that I don’t have racist thoughts. I do. I believe most of us do — particularly when we are angry, scared or frustrated. The question is what do we do with those thoughts. Our thoughts are not our actions. And in life it is our actions that matter and upon which we are judged.
President Fox said that Mexicans are doing “jobs that even blacks won’t take in America.” His statement was poorly worded, his use of the word “blacks” was inelegant and inaccurate, but the truth of its meaning is real. Mexicans are doing work that no one else is willing to do.
Cosby stood up and said that parents who spend $500 on sneakers but don’t buy education materials are at least partly to blame for their own lack of success in society. That’s a true statement. Of course, it could also be said about white crackers who go to Monster Truck rallies rather than read a book.
The terms “racism” and “racist,” have become the battle cry of the weak, those people who are incapable of clearly articulating their thoughts and emotions. It has become the sledgehammer used to end discussion, when, if anything, it should be a source point for discussion to begin.
Racism exists. I don’t deny that. I just think that we need to discuss what it is before we go hurling it about as the nuclear weapon of politics. (David Pisarra is a business development lawyer in the Santa Monica firm of Pisarra & Grist. He welcomes your questions and comments. He or (310) 664-9969.)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 24, 2005. Read the original PDF.