I have heard it said that blacks cannot be racist. I have heard this thesis advanced by blacks with the conviction that is appropriate only for a manifestly obvious self-evident truth such as the claim that “Newborn Infants need protection and care; otherwise, they will die”. Everything anyone has ever experienced in the world confirms the truth of this statement about newborns. But the very idea that blacks cannot be racist seems radically counterintuitive from the outset. I shall end this essay on a provocative note by talking about moral healing and systematic child sexual abuse.
Now, no one in her or his right mind thinks that blacks cannot be biased or that blacks cannot hold distorted views about non-blacks or, for that matter, even about blacks. Surely the thought on the part of blacks cannot possibly be that everything that blacks believe about themselves or others is true. If that isn’t turning self-love (or whatever the parallel to a group might be) into a vice, then I do not know what is. No one has a monopoly on truth regardless of the topic.
Still, many blacks are utterly convinced that blacks cannot be racist. And that cries out for an explanation.
The typical case of racism is that of believing without justification or reasonable warrant that a people are inferior, whether the inferiority be intellectual or moral. And, of course, we know that racism against blacks is tied to this belief about black inferiority.
Does this much shed any light on why blacks think that they cannot be racist? Perhaps. The thought, I suppose, is that blacks most certainly cannot be racist towards whites. And the thought here might be that there has never been any of the social machinery in place to deliver this conclusion about whites by blacks. And if whites have been racist, then the belief that whites are racist is a belief that is not without reasonable warrant.
But the most that this shows is not that blacks cannot be racist at all, but something much more limited, namely that certain feelings of hostility on the part of blacks towards whites do not in any way have a racist underpinning. But, alas, this victory is more hollow than is supposed.
Why? Because feelings of hostility towards an individual can be most objectionable morally, although these feelings have nothing whatsoever to do with viewing the individual as inferior. Jealousy, for instance, can occasion sustained feelings of hostility without there being the least thought that the person who is the object of the jealousy is in someway inferior.
Evil is not exhausted by racism. My soul can be free of racism, but full of greed, jealousy, cruelty and vindictiveness. And if these four traits consume my soul, then I am a pretty horrible person. That I am a horrible person towards everyone is not exactly a reason to take pride in myself. Far from it.
In other words: The absence of racism on the part of blacks, if indeed that is the case, most certainly does not entail the presence of virtue in general on the part of blacks. More generally, the truth that one is not racist does not thereby warrant a claim to moral superiority on one’s part.
Racism is a very complex phenomenon. And the truth of the matter is that one can be racist but generous, and not racist but utterly greedy. It is easy to miss this because we associate racism with cruelty. But the belief in the intellectual inferiority of a people, as was often the case with blacks, is quite compatible with being generous towards that very same group. By contrast, a host of other vices often require that the people in question are not inferior in the relevant way. It takes an unusual story to talk about being jealous of the village idiot (merely as idiot) or the hideous looking person (merely for being hideous appearance).
Thus far, I have pointed out that even if given the history of social development blacks are not apt to be racist towards whites, this is nonetheless compatible with blacks having a host of despicable attitude towards whites, none of which are rendered more palpable merely because blacks are not racist. Truth be told, I might in fact prefer that a person be racist than that the individual should make me an object of his unbridled greed, vindictiveness, and jealousy.
In any case, what is interesting is that there is no reason whatsoever to think that blacks cannot be racist towards non-whites: Asians or Native Americans or Latinos. That is, even if it is true, for historical reasons, that blacks are not likely to be racist towards whites, this truth does not entail that blacks are just as unlikely to be racist towards other groups.
It is simply a myth that if one is a victim of racism, then one is on that account alone free of all racism. Blacks have held this thought and Jews have held this thought. It is an absolutely untenable thought in either case. This amounts to none other than a form of self-righteousness with respect to not being racist.
Let me clear here. I think that one can have impeccable reasons for believing that one is not racist, just as one can have impeccable reasons for believing that one is kind or talented. But that impeccable reason with regard to the first is not the truth that one is or was a victim of racism. It is an incontrovertible truth that victims of wrongdoing can see though quite tarnished lenses. For instance, the female victim of rape who now thinks that all men are would-be rapist simply has gotten it wrong. This holds even if she is right in thinking that all men remain sexist. For a man’s sexism can take a form that is far removed from rape.
Alas, what often gets in the way of seeing the world in the right way is just the fact that we have been so scarred. Consider the following truth: people who have been victims of systematic child sexual abuse never get it quite right in the absence of considerable psychological help. They will often have issues with true throughout their lives.
Why would anyone think that things would be any different when it comes to having experienced sustained social injustice of a very egregious kind? In the typical case, being the victim of extreme wrongdoing makes it very, very difficult for a healthy self-concept to gain traction once again in one’s life. This truth points to why those who in fact surmount such wrongdoing have a near invincible sense of self (not to be confused with arrogant sense of self).
So I shall conclude with something of a dilemma: For any minority group who claims that they cannot be racist, I hold the following: Either they are (a) more psychologically scarred than they might ever be able to acknowledge in the absence of some form of social therapy or (b) utterly vicious individuals using the charge of racism for purposes of self-aggrandizement and silencing others. If the latter, it does not matter that they cannot be racist; for they are already wicked enough.
