here ought to be a new moral category—moral profiteering.  We have moral profiteering when a person inappropriately applies excoriating moral labels to a situation.  So we have moral profiteering when a person calls something racist or sexist or homophobic when in truth that this is inappropriate. 

Moral profiteering is exceedingly dangerous.  It is exceedingly malicious.  It is invariably about gaining moral leverage and/or silencing another.  Thus, I show that I am quite the thoughtful male if I refer to a disparity between women and men as sexist when, alas, a bit of reflection reveals otherwise.  Similarly, a person shows that she has the right sensibilities with respect to race when characterizes a differential between whites and non-whites, where the non-whites have the advantage, as racist—though, once more, a quite different explanation presents itself readily enough. 

Recently, I was talking with an individual who thought it racist that a high school teacher recommended that she study French rather than Spanish.  Now, of course, we know that from a practical standpoint Spanish is much more useful in the United States than French.  But for better or worse, it is simply a fact that French was once considered the international language, notwithstanding the fact that Spain was ruled the seas; and we know that in philosophy, for instance, the French language serves a person better than the Spanish language.  With these last two points in mind, a high school teacher could most certainly recommend French over Spanish without being racist.  The teacher could also recommend French or Italian, too—and for just about the same reasons unless, of course, the student is clearly headed for a career in opera.

But, alas, it is so much more chic to make the charge of racist.  If one is white and does this, then quite naturally one thereby gains points for exhibiting moral sensibilities with regard to others.  If, on the other hand, one is a minority and does this, then verbally intimidated non-whites.  After all, what on earth can a non-minority say to the charge of racism, and not be seen as racist, except: “You are absolutely right”.  For the unspoken rule is that a non-minority who challenges the charge of racism is ipso facto racist. 

Here, again, this is to turn the charge of racism or sexism into a kind of performative utterance.  This is bad enough, but the approach also precludes from the conversation very important considerations.  For instance, while something could on the face of it seem sexist or racist, the person who is so accused might very well have a sufficiently complicated intentional-structure that suffices to block the charge. 

I vividly recall a rabbi who was nearly blind, but who had pretty much memorized the pathways of the Oberlin College campus along which he routinely traveled.  So from my perspective, since I barely knew him at the time, it seemed to me that he could see perfectly well.  Moreover, whenever we did talk he was always very warm and friendly.  Accordingly, I was rather stunned that he would all but walk right pass me when we were coming towards one another on the very same sidewalk and he was alone.  I would always speak, but it was very clear that had I not spoken, he would have walked right pass me. 

So there I was faced with two rather incompatible scenarios: a rabbi (no less) who seemed ever so friendly when I talked to him in his office or in the student lounge, but who could manage to walk right pass me when he was walking alone on the sidewalk.

I could have called him names.  Indeed, I could have attributed to him a very subtle form of racism.  What I did, in fact, was ask him why he would all but walk pass me on the sidewalk.  Needless to say, I was absolutely stunned to learn that he legally blind and that he had memorized the pathways that he routinely took.  That possibility never ever crossed my mind. 

The moral of the story is this.  As wrong as racism, sexism, homophobia, and the like might be, I maintain that before we apply labels of to an individual we have an obligation—it is an act of moral decency—to inquire into the nature of a person’s behavior when its idiosyncratic character pulls us in a variety of directions.  Obviously, the possibility to make such an inquiry has to be there. 

The wrong of racism and sexism lies in the willy-nilly application of labels to blacks and women, respectively, notwithstanding the moral complexity of their reality. 

Well, the truth of the matter is that reality is morally complex for all of us.  And it is morally wrong—indeed, it can be downright vicious—not to be mindful of this truth with regard to all human beings. 

Ms. Rachel Collins supposed that my failure to see her point of view has much to do with my being male.  Suppose, though, that I were a white male who had suffered a physical handicap from birth.  I succeeded, let us suppose, because I had managed not to let the routine mockery that came from people get to me.  So my stance might still from the depths of my personal experience, yet my being a white male would not be the decisive factor.  The decisive factor would be that I was born with a defect. 

No decent person is inclined to deny the invidious character of racism and sexism.  But it is a mistake to suppose that genuine moral anguish and hardship are occasioned only by experiences such as these.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  And insofar as this is the implicit assumption of people who invoke the charge of either racism or sexism a most egregious error has been made.

I shall make this point in a very personal way.  To hear some people tell it, those who have had to contend with racism or sexism or both have to contend with so much wrongdoing on so many fronts that only their lives merit admiration.  Kyle Maynard is a white male who was born with truncated limbs on all four accounts.  Needless to say, only a fool would dare maintain that it would be better to born a Kyle Maynard, a white male of all things, than a black or a woman—or even a black woman. 

Women and minorities do not have a monopoly on moral admiration.  And this fact alone makes it abundantly clear that it is a mistake to trivialize the moral complexity of those who are neither women nor minorities. 

I am struck by the fact that there is so much hatred in the world nowadays.  I lay a lot of the blame at the feet of those who engage in what I call moral profiteering.  This is not because I have any desire to reject or minimize the reality of the wrong racism or sexism, but because I think that this endeavor, as laudable as it might be, must not come at the expense of those who are morally innocent.  Claiming that all men are rapist or that all whites are racist is rather like the suicide bomber who claims that little children on a school bus are without innocence.   

Quite simply, moral profiteering is none other than one of the handmaidens of evil.