f there is one thing Barack Obama got absolutely right, it is that race is an extremely complicated issue in the United States; and it is complicated for a multitude of reasons.  One of these reasons is what I call racial profiteering.  We have racial profiteering when a minority either (a) makes race an issue when it is not or (b) a minority assumes that she or has a measure of immunity given her or his race.  I engage in racial profiteering, for instance, if because I am black I fail to perform my professional responsibilities knowing full well that out of fear of being called racist my administration or colleagues will not criticize me for my irresponsibility.  If I am right, then, the problem is not just that racism still exist, but racial profiteering has become ever so fashionable.  Obama saw the former, but not the latter. 

It is sometimes said that blacks cannot be racist, which is an absurd view if racism is understand as having a distorted and woefully unwarranted view of another ethnic group.  Being black does not give one immunity in this regard.  Moreover, being black hardly gives one deep, deep insight into all other minorities.

Human beings make lots of mistakes; and a mistake need not flow from racism at all, even if the object of that mistake is a minority.  Sometimes we make a mistake because we are transiting from one context to another, and we unwittingly bring a little of the previous context to the new context.  Supposing I am talking with one friend about kissing a French male friend of mine on each cheek and I turn to talk to an American female friend of mine about people kissing in public: I might unthinkingly use the example of me kissing her in public and this causes her to think that I am in some way inappropriately flirting with her or trying to come-on to her.  

Am I sexist?  Absolutely not.  And I would hope that if I explained what was going on to my female friend, she would understand how I ended up making that faux pas.  There is all the difference in the world between a faux pas and either racism or sexism.  The difference is incredibly real even if it takes great skill and insight in order to determine whether we have one or the other.

Racial profiteering, then, can be defined as insisting what one has every reason to believe is a faux pas into a charge of vicious racism.  Here is a nice example.  There is the word “schmuck”, which is Yiddish for the word “dick”.   

Now, people use the word schmuck all the time.  Just so, a non-Jew calling a Jew a schmuck can be a little awkward.  Not quite on a par with a white calling a black a “nigger,” but sufficiently close.  So suppose that a black guy says to his Jewish acquaintance, Schlomo, “Those three Jews were really schmucks”.  This could make Scholomo feel uneasy.  Yet, it would be important for Schlomo to understand that his black acquaintance was using the term in the usual way that people often do when expressing anger about someone.  Would Schlomo understand this?

This question holds even more so when it comes to the issue of racism and blacks.  What can a white person say?  Way too often, a white person finds himself between a rock and a hard place.  The white is either being stereotypical or failing to appreciate black culture.  For instance, try being white and saying that “Blacks dance particularly well’ or that “There is too much violence in the black community”.  One is very likely to be attacked as a deep, deep, deep racist, no matter what one has done on behalf of blacks.  That is racial profiteering. 

One consequence of racial profiteering is that the charge of racism has become rather empty of its moral significance.  Instead, it has become none other than a weapon of convenience.  And for this, everyone pays a heavy price.

Social interaction at its best is all about individuals displaying enormous sensitivity to the nuances of their social interaction.  Thus, when a male student says to me, as has happened, “I love you,” I should be sensitive to the nuances of the moment.  The male student is not “coming on” to me.  Rather, he is merely expressing a measure of fondness for the kind of person that I am.  No more, but certainly no less. 

How do I know that?  Well, the location of the utterance “I love you” tends to be a dead give way.  Recently, this has been said at the Campus Copy Center at Marshall Square Mall and at the end of a lecture when conversing with a number of students.  So what we do not have, at all, is an intense eyeball-to-eyeball moment where we both are alone together.  And that is hardly a trivial factor.

Universities, I believe, have contributed to racial profiteering in that more often than not minority students are painfully aware of their power vis à vis white professors.  It takes nothing to accuse a white professor of racism and an awful lot for the professor to clear her or his good name of that charge.  And universities have created that reality.

Alas, that reality is not good for universities and it is not good for minorities.  Commonsense makes this much clear.  But, alas, it would seem that there is more to Lord Acton’s saying than I would like to admit: “Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely”.  We can be so besotted with our own power that we in fact undermine ourselves.  This was true of Hitler and this can be true of minorities. 

Hitler refused to listen to his advisors about the kind difficulties that his soldiers faced in this or that battle.  This is why he lost some major battles.  Minorities can be an impediment to their own learning precisely because racial profiteering permits than to wallow in mediocrity, since they can always accuse the professor of racism should the professor dare to call them to excellence.

Few of us will be excellent without the exhortations of others.  And to this truth, minorities will not be the exception.  The problem, alas, is that they are often too besotted with the power that racial profiteering accords them to grasp and be animated by this reality.

We cannot be the society that we ought to be if we ignore the difference between a faux pas and an act of racism.  If this is right, then universities need to take a more subtle approach in their just fight against racism in distinguishing the faux pas from racism.  That is the morally responsible thing to do.  And that truth used to be a great source of moral and psychological motivation.  That is no longer the case; and that is a very poignant sign of the time. 

No society can flourish if it is ideologically committed to ignoring real and profound differences.  And in this regard, minorities are the ones who can make the greatest difference; for with regard to matters of racism, minorities are the ones who have the greatest power.