From the expulsion of Vox Day from SFWA to the recent controversy over the planned showing of Disney’s Song of the South at Worldcon, racism, sexism, and other isms seem to have become the topic du jour.
It’s a subject that gets everyone riled up, and often accompanied by phrases like “I’m not racist, but…”
Yeah, bullshit.
Thing is, we live in an extremely racist society on a planet full of racist people. It’s in Switzerland, Japan, and in the United States, which needs no linked evidence.
Somewhere back in the depths of time, the us vs them mentality began, and it has been ingrained in the human way of doing things ever since. It was surely for self-defense originally.
I’ll be the one to say it. With the notable exception of severely mentally handicapped people who are overwhelmingly the most unconditionally loving human beings, everyone is racist.
Yes, even you. And me, for that matter. Yeah, even me, the guy inter-racially married with a multi-ethnic extended family. It’s there. It’s suppressed, but it’s still there.
I see it all the time, though. My wife, who is Filipina, is sometimes treated very differently by the same person before and after learning she is married to a white guy. Once, she was fired for purely and obvious racist reasons.
Truth is, the Filipino half of the family is easy to identify. My own mother was adopted and I have no ethnic information on that side of my family in terms of genetics. I’m half central European and half guesses.
Mary Robinette Kowal posted a short essay on the racism topic that is worth reading for a number of excellent points made.
As Mary states, even being careful not to offend or to do anything that might be considered racist is a sign of racism. While I think some of what Mary discussed convolves racism with culture, it’s also pretty clear that racism and culture are an inseparable amalgam. I had intended to post an essay trying to separate the two, but the more I think about it, the more complicated seems. If you say a reaction comes from culture, invariably you can say the culture stems from racism, which is a result of culture itself stemming from racism in a vicious circle.
Maybe the distinction doesn’t make all that much difference.
But the thing is, if everyone is racist, what are we to do about it? I don’t think it’s possible to eliminate racism, at least not until interracial breeding turns everyone the same shade of brown. Even then, humanity will find a way to stratify itself. For now, there are enough people who do not want to change, who do not care if they are racist, or who believe in their own supremacy and want to magnify their own racism. All of them stand in the way. It’s like cystic fibrosis, where the elements of racism are so intertwined with society and personality and culture that removal is impossible.
So, yes, we are all racist because we are human. All we can do is learn to recognize our own -isms and do our best not to act upon them.