Is Racism Something you ARE, or Something You DO?

[alcibiades_mystery]

There's been a lot of talk about race on these boards of late, mostly, it seems, spurred by the quality (or lack thereof) of Crash and the Best Original Song winner at the Academy Awards. I think such discussion is a good thing. In the 1990's, we were supposed to have a national conversation about race, but the conversation went nowhere. After Katrina, we were supposed to have a similar conversation, but it fizzled fairly quickly. Is it impossible to have such a conversation? I don't know, but it makes people very uncomfortable.

During the recent conversations here, I noticed one of my main disputes with some people centered around the following difference: they think racism is something you ARE, while I think it is something you DO. Perhaps we can have a discussion on this question. I'd first like to explain the distinction, then I'll explain why I think it is important.

The "something you are" thesis supposes that people are racists, that racism is inherent in individuals. This is the most common understanding of racism. So, some Storm-front white supremacy guy is a racist, even when he's just sitting on his couch playing a video game. He can stop being a racist, of course (think American History X), but until he does, his quality as a racist is complete: it attaches to his person.

The "something you do" thesis supposes that racism exists outside individuals, but needs individuals to function. This takes a little more doing. Here, opinions and actions are racist, but they do not inhere in individuals. Rather, they circulate socially. Think of it like a virus. A virus exists outside individuals, but needs individuals to function. The upshot here is that people are not racist: rather, opinions and actions are racist, but these exist socially. A person performs racism only when he or she puts these opinions and actions into operation. So, the same Storm-front dude would not be a racist when he is just eating an ice cream cone, say, but he would be performing racism when writing some hate screed for the web site. The tough part here is in thinking opinions and actions as impersonal social entities. We like to think of our "opinions" as our own, some precious possession of our Selves. But, in fact, most opinions (all?) are developed socially and held in common. The idea that for every effect there is a cause may be your belief, but it is first off a social belief held in common. The same, I would argue, goes for racist thought and actions: they are first off social products; they only infect individuals. They are not an individual's private possession.

So, why is this distinction important? First off, it heads off the objection that one can deny racist action by referring to heritage (the Condoleeza Rice Problem). So, you'll see a lot of this: "How can I be racist against black people? I am black myself!" The first thesis would make this objection valid, but the second calls it into question. As an example: A black person holds the opinion that most black people are lazy and stupid. This is clearly a racist thought, almost by definition, but our friend would argue that she can't be racist, because she is black. The second thesis would say that it doesn't matter what your culture is: since it is the opinion that is racist, and not you, we can very easily begin to look at it regardless of your cultural heritage. In this case, a black person would be seen to hold a racist opinion against other black people, and her own cultural heritage would be irrelevant.

It heads off a far more dangerous objection as well. On the show America's Next Top Model last night, one of the contestants was making some racist points (about affirmative action). When called on it, she said something to the effect of "You don't know how I feel inside, and inside I know that I'm not a racist." Now, this may seem like a silly example, but I would argue that this is precisely the response that most people give: "I AM not a racist (and, as a correlate, you would be unable to show that I was a racist anyway, because you don't have access to my closed off interiority)."

The second thesis will have none of this. It doesn't matter, for the second thesis, whether you "are" a racist, nor is it necessary to refer to your private, interior world to demonstrate racism. If racism exists only in operation (call it racist pragmatics), then we look at the actions and opinions themselves, and not at the person performing them. The question would not be "Is this person a racist?" but rather "Is that opinion racist? Is that action racist?" Such a view also gets us out of the idea that either one IS a racist wholly or one IS NOT. One could be perfectly progressive in most of his thought and actions, but still perform racism in a particular way with one opinion (the "black friends" problem). The second thesis allows a discussion of opinions and actions without - one hopes - provoking the familiar defensive postures that people quite rightly assume when accused of being racists.

I wanted to lay out this distinction and its consequences primarily to spur a discussion. I'm certainly not looking for a flame war, and I think I've been guilty of flaming quite a bit on this question. Here I'd like to draw back from that and examine the question theoretically, and I apologize to those I got into it with; I was often out of line. But I think the discussion is important. So, my question (with apologies to Morrissey): Is racism something we are, or something we do, or something in between? Can we talk about racism without immediately attaching it to people? And is there any benefit in doing so?