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December 06, 2003
Indecency vs Injustice
I've stumbled across a polite discussion on decorum. If I had a better grounding in the classics, I'm sure that I could find some period piece, one excoriating the dictates of excruciating manners which aptly applies here. I'm impressed.
It's rather stunning to me that such a detailed analysis of racism takes place in an environment in which racism is so patently weak. And I think it goes to the question of the not only the bizarre directions of anti-racism (which I think is failing) but also to the inability for us to recognize the challenges of civil society. As these outrages in microcosm keep finding their way to us on a regular basis, what are we to think?
As I was learning and coming to the evaluate the finer points of developing an anti-racist ethos I dealt with a seeming contradiction. That was that as a member of the upper middle class of blackfolks and whitefolks I was more sensitive to racism than my downscale peers. A racist comment against a black judge for example, is both more egregious in its audacity and less painful in its effect than the same slur directed at a black janitor. For what we understand about the racist stereotypes against blacks, intelligence and probity said to be lacking. Since a judge, by the very nature of the work they do demonstrates such qualities regularly, we must conclude that it must certainly be a more insidious racist who would slander a judge.
It was this sensitivity that made me wrong-headed at the time. I used to brag about such sensitivity ("I'm sensitive like a mighty telescope") Yet the idea that being able to pick out the weakest singals of racism as if they were trace evidence of the big bang, attractive as it might seem, may not be particularly useful. In fact it can be counterproductive if it drowns out the noise of complaint for more consequential racist actions. This what I hear in such polite conversations.
It is a simple fact that racism is stupid and wrong. It is stupid because it is so amply evident that it is wrong, so anyone who argues from a racist position does so in contravention of the science and sociology of generations. Although there are many intelligent people who believe racist ideas, there are very few criminal masterminds using subtle strains of racism in their conspiracies. So the point of raising the charge in such situations is a questionable one. Is it racist? Yes. Racism which is subtle is costly nonetheless, but decorum is not politics. Consequently, the response to an egregious breach of manners in a business meeting should vary greatly from that of dealing with a racist police department. What is required in such situations is a good shushing, or a literal slap on the wrist (with a metal ruler, as we suffered to our benefit in Catholic School). What is not required are the trappings of politics including grand public announcements, new rules of conduct, or heaven forbid policy and speech codes.
It is the failure of the extra-sensitive to recognize that they are demanding decorum and not justice. Such offenses as the use of racial epithets either directly or indirectly are not injustices, they are lapses of tact and restraint. People who speak ugly might be racist plotters, or they might not be. So the line of inquiry one should pursue if one is indeed sensitive should determine whether or not said scofflaw is masterminding a racist conspiracy, or if they are another ordinary Joe with skidmarks on his underwear.
What certainly needn't be done is a great loudmouthing or self-congratulation as if the outing of someone who said 'nigger' is the fulfillment of MLK's prophecy. For my part, I'll suspend the Bubble Boy Awards until the world has read this essay.
Posted by mbowen at December 6, 2003 09:38 AM
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Comments
Some time ago I saw a movie segment -- on TV? -- where one character described drawing a circle in the sand and putting a scorpion inside the circle. The scorpion would not cross the line. So you draw another line bisecting the circle. The scorpion would now stay inside its half. You then bisect that half and the scorpion, being averse to crossing lines, would move about within a mere quarter. You draw another line and another and by that time the scorpion is so confined and conflicted that it stings itself to death.
Well, that's what all this perverse magnification of minor racial slights is about. These academics are hell-bent on stinging themselves to death. While, at the same time, being pretty much obvlivious to the main action out there in REALITY. It's nuts.
No society can operate effectively without slop and slack. These over-educated yahoos are bound and determined to squeeze all of the slack out of the system. They way I see it, they might as well sign up with the KKK because they're hooked on the same one-drop illusion about purity.
Posted by: Bill Benzon at December 9, 2003 03:11 PM