Racism exists.
As long as there are people who regard themselves as members of a race, and who simultaneously regard others as members of a different race, there will be opinions formed about races and the differences among them.
Racism is, by definition, the belief that race determines human traits, and that these racial differences produce an inherent superiority of one race or hierarchy among the races. Racism can also refer not only to beliefs but also to actions; prejudice, discrimination or antagonism directed against a person of a different race based on those beliefs.
I contend that racism is a fact of life; that no matter how fair any one person tries to be, that no matter how ardently a person believes that there are no inherent differences of any importance between the races, that at some level, there is at least a modicum of racism. Much like one might prefer the Eagles to the Cowboys, one prefers the company, physical features, or some other trait of one race to another. And that’s OK. It’d better be because racism among individual people is never going to disappear entirely.
Some time ago I came across an article by Sherina Ong on the blog “Everyday Feminism.” This collective blog (they call it a magazine), like so many others on the left, exudes cognitive dissonance. On the one hand, their vision statement reads, “We want to live in a world where every person (and we mean every single person) is treated with respect, directs their own lives, and reaches their full potential.” On the other hand, on a splash screen designed to convince readers to become members, they write, “…we don’t want you to face Trump and his kind without the unique resources we provide.” It looks like not everyone should be privileged with the same amount of unconditional respect after all.
The specific article I discovered was, “4 Reasons Why We’ve Got to Stop Using ‘Ethnic’ to Describe People of Color.”
In case you choose not to read the article, here is a summary of its chief points:
- Systemic racism is not only a real thing, but it’s rampant in our society.
- When we think about the word ethnic as it relates to humans, we think about brown people.
- When we think about the word ethnic as it relates to food, we think only about brown people’s foods, and not European food, and we expect brown people food to be cheap.
- People described as “ethnic” or “exotic” are also being described as something other than “normal” or “average.”
- Most white people identify as white only and have no regard for (or knowledge of) their actual ethnicity.
- This identity as only white sets white people as the norm and is the essence of white supremacy.
- Instead of “ethnic,” we should all use the much better phrase, “people of color,” because it is a term of empowerment that unifies non-white people in their common struggles against oppression.
Let me be honest with you: I found the article by Googling something along the lines of “ethnic white people.” Why? I ruminated because something had been sticking in my craw for a decade or so. It started when I was watching a YouTube video about a lovely little mid-west town. In the comments, someone wrote, “Why are there no ethnic people in your town? I couldn’t help myself, so I commented back, “Yeah. All of the citizens of this town are heritage-less, culture-less ghosts.” I’d direct you to the whole discussion, but the author has removed the video.
I didn’t think I could be more incredulous about others’ use of the word ethnic, yet here we are.
In her article, Ong departs from common sense right out of the gate with her support for a belief in systemic racism. She claims this in a country which is arguably the least racist multi-ethnic place in the world. And we’re getting less racist each year. In 1960, 60% of Americans said that they would never vote for a black president: in 2008 and 2012, we elected a black president.
Brookings scholar William H. Frey writes, “Sociologists have traditionally viewed multiracial marriage as a benchmark for the ultimate stage of assimilation of a particular group into society. For that to occur, members of the group will have already reached other milestones… similar levels of education, regular interaction in the workplace and community and, especially, some level of residential integration.”
In 1958, a Gallup Poll indicated that only 4% of Americans approved of interracial marriage, and until 1967, black/white marriages were illegal in 16 states. Today, 87% would give their blessing to a black/white marriage. In 1960, of all marriages by blacks, 1.7% were to whites. Today that figure is 12% and rising.
Liberal Harvard professor Orlando Patterson has said that America is the least racist white majority country in the world, has a better record of protections for people of all races, and offers more opportunity to a greater number of black persons than any other society, including all of those of Africa.
There is no systemic, institutional racism in the USA.
In the article, Ong’s main point is that the word “ethnic” conjures only images of brown people in the minds of Americans. I don’t know where this woman lives or with whom she likes to hang out, but what she’s describing reflects on the racism of her compadres, in my opinion. To this paler-than-most white person, ethnic means… ethnic. In fact, I find it deplorable that anyone would dare to regard whites as devoid of ethnicity. It’s highly offensive.
Ong makes the further assertion that when Americans think of ethnic foods, they are thinking of only “brown people’s foods,” such as Indian, Thai, Ethiopian, or Mexican dishes, and not French or other European fare. Furthermore, she writes, we expect this “brown people food” to be “dirt cheap,” and we get offended if we’re asked to pay more than $30 for a full meal.
Well, let’s begin with this: Again, I don’t know where this woman lives, but when any meal of any type goes above $12 a plate, I balk. Perhaps she’s in one of those huge metropolitan places conservatives have long since abandoned. If so, she’s describing the racism of her liberal friends only. She admits in the article that she used to think this way. I’m glad she’s left her racists roots, but to believe that she’s more enlightened than her readers and that we couldn’t possibly be already a few rungs higher than her on the ladder of racial harmony is just pure hubris.
But more to the point, well, actually, yes, we conservatives DO regard a French restaurant or a German delicatessen as ethnic. We absolutely do. When I go to my favorite Mexican restaurant, I expect ethnicity – Mexican cooks and servers, Mexican decorations. Mexican music. And when I want a German meal, I want to experience the same things with a German flair. I don’t want a German serving my ethnic Mexican food, and I don’t want a Mexican serving my ethnic German food. When I go to the Mexican restaurant, I want to speak some Spanish to my server, and when I go to the German place, I want to speak some German to my server.
If I order a taco, I don’t expect it to cost as much as a heaping plate of Eisbein, Rotkohl, and Kartoffelsalat. That should be obvious. But no one that I know has ever actually said, “Brown people food should be cheaper than white people food.” Again, I’m not sure if Ong just hangs out with racists, or if she’s intentionally setting up a strawman to set alight.
Ong then associates the word “exotic” with the word “ethnic,” claiming that Americans use the two interchangeably. Well, I don’t, mostly because they mean two very different things, but perhaps I’m just weird.
She begins by telling a tale about how a white friend once expressed jealousy over her exotic, darker skin. (Ong says of herself, “I self-identify as a Filipino American, I would consider my ethnicity to be Filipino, my nationality to be American, and my race to be Asian.”) She was at first flattered and pleased with the compliment, but then she realized that as a liberal, she has to be offended by absolutely everything, so, off we go again, following her to places no sane mind should go.
Ong believes that referring to anyone, but especially to a woman, as exotic is to call her foreign, and therefore, a person who will never be a fully accepted member of society. While such a moniker would be a terrible burden on any person, it’s worse for women, of course, because it objectifies them and makes them the targets of sexual violence.
She correctly defines “exotic” as meaning foreign or strange, but then wants to know, “exotic compared to what, exactly?” Well, I’ll tell her. Exotic compared to the point of view of the speaker, naturally. Ketchup is exotic if you’ve never had it before. Believe me: no one uses the word “exotic” as an epithet. It’s a compliment. “Your hair is so exotic,” implies that the speaker believes that hers is inferior, not better. To read it any other way is to have a real persecution complex.
If someone bringing up your heraldry makes you feel like an outsider, perhaps the problem is in the way you see yourself. Frankly, I have an interest in your background because I value it, not because I’m going to set you in a group and make a mental note to subject you to all sorts of oppression for being brown. Or yellow. Or white.
Furthermore, exotic doesn’t have to have anything to do with race. I’ve heard people refer to nipple rings as exotic, and as far as I know, everyone of every race has nipples.
In her article, Ong implies that most white Americans don’t know their ethnicity. They regard themselves as just white. Well, again, maybe SHE defines white people as just white, but that’s her racism, not mine. Then she posits that this “just plain ol’ whiteness” is held by whites as the higher, normal state of humans, specifically because we are NOT “ethnic,” and that everyone else is beneath the white example of purity because, you know, white supremacy and stuff.
So now she thinks I WANT to be devoid of culture so I can be supreme? It’s taking all my strength not to proclaim her a lunatic.
I “self-identify” (man, it hurts my teeth to write that) as many things, and it’s not Ong’s place to assume anything about someone who identifies as simply “white.” But that person is hypothetical. I don’t know anyone who claims to be merely white. That we don’t run around announcing to everyone that we’re, let’s say, Polish-American doesn’t mean that we don’t know or cherish our ethnicities. I won’t let this woman define me as being something less describable, and then tell me that it gives me an advantage.
Yes, of course, it’s racist to claim that some people are ethnic while others are not, but not in the way Ong’s thinking. The way “ethnic” is used slights white people by refusing to acknowledge their ethnicity. And white people certainly DO want to be identified by their ethnicity. That’s why we attend German-American club meetings. That’s why we ask each other things like, “Your last name is Conigliaro? So you must be Italian. Dang, I bet your mom makes good pasta.” And no, we don’t fear that the pasta comment might be taken as a racial microaggression because we’re not only white, but we’re sane, too.
Ong does acknowledge, almost as an afterthought, that a description of “just white” bothers some white people. Of course, it does. But then she jumps right back into the party line that, because we’re white, we’re automatically racist. We live in a veritable ocean of people competing to be the most victimized, and when we choose not to play that game, when we demand that others see us as something besides just a member of a race, those who see nothing BUT race, call us racist.
Ong’s coup de gras is her solution to the whole problem: We should just use the phrase “people of color” rather than “ethnic.” It defuses the verbal weapon the great white conspirator overlords use to keep Brownie down. To drive her point home, Ong uses the phrase “people of color” about a thousand times in this article.
Let’s examine her logic. She’s decided that calling people “ethnic” is somehow a slight to the insiders who get to be part of the group, while Whitey (or the Whities too stupid to know that they have any ethnicity) have to stay outside. Somehow, quite paradoxically, she maintains that this EXCLUDES those INSIDE the group.
So now we call these brown-ish people “people of color” and magically the semantics change, and everyone’s happy.
Everyone, that is, except the group you’ve excluded once again. Because now, not only is stupid Whitey completely devoid of culture and ethnicity; he’s also colorless. He’s a ghost. What’s next? “Gingers have no soul?”
Her point is that one descriptive word has a bad connotation and the other a good one. The fact is that both words lump one group of people together to the exclusion of others. She blatantly asserts that the word “ethnic” “otherizes” non-whites, and that’s bad, but “people of color” “otherizes” whites, and that’s not only good but also the solution to all of the racial ill in the world.
I have a better idea: Let’s call Ong out for her racism. Let’s not let her get away with the assertion that as a Filipino, she has the same experience as a black woman, or that Whitey hasn’t been oppressed.
We’re individuals. Our unique experiences and identities are the very reason we SHOULDN’T lump ourselves together by race. Fighting imagined racism by being blatantly racist is every bit as stupid as Antifa fighting imagined fascism by being blatantly fascist.
Let’s acknowledge that ALL people have a race, a heritage, an ethnicity, and a culture. Those who wish to “celebrate” this diversity may do so, those who wish to “celebrate” only their favorite races or cultures may do so, and those who wish to live in a homogenous bubble may also do so because we’re free people. Let’s stop pushing the idea that people in the United States are marginalized, oppressed, and unable to succeed in life because of their race. Let’s stop creating scapegoats to explain a problem that doesn’t exist.
Systemic, institutional racism in the USA does not exist.