The Inaugural Blog

I am starting this ‘blog’ as a personal exercise to re-develop and rebuild my rather flagging argumentative (writing) muscles. I care neither way if any of these little posts are ever read by anyone other than friends, family, and acquaintances. All that being said lets get this party started off with a bang.

The degradation of the term ‘racism’ and it’s greater threat to freedom as a whole.

I’ll start off by sharing a few quotes to establish my point that the term ‘racism’ has been degraded and devalued of its original and rather sinister meaning. First up is a quote from the “Oxford English Dictionary”
- the belief that there are characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to each race that make them morally, spiritually or racially superior.
This definition is the standard by which the term racism, or racist, is established. The caveat of belief in the superiority of one race over another is quite important later on.

The Second quote I’ll take from a less reputable but often times more cited source in these technologically profound times, the dreaded, Wikipedia (ominous thunderclap).
Some sociologists have defined racism as a system of group privilege. In Portraits of White Racism David Wellman (1993) has defined racism as "culturally sanctioned beliefs, which, regardless of intentions involved, defend the advantages whites have because of the subordinated position of racial
minorities,” (Wellman 1993: x).

It is interesting to note in this ‘sociological’ definition of racism, that it actually reinforces racist ideals that the ‘white’ man is always in power and always the oppressor when, compared to historical fact, every race at one point in their history was oppressed, held in slavery, or generally degraded by another.

And my last quote is taken from the ‘Urban Dictionary.com’ –
Noun.
1) Strict definition: An irrational bias towards members of a racial background. The bias can be positive (e.g. one race can prefer the company of its own race or even another) or it can be negative (e.g. one race can hate another). To qualify as racism, the bias must be irrational. That is, it cannot have a factual basis for preference.
2) Commonly intended definition(in America): A bias that white people have against blacks.
3) Politically motivated definition: A justifiable reason to redistribute resources or opportunities between groups on the basis of race alone.

1) One is not a racist for pointing out that blacks receive lower scores on their ACTs, SATs, GREs, LSATs and other standardized tests of academic achievement.
2) One is a racist for pointing out #1 *IF* there is no reason for pointing it out other than to make black people feel inferior.
3) Racism is the reason that a 20 on the ACT should actually be considered a 25 if the test taker was black.

Interestingly enough for the purposes of this rant the “Urbandictionary.com” does the best job of illustrating the point that I am attempting to make, that point being, that due to today’s heavily politically correct conscious news, press, politics, etc. The term racism, or racist seems to apply to anyone that disagrees or dislikes another race or culture. Not in fact in someone who believes as was originally stated by the first definition in the moral spiritual or racial superiority of a given group, culture, etc.

I find it interesting that a term once used to describe the man who ordered the slaughter of over 6 million Jewish, Black, or otherwise ‘different’ people is now used to describe someone who dislikes the infusion of a Hispanic culture into their area of the country, or is annoyed by the fact that establishments both in retail and the government cater to people who emigrate either legally or illegally to this country and then don’t bother to learn the language.

America is a beautiful nation because of the fact that, while people have differing views, that sometimes vary widely across the political spectrum, and often times engender very emotional and visceral reactions, the people of this country are still allowed to, and encouraged to, have these differing opinions. What worries me is that; due to the politicizing of nearly every facet of existence as the election date draws near, people seem to lose that core ideal of freedom. Because a persons views might be different from your own gives no one the right to silence that group out of ‘fairness’ to others, or because it might offend a certain group, sub culture, race, faith, or people.

To silence anyone who speaks out leads down a road toward the silencing of everyone except those sanctioned by the people in power. Orwell illustrates this fact beautifully in the book 1984 where all speech or thought not sanctioned by the government or “Big Brother” is seen as a crime punishable often times by death. A more recent example of this silencing of the freedom of speech can be seen in the movie Equilibrium starring Christian Bale of Batman fame.

How this censoring of speech relates back to the degradation and misapplication of the racist, or racism label is quite obvious once you think about it. Using this unspeakable crime, that carries with it untold amounts of cultural and historical baggage, anyone wishing to silence another group, or enforce their will upon them has merely to cry racism, and let the baggage that that term entails drag down their opponent.

In closing I’d like to point out that in no way shape or form am I sanctioning, endorsing or encouraging racist acts or statements, I am merely pointing out the misapplication and misinterpretation of a label that seems to be bandied about in popular and political media far to much, especially when they more often than not could have used a far better word, though it may have a bit less of the shock value and the anger inducing power that the ‘racist’ label can hold.