The Shame Game

Racist: One who is supporting a racist policy through their actions or inaction or expressing a racist idea.
Antiracist: One who is supporting an antiracist policy through their actions or expressing an antiracist idea.

This popped up at work and promptly started a "debate," which I declined to have any part in. Dropping decontextualized Ibram Kendi quotes on people isn't generally an invitation to a calm discussion. The above are from Mr. Kendi's book: How To Be An AntiRacist, and, I will admit the sort of thing that I find more about virtue signalling than honestly helping people change.

Part of the problem is the nature of the discussion of the topic itself. "Racist" carries some very nasty overtones in everyday American discourse, and, contrary to what it appears that some people like to think, hasn't really been rehabilitated into a neutral term (regardless of how useful such rehabilitation would generally be). And so it doesn't strike me that people are drawn to such works because they feel a need to change who they are for the better. Rather, they're looking for what other people should be doing. Which is fair enough, I suppose. For many people, being the change they want to see in the world isn't an active enough viewpoint.

While I'm not sure that I'm 100% on board with, say, Mr. Kendi's definition of a "racist policy," namely "any measure that produces or sustains racial inequity between racial groups....By policy I mean written and unwritten laws, rules, procedures, processes, regulations, and guidelines that govern people," what bugs me about the definitions of "racist" and "antiracist" is that only the "racist" definition includes inaction.

I've never been a fan of "you're either with us or your against us" formulations, for the simple fact that it encourages seeing everyone who has things that are more important to them than some set of personal interests as living in the "against" column. Which is a terrible way to see the world. As far as I'm concerned, it's not terribly far off from a persecution complex. And from everything I know about those, they suck out loud, and I'm glad that I don't have one. But the other downside of an "us versus the world" mentality, is that if everyone is the enemy, then a lot of things can be seen as self-defense. And constant fighting doesn't really make the world a better place in my estimation.

In my old age, I've come to the conclusion that Mark Twain was right when he opined: "The world owes you nothing. It was here first." I also tend to extend that to people, and for the same reason. And casting inaction as opposition flies in the face of that, implying that people do owe something, simply because someone exists and believes they need something from them. I've never been one for the "attitude of gratitude" and the like, because it often comes across to me as fawning. But I'm a big believing in being appreciative of what other do for me. So long as they have a choice. Thanking someone for something that they had no choice but to do has always struck me as unpleasantly dishonest. And if "antirtacism" is really going to mean something, it has to be engaged in freely, rather than under the threat of a one-sided shaming.