No Need for Racism

Now I struck an idea, and fetched it out: “It warn’t the grounding—that didn’t keep us back but a little. We blowed out a cylinder head.”

“Good gracious! anybody hurt?”

“No’m. Killed a nigger.”

"Well, it's lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt.”

     —from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain

     Since this post is a discussion of racism, and considering that politically applicable terms are frequently redefined nowadays, I suppose I should begin with a working definition of the word. My dictionary says this:

racism | ˈrāˌsizəm |

noun

prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior: a program to combat racism.

• the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races: theories of racism.

     It should be borne in mind throughout the following discussion that something along the lines of what the dictionary says is the meaning of the word that I am using—regardless of the progressive left’s efforts to reinterpret “racism” in such a way that only white people and Israelis can be racists. What I intend to discuss is any prejudice, especially outwardly manifested, against a certain race or any member or members of that race—which may range from mild amusement and off-color jokes to outright persecution or even genocide. This includes prejudice against white people in America, Europe, South Africa, wherever. If progressives can redefine a term to suit the dictates of their own ideology, I can re-redefine it to agree with what the dictionary says. (But if you insist that only white people and Israelis can be racist, then for “racism” read “race-oriented discrimination,” or “beliefs and practices asserting that one race is somehow superior to another,” or even “race-oriented hatred and/or bigotry.” I’m guessing that the left has not yet decreed that only white people and Israelis can be hateful and bigoted.)

     One contributing factor to my writing of this post is that I now have a channel on Minds.com, originally intended to be a platform for this blog, and it turns out that there is quite a lot of racist posting there. It’s like the wild west for free speech on Minds, largely, I assume, because people with outrageous, politically incorrect things to say have been driven away from platforms like Facebook and Twitter. I have to admit that some of the racist memes are funny in a very “edgy,” off-color sort of way, and some of them are empirically true; but even so, it still qualifies as racism in accordance with the working definition provided above. What I want to explain here is that, even for people who do believe one race to be superior to another, putting that belief into public practice is generally ill-advised, even from a racist point of view. Obviously, for a non-racist to practice racism would be ridiculous; but even for someone who considers some race to be inferior to one’s own, acting upon that belief, even if it happens to be true, obstructs the racist “cause.” Racist beliefs may be compelling to some people, but ironically, non-racist behavior may be most conducive to accomplishing a racist agenda. Allow me to explain…

     Let’s play devil’s advocate here and assume, just for the sake of argument, that one race really is superior to another in some significant way—actually this is obviously the case, for example with regard to Somalians being superior to the Japanese with regard to average height, and probably also running speed. Well, assuming that that superiority is real, there is no need at all to discriminate against anyone—unless one is a devout egalitarian who considers it “just” to discriminate against the most fit in order that the less fit can get the job, or admission to the university, or whatever, in which case we have an advocate for the standardization of universal mediocrity. Let’s ignore such silly persons and consider only discrimination against supposed inferiors.

     It’s fairly obvious that if some group of people is less competitive on average, due to some practical inferiority, then discrimination against that group is totally unnecessary, so long as reverse discrimination like affirmative action does not exist. The best thing to do for a sincere racist would be to abolish all racist policies, including such politically correct monstrosities as diversity quotas—which are ultimately based on the evidently false idea that all groups of people are identical in their abilities. If only the most qualified person for a job gets that job, then Darwinian survival of the fittest ensures that the superior beings and groups of beings will come out on top. All that is necessary is to eliminate racist policies, and any truth in racist ideologies will eventually become manifest. (And that is a good thing, by the way, because basing one’s beliefs and actions upon empirical truths works one hell of a lot better than basing them on some politically correct yet nevertheless false ideal. This applies to civilizations as well as to individuals.)

     Assuming that some racist beliefs are true, engaging in color-blind, non-racist behavior would also do much to remove the accusations of bigotry coming from those who cannot compete, and from those who attempt to be their defenders. Perceived persecution results in pushback, which strengthens the opposition. One should openly express contempt for another race only if one approves of some form of ethnic cleansing—and ethnic cleansing has tended historically to be unsuccessful to say the least.

     A racist may be justified in endorsing racist laws and traditions mainly if he considers his own race not to be inherently superior. For example, let’s say a white person in the west believes Ashkenazi Jews and East Asians to be superior to whites with regard to cognitive skills (and they do score higher on IQ tests on average). Well, that particular white racist might approve of policies which favor whites and disfavor Jews and East Asians in order to compensate for the whites’ relative disadvantage. But again, if one considers one’s own race to be inherently superior, it makes eminent sense to simply endorse a level playing field for everyone.

     As it turns out, Ashkenazi Jews (although not Sephardic or Asiatic Jews) as well as East Asians do appear to have certain advantages in western society—East Asian men, for instance, have a higher average income in America than do supposedly privileged white men. Ashkenazi Jews have been reported to have an average IQ of at least 110, with East Asians averaging somewhere around 105, whereas IQ tests are calibrated so that European whites average out at exactly 100. On the other side, “brown people” such as south Asians, west Asians, north Africans, American Hispanics, American Indians, etc., average out at around 90 or a little less; American blacks average at 85; pure-blooded African blacks come out in the low 70s, and Australian aborigines have an average IQ estimated to be in the mid-to-low 60s. I’ve discussed the research on this in previous posts and won’t repeat that discussion here; but such results correlate significantly with these groups’ performance economically in western culture. With a perfectly even playing field and no discrimination at all, for or against any race, there will naturally be relatively few rich, dark-skinned professional people and more dark-skinned manual laborers and workers in places like restaurants. But even with Jews and East Asians outcompeting Europeans to some degree, still racist policies to protect whites appears unnecessary.

     East Asians in particular are relatively intelligent and stereotypically self-controlled, making them good doctors, engineers, etc.; yet for whatever reasons they tend to lack imagination and creativity—it is well known that the Japanese and Chinese are better at improving on western inventions than at inventing things on their own. (Why this is is a topic I may discuss in a later installment of this here blog.) It is hardly likely, despite their success at filling some high-income, high-status niches in western society, that they can outcompete Europeans overall at the Europeans’ own game—after all, the white race invented and has maintained western culture, and it makes perfect sense that they would be better at it in general than anyone else.

     There has been much talk, for example on Minds.com and in the comments sections of Breitbart, about Jews conspiring to destroy European civilization and the European race, etc. I’ve discussed this a little elsewhere and will probably write about it again before I’m done; but here I would just observe that, so long as one doesn’t consider genocide (another “final solution”) to be a viable option, presumably the best that can be done is to find and punish those who are guilty of breaking the law, as with anyone else. I have no doubt that most Jews are just people living their lives as best they can, like anyone else, and are not knowingly involved in any international conspiracies.

     Anyway, getting back to a free and level playing field as the best realistic option for white supremacists, assuming that affirmative action and diversity quotas are abolished, and the most qualified person is the one who gets the promotion, then the western world would become more stratified than it is now, with whites, Jews, and East Asians making up most of the elites, and the darker-skinned people, as a result of less developed cognitive skills in an increasingly technological world, working more in service or as manual laborers, or else starving or living on a public dole. This is speaking very generally of course; always there will be many exceptions, with some black people at or near the top, and plenty of white people living in trailer parks and working on methamphetamine addictions.

     It should be remembered that persecution actually can make the persecuted group stronger, not only by strengthening their resolve but even evolutionarily and genetically. This is very probably why the Ashkenazi Jews, but not other groups of Jews, score so high on IQ tests and also rise so high in society—they’ve been persecuted and massacred for more than 2000 years (whether this was justified or not is irrelevant here), and after all this time, with the slow, stupid ones being the most likely to be caught and killed and the fast, clever ones living to reproduce, their haters have made them more formidable. The Hebrews were originally of the same general ethnicity as, say, Arabs (who score around 90 on IQ tests), until Christian taboos made them rich as moneylenders, and then resentment of their ways made them objects of persecution—which, as I say, has helped them in the long run. For that matter, racism brought most of America’s black population here as slaves; and American blacks are better off, and stronger, and smarter, on average, than the blacks who remained behind in Africa—despite American blacks’ occasional venting of resentment against the enslavement of their ancestors. If it weren’t for the racism inherent in importing black slaves 200 years ago, we wouldn’t have approximately 5% of the US population (i.e., young black men) committing approximately 50% of the violent crimes today.

     One last consideration to this meandering reverie on racism is that, with no racist policies, for or against any race, people tend to intermarry among their own groups. Nowadays it is the leftist “fashion” for young white women to disapprove of the men of their own race and actually to prefer in many cases men who are far more misogynistic, crude, unintelligent, and narrow-minded; but without such politically motivated fashion trends, like does prefer like in most cases. There will undoubtedly be some “miscegenation” in a non-racist society, but also plenty of purebreds; and if the racists are right, the purebreds in most cases will outcompete the hybrids in the struggle for existence. So again, no worries.

     

     

POSTSCRIPT

     I may as well add that, as a Classical Liberal more or less, I consider it best to judge each person by his own merits, and on the content of his own character. Nevertheless, until we know another person we are constrained to rely to some degree on stereotypes—and not on politically correct ones, or the PC idea that everyone is the same, because the politically correct approach is absurd rubbish. Stereotypes based, say, on statistical evidence may help one to arrive at the conclusion that being followed in a dark alley by two young black men or two Muslim migrants is greater cause for concern than being followed by two little old Chinese women, or by two Hassidic Jews for that matter. Ignoring statistical and empirical evidence and preferring “progressive” ideology will result in the suicide of western civilization.