THE MOST DANGEROUS SIDE OF RACISM

Racism can be described as discriminatory behaviour towards people based on their ethnicity. Though it existed for a long time as a behavioural trait, the concept itself is not as old as one might think, dating back roughly 300 years. Leaving the etymological discussion aside, the concept’s prominence as an influential part of popular discourse is constantly increasing. Though racism as a form of behaviour peaked in the 20th century, the awareness around the theoretical concept in societal life today is gaining momentum by the day. Undoubtedly aided by the ongoing globalisation of our societies, the racism discussion is penetrating more and more micro-interactions of our everyday lives. Here, the questions about racist behaviour are being raised constantly. What is racist behaviour precisely? How is language racist? What are the effects of racism on victims of racism? All those questions raise an ongoing and vivid discussion. However, the most dangerous side of racism is being ignored. Racism in the context of knowledge communication, including science, is the most detrimental phenomenon that is hampering societal progress at best while being responsible for the destruction of our species and even planet.

Why…?

In a previous analysis (Lesbos and Notre Dame), the argument was brought forward that we are making subconscious decisions on the importance of events based on their racial implications. There are countless media examples of it. For example, when white people, including Irish and Scandinavian, atrociously murder others, the act is always attributed to an allegedly psychological medical condition. Similar actions by non-whites are tied to behavioural patterns arising from this person’s cultural background. In the case of a Muslim, the religion is said to promote violence. In the case of an African, the culture is said to be animalistic. In the cases of Latin Americans and East Asians, the societal order is said not to value human life. In the discourse about this obvious observation, “why” is repeatedly asked and always shrugged off by whole societies. Why is it that when one Jewish soldier is killed, the world views Palestine as the aggressor while the same casualties on the Palestinian side are viewed as the logical consequence of aggressive behaviour? Why does the world still mourn the death of not even 3000 people as a result of two collapsed buildings in the United States of America and remains silent over the hundreds of thousands of people killed in Iraq in a decade-long retaliation war? Why did immigrants from non-Christian nations struggle for over 50 years to receive the most basic fair treatment in usual daily conduct in Europe while Ukrainian refugees receive high-priority treatment, including free access to the job market? Why is Adolf Hitler considered the worst person in history for slaughtering six million Jews, not King Leopold of Belgium, who killed twice as many and mutilated millions more? Why? Why? Why?

And by asking “why”, racism emerges. It is glaringly evident that all of the abovementioned events result from racist thinking. If we are taking the events at face value, the actions and inactions of the wrongdoers were designed to favour ethnically close people while disregarding those ethnically farther away. Since the acts in themselves were atrocious, we tend to blame discriminatory thinking for the extent of those actions. However, if we scale the problem down on the intensity axis, we will see that the depth does not change the nature of the situation. For example, if an employer employs a person with the same ethnicity, although there are more qualified suitable candidates from other ethnicities, he is acting in a discriminatory, racist fashion. The underlying motive is the same as murdering people because of their ethnicity. It is undoubtedly not the same act, but both acts are grounded in the same subconscious thinking of seeking closeness to one’s own ethnicity and seeking distance from other ethnicities. This is a very natural biological condition of human beings, though greatly varying from person to person. Again, the two acts mentioned above are not equated here. Instead, a common denominator is identified – 4 and 4 million are not the same number, but their common denominator is 2.

True Racism Comes From The Victim

From the above, we could follow that racism is a natural condition of our being, which it is not. The reason for that is that the reactions to ethnicity-oriented atrocities create racism. By asking “why”, the victim ascribes a certain consciousness and explanatory power to the wrongdoer. Such behaviour confers a certain power to the wrongdoer, thus creating a social hierarchy between them. “Why did you not employ me just because I am different?” gives the employer the ultimate power to establish a monopoly of opinion. At the aggregate level, meaning if such thinking is common, the employer of the dominant ethnicity will naturally assume that their ethnicity is more powerful as it controls the access of others to the means of reproduction. “Why did the news not show all the pain and suffering in other parts of the world?” because you yourself confer the power to this news outlet as a reliable and prestigious source. By consuming the news and asking “why”, the news provider becomes powerful. If the person in question would acknowledge that the employer and news provider of ethnicity A are naturally working in the interest of their ethnicity, the question “why” would be answered. And with this answer, the person in question can dismantle the artificially created power discrepancy by focusing more on his ethnicity. Demanding justice from another race is the birth of racism.

This thinking has its similarities with the social relativity theory: if there were no unsuccessful people, the successful people would not have been successful. If the victims of racism were not to acknowledge that they are discriminated against, racism would not exist. Therefore, racism can be attributed to the victim, too. By pointing to racism as a socially unacceptable behavioural pattern, the victim denaturalises our humanly natural condition of seeking closeness to those similar to us and seeking distance from those dissimilar to us, to a certain extent. Indeed, it is not natural for humans to seek perfect social coherence and delimitation with other groups, but perfect harmony in a heterogeneous setting is equally unnatural. However, by conferring the power monopoly to a racist actor by asking for fair treatment or demanding answers to the racist behaviour, racist behaviour is all the more encouraged as it confirms the power discrepancy between the actors. Instead of doing that, discriminatory behaviour must be answered with equally discriminatory behaviour. The foreign employer should equally then prefer his own people over those of other ethnicities. States should prefer business with other regional powers rather than with states from other continents. If immigration from a particular region is not welcome in one part of the world, the state should limit immigration and tourism from that part in response to the disapproving stance.

The Current World Order

Though all of the above was not overly reliant on examples, the common reader surely did not read the argumentation without a picture of which race is the victim and which race is the wrongdoer. In the current world order, the concept of racism almost exclusively involves white people, meaning ethnically Central Europeans. And yes, much of racist behaviour originates in the white world. However, by responding to the discriminatory stance, those discriminated against strengthen this alienating thinking by accepting the power discrepancy. All over the world, white news outlets are considered to be reliable sources, even if we objectively know that this is not the case. Yet when news coverage is one-sided, the “why”-questions emerge again, rather than avoiding consumption of such content. The same holds true for fashion, music, art, literature and science. Latter is especially dangerous. Though North American universities have little academic experience, they are treated as the bar of scientific success due to their very short history. Through the worldwide acceptance of those institutions, the white world was able to create a knowledge monopoly through racism. This means that if a politically motivated study supporting certain interests is published under the name of Harvard University, or the like, it is immediately accepted as true. The knowledge monopoly is now so deeply rooted in our thinking that the mode of knowledge production is incredibly ineffective and has reached a point at which it reproduces the racial hierarchy.

The white ethnicity cannot really be blamed for those dynamics. Surely, the extent is often unjustified (see slavery or the various genocides on the African continent) but on the most basic level, the white ethnic group is just utilising the power tools conferred to them by other ethnicities that subconsciously accept them as superior. Within their own group, the white ethnicity cannot reproduce a hierarchical power structure – at least not over the dimension of ethnicity. They are dependent on the world to accept them as superior. If the whole world would just stop to yearn to study at Princeton and Harvard, the meaning of those institutions would decrease. Not satisfied with how biased European media is? Stop consuming it. Disappointed that you could not land your dream job with a Euro-American company? Start your own business with your people. We can conclude that the most dangerous side of racism is the subconscious acceptance that the means of reproduction (in any possible way) are exclusively confined to one ethnicity. If we want to dismantle racism, every person needs to change their stance towards their own ethnicity first. The worst thing to do is ask the discriminating race to alter their behaviour – that is the ultimate capitulation.