Kudos for Chris Wage for bringing the bias / bigotry debate to the simplest terms. What we are really talking about here is racism. Chris is right, Bob Krumm is racist. He and his supporters are trying to turn this into a debate about semantics on whether or not Bob actually said he is a bigot. Tim even brought out some definitions to try and back it up (or clear it up, I don’t know his intentions).
So what is racism? When I was attempting to do race relations work in a prior life I worked from the definition “Belief in a superior race”. That is nice and tidy, but I went to see what Oxford had to say and not surprisingly it is better (and more fitting).
racism
noun
1) the belief that there are characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to each race.
2) discrimination against or antagonism towards other races.
I think that about closes the discussion. Believing that being ‘Arab’ somehow means there is more of a security risk is without a doubt assigning characteristics or qualities specific to a race. (see Chris’ post for more on the term Arab).
So Bob, how do you feel about being a racist? I am not going to condemn anyone for being racist. After all, many people are raised that way and don’t know any better. However, realizing you are racist and somehow feeling justified or indignant about it are two totally different things. Denying it is another problem all together. Where do you stand?
I think Tim’s post is important to the debate — I have used the word “bigot” in a number of places where it wasn’t really accurate. To be honest, it was because I was beating around the bush in using the word I should have been using: racist.
Yeah, I think that is probably true. I was only using bigot because of what I see as an admission, but you took it to the heart of the matter.
“racism
noun
1) the belief that there are characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to each race. ”
So believing that black Africans have naturally kinky hair makes you racist? On this definition everyone is racist.
Shennanigans!
By that definition, science itself is racist. Parsing semantics is fine and all, but there simply ARE differences between different groups. REAL differences that confer real survival benefits (or did in the pre-industrial sense…)
Different groups developed traits like:
Sickle cells (to protect against disease)
Light skin (to process vitamins via weak sunlight)
Dark skin (to protect against strong sunlight)
A number of diseases are either specific to people from certain areas — or — they have a higher prevalence…. Some drugs have been shown to be likewise effective in only certain ethnic groups… A number of people have complained that even making these treatments AVAILABLE is racist.
Personally, I think letting people DIE — because acknowledging there are genetic differences from group to group in the world — is CRAZY.
There are tons and tons of documented minute
physiological differences between people — but they
don’t neccesarily ‘conform’ to America’s strange
racial constructs…
Recent studies have shown that most Europeans are more genetically similar to East Africans than West Africans are… which doesn’t quite fit into society’s concept of race either…
Hey Jackson,
My motives for writing that post on my weblog were to attempt to separate some of those words from the personalities.
I saw a lot of heat and emotions flying around. And trust me, when the subject of prejudice comes up, I get hot as hell, too, because I’ve got a bucketload to say about that subject.
However, as I said, I myself was kind of fuzzy on precisely what the difference was between the words “bigot,” “prejudice,” and “bias.”
And I didn’t want to single anyone out, either. So I just tried to write a simple article. Frankly, I wasn’t entirely confident either you or Bob K. would read it. But I’m glad it helped…if it did.
-Tim
I think it’s the 2nd definition — “discrimination or antagonism” — that is more important and more relevant here, particularly to Bob’s story.
No one denies that there are differences between races, but it’s important to note, however, that a large majority of them are mere social constructions. (See the comments on this post for examples, if you’ve got the stomach for it.)
The category of “race” itself is socially contructed.
Thanks everyone for the comments.
Scott, while I happily defer to you on most matters of science, I am a little confused by what you are saying. My understanding is that there is no DNA code for ‘race’; that basically there is no scientific difference. I think that is what S-townMike is saying.
Chris is right in that both definitions seem to apply to Bob’s situation. I was just taking Tim’s lead and assuming the first one is the most important.
I would recommend this essay as being pertinent to the discussion at hand..
According to Benedict Anderson (“Imagined Communities”), the category of “race” arose in the later colonial period as the census emerged as an administrative/bureaucratic mechanism for saying what some thing “is and what it is not.” The purpose was to create clear boundaries to support emerging nationalisms.
Anderson writes:
“One notices … the census-makers’ passion for completeness and unambiguity …. The fiction of the census is that everyone is in it, and that everyone ahs one–and only one–extremely clear place. No fractions.”
Hence, race is what Max Weber would call a “useful fiction.” It is an invention designed to help generate what Anderson calls “imagined communities” into social reality.
Science’s preoccupation with taxonomies, therefore, lends well to employing racial categories, especially those categories remain unambiguous. Mayr’s somewhat unreflective use of ethnic categories (Eskimoes vs. Bushmen, for example) reflects that preoccupation. Try as he might to illustrate that the differences in Asian-American and African-American test scores may be a difference in prep time, there is nothing to keep another scientist from using the same data to draw the conclusions that the differences in pre-test behavior of the students may themselves be based on race. That is because race is a cultural rather than a scientific category, and hence, subject to cultural meanings and bias before objectivity ever gets started.
Hey Jackson!
Well, I think even on the science side there’s a strange confusion. Among geneticists, there _are_ a large number of DNA-based ‘races’ — the thing is — they don’t much correlate to what we perceive as race, since, as other posters noted, race is often a social construct/fiction. A lot of the ‘defined’ genetic lines are pretty much out the window in America — WAY too much interbeeding. And, worldwide it’s quickly becoming anachronistic with increased travel…
But here’s something that is causing a stir — there are some medications, treatments, risk-factors, etc. that DO correspond strongly to the “social/fictional” race concept — the box we all check on various and sundry forms for black/white/hispanic/etc.
I remember one medication in particular that was quite effective in clinical trials… (I might try to google for it…) on those who self-identified as ‘black’ — but was statistically crappy for everyone else. A lot of people pushed against licensing the drug for a specific ‘race’…
I think, in the future, genetic testing will basically sort people automatically into different ‘risk/response’ groups — the same way blood-type does today….
Someone can look at me, and guess I’m blood-type O or A — b/c it’s the most likely for someone that looks like me… likewise, most Chinese people will have type B blood… but not all. But we have a test to find this out — but we don’t have genetic tests for a LOT of other things… and some of those generalizations might have real medical benefits for people.
And while forcing generalizations onto a group is a terrible idea, I’d just like to make the counter-point that they’re not always bad. Babies, bathwater and all that jazz.
hmm.
That first definition is interesting. Ism seems to be a key part of the work racism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/-ism). Ism as a suffix often refers to a *belief* system (judaism, buddhism, hinduism). As the wikipedia entry notes however, it is used for all sorts of crap.
I guess my question is, does the first definition refer to a belief system around the differences in people based on race lines? If that’s true, is Scott a little off in saying that by this definition Science is a racist? Science is defined by Merriam Webster as:
1 : the state of knowing : knowledge as distinguished from ignorance or misunderstanding
In which case anything having to do with a “belief” wouldn’t quite qualify for science, whereas Bob Krumm certainly would qualify for a racist by the first definition.