Posted: Mon 02 May 2005 17:02 Post subject: Phony racism and the allure of victimhood
Quote:
Steve Chapman
Phony racism and the allure of victimhood
Chicago Tribune
Published May 1, 2005
Racism is on the verge of extinction in this country, judging from the latest evidence. There is no way to precisely measure how much is left, but it appears to be in such short supply that we're forced to manufacture an ersatz version to take its place.
Recently, three minority female students at Trinity International University in Deerfield received racist letters, including one that mentioned a gun. Students, faculty and administrators were shocked. They should have been skeptical. Instead of being the deranged work of some angry white male, law enforcement officials concluded, the letters were fakes--written by an African-American student who hoped the incident would persuade her parents to let her transfer to another school.
You would think those concerned about racism would breathe a sigh of relief. Not quite. Rev. Jesse Jackson somehow managed to convey that the fraud actually proved the presence of bigotry. "Racism, whether it is actual or manipulated, is morally wrong," he declared. "We must work to clean up the environment that makes such a hoax believable, a hoax that does harm to so many individuals and the institution."
Talk about blaming the victim. This was not "manipulated" racism, because there was no racism to manipulate: It was pure fantasy. And the "environment that makes such a hoax believable" is one that Jackson and many other black leaders have assiduously cultivated for decades.
Any institution that includes white people (Trinity's student body is 74 percent white and 13 percent black) is assumed to be simmering with barely suppressed prejudice against African-Americans and other minority groups--which threatens to erupt at any moment. That's why just about everyone who heard the original allegation assumed it must be true.
It would have made more sense to assume it must be false. In recent years, there have been numerous instances where students and even professors have invented racial threats or attacks. The Los Angeles Times reported last year that "since 1997, more than 20 such hoaxes have been confirmed or suspected." Tawana Brawley inspired a legion of imitators.
In 2003, a Latino freshman at Northwestern University reported finding anti-Hispanic graffiti outside his dorm room and being accosted by a racist attacker who held a knife to his throat. The campus reacted as campuses normally do: with shock, horror and a rally for unity.
A student government officer said, "It's our fault, it's all our faults. What are we doing, here at NU, to make someone feel comfortable about doing this?" One letter to the student newspaper said, "To eliminate racism, we must extricate it from the hidden, seething channels in which it thrives."
In time, the supposed victim admitted he had made it all up. Apparently, hatred was not seething or thriving in Evanston after all. But no one was heard saying the hoax proved racism was not a widespread and serious problem at Northwestern. The assumption is that racism is a widespread and serious problem on every college campus.
Racial prejudice still exists in American society, but these are about the least likely places to find it expressed or excused. If there is any subject on which no one dares to raise a peep of dissent at a university, it's that bigotry against people on the basis of race, sex or sexual orientation is absolutely unacceptable. Most university administrators and faculty, far from being complacent about racism, are practically obsessed with it.
But instead of neutralizing the issue, this preoccupation exaggerates its extent and importance. Why do unscrupulous students resort to hoaxes involving racism rather than claim they have been the targets of random street crime or identity theft? Because these students know there is no way to gain so much attention and sympathy.
"The one thing they're absolutely certain of is that to be the victim of hate speech gives you a victim status and all the special consideration that goes with that," says Shelby Steele, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and author of a forthcoming book, "White Guilt." Whites in positions of authority, like those running universities, are vulnerable to such deception, he says, because they are terrified of being labeled hostile to minorities.
But hypersensitivity, far from dissolving racial barriers, acts to reinforce them. Racial prejudice will never entirely disappear from college campuses, any more than sloth, lust, greed, envy or any other human vice will ever be eradicated. But when phony hate crimes become more of a problem than real ones, it's time to obsess about something else.
I would not go so far as to say there is no racism - or even little racism. I think that the grand change that has happened in U.S. society is that the majority of the overt forms of racism are gone. In general, I think the whole level has also dropped, but I still believe there is a substantial amt of racism - it is just more subtle.
The overt forms of racism are gone, so that minorities can get in there and prove themselves, but often find they have to be a tad better. This varies by region of the U.S. as well.
So it is not equal - but frankly "equal" is a rather adolescent concept. The average CEO is taller than the average non-CEO. So there is a tendency for discrimination aganst men who are shorter. Red heads and people who wear glasses are perceived to be smarter. Good looking people have more doors opened to them than non-good looking people. So really life is not fair and it is adolescent to go running to the government every time something is not equal.
Just work with what you have and exploit what God gave you.
Posted: Tue 07 Jun 2005 18:52 Post subject: Subtle but deadly
I agree with Liana that racism has definitely diminished in our society. However, as a recent Arab immigrant who lived in France before coming the US told me, "America is still a very racist country. In France, they will call you a name to your face. But in America, they will smile at you and wait to you leave the room to cut you down." My friend felt less secure because he always wonders about when a backstabbing will occur.
Obviously, things are better in the U.S. People no longer fear the everyday occurrence of lynchings. However, the small forms of discrimination, the having to wonder about peoples motivations and can be destructive.
To deny the deadliness of subtle racism, is to deny reality because a knife in the back is just as deadly as knife to heart.
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