“I can’t think of any issue which is more timely or important today than the issue of racism. I also can’t think of another issue which is more artificial, manufactured or manipulated than this whole construct called ‘racism’.”

US film-maker, Craig Bodeker

Has anyone else besides myself and Craig Bodeker become suspicious of ‘racism’? Personally I have been growing suspicious of the word for a long time and there can be little doubt that it is one of the vaguest, pernicious and useless of ideas ingrained in Western culture.

In his esteemed and revealing 2009 documentary film titled A Conversation About Race, Craig Bodeker illustrates the vagueness of the word and the inconsistency of its use by holding interviews with US citizens of various races. I will allow readers to watch the film for themselves (which is available online) rather than go into detail about it and I will just summarise the gist here.

The message which runs through the film is that racism is everywhere in society and is happening all the time. Another message which emerges from the interviews is that only White people are racist. Another is that a Black man advocating equal rights for Black people performs an important role but it would be offensive (and presumably “racist”) for White people to have a similar advocate. And yet a further contradiction arise in relation to abilities – apparently, it is not racist to say that Blacks are better at basket ball than Whites but if a White person said Whites are better at school than Blacks then suddenly, for no logical reason, the word “racist” is hurled about. Apparently it is “racist” to draw attention to any “bad thing” about non-Whites but acceptable to do the same about White people. What a strange state of affairs! Do we find the word being used in this vague and contradictory way in Irish society? I think the answer is yes.

I had, fairly recently, a conversation with a woman who asked me if I would ever have a relationship with a Black woman to which I said “no, never”. Her eyes grew wide, her brow furrowed and her mouth opened widely to gulp in a large volume of air and then she finally huffed “racist!” A typical response I thought. I pointed out to this woman that the Jewish academic Jared Diamond wrote about his experiences with New Guinean tribes people and reported their answer to a similar question. Diamond asked the New Guineans what they thought of White women and they responded that White women are grotesque and that they smell disgusting. The label “racist” does not apply to the New Guineans for some reason and this woman saw my point. She had no response and when I pressed her for one she told me that she didn’t want to talk about the subject any longer. She was unable to explain why the label “racist” should apply to me, a White person, but not to a non-White, not to a New Guinean.

I have noticed another trend on that terrible Dublin radio show which I sometimes listen to so as to get a sense of the mood of Dubliners on various subjects. The host, Adrian Kennedy, forbids anyone to make any kind of generalisation about immigrants because (apparently) generalisations are “racist”. No matter how harmless, no matter how true, he forbids them to use generalisations. This is leaving aside the simple fact that generalisations are a common, valid and reasonable way to convey information in a brief way. Anyway, Kennedy commonly makes offensive, disparaging generalisations about Irish people and he allows his callers (even non-Irish if my memory is not mistaken) to do likewise. Here we have a contradiction. It is ok for offensive, racist, generalisations to be applied to Irish people but unacceptable and “racist” for generalisations to be applied to non-Irish. Does this seem reasonable? Most definitely it does not and this trend is not limited to Adrian Kennedy’s phone-show for it occurs in all of mainstream media.

There is another subject to which this contradiction applies. We are forbidden from choosing who gets to live in our communities. But only we White people. If we, because of our deep-rooted, instinctive feelings want to live in Irish-only communities then we are admonished as “racist”. If the Blacks in our country wanted Black-only communites would they be called racist? I suspect in that case the Liberals would say “Ah sure aren’t they only human”. If White people began flooding into Black African countries would the Blacks be called racist for objecting? Oh heavens no, only White people are racist for objecting to such massive social change. This is at least the way in which the concept of racism is applied.

At this point I wish to go on a slight tangent. There was a recent case of a fraudulent asylum seeker who was fighting deportation because her daughter had sickle cell disease and would (allegedly) be likely to die if deported to Africa. Would it be racist for me to insist that the child be deported because if not, we would increase the incidence of the disease in Ireland? Apparently it would be. The Liberals would go nuts and be looking for my head. And herein is a the contradiction. Anthropologists take great care to avoid introducing disease to tribal communities for fear decimating those communities. If an anthropologists did not take such care they would be reprimanded by their colleagues and society. They would be called reckless and insensitive. So why is it unacceptable for disease to be introduced to tribal communities but acceptable for disease to be introduced to Ireland (and other White countries)?

So why does racism only apply to White people? Have I convinced you, my reader, that the idea of racism is questionable? Is racism even a thing at all or is it merely a tool used to intimate people into silence so that the Liberals can impose their views unchallenged? Is anyone really racist?

Links: www.aconversationaboutrace.com