Understanding a Little Theory about Racism
Friday, April 30th, 2010
Over a number of years I’ve done a whole lot of thinking about racism. I’ve particularly taken pains to review contemporary academic literature into organisational behaviour to understand the underlying factors that drive this issue. Because of that I get very frustrated at ignorant people waving the race flag with the exact same ignorance as the other side.
I want to explain to you all a little bit of academic theory about racism. First and foremost – racism is not an act. If there is one thing I would like to instill into the readers here its that just like there is no ethical or unethical act, there is no implicitly racist or non-racist act.
The thing that makes an act racist is the motivation driving the action. This is the point most wavers of the racism flag fail to grasp. If you don’t hire an African because they’re less able to do a job (including English language skills) then that isn’t a racist act. However, if you don’t hire that African because you don’t like or trust Africans then it is a racist act.
The abduction, rape and murder last year in Hobart of a young female Chinese student was not necessarily racist. If it was simply a depraved and selfish crime of opportunity it would mean any woman would have been murdered on that night by Stavros Papadopolous (a Greek guy). On that night in that context with that opportunity in Stavros’ path. However, if the murder was because he thought Chinese people were less than human beings – while white people were human beings – then it was racially motivated.
I have seen no definitive evidence that Stavros’ actions were racially motivated. The worst thing we can ever do is jump to conclusions about triggers and motivations in serious crime.
To push that example further, the act of killing another human being is neither ethical or unethical of itself… it comes down to the situation and the motivation of the person doing that act on that occasion. Killing in a war? For mercy of a loved one? In jealousy or out of rage? Motivated by lust? Or in self defence? The act on its own does not define the ethical perspective.
Further to that argument, racism isn’t a binary issue – you don’t have zero and infinity racism; you have a continuum. There are degrees along that path from mild distrust to outright violent proactive criminal activity. This is important because if a racism flag waver (usually an Anglo Saxon, I might add) runs around pointing out racism its usually in binary form. That’s as ignorant as it’s opposite.
