The Beat Matt blog: July 2013

It's amazing to me that racism still exists in the 21st century. At the same time, it doesn't surprise me at all. Media outlets often love to cover racism because any perceived conflict generally causes more people to watch their programming. People in power generally are delighted to see the masses divided, too. What better way to divide the masses than to fool them into thinking they are radically different? Unfortunately, racism persists. Any rational person should be disgusted at racism, though I see seemingly rational people express racist things all the time. Most of the time, they don't even realize they're doing it. For most, it's become more under the surface.

How do we end racism? I think I have a solution, and it first begins with knowing what the actual definitions of "racism" and "race" are. The most popular Web definition of racism is such:

" 1. The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, esp. so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races
2. Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on such a belief"

I like that definition. It has two parts. One, that it's a belief that one race is better than another. Very few people today, at least in the United States, would openly say that one race is better than another. The second part talks about prejudice, discrimination, and antagonism directed at someone based on such belief. Here, the belief potentially becomes an action.

Prejudice, which nearly every human being who exists has been guilty of at one point or another, is fairly common, not only with race, but with things like age, socio-economic status, gender, and sexual orientation. Think about it any time in the past when you met somebody new. Did you have certain feelings about this person based solely on their appearance? We can be prejudiced to people we know very well. For example, I assume my wife is going to act a certain way when I tell her something. Assumptions and prejudice are related. And so are stereotypes.

Think back to the beginning of this video when you first saw me. There I am. Man, I remember that part of the video like it was just minutes ago. Oh yeah, it was. Some of you stumbled across this video not knowing who I am or not knowing anything about me...but you already had feelings about me. First of all, you probably noticed I have lighter skin color. Some people would classify me as a Caucasian, or simply just "white." You probably had feelings related to this, especially with the topic of this video being "How to End Racism." Also, you probably noticed my haircut, or my glasses, or maybe what I was wearing, and were judging me from the very start, without truly knowing anything about me. Then again, some of you watching this video know me very well, and perhaps you can predict exactly what I am going to say....................next. Wow, you're good.

Discrimination is something my students confuse with racism all the time. They think it's the same thing. It's not. Discrimination is the unfair treatment of a person or group on the basis of prejudice, so you can be discriminated against for a lot of things, such as age, socio-economic status, gender, and sexual orientation. Fortunately, discrimination on the basis of race in the United States today is rare, at least blatant discrimination. Discrimination that's "under the surface" does persist. The best example I can think of is hiring practices. It's not legal, but again, it's usually under the surface. Remember, it wasn't that long ago in the United States that de facto discrimination was legal based on race.

Antagonism might be the simplest part of the defintion to understand. Basically, if someone acts upon their beliefs about race, that's obvious racism. This seems to be the most rare today, but it does exist whether you see it or not. The last documented lynching in the United States that was brought on by racism occurred in 1981. That wasn't that long ago, because I was born that year, and I'm not that old.

But what about the term "race?" It's fascinating to me because it was essentially a term invented to make one group of people justify that they were superior to another group of people. It's troubling to see the definitions that show up for "race:"

Each of the major divisions of humankind, having distinct physical characteristics

- people of all races, colors, and creeds

A group of people sharing the same culture, history, language, etc.; an ethnic group

- we Scots were a bloodthirsty race then

The fact or condition of belonging to such a division or group; the qualities or characteristics associated with this

- people of mixed race

A group or set of people or things with a common feature or features

- some male firefighters still regarded women as a race apart

A population within a species that is distinct in some way, esp. a subspecies

- people have killed so many tigers that two races are probably extinct

(in nontechnical use) Each of the major divisions of living creatures

- a member of the human race
- the race of birds

A group of people descended from a common ancestor

- a prince of the race of Solomon

Ancestry

- two coursers of ethereal race

Notice how only the first definition mentions physical characteristics, which is the race that most of us think of. In particular, we tend to think of skin color. But how ridiculous is that? I can change my skin color by going outside all afternoon in July or by visual effects with some nifty video editing.

First of all, pure "race" does not exist, genetically speaking. We have good ol' science to prove that. The Human Genome Project, the international science experiment which attempted to map the DNA of every human being to ever exist, had one important conclusion: "race," as we know it, does not exist. They said different genes for physical traits, such as skin color, and hair color, can be identified between individuals, but no consistent patterns of genes of the approximately 20,500 genes found in human beings exist to distinguish one race from another. There also is no genetic basis for divisions of human ethnicity.

What's crazy to me is that there is absolutely no evidence that anyone even used the term "race" or anything like it before the Middle Ages. In the late 1400s and 1500s, it was the Europeans who first began use the term to justify their enslavement of people they encountered who had darker skin pigmentation in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. What did they use to justify enslaving people with darker skin color? Passages they read in the Old Testament of the Bible. So racism and race are relatively new phenomenons.

So you've been patiently waiting for my solution to end racism. If every human being did these three things, and taught their children to do these three things, racism, at least as we know it, would cease to exist.

1) Acknowledge race has no genetic basis, and was a term invented by one group people to justify that it was superior to another group of people.

Absolutely everyone needs to know this, and it should be taught at a very young age.

2) Acknowledge that you did not choose your physical characteristics, and you shouldn't have too much pride in your physical characteristics.

Sure, you can tan, you can dye your hair a different color, you can have plastic surgery, or you can change your diet or exercising habits. The bottom line is, you did not choose the physical characteristics you were born with. Isn't it silly to be extremely proud of physical characteristics you were born with? On the flip side, why on earth would you think negatively about the physical characteristics of someone else when they were also born with such characteristics?

3) Stop using the term "race" to describe a person.

I do not define myself by "race." Not only do I feel it is an outdated term, but why should I limit how I define myself to simply the physical characteristics that I have? Isn't that a bit, superficial? We are all multifaceted, complex, unique individuals, with many different characteristics. Why should I limit to describe myself by saying I'm a white guy? Or, kind of peach guy? Or a blue guy? Or a green guy? It's ludicrous. Labels are dangerous, anyway. Sure, they come in handy, and there is definitely a time and place to use labels, but they should never define anyone.

In conclusion, I want to share a new definition of "racism" that I came across, from The American Journal of Color Arousal, that they came up in reaction to the Human Genome Project findings:

"A "racist" is "a person, organization or institution continuing to believe in, advocate, perpetuate or passively accept the proposition that there are separate 'races' among the human species, in spite of all of the well-known Human Genome Project evidence that separate human "races" do not exist."

So there you have it. The first thing we need to do is educate people that there is only one race- the human race.