On race, culture, and general stupidity (Part II) (November '06)

Part II is going to switch gears a little bit, and may even shift up into a rant. I guess we'll just have to wait and see where this goes.

Okay, first point:

Racial an/or ethnic pride is completely and irredeemably stupid. Misguided. Misplaced. Ultimately, misanthropic.

Yep. I said it. Your race is not an accomplishment. Your ethnic heritage is not a triumph.

Two people that look kind of like you decided to have sex. A few months later, you popped out looking like you do. That's it. Cosmic lottery. Roll of the dice. Pride in this indicates either a deep-seated insecurity and a need for compensation, or a profound stupidity leading to a lack of understanding when it comes to basic biology. Or both.

I say this because there is not a day that goes by that I don't run into some loud-mouthed buffoon rambling on about how great they are by virtue of being this or that race or ethnicity. They have bumper stickers, shirts, hats, and the telltale flapping jaw. White pride, Black pride, Latin pride, Asian pride... I'd like to sterilize every last one of them. Maybe then the rest of us could move on in a generation or two and start judging people on the basis of character and/or individual accomplishment.

This brings me to another point.

I got home from church and stopped to peruse the Otherground. If you don't know what the Otherground is, you are probably better off. In any case, someone had posted a link to a video of a street fight featuring a white woman and several black men and women. The predictable racial and cultural generalizations followed, as this link clearly demonstrates. Whatever. People are stupid, and stupid people like to criticize even less intelligent people. No biggie (although the responses there are a sickening reminder of how pervasively racist our society remains, and how people really think when given the chance to respond with anonymity.)

What caught my attention was a remark halfway down the thread that proposed the idea that black people cannot be racist, because they have no power.

I cannot tell you how much that statement pissed me off.

First of all, to imply that black people have no power is both insulting and degrading to the accomplishments and sacrifices of many hard-working black men and women throughout the past few decades.

Furthermore, to imply that people of one race or another cannot be racist--especially upon the basis of some unsubstantiated assertion about power--is to demonstrate a profound ignorance of philosophy, sociology, and the English language.

Just to be sure, I went and looked it up. I have a few dictionaries at my disposal, and I even checked out my three-volume Webster's Third New International Dictionary (Unabridged) to be sure that I was covering all of the bases.

To clarify for those not keeping up, racism is a system of belief. All of the definitions begin with "The belief that...," or "the assumption that...," or "A system of belief wherein..."

Anyone can be a racist. All it takes is stupidity. Power is not a prerequisite folks. Never has been, and probably never will be. All you need is some self-righteousness and a closed mind and you, too can be a racist.

What bugs me is that I hear this kind of pseudo-intellectual, college-boy revisionist bullshit all the time. There is probably not a single day that goes by where I don't hear some half-educated half-wit misusing and altogether abusing the English language in the process of conveying some poorly conceived, inane political claptrap thinly disguised as sociology or--God forbid--biology.

If you want to spout off about race, religion, philosophy, sociology, or politics, do us all a favor and go read for a year or eight. Research. Study. More than that, study people and ideas that you don't already agree with! Learn the theories behind the arguments--not from iconoclastic polemicists, but from actual respected scholars whose work has been subject to the criticism of his or her peers. Study history, study philosophy, and learn what others have said before you open your mouth and make a fool of yourself by saying something that has already been proven foolish.

Stupidity is a disease, and it seems to be using social anxiety to spread more rapidly than ever before.

Together, we can stop it. All we have to do is shut the hell up, read, and think.

Are you up to the challenge?