2006-04-29
Paleness as Pathology: The Future of Racism and Anti-Racism in America by Tim Wise
Whatever moral conscience white America as a collective entity may or may not possess, it has not traditionally been that, but rather self-interest that has finally made whites, at least some of us, wake up to the need for a different direction.
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I can't slog through this article, but I did try. Wise assumes that white people in general are racist, and that the world itself represents a construct of white supremacy... and one that non-white people are powerless to topple, despite centuries of struggle. Does that make him, and those who think like him (Nadir?), white supremicists -- people who believe that white folks are untoppably supreme?
Wise so devoutly embraces political correctness that he begins this essay by assuring non-white people think that he -- a white person! -- has no ideas that might be more clever than theirs!
As Thomas Sowell points out, racism is a very bad economic policy. Deliberately holding back talanted people results in fewer people who can afford to as consumers; blanning people who none the less obtain the means from consuming goods (eating in restaurants, purchasing homes) furthers this dead end policy.
Guided only by economic interests, all people would choose against racism. This includes non-white people who practice racism, including black Africans today and through the centuries. Economic analyses show that western enslavement of blacks was a very poor business model compared to wage labor. From 1800 to 1860, the slave economy of US southern states produced such an abysmal overall situation for whites that the white population stagnated: whites steadily migrated north (mostly to Illinois, Ohio, and Michigan), and no whites migrated from the northern states. The US southern economy improved during reconstruction in parallel with the amazingly improved fortunes of blacks, and many whites migrated south to participate in this growing economy; the ignorant called them "carpet baggers."
The economic miracle produced by enfranchising blacks and affording them full citizenship evaporated with the tragic triumph of the night riders. And there the southern economy laid, pinned down by Jim Crow for some 80 years, growing again only with the success of the Civil Rights movement, with whites again migrating in great numbers from north to south.
Racism provides one group with irrational and short-lived satisfaction, at the expense of economic growth. Thus I agree with Tim Wise that racists (Tim only notices white racists) would regenerate themselves if they cared only about ther bottom line.
However, specific individuals may find themselves in situations racism pays for them. Consider people who have either purchased or inherritted slaves. They find themselves in a situation where their capital -- unfortunately for them, from a financial persective -- is tied up in labor. Although they would be better off financially if this capital were invested in equipment or facilities, they are now caught in a financial delema: freeing their slaves would be like a farmer destroying all his farm equipement and having no insurance. This was one of the great questions facing abolishionists, including eventually Abe Lincoln.
I hope that Wise realizes that whereas many whites have chosen the sick phychological benefits of racism over the economic benefits of a free society, many whites have also taken personal economic beatings for acting against racism. The number of examples are enumerable, and I will point out only two. First there are the Grimke sisters, Angelina and Sarah, born into a very wealthy slave-owning plantation family in South Carolina. As young children they realized the horrors of slavery, and devoted their lives to ending it, and to affording full citizenship to blacks. They moved to Boston, since staying in SC would mean their public executions, where they became famous for their public advocacy on these matters. Frederick Douglas was one of their best friends. Following the civil war, they adopted the "mixed" race children of their brother; one of these children, a boy, married a white girl in Boston.
Next I offer the Englishmen who founded the Anti-Slavery Society, an utterly radical and novel notion, given that slavery had been a common feature to that point in nearly all civilizations in world history, including those in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Many in this group were businessmen, including some who were slave merchants who halted their businesses. Some of their feircests opponents were African leaders, who themselves profitted from the slave trade. This organization did not end with the US civil war; indeed it survives this very day, because slavery on this earth has never ended.
It is very sad, but not only did black Africans practice slavery before and during the slave trade with Europeans, but they practiced long after white folks ended slavery. As with white slave practicioners, slavery in Africa has led not to economic strength, but rather to ruin.
As an exception to my rule that slavery is a poor economic choice compared to wage labor, you may point to a few examples where a slave society flourished: Haiti and New Orleans being important examples. But a closer examination proves my point. For a time, Haiti was the wealthiest of all European colonies. However, the economic growth of that island coincided with the growth of a population of free blacks, a situation that threatened the institution of slavery itself. When white-on-black slavery ended with the success of the L'Vouture revolution, Haiti was poised to be even more successful economically. But L'Vouture got captured by Bonaparte, who consigned him to death in a prison, and Haiti's fate fell to the hands of freedmen who used their freedom to re-institute slavery, albeit black-on-black, and to rule the non-slaves via a succession of tyranies; even the "free" people there had no freedom. A similar situation befell the residents of Liberia: Freed blacks from the US immigrated there... and proceded to establish dictatorships and enslave the resident populations, a practice that ended in the 1930s or so.
New Orleans as well once prospered under slavery; it was the wealthiest city in North America for a while. But as with Haiti, this growing wealth coincided with a growing free black population. When NO got absorbed into the US, migration of whites from slave states resulted in increased "black codes"; the reduction of black freedom coincided with a diminished economic fortune for all NO residents. The end of reconstruction ended NO's status as economic powerhouse.
I don't like to speak of races generally, but it will make this debate less complicated. I must emphasize that not all whites are racist or imperialist or capitalist or supremacist, but that the institutions that guide the dominant culture on the planet are overwhelmingly Eurocentric and white supremacist. So when I use the words "whites" and "white people" I am talking about a generalized cultural system and not all individuals of European ancestry.
I don't believe that white people are superior. I believe that corporations and nations led by white people control many of the resources on the planet and reap the profits from them. I also believe that white people control the vast majority of guns - the police, the missles, the tanks, the nuclear warheads - which hold the rest of us in check. The invention that has most aided whites in their conquest was the greatest tool of conquest - the gun.
If non-white people understood the power of their labor, their consumer dollars and their sheer numbers (whites are a minority globally), the system of white supremacy could be toppled easily, even with fewer guns. However, whites have proven that they will not relinquish or even share control of those systems without a) violently defending their right to take more resources than are their fair share or b) finding some way that sharing this control is of some benefit to them.
As Wise pointed out, all people are guided by self interest. Therefore Paul's constant reminders that black Africans practiced slavery (in addition to Arabs, Asians, and indigenous societies nearly everywhere) are a moot point. Black on black slavery is not racist. It is slavery, which is still wrong. However, some blacks held white slaves and some whites held white slaves. The European system of slavery was specifically based on race, and that makes it different from all previous and later forms of slavery.
But with the exception of US prisons, slavery is illegal, and its end was a logical progression because it was a benefit to whites to end it. It was a benefit to Lincoln, it was a benefit to poor whites and it was a benefit to rich whites who could cut costs by paying pennies a day for labor.
The same holds true today. Because sweatshop labor abroad and illegal immigrant labor at home both pay slave wages, poor Americans are suffering from the loss of their own jobs. Immigration and economic policy will change in America when "everyday white folks" like you guys realize the benefits of a more equitable system, and you work to acheive one.
Think about it. As gas prices rise opposition to the war in Iraq increases. As the effects of global climate change become more pronounced, Americans begin to think more about the environment. If your favorite Mexican restaurant can't open today because the workers all stay home, you will be upset because it affects you.
The overarching difference between European culture and the vast majority of other indigenous cultures is that European culture emphasizes the needs and desires of the individual while other cultures emphasize the needs of the community, and each individual has a responsibility to the gods, the earth mother, the ancestors and the society. His individuality is based on the unique role that he has to play in the entire web of life, not just how much personal profit can be made for his own family or corporation.
Or put another way:
European culture = you work for yourself or you work for me
Other cultures = we work together for the good of the universe
Therefore self interest is a necessary component in motivating an individual to change his actions in a Eurocentric society.
Nadir: I agree with about half of what you wrote above (and wrote very well). The half that I reject includes your closer, which proclaims that "European cultures" are less likely than others to "work together for the good of the universe", and that "other cultures" are any less likely than Europeans to operate otherwise.
What were Shaka Zulu and his army doing when they invaded his father's kingdom and massacred, enslaved, raped, and robbed everyone? What were the Egyptian pharohs doing who employed the same means to unify that land? How about the Mongel conquest of eastern Europe, and the various conquests of the Muslim empire? Or the Ethiopean and Yemenese history of conquest and counter-conquest? And the Azteks and Incas, and other early American civilizations, who also employed the forms of brutality and subjugation that you seem to think are especially unique to European? Are you aware of the blood and brutality that unified the hundreds of peoples we now call "Indians" and "Chinese"? How about the Japanese "Rape of Nankin"? Or Pol Pot? Or Idi Amin? Can we really charactorize these organized non-european cultures as "working together for the good of the universe"? Is this list any less endless than the list of brutal European cultures?
Are you aware that just about all these people practice what can only be called "racism" in their subjugation of others? Do you think that the Japanese and Chinese consider themselves to belong to the same "race"? Or the people in Liberia? Or Samolia? Or Rhwanda? You might lump these waring groups into the same racial catagories, but they do not, and these differentiations that they make mean something to them, and for centuries has justified for all manner of horrors visited by one on the other. Surely you do not believe that white folks invented the concept of "race" or "racism" any more than they invented language, science, or math. Ghandi and Nehru would certainly disagree with your conclusion about Indians lacking a history of non-white racial catagorization and subjugation.
History instructs me that no "racial" catagory of people on this earth holds any special status for moral superiority or inferiority.
"History instructs me that no "racial" catagory of people on this earth holds any special status for moral superiority or inferiority."
You are correct.
My points were more of an assertion that European culture "emphasizes" individuality more than other cultures. Those other cultures are not strictly all communal, and they are not free of racism, tribalism, or brutality.
Again this is a problem with generalization. The cosmologies of many non-European and some European cultures focus on being at one with the universe. For some being at one with the universe means being able to crush your enemies.
Many groups would hold the well being of their group over that of other groups. It is a natural trait for animals to protect their own, and to attack others that are perceived as a threat.
Nature is full of examples of brutality. A lioness is brutal when she slays an antelope to feed her young. But this is simply the way of nature.
War and conquest are not the exclusive enterprise of any group of people.
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