Cultural Bigotry
I could never be fairly accused of being a racist. I have comfortably lived among natives in Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania, and all regions of North America. I couldn’t care less about skin pigmentation or facial features, when evaluating the worth of another human being. Yet, like it or not; PC or not; it is impossible not to at least notice such obvious variations in humanity.
While the police can be ordered not to ‘profile’ subjects based on physical appearance, there is no way for the rulers to ever prevent the rest of us from doing so. As an example, when I lived peacefully as a decidedly minority Caucasian, among the predominant Asians and Pacific Islanders in Hawaii, even the bankers wore Aloha shirts as daily business attire. Anyone seen wearing a necktie in Honolulu’s balmy climate, was immediately considered suspect, by me and most everyone else, because they were undoubtedly either a lawyer, a politician, or a salesman from the mainland.
Were we ‘profiling’ and making perhaps inaccurate, or even unfair judgements based on physical appearance? You bet. Was that a form of prejudicial bigotry? Yes, of course. Was it irrational or wrong to do so? Not at all. The same Progressive snowflakes, who get their knickers in a twist over the very mention of profiling, get the vapors over the mere sight of bikers, armed citizens, KKK or Neo-Nazis protesters, Trump hats, and even riot police.
Prejudging others can be a rather significant survival skill, no matter how often we are exhorted not to be prejudiced. The police can be well-paid to risk not profiling for PC reasons; but the rest of us are not. Since doing so frequently elicits bogus charges of ‘racism,’ even when race itself is not even a factor (e.g. Jihadists), it is worth sorting out what it is that we really are all bigoted about. I submit that the common denominator of prejudice, intolerance, bigotry, tribalism, xenophobia, etc. is culture, not race.
The famed melting pot of immigrants that was once America, was a classic example of a dominant culture independent of race. Just as the multiracial Hawaiians readily accepted me as a kama’aina (local), when I deliberately learned to speak pidgin, adopted their dress codes, social mores, and cuisine, most Americans have eventually accepted those immigrants endeavoring to assimilate, whatever their racial or ethnic heritage.
Yet today, after a half century of Progressive efforts to indoctrinate us into their multiculturalism orthodoxy, Americans actively distrust and resent those immigrants being encouraged to settle in apartheid enclaves, and continue to defiantly maintain their native cultures in our land. This is especially true when their cultural mores are in direct conflict with our own, and strike us as offensive to our sensibilities. (Sharia law, misogyny, jihad, violent youth gangs, etc.)
Please note that these objections have nothing whatever to do with race, and everything to do with cultural conflicts. In fact, I would suggest that 150 years after the Civil War, any residual prejudices remaining in America, between the descendants of African slaves, and the descendants of their European masters, is more likely cultural bigotry than racism. To suggest that I have no right to disdain the alien, drug fueled, misogynist, ‘Gangsta Rap,’ Hip-hop, culture extant in our metropolitan ghettos today, and that I am somehow a ‘racist’ for doing so, is ludicrous.
I may not be able to avoid noticing their skin color, any more than I could avoid noticing their odd attire and hairstyles; but these all are merely outward manifestations, akin to uniforms denoting the team they belong to. Just as pink hair, body piercings, and/or excessive tattoos tend to inform me about membership in another somewhat alien culture, which is likely incompatible with mine. One on one, I find I can get along with most anyone; but when gathered into toxic cultural groupings, I find it prudent to avoid them. The bottom line is that my own prejudices are always cultural, not racial, and I suspect that this is substantially true of others.
Notice also how this cultural paradigm takes care of the ridiculous attempt, to label intolerance for Jihadist violence as racism against Muslims, as if that religion was a race. Islam is a pluralistic creed that has devout adherents from every race and ethnicity on the planet. It is odd that Progressives, who have no difficulty disparaging those of the Christian faith, can accuse anyone openly critical of terrorism within Islam, of being an Islamophobic racist. Again, it is the Jihadist culture found within Islam that we find offensive, and existentially dangerous to our existence, not the race or ethnicity of its delusional martyrs.
I make no apologies for preferring the culture I grew up in, in the sacrosanct land of our fathers, over those ethos I find intolerably barbaric, PC approved or not. Call me a cultural bigot if you like, or perhaps a culturist. I freely admit my prejudices against offensive cultures; but trying to shame me with charges of ‘racism,’ is a waste of time. I am blessedly, and will defiantly remain, immune to such specious epithets. â—„Daveâ–º
I was just having a discussion on facebook when someone came into it and asked us if we were using “the conservative racist definition of white”. I found that to be a really bizarre concept and inquired further as to why his definition of white was less racist than that of someone else. Personally, I just care that someone can have a consistent definition and not change it for each event to match their narrative.
He proceeded to tell me about how it’s racist to not include Middle Easterners, Jews, and Hispanics as white. That you can convert to Judaism, but it doesn’t make you a part of the Hebrew race. That their skin is often as pale as people who don’t call them white, and That race doesn’t exist genetically or as a scientific construct, but is a social construct. He then posted a picture of one of the Boston bombers and asked me if he was white. Needless to say I’m hopelessly confused at this point as to what he thinks he is asking me.
To me, it makes little sense to tell Middle Easterners, South Americans, and Northern Europeans that they have to all be the same race. They don’t share language, culture, ancestry, religion, or geography. Saying that excluding any of them from whiteness is racist implies that they would somehow be lessened by not being white, which sounds like it is either racist, or would imply that we should call everyone white, a term we should probably just drop at this point, since it seems to be causing more problems than it solves.
I could realistically claim at least 4 interesting and culturally distinct heritages, but white people apparently aren’t allowed to do that. Why a group that is always claiming great benefits of diversity refuses with religious fervor to acknowledge any differences between cultures is beyond me. I’ve come to the conclusion that the reason we can’t talk about race is that when the left talks about race, they are generally referring to skin tone or social class. The right is generally talking about culture or nationality. Until they realize these things, they won’t be able to have a valid discussion.
Steel, I think “race” is an outmoded term nullified by modern travel, immigration, and generational settlement. Travel and immigration became common in the 19th century. Those first immigrants culture was in most cases identifiable by their race. In 1800’s if you saw an Asian person in San Francisco you could be reasonably sure they were very much cultural Chinese. If not first generation at the very least raised in a family of Chinese culture. Six generations later how “Chinese” is the culture of their progeny? To say those people are Chinese is to say everything that makes up who they are rests in the tone of their skin or the shape of their eyes. It is the same as saying A black man in America today is the same culturally as a man from any country on the African continent.
The use of the term “race” is an example of the “progressives” regressive argument. “Race” can not be criticized because nobody can control their race and nobody can change it so criticizing someones race is unfair and wrong. To criticize culture is fair game though because culture can and does change all the time. In the event of current immigration It shouldn’t be unacceptable that an immigrant adapt to the culture and change certain aspects of their culture to assimilate, prosper, and “coexist” (To quote a particularly stupid bumper sticker) with their host or adopted culture. When equating culture to race no change can be expected. Race is outside anyone’s control so anyone that has any expectation of nominal conformity is now evil and oppressive. I would submit that anyone that uses race to justify anything they do is doing a disservice to themselves and all those of their race. General physical characteristics can not force an action and I’m speaking good or bad. Culture on the other hand may very well play a roll. Yet by using race they are saying you can expect the same from everybody else that sort of looks like me.
The only solution is to stop letting the cultural arguments being skewed as race arguments. Once that’s done there are no more victims. Only participants. Of course that leaves a level playing field. Social justice warriors don’t fare well under those conditions.
How stupid would it sound for an American woman criticized for walking down a Saudi Arabian street in a mini skirt and tube top to say she has a right to do it because she is white/of European decent/Caucasian? At least if she said it’s because I’m American it wouldn’t sound racist. 🙂
Great points. I often think about how going forward, people are increasingly mixed race, and often do change their declared racial affiliation to suit their present needs, but I’m young enough to have not thought much about how different things were before the melting pot really got melting. Back when race really did mean something much more consistently.
I think when you start to drift from straight up genetics with race, you get into culture, which I think should be fair game at any level. The problem being the large and powerful organized religions. I think we would be better off without the freedom of religion explicitly in the Constitution. Let it fall under freedom of speech and be done with it.
That’s an excellent point that by lumping together genetics and culture in race, you tie the culture stereotype to the genes.