Racism, political and moral questions

Racism, political and moral questions.

Discrimination which feeds racial discontent.

This is a difficult subject to write about, to find the correct words, since so many people appear to be willing to misinterpret what ever is written, into meanings that the writer did not intend.

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Racism is defined as- the belief that races have distinctive cultural characteristics determined by hereditary factors and this endows some races with an intrinsic superiority. ( belief is defined as -accepted as truth without proof or evidence)

Racial-- is defined as denoting or relating to divisions of the human species into races on grounds of physical characteristics.

Discrimination is defined as - the choice of any particular person, group etc. for favorable treatment.

It is clearly the bit about intrinsic superiority, that is the cause of so much pain, hurt and controversy. Leave those 2 words out and there is much less to fight about. There is also, contained within the definition, the root of discrimination and prejudice-- belief without any evidence of it being true. It is also clear that the definition does not single out which colour skin is the victim and which the aggressor. In fact people of all races can be racist. Look though history and then apply present day views; it can be seen that just about every nation has applied racism to other nations. African nations waged genocidal wars against other African nations, long before paler skinned people arrived there from the middle east and Europe. Asian nations tried their best to dominate, enslave and impoverish other Asian nations long before European colonials arrived. Selecting, (at random,) some examples to justify this paragraph we find; the mogul tribes treatment of China. The Chinese treatment of Tibet The Japanese treatment of Chinese and others. The suffering of the Bushmen of South Africa when the Zulus tribes took over their land. The treatment of indigenous tribes living in South American rain forest areas. Research will show so many examples, all showing that racism is and has been, wide spread throughout all the nations, regardless of the skin pigmentation. Discrimination, by definition, can be by any one or any group, against any other. It is not racially exclusive in any way. It is interesting that the definition of “racial,” does not include any mention of national identity.

It has become a normal practice, particularly in the media where each outlet seeks to justify its own preexisting moral stance; to blame rational reaction to obnoxious and unwanted behavior, as being due to prejudice; either racial, gender related, or religious. Often it is simply an individuals reaction to what they see as bad and abusive behavior. We live in a world of instant and omnipotent information. Much of this information is truthful but also so much is distorted and twisted to give a false impression. Deliberate distortion of facts, in order to persuade others to a particular point of view, is not new. It is understood that the ancient Romans used the fact that they controlled much of the written records of their time, to vilify the Celtic religious beliefs. Since the ancient Celts did not use a written record of their activities, we now only have their bitter opponent's description of events. Racism and distortion of fact, to support any particular racial opinion, is as old as humanity.

What has changed is the coming into existence of a race relations industry. A means of earning a living by claiming to be working to stop racism. In democracies politicians need to be seen as anti-racism and so appointing tax payer funded anti racism organizations, has become an easy way to show the world that they care. Laws are made to control what one person may say to another, these also are more virtue signaling, rather than social engineering. There is an ancient Chinese saying that the more laws you make, the more criminals you make. Lawyers make very good money by going to law courts over all sorts of prejudicial and discriminatory events. A wrongdoer can distort the general public's opinion of their wrong doing, by claiming those exposing it are racially motivated. A violent almost psychopathic action is considered worse if the victim is from a different racial group to the attacker. Why? Why is a racially motivated crime more unlawful than the same action done simply for financial gain or sadistic pleasure? Is the victim going to suffer less because they share racial origins with the perpetrator?

Throughout history the separate characteristics of the various races, have been exploited by politicians and they have been the subject of philosophical debate. Many words have been written to try and find if there is any purpose, within the “great scheme” of creation, for there being different racial divisions among humans. Some spiritual thinkers have claimed that the differences between the races exist so that a reincarnated spirit can experience a different world view from that of a previous life. Others claim that way back in the evolution of humans, we developed the different races to cope with the different environments occupied. From this it is claimed that as these environmental differences gradually get merged into one similar world wide effect, then humans will also evolve into one race, with no discernible differences or racial identities.

Politicians even in non democratic governments, need some focus of attention, away from their own shortcomings. Politicians need a “popular” idea to gather supporters. In times of social deprivation this is usually a focus on any group who do not openly conform to an invented normality, a normality the majority can be convinced is the ideal of the politician involved and they, the majority, will find life improved if this politician is in a position with the power to remove the non conforming group. This becomes racial but it is not necessarily a skin colour based racism.

We can not change the nature or historical conditioning of humans, we have to deal with the facts as they are now. It is tempting to say that if we remove all references to race from all human activities; that is, if every person all over the world simply regarded every other person as a human-being, all one species; then there would not be a need for racial equality laws or highly paid lawyers. This is not going to happen. Utopian ideas are unobtainable in the real world. What we can try to do is separate the distortions from truth, to prevent racism being used as an excuse for abhorrent behavior, To prevent political idealists and zealots from distorting the racial situation to achieve their own political agendas. This goes for both left and right of the political spectrum. All humans matter, all humans are fallible. It is the belief, often without evidence- that one racial group is in some way being treated more favorably than another group, that causes the social unrest. Use evidence to change this belief. All humans can be good, bad or some place in between. Humans can be clever and they can be ignorant, often a person can be both of these things at the same time, just on different subjects. All humans can be rational and considerate and all humans can be irrational and arrogant. We just need to consider each on their merit and forget any racial generalization. If any politician is serious enough and brave enough, they can start a campaign to remove all discriminatory and or racial, references from all the laws. This will include so called “positive” discrimination, all quota systems. Each and every person judged in each and every situation, on merit alone. We can not pretend that different races do not exist, that is to deny the obvious and be counter productive. So we can and should adopt the attitude that the races have distinctive cultural characteristics determined by hereditary factors, but all are equal in merit, difference is simply difference, no more and no less. Cultural and religious practices vary from group to group. Some practices can be misunderstood and even opposed by other groups; while this can lead to discrimination it is not racism to blame. It is the intolerance of some belief systems and the arrogance of other belief systems (which consider themselves to be above secular laws.) Tolerance can only come from open debate and can only thrive when both sides of a debate show it.

Extremist politicians, on both sides of any debate, use the suggestion that their supporters are being discriminated against, to hide the shortcomings of any policy or long term intentions. If the media in all its formats, used truthful explanation with evidence to minimize the effect of these extremist distortions, we may all start to make progress. The politicians and the media in general, needs to stop exaggeration, stop distortion, stop fake news and stop being part of the problem and become part of the solution.