The New York Times hired a woman that tweeted a few unseemly
expressions, and a debate about hate and racism was launched. It's a good thing
this event happened, and that a debate was launched because there is much that
needs to be fleshed out regarding this subject.
An interesting commentary came in a column under the title:
“Yes, Anti-White Racism Exists” and the subtitle: “The denigration of human
beings works its own harm.” It was written by David French and published on
August 2, 2018 in National Review Online. What follows is a paragraph in the
column, that is of utmost interest:
“A powerless person's hate may not harm the powerful, but it
is still hate. A powerless person's hate may even be grounded in specific experiences,
but it is still hate. The essence of bigotry is to look at the color of a
person's skin and, on that basis alone, make malignant judgments about his
character or worth”.
Let me begin by defining two important words: Hate and
Racism.
Hate is very much a part of human nature. We fight or flee a
danger that's coming at us because we are equipped with a mechanism that tells
us a hateful thing is approaching. The mechanism is turned on in children well
below the age of one, and stays with us till we die. In fact, going after an
individual for no reason except a latent bad experience, was observed among
lions that would inexplicably target an individual hyena and punish it
vengefully. This can only be interpreted as hate. It also happens that a male
elephant would go after and punish another individual elephant for no reason
but apparent hate.
As to the definition of racism, it is an attitude that runs
contrary to human nature. It is also absent among all other species. Careful
study of the available evidence would suggest that racism began to develop
among humans with the start of civilization. Two related events could have been
responsible for its rise.
First, the people that were lucky to be in the right place
at the right time, settled down and started to farm the land. As they developed
and improved their lot whereas their hunter/gatherer cousins did not, they
attributed their success to a superior something about themselves they thought
set them up to be of the “upper caste”.
Second, the development that came with farming the land,
required extra help to do the work. This gave the upper caste the idea of
hiring hands from among the lower caste. Later, with the rise of the Roman
Empire, members of the lower caste were thought to be less than human, and
treated as slaves that deserve no right of any kind; not even the right to
life. Fast forward thousands of years to the modern era, and what you have is
the conflating of two words: hate and racism. As if to add to the confusion, a
third term: “bigotry,” was tossed into the mix.
Getting back to the David French excerpt, he says that a
powerless person's hate may not harm, and may even be grounded in specific
experiences, but it is still hate. Okay, we accept that ... but then what? Hate
is human nature; do we abolish human nature? We know by now this cannot be done
under any circumstance. What we can and should do, however, is legislate
against hate-mongering, which is the incitement of others to hate. But we must
stop here because to keep accusing others of hating us, will make us sound like
Jews looking for unearned compensation. And that's as ugly as it is hateful.
David French goes on to say that bigotry is to look at the
color of a person's skin and, on that basis alone, make malignant judgments
about his character or worth. The word bigotry is related to racism in the
sense that it is a practical tool by which abstract racism is put into effect.
A bigot, for example, would separate the races into castes, giving privileges
to some while denying those same privileges to others.
Thus, according to the definition, a bigot does not look
only at the color of the skin to judge someone, he looks at other attributes,
ranging from the color of the skin, to the God that the other guy worships, to
the foods that he eats … and the list is infinite.
The reason why bigotry is more important in jurisprudence
than racism, is that you cannot prove what lurks in someone's head or heart.
And even if you could, you must not punish him for that.
But when a bigot moves from the abstract to the application
of his hurtful tendencies, he opens himself to being called to account for what
he does that hurts someone else.