False Charges of Racism, concl.page 2
In contrast to racial discrimination, racism isn’t illegal. Illegal actions, and sometimes intentions, gain the attention of investigatory, law enforcement, and prosecutory authorities. However, those who cite racism as a way to gain attention and perhaps preferential treatment rely on emotionally explosive rather than rational reactions to false charges. A rational reaction would be to force frauds to prove that the accused has, beyond having a politically incorrect attitude, committed an actual crime, and then prove damages. The burden of proof should be the accuser’s.
However, charges of racism must be answered, especially now since proven racist attitudes as motivation in the commission of a crime translate to longer prison sentencing through hate crime legislation. It’s no longer just a dubious honor just to be called a racist in a press release by small but powerful and volatile minority groups known for directing their appeals to the emotions.
Racial discrimination is illegal and, in theory, must be proven by the accuser. Equal employment laws (set by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)) state that people can’t be discriminated against in their bid for employment based on their race, creed, religion, sex, and age. Job applicants who suspect that the hiring and promotion practices of a company are racially discriminatory must provide proof that racial considerations motivated those with the power to hire and fire. Until “you have established that an evil act has been committed, it is utterly worthless to proceed on the basis of motive” (Fumento, pp. 139 – 140). Suspicions, denouncements, and condemnations based on nothing more than a feeling and the ultimate failure to land a job are insupportable in court. As with any psychological and emotional state of mind, until the racist translates his feelings into written, verbal, and physical action, those feelings are difficult for external observers to prove, making allegations of racism impossible to prove. They’re also impossible to reliably disprove, which makes them easy to assert.
Allegations of racial discrimination burst onto the front pages of newspapers and quietly disappear from public view on the back pages, whether or not the accuser’s story bore out as true. Most news reports sway the public to root for the underdog, and purport that the onus of proving a negative (that discrimination didn’t occur) in a no-win confrontation is on the accused employer or service provider. Did the accused actually participate in an egregious racial injustice against a minority? Maybe the case was settled in arbitration out of court else risk attracting more bad publicity if the accused does nothing, receiving no follow-up publicity. Maybe the accuser cut bait and left the inhospitable corporate pond. Maybe the corporate victims capitulated, caught in a coercive double-bind of having to deny the unprovable, making them appear unconvincing and slightly ridiculous. Corporate victims can pay off their accusers and ask them to retract their statements and go away. Alternately, they can hire the demonstrably unqualified and deceitful accuser, planning to find some responsibility in the company that the accuser may be competent to execute.
Witnesses are usually in the break room when an employer or organization states, “Because you are black, I’m not giving you this job or the chance to participate.” The absence of witnesses, failure to prove a history of racially discriminatory practices within a company, and inability to demonstrate that an action was racially motivated make proving a case difficult for people outside a company or organization. Laws that required businesses to post documents regarding their conformance to racial equality in the workplace, and employer sponsoring of in-house sensitivity training regarding race issues has further insulated companies against charges of racial discrimination.
Many victims surrender because they can’t afford the time and energy and money required to prove that a person’s race, religious background, ethnic affiliation, or physical handicap were not factors in a corporate decision to withhold perceived rewards or opportunities. Employers will often grant rewards rather than attempt to prove conformance to equal employment laws. In either possible response–attempting to disprove the allegation or surrendering in the interest of saving energy, time, and money–the use of the racism charge as a tactic is validated.
Those who understand the difficulty of proving illegal racial discrimination are sympathetic when they hear of alleged incidents; it feels unreasonable to expect financially strapped minorities who may have little access to good counsel to build a case under the legal tenets that everyone else is expected to use. It doesn’t seem fair that people who cite racism are increasingly assumed to be crying over sour grapes for failures that may be caused by other factors. It doesn’t seem fair that those in power aren’t legally bound to take some responsibility to prove their integrity, to allay the doubts evoked by those who charge racial discrimination. The American public unrealistically views an instance of alleged racial discrimination as an unconscionable affront against an entire race rather than against a single job applicant.
Business can be viewed as either a scapegoat example of hard-hearted business interests, developing a bad reputation for squashing the powerless, disadvantaged minority, or as a compassionate and racially sensitive model, a laudable representative of employers and service providers everywhere. In fact, businesses fall along a continuum of ethics, not all lily white, not all cowardly wimps, and not all interested in being culturally diverse.
Corporations can repudiate accusations, maintaining that they encourage a multicultural work place. Employers who discriminate find ways to get around laws, such as preferring to hire from within the organization, though laws require publicly advertisement of open positions. Corporations are now diverting efforts into exercising additional care to avoid accusations, often sacrificing profits to generate the perception that they are attuned to the problems of minorities, that they are politically correct. They submit out of fear that their community image will be tarnished, spending to improve their public image because a good image is good business sense.
The accused rarely acts from a sense of guilt to immolate the accuser, but more from a sense of potential loss of respect in the eyes of people whose opinion means something more substantial. They surrender because they fear repercussive financial damage, not through reprisals from accusers or their friends, but from potential boycott reprisals by others who blindly accept the veracity of unfounded accusations. The buying public often fails to analyze the evidence underlying accusations; fails to question the motivations of accusers; fails to consider that for every minority who didn’t get the job, ten whites also didn’t get the job; and fallaciously equates disparity in racial representation in any profession with racially discriminatory hiring practices rather than the absence of qualified or interested minority job candidates.
Corporations are forced to counter-manipulate public perceptions and hope that, through their conscientious cultural diversity programs, they can prove that they are racially neutral when their human resources personnel decide that a minority applicant isn’t qualified to perform an advertised job. They learn to fight manufactured perceptions with manufactured perceptions, and the touchy area of racially discriminatory practices is circumvented, at a great cost to corporations, a cost that they often decide to pass along to customers.
Where gains have traditionally been obtained through hard work, political debate, persuasive rhetoric, and threats of violence and actual violence, now it can be obtained through the hint that someone or some company is racist. Non-minority corporate insides need not worry; they may still make plausible allegations of sexual harassment to achieve similar promotion gains.
Corporations and distributors can also appease accusers by expanding marketing efforts to include the interests of non-target ethnic markets. It isn’t profitable to design a limited line of specialty products and address those products to a small percentage of the population by race, the members of which may have relatively little purchasing power in contrast to majority populations. The fishing gear retailer in a predominantly white community may surrender precious shelf space to stock Jheri curl hair products targeted to blacks just to avoid being accused of discriminating against black consumers who might stop in with the unrealistic expectation of finding anything but fishing poles and lures. Cable network providers sacrifice profits to broadcast programs in areas with low demand and for which advertisers can’t be found as circumstantial proof of their multiculturalism.
When denouncing false allegations of racial discrimination, corporate spokespeople and politicians face attacks by special interest groups who jump on any statement that underplays discrimination as a reason for anemic success by minorities. The goal of the outcry is to compel institutions to restore dignity by censuring those who voice rational dissent and stepping up plans to give minorities more opportunities in the institutions. These opportunities are available as affirmative action and quota programs and costly education programs/grants for the minority group.
Sometimes, small businesses can’t win no matter what they do. Take the case of Mike Welbel, the owner of the Daniel Lamp Company in Chicago. Local government stated that the region in which he ran his business would dictate that he hire 8.45 black employees. He had hired only 5.0, unable to find less than a whole person in the job market if he tried. He also employed 21 Hispanics, since his business was located in a largely Hispanic community. A black female applicant for a position Welbel advertised who was denied employment cried racism and the federal investigation got underway. Based on the regulations drawn up by the EEOC, Welbel was asked to spend $10,000 for newspaper ads seeking blacks who had applied but had not been hired by his company, and then another $123,991 to pay them for not working for him. After 18 months of negotiations, Welbel whittled the total amount to $25,000, $5,000 going to the lady who accused him of not hiring her because of her race, and the rest being paid in installments to the EEOC. In this case, the store owner’s inability to disprove the accuser’s allegations cost him dearly, and cost the accuser nothing.
Failure to sign or re-award contracts with minority suppliers of industry manufacturing components has led to charges of racial discrimination. If a manufacturer is cutting its suppliers and one happens to be minority owned, that supplier often voices concern that the cut was motivated by race, failing to consider that if race were a concern, the company wouldn’t have signed the supplier’s contract in the first place.
Attempting to disprove any racial discrimination charge lends assumed validity to even the most spurious claims. If all cases were to go to court, the judicial process would sink in the bogs of circumstantial and hearsay evidence. People who falsely charge racial discrimination know this. They also know that discrimination is usually committed by those in positions of power. Since powerful figures also have more money, they’re targets for low-rate accusers looking for a quick extortion. Americans feel obligated to ensure that discrimination doesn’t occur, that weaker minority members are not victimized. We want to err on the side of humanity and safety, on the side of those who can most afford to pay for the benefit of a doubt. Common opinion makes the “haves” feel obligated to disprove allegations of racial discrimination by the “have-nots,” thereby partially dignifying the allegations and increasing their credibility.
False charges of racial discrimination capitalize on the desire of Americans to appear politically correct, to right wrongs, to take responsibility for the misfortunes of others, regardless of how those misfortunes were induced. The method is easy to use, quick, dirty, achieves instant parity through fear, and relies on a double standard: minorities can use it with greater credibility than whites. It bypasses accepted channels for advancement and material gain, making the avenue to success much shorter for minorities. No other single method gets such quick results, not education, not hard work, not respect for others and earning respect from others, and not using the system of rewards for performance and withheld rewards for failure.
Distrust of those who allege racial discrimination without hard evidence, whether honestly or dishonestly, is making discrimination even more difficult to prove. Racists destroy evidence, and most evidence is often intangible or easily refutable. Accusers can’t afford the time to get evidence, time best use to be making other unsubstantiated allegations. Many poor don’t have the kind of resources and connections to see allegations through the court’s due process. Suspicion that someone has deprived a black because of race is increasingly making claims less plausible. Denouncement of a person’s actions as racist is not proof.
Charges of racism give politicians looking for black votes additional opportunities to make even more promises they can’t keep. In classic race baiting to stoke the fires of racial animus, white politicians pretend that they side with black resentment. Black politicians follow suit: Sharp James, black, mayor of Newark, N.J. since 1986, racialized the 2002 mayoral race, calling his Democrat opponent a white Republican to divert attention from the issues. Politicians mirror the argument that not enough blacks are in political office jobs, and if elected, they promise to ensure appointments. In clever insinuations, they accuse opponents of being racist. Racism becomes just another campaign strategy. They may lie to block judge nominations to the Supreme Court and to portray Clarence Thomas as a racial traitor (Charen, p. 46). The charges give reporters opportunities to criticize, to indignantly condemn, to demonstrate their social consciousness, and to persuade the public to be altruistic and less egocentric. But mostly, the media uses the charges to fill their drab front pages and foment generalized anger against heartless, monolithic political campaigns–a convenient enemy when no corporations have been accused recently.
Most people who charge racial discrimination intend to defraud and deceive for anticipated profits, not because they actually have been slighted based on their race. Racial profiteers are rewarded with media and peer attention, government policy changes to provide unfair and preferential treatment to populations based on their race, or payoffs (legal settlements by the falsely, and sometimes legitimately, accused employers). To repair a history of disenfranchisement, government bodies pass discriminatory laws that support unequal and favorable treatment based on minority race. These laws include affirmative action policies, hiring quota algorithms, subsidies for black business enterprises, public assistance, and social programs for the poor, a greater percentage by population of whom are minorities.
Charging racial discrimination as a first resort does not mean that racial discrimination doesn’t exist or doesn’t exist in the alleged instance. Instances of proven racial discrimination give even greater credibility than unproven charges to all charges of racial discrimination, so accusations of racial discrimination ought to be individually and scrupulously tested. Many instances of adverse, unequal treatment of minorities have been legally decided. A Denny’s restaurant in San Francisco forced groups of 10 or more blacks to prepay or pay cover charges after 10 p.m., denied them free birthday meals, subjected them to racially hostile comments or asked them to leave the restaurant. In a suit filed against Denny’s, co-counsel Patricia Price for the defendants said that the policy requiring groups of 10 or more to prepay after 10 p.m. applied without regard for race. Free birthday meals were denied when applicants couldn’t produce documents certifying that their birth dates coincided with their patronage on a given day. Subsequent allegations followed, most notably by a group of black Secret Service agents visiting Denny’s as bodyguards for President Clinton, who was scheduled to visit the restaurant. It should be emphasized that Denny’s wasn’t charged with racially discriminatory hiring practices, but with being rude to black customers.
Racism isn’t charged only against businesses, which have deep pockets, and frightened public relations attorneys who advise payoffs. Evidence of the divisiveness of unsupported charges of racism can also be found at universities. Indiana University basketball coach Bobby Knight felt the heat of charges of racism when he posed over one of his players with a leather bullwhip given to him by his players. Knight said his players were spoofing his image as a taskmaster when they gave him the whip and that he was using it as a motivational tool. The NAACP was flooded with calls that Knight should be fired for his “racist” behavior. Frivolous character assassination based on false charges of racism can ruin a person’s life, career, family, and chances of ever re-gaining respect in his or her field of expertise.
Jermaine O’Neal, in an amazing twist of logic, linked racism to the NBA’s desire to put a minimum age limit on professional basketball players being drafted into the league: “As a black guy, you kind of think that’s the reason why it’s coming up. You don’t hear about it in baseball or hockey. To say you have to be 20, 21 to get in the league, it’s unconstitutional. If I can go to the U.S. Army and fight the war at 18, why can’t you play basketball for 48 minutes?” (FOXSports.com, April 12, 2005). The racism connection that O’Neal is implying is that black athletes don’t have many options for earning money during high school and soon after graduating high school; since sports is one way out of poverty for many black males, increasing the age limit postpones primarily black athletes from earning their fortunes. There was no concern that white athletes would use the years up to the new age limit to become better b-ballers and possibly take a black athlete’s spot based on merit. O’Neal had no evidence that Commissioner David Stern and the collective bargaining committee used age limits as an insidious means of effectively practicing an indirect, less identifiable brand of covert racism. The more probable reason for raising the draft age limit is to allow athletes the option of attending college after high school, allowing them to gain both an education and the discipline imposed by college basketball programs. More mature basketball players often have more court experience, are closer to being worth what owners pay them, and have a better idea how to handle the riches.
People have lost their jobs after being charged with racism. James Parry, an administrator at Wright State University in Fairborn, Ohio, was fired after Karen Townsend, a colleague and coordinator of WSU’s Minority Scholars Access and Achievement Program, accused him of racism when he said that he would not be comfortable with a minority political member serving as chairperson of the committee. Parry is white; Townsend, who was in line to become chairperson, is black. Parry filed a counter federal lawsuit, denying any racist intent in his language, and asserting that his constitutional rights of due process and free speech were violated when he was dismissed.
Spike Lee, producer and director of the film Malcolm X is notorious for his high-visibility charges of racism. He charged that the film industry was racist when it placed a funding cap on Malcolm X. He accused Warner Brothers of skimping on financing, saying that the studio had thrown away much more money on bad movies by white directors. Lee did not produce statistics for the number of films whose financing Warner had capped for going $5 million over budget, nor did he describe how such excess placed Malcolm X under the control of a completion bond company. He also failed to note that the white directors he used in his argument of racial favoritism had a history of making films that raked in money at the box offices in the past, a track record that makes studios more willing to take risks with them.
Spike has stated that he prefers to be interviewed by black journalists. Warner Brothers “insisted that [Lee] had not set down a rigid rule barring whites from interviewing him.” “‘What I’m doing is using whatever clout I have to get qualified African-Americans assignments. The real crime is white publications don’t have black writers, that’s the crime.’ Lee said black journalists would be more responsive and sympathetic to the events of Malcolm X. ‘If newspapers or magazines can’t find a black writer to write about Malcolm X, then what’s the point?’” (Weinraub).
If Spike were interested in getting African-American writers assignments, why wouldn’t he try to get them assignments in general, not just for himself, and for other predominantly white publications, interviewing white celebrities, too? There is no evidence that same-race interview and subject make for more interesting biographical articles, though Lee was probably hoping he’d get more sympathy play from a black writer than from a white one, under the fatuous principle that only another brother would understand what a brother goes through in a racist society. And few blacks on magazine writing staffs isn’t evidence of a crime, as Lee asserts.
In other Warner Brothers news, anticipated charges of racism led Warner Brothers brass to change a scripted version of Tom Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities: “the most sympathetic character was a white Jewish judge who has no problem putting a pack of opportunists–most of them black–in their place.” The book from which the script for the film was adapted depicted a Jew dominating blacks, so Warner Brothers cast a black actor, Morgan Freeman, in the judge’s role (Arar, Dayton Daily News) to avert race controversy. Warner Brothers knew that double standards allowed blacks to berate other blacks and still be viewed as a racially traitorous demanding father figure, but that a white in the same position would kick up charges of Jewish racism.
Cities are not immune. Xenia, Ohio, is often accused of being a racist town by black students from Wilberforce and Central State University, two predominantly black institutions that are less than two miles from Xenia. The support for these accusations is that businesses in Xenia do not hire Wilberforce and CSU students. Managers of these businesses also watch the students very closely when they come into stores, implying that because the students are black, the merchants feel they will steal. The fact is that any group of transient young students wouldn’t be trusted and make unlikely candidates for hiring. Students at a commuter college are rowdy, have little money, and often have not learned the value of good work ethic, such as being at work on time. Also, since most of the students have commuted from inner cities where crime is more prevalent, they bring with them a reputation, a belief which was enforced in those businesses that did take chances hiring and allowing students to roam through stores unsupervised. The students were undependable employees, were late, stole merchandise from businesses, stole merchandise as customers, and helped their friends steal merchandise. It is not true that merchants in Xenia do not hire blacks. They hire blacks who live in Xenia; they just don’t hire visiting students.
Communities generally respond to charges of racism by launching corrective campaigns against social injustice and by compensating victims. Cities attempt to attract developers and convince expanding companies to locate new plants and offices and into areas where blacks live to ensure a predominantly black work force, thereby avoiding charges of endemic government racism.
Lending institutions are also accused of conspiring to keep black communities from flourishing. When minorities do receive financial backing, the amount of the loaned capital is frequently reported to be not enough to give the new business a solid start. When granted, the loans are reported to be for amounts less than similarly qualified whites receive. And when loans are made, such as for car purchases, the interest for blacks averages 7 percent versus 5 percent for whites as of May 2007 in Dayton, Ohio. The way the statistic is phrased screams that race is the reason for the disparity.
Blacks, resentful of what they are asked to believe are denied loans and higher repayment interest levels for blacks because of their race, then claim that they receive less money in loans because they’re black, and because whites want all the power with none of the black competition. Bankers, white and black, care less about how minority-owned businesses stack up in competition with mainstream businesses than about getting their money back, with contractual interest. The details not revealed in charges of racism against banks is the poor performance rating a loan officer receives for every defaulted loan he makes, and how poor performance reviews make him cautious. Rates of loan defaults and statistics on business failings tell lenders that black borrowers are more likely to default. What does “similarly qualified” mean when applied to whites by minorities denied loans? Does it mean that both applicants walked into the bank? The area in which the minority businessman plans to do business may show higher fail rates than businesses in a similar, integrated, geographic area. The criteria–credit histories, applicant assets, strength of a business plan, and employment experience–for making loans and how minorities don’t meet the criteria is a more probable reason for racial disparity in bank lending practices.
A case of high rates of
black loan applicant rejection by banks in Georgia generated “widespread
attention partly because it illustrates the sharply limited options minorities
confront when they must borrow money. Federal and private studies show, for
example, that banks reject black applicants for mortgages at more than twice the
rate of white applicants.”
Changing the word “race” to “unqualified applicants” or “qualified applicants” on bank loan applications would remove the racial connection, and the focus of the news story would have to change from an implied accusation that race was a primary causal factor to poor qualifications to obtain bank loans.
Sometimes, when minorities run afoul of the law, their defense is to charge racism. Dayton, Ohio funeral director Wayne Wheat blamed racism when the State Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors fined him $20,000 for allegedly mishandling a body: “‘That’s only because I’m a black man,’ Wheat said. ‘I’m merely a victim of a racist system. All these boards you have to go in front of do not understand black-on-black business’” (Bray, Dayton Daily News, January 30, 1992). The mishandled body was that of a black woman whose family could not pay for Wheat’s burial services. The following year Wheat was under investigation for running a crack cocaine distribution center out of his funeral establishments.
An especially questionable use of the racism charge was made by Melvin Girton, a black reverend who asserted that Mike Tyson, the former heavyweight boxer, would not get a fair trial for raping an 18-year-old Miss Black America beauty pageant contestant on July 19, 1991 unless three blacks, rather than two, sat on the jury. During the trial in Indianapolis, Girton said that Indianapolis “‘is a known racist, conservative town. ...They thought they got the toughest woman...who has been tough on black men,’ he said. ‘The two black men on the jury can decide in Tyson’s favor, guaranteeing him at least a hung jury’” (Simms). During the trial, exhibit posters on which was written “Justice and Fairness for Mike Tyson. The World is Watching Indianapolis” were stapled to trees and sides of buildings. The implication of the language was that if Mike Tyson were convicted, he would be convicted because of his race, which would make it unjust and unfair. Girton used implicit racial discrimination charges in an attempt to sway public opinion and failed to recognize that his solution, three blacks in the jury, presumes that all blacks are prejudiced in favor of other blacks, in much the same way that a black interviewer is presumed to be partial to a black celebrity and won’t report the celebrity’s negative news.
When a large proportion of urban black high school students fails to meet standards of achievement, black organizations often cite racial reasons for the failure, whether the reasons are that blacks have always been discriminated against, or because the testing procedures are biased and unfair. George L. Forbes, an official with the NAACP, using circular logic, charged that the “statewide proficiency tests which [Ohio] high school students must pass to graduate are unfair to minorities because they have been victims of discrimination” (Dayton Daily News). According to the newspaper report, the racial fairness of the test was less an issue in the failing of 1600 Cleveland high school juniors than how failure would affect the chances of the students to get well-paying jobs without diplomas.
In an attempt to reduce racist attitudes, some blame racism for contributing to an overall poor economy in the hopes that people will focus on the imperative task of improving the economy while forgetting to question whether there is a significant connection between racism and the economy. Stuart Butler, an economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation, stated that the imprisonment of 25 percent of black men and teenagers exacted an annual price tag in 1990 of about $7 billion. His blanket conclusion was that “Racism always leads to a reduction in the GNP in any country” (Dayton Daily News, August 1992).
Perceptions of race and what constitutes racism are most clear in unguarded commentaries by regular folk. In his book of interviews on race issues, Studs Terkel got a variety of viewpoints about race: “‘To be a racist, you have to be able to oppress another race. To do that, you have to have economic and political power’” (Terkel, quoting Kelly, p. 205). Every employer, manager, court judge, teacher, and prison guard is a potential racist by this definition. Every minority in these positions could be a racist. It’s unclear what constitutes oppression. Anyone can be called a racist for denying either power or privilege to one or more members of another race for any reason. According to this view, anyone who has the component requirement of being able to exercise the power to oppress the race can be a racist.
Other comments to Terkel illustrate white frustration, fatigue, and resentment: “‘I’m tired of caring. I don’t feel guilty anymore. They [the blacks] can just look after themselves. I keep wondering what kind of message young blacks have been getting these past fifteen years from society at large. Perhaps they’ve been encouraged to think of themselves as victims and that the system is stacked against them. The message would be: “You’re bound to fail and it’s okay to fail. It’s not your fault.” That must surely inculcate fatalism’” (Terkel quoting Rian Malan, p. 328). Such comments reflect that the public in general, including blacks, is tired of black excuses–racial discrimination–for failure.
Charges of racism have been leveled by respected and powerful black citizens for failures of blacks to fairly compete against other qualified candidates for jobs. Discrepancies in the quality of housing between white and black neighborhoods have been blamed on racist realty practices, while real factors for the discrepancies, and thus real solutions, were left unexamined. Locating landfills and waste dumps in predominantly poor communities is often blamed on racist policy rather than interest in the geological qualities that make an area viable as a dump site or of precedent in an area for the creation of future dumps; some of the poor can’t afford to live in more attractive areas that don’t have landfills that depress the property values. Racism is often cited as the cause of harsh police action against minorities. Some accuse urban police forces of racism for not being more diligent in stopping opposing black gang members from killing one another. Some minorities, with straight faces, have cited racial discrimination because they haven’t been given preferential treatment over whites. Some have accused the U.S. Government of racism for not going to war to protect Tutsis who were slaughtered in Rwanda by the Hutus, though the U.S. had no business interests nor security threats in Rwanda.
Of course, charging racism for the exclusion of a black-oriented cable channel trivializes and dilutes the impact of the method. Charging racism in the midst of other horrendous offenses to humankind also trivializes it. A black minister, asked to comment about Jeffrey Dahmer’s inhuman crimes, in a blatant move to gain attention for the issue of racism, cited racism as Dahmer’s major offense. The minister’s observation asserts that racism is more horrendous than cannibalism, murder, necrophilia, homosexual rape, and sociopathic psychosis.
In the hearings to confirm Clarence Thomas as a Supreme Court judge, Clarence Thomas blamed the subjection of his moral goodness to public scrutiny as a racist conspiracy to make him appear unworthy. At the time, so much was written about how his nomination was based on his race, it seemed a natural conclusion that the accusations of Anita Hill were also based on Thomas’ race, as well. Clarence Thomas’ mother, after her son was elected to the Supreme Court, told television reporters, “I pray for those who didn’t vote for my son,” insinuating that they were racists, and racists go to hell.
The excessiveness of charges of racism and demands for political correctness are subject to endless lampooning. In a Saturday Night Live skit, two white men attempt to rob a bank whose customers are predominantly black. Black customers in the bank accuse the robbers of racism because they selected the black man’s bank to rob. One of the robbers attempts to explain that they selected the bank based on their analysis of its weak security system. During the apologetic explanation, the police arrive and the robbers flee without the money. After they’d gone, a black bank teller complains that had the bank’s customers been white, the robbers would have taken hostages, implying that racial parity means demanding that blacks not be deprived of even the pain and suffering normally reserved for whites.
The skit demonstrates how ridiculous some accusations of racism are, but more importantly, it shows how these accusations lead to desired results: one of the white robbers, feeling slightly guilty, fearing that they weren’t being politically correct or sensitive to black concerns, wastes time consoling their accusers, giving the police time to arrive. The skit also demonstrates that the reasons behind actions–such as robbing the bank–may have no racial motivation.
There’s a lot in the charges of racism that defies logic; robbers hypothetically taking hostages if the SNL’s skit bank customers had been white, for instance. People wonder if outcomes would differ if the races of the participants were changed out. “Had I been white, things would be different,” or “if I hadn’t been black” are examples of veiled, insulting, and ridiculous charges of racism. At the moment an undesired action occurs, no one can ever know that a different action would have resulted had the color of the person’s skin been different. It is unreasonable to ask others to believe that if eventualities could be proven, then blacks would be able to demonstrate discrimination. Even if racial discrimination is disproved, the accusation can still be made that the investigations that provided the proof, or the criteria on which the proof is based, is biased, which asks those in charge of disproving a negative to further examine their methodology.
Completely unprovable, some statements project into the future had something in the past not happened: “Blacks would not have made their current advances had it not been for the efforts of specific past black leaders.” The future can’t be reliably predicted from hypothetical changes in the past of someone’s race. No one can say whether other black leaders wouldn’t have emerged with the same ideas and better communication methods if not for the leader who had actually garnered all of the attention. Every preceding generation lays the groundwork, or destroys the ground, for the next generation, regardless of race, and often without an intention to lay groundwork. Sometimes, people simply live their lives and allow their children to live their lives.
Another shot at parodying allegations of racism was taken by Garry Trudeau in his “Doonesbury” comic strip. In the story line, a university professor is flabbergasted and incredulous that impartially applied standards for achieving quantifiable grades on math tests can be questioned on grounds of racism and nationalism…by a white student in a Greek fraternity. The student accuses the teacher of being racist and the proofs in math to be “absolutist, Eurocentric…,” defending his incorrect answers to a math problem as arguably correct from a cultural perspective and demanding entitlements based on the professor’s low expectations of frat brothers. The math professor’s participation in an illogical argument with the student lands the school in a $5 million lawsuit for stigmatizing and stereotyping the Greek culture.
The health care industry frequently comes under attack for perceived slights based on patient race. It is true that most of the blacks on the waiting list for organ transplants are near the bottom of the list. So are poor whites who also can’t afford to bribe doctors, whose bodies are also distressed by poverty, and who waited too long lacking health care insurance to get preventive checkups, making them poor candidates for organ transplants. Since about a third of the black race is disproportionately represented in the roles of the poor, blacks are also disproportionately represented for services that being poor has made them ill-prepared to receive.
Unequal health care is the stated reason that blacks don’t live as long as whites: “Middle-age black men are dying at nearly twice the rate of white men of a similar age, reflecting lower incomes and poorer access to health care” (Dayton Daily News, p. A5). The journal Health Affairs devoted most of its March/April 2005 issue to the topic of health care discrepancies between races. Relatively “low incomes of black men compared with whites, a rise in gun-related deaths among blacks, their disproportionately high death rate from AIDS, and higher rates of heart disease and diabetes” are a few of the factors in the discrepancies. In a story a year later, Jeff Donn reported that a study by the Rand Health research institute showed that “…once in treatment, minorities’ overall care appears similar to that of whites” (Donn, Dayton Daily News).
Terje Anderson, director of the National Association of People With AIDS comments on reports of findings of the 12th Annual Retrovirus Conference held in Boston: “We just have a burgeoning epidemic in the African American community that is not being dealt with effectively…. Researchers and AIDS prevention advocates attribute the high rate among blacks to such factors as drug addiction, poverty and poor access to health care.” The rise in the prevalence of the AIDS virus is from 1 percent to 2 percent of blacks. White rates held steady at 0.2 percent. Though blacks make up only 12 percent of the population in the U.S., 68 percent of all new HIV cases in 2004 were in the black population, with fully 50 percent in black women between the ages of 24 and 45. Blacks are 13 times more likely to die of HIV than whites with HIV. 500,000 blacks in the U.S. are infected with HIV, according to 2005 CDC statistics, a little fewer than half of all cases of people with HIV. In prison, the rates of HIV among black males is 5 times higher than in the general population, with 40 percent of men of all races in prison admitting to having sex with other male inmates during their incarceration. The high rates of AIDS deaths in and imprisonment of black males explains the diminishing ratio of black males to black females outside of prison, currently averaging 85 males to every 100 females of marriageable age, giving black males, even with HIV, more heterosexual mating options with black females desperate for partnerships and families, though those very same options often compel black males in the know to play the field of desperate black females.
Minorities in South Central L.A. blamed white racist culture and jury verdicts in the Rodney King case to excuse their rioting, which was carried out primarily by black male looters and vandals who destroyed and pillaged black and Korean-owned businesses. Given free rein while remaining anonymous in the face and force of mobs of indignation, the rioters destroyed and stole from businesses owned by their own race, so their response to “racist” verdicts was simply an opportunity to steal and destroy with the imprimatur of racism’s blank check. In a creative attempt to include whites as greedy recipients of the spoils of racism charges in Nashville, North Carolina, “Four young whites shot a black man and set fires in hopes of starting a race riot so they could loot stores. The four also were charged with painting racial slurs on school property”(Dayton Daily News, November 18, 1992).
Racism should not be used as “a legitimizing rationale for violence, crime or the endemic problems of the urban poor” (Morganthau, p. 28). Colin Ferguson, the Jamaican gunman on the Long Island Railroad commuter train who killed 5 white passengers and wounded 20 more, blamed “Adelphi University racism, EEOC racism, Workmen’s Compensation Board. Racism of Gov. Cuomo’s staff….Additional reasons for this: Caucasian racism and Uncle Tom Negroes” (Dayton Daily News, December 9, 1993, p. A1).
Black activists frequently target the criminal justice system and the disproportionately large number of imprisoned blacks as evidence of a racist system. Investigations were conducted to discover possible racial disparity in the stiffer prison sentences in Minnesota for crack cocaine possession than for powdered cocaine. Crack cocaine is used and sold almost exclusively by inner-city blacks, whereas more affluent whites use powdered cocaine. The disparate sentencing was thought to be racist because, under federal sentencing guidelines, a gram of crack calls for the same sentence as received for possession of 100 grams of powdered cocaine. However, Congress reasoned that crack is easier to transport and can be more addictive. Its relative affordability makes it easier for children to obtain. Also, one gram of powdered cocaine costs about $100 and that amount can produce 10 doses of crack costing $20 to $25 each.
Those in lower economic strata often use charges of racism to position themselves as superior to newcomers. This brand of racism allows existing community members to gain a sense of cohesion because they are fighting the same, easily identifiable encroacher. It allows them to beat another race out of jobs or out of town by making them feel unwelcome, inferior, and powerless. They want to hog resources and use racism to keep another group from getting or successfully competing for them.
Some leaders in the black community are launching a massive public relations campaign to trick apathetic whites into thinking that what’s good for black society is good for whites, too. This rising tide-rising all theory persuades whites to help blacks. This is in contrast to attempting to gain the support of whites through browbeating, crying racism, inducing guilt complexes for victimization, etc. Another method is to accuse whites of not knowing they are actually racist. Some blacks feel that whites who think they’re not racist are even more racist than those who admit it, since they’re denying and hiding their racism. Even if racism is not demonstrable through behavior, it is assumed to exist in the subconscious. This belief shifts the burden of proof to whites who are asked to quantifiably prove their lack of racism by performing acts that directly benefit only blacks or that curtail anti-black sentiments, like protesting KKK marches. Another Freudian re-invention is the use of denial to prove racism. In Freudian psychotherapy, when patients disagree with their therapists, the theory of denial automatically blames the patient, just as some blacks automatically blame racist attitudes if whites disagree that they are racist.
Non-racist whites are in no way obligated to prove they aren’t racist by actively showing their disagreement with racist whites. People may disagree with a lot of the propaganda posited by a lot of groups–abortion rights groups, animal rights groups, feminist groups–but not making a visible show of opposition does not indicate that they agree with the tenets espoused by these groups. More often it indicates that the opponents to these groups have a life and don’t want to spend all their free time participating in opposition groups to prove to those in the opposition groups where their loyalty lay. Many racist groups have zero power and influence, and actively protesting them serves only to give these fringe groups them more visibility, making them more newsworthy, thereby bestowing on them more power simply through greater awareness. Protest is more detrimental to one’s own cause than ignoring the small pockets of zealots.
The unforgivable number of flagrantly unsupportable charges of racial discrimination have made the public increasingly immune to their appeal. The middle and lower classes no longer automatically assume that the holders of society’s rewards are obligated to disprove the charges, and the tactic is experiencing a backlash brought on by its saturation. Its practitioners are shown to be crying wolf too often, so often, in fact, that blacks can now receive respect and admiration for not charging racism and for accepting responsibility for adversity. Hershel Walker garnered respect when, in good sportsmanship, team spirit, and grace he commented that he understood that he was an inexperienced bobsled team member when he was dismissed from the bobsled team in the 1992 Winter Olympics and couldn’t help the team as much as the team’s former member could.
The burden of proof is shifting to those making the charges, a relationship usually demanded in legal cases. With the shift to more traditional legal tenets, the fear associated with bad publicity and legal penalties that arises from racial discrimination charges is somewhat abated. One negative effect of this shift is the increasingly probable condition of powerful members of society relaxing their diligence in exercising equality measures. At the other extreme, employers who feel they might be accused of racial discrimination if they don’t hire a black may more willfully discriminate, feeling they might as well commit the crime if they’re going to be accused of it anyway. Publicized high rates of reckless racial discrimination charges may lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy. Whites are resentful of blacks who change the rules about how to obtain jobs so that blacks have better leverage based not on qualifications, but on employer fear of reprisal.
Gradually, people accused of racism began to lose their fear of being perceived as racists, and rather than buckle immediately, began to challenge their accusers to use the legal system to prove the charges. “The word ‘racism’ was so recklessly applied in so many different contexts against so many people that it lost any real impact or meaning...” (Katz, p. 34). The charge became so commonplace that blacks would get loud in traditionally white establishments and dare whites who feared charges of racism to tell them to shut up. Blacks in race discussions look for opportunities to be offended, and uneasy whites are so careful not to offend, that effective open discussion is sidetracked in favor of not hurting feelings. Race issue discussions become emotionalized and irrational, the debaters quick to believe racist motives in others. Some people will always be offended. That’s a personality issue.
The effects that unsupported charges of racial discrimination in implausible contexts can have on the psyche of blacks erodes “the black community’s belief in its own autonomy and capacity for self-determination” (Blauner, pp. 318 - 319). Blauner goes on to assert that externalizing the causes of failure minimizes the “value of individual responsibility” (Blauner, p. 319). Because of psychological partial reinforcement and imperfect conferral of historical knowledge, false, unsupported charges of racism persist.
Though it’s suspected that black leaders say unsupportable, racist things just to stir up controversy, apologists defend the numerous demonstrably false or gray-area charges of racism because the charges keep society on its toes. Constant vigilance and alerts for racism ensure that there is no backsliding on civil rights advances.
With the erosion of public support, so erodes the method’s efficacy. Though charges of racism bring awareness of a very real, though probably limited, problem to the minds of many people, they must be used judiciously and responsibly. Racial discrimination must be plausibly valid in situations in which it is cited to maximize support for such an accusation. Otherwise, the method’s effectiveness as a way to gain action and respect deteriorates, and factual charges may go uninvestigated and then prematurely dismissed as fallacious. Those making the charges are taken less seriously, and they’re forced to prove them or else be censured for making false and frivolous, possibly libelous allegations. It is ironic that in the face of government laws that give minorities preferential treatment over whites, minorities still feel they have a legitimate right to falsely charge racism for every perceived slight.
On a personal level, falsely charging racism as an automatic reaction to failure degrades the accuser’s mental ability. If enough people believe that the way to success is to charge racism, fewer people will bother to learn how to analyze factors that may have really caused a failure, thereby preventing any chance that those factors can be addressed. Also, whites who generalize from specific cases and from their knowledge of psychological principles may diminish their respect for the analytic skills of blacks in general, reversing advances.
With frequent use of the racism charge may come gradual belief by those making the charge that society is racist. People who lie often enough can come to believe the lie, make the lie part of their identity and memory of their pasts, and interact with others as if the lie were truth. Believing that many failures are attributed to one’s race can no doubt lead to a grinding bitterness against other races, and this can lead to racist attitudes. In addition, it must be personally very painful to believe that obstacles are put in the path of minorities because of their race, since people can’t change their race or the statistically recorded behaviors of members of one’s race that predispose people to generalize. For those who believe that racism holds them back, the immutable condition of race leads to despair and hopelessness, to self-defeating decisions to fail through inaction since to excel is thought to be impossible for most blacks. Blacks who use the excuse of racism don’t care about the negative long-term psychological and cultural effects. Using the racism excuse reduces the work they must do and permits attainment of short-term goals, so they use it to excuse their own personal failure not to acquire skills required to get desirable, high-paying jobs.
Possibly more damaging than the bruised esteem of members of the black community is the failure of the community to believe charges of real racism in the flood of false charges. Some believe that most members of another race are racist, but that’s only evidence of fuzzy thinking and lack of clarity. There are race discrimination and prejudice conspiracies, but until they can be proved, baseless allegations serve only to inflame the race debate. Their purpose is to gain the attention and indignation of gullible liberals.
Ultimately, skeptical of the waves of blatantly unfounded charges of racism, even liberals come down with a case of compassion fatigue. People begin to ignore charges, fail to reward them, give the accused the benefit of a doubt, and seek alternate explanations for conditions described by the accuser. The backlash of antagonism and resentment sets in, causing everyone to doubt the truthfulness of allegations.