Tell me please, what is racism? by Bruce Logan
Accused of racism, Winston Peters is under the pump again.
But what is ‘racism’ and what are we saying when we accuse somebody of it?
Research reveals that 99.9% of us share a common DNA. The remaining 0.1% contains millions of genetic differences, sometimes called variants, that vary in frequency across populations because of ancestry, migration, and chance. These differences can influence skin, hair, and eye colour; resistance to certain diseases; how we respond to medications; and some physical characteristics. If this is true, race is an elusive phenomenon. Is it reduced to skin, hair and eye colour; how we respond to disease and minor physical differences? If so, it’s not a very big deal.
Human genetic variation is found within populations rather than between them. Two people from what we’d consider the same racial group can be more genetically different than either is from someone in another group. So, there are no genetic boundaries that divide us into a small number of biologically distinct races. Human genetic diversity exists on a continuum with overlapping populations shaped by shared ancestry and history. And in New Zealand, that becomes more obvious every year.
In recent times, race has attained a status it doesn’t deserve. This is because we’ve exchanged a traditional understanding of dignity for identity. I’ll explain. For centuries, without any knowledge of DNA, with roots in a widespread understanding that dignity issued from a sovereign God, it was a gift shared by all. Indeed, this has been the great truth that held Western civilisation together for centuries. Such a belief, honed by the aftermath of the Holocaust and Nuremberg Trials, has given rise to human rights theory and the rule of law, which in our jurisdiction means innocent until proven guilty. The claim of offence is hardly a sufficient indicator of guilt. Overt race-based persecution, violence, and pogroms can be factually evident and documented; hurt feelings cannot.
There is good reason to believe we are caught in a profound irony. Despite the rise of the de-Christianised secular state and its accompanying moral relativism — what may be right for you is not necessarily right for me — we try to preserve the idea of dignity while denying its God-given foundation. The sovereign self replaces the sovereignty of God. Consequently, dignity is replaced by identity, which becomes self-defined. This unsteady and capricious view of the self rests on feelings and impulse: I am what I say I am, regardless of objective reality. Such a notion of identity, with its presumed dignity, increasingly rests on self-perceptions of race and recently on the fluid idea of ‘gender’.
Because the authority of identity is now discovered within the self, any criticism can be taken as an offence. Offenders are guilty by definition – because I say they are. We are back with Alice in Wonderland and the Red Queen who demanded verdict first, evidence after. All the fuss and virtue signalling about ‘racism’ feeds on very thin gruel. Taking offence is an exercise in vanity, denying objective reality.
However, that is not to let Winston off the hook entirely. His invective, which was certainly provoked, did show a lack of respect for another’s humanity. But to immediately slap the label ‘racism’ on his comments is to allow political ideology to trump morality. It turns ‘love your neighbour as yourself’ into a distorted political imperative.
If someone insists that race is the foundation of his or her identity, how is race determined? For example, is a person from China ‘Chinese’ because of race, nationality, or culture? Is a person from France ‘French’ because of race, nationality, or culture? Whatever one believes, the charge of racism generates heat but sheds no light.
So, what’s really going on? Race is conflated with culture and biological reality with feelings. Decades of Marxist social theory, and the sustained rejection of the dignity of self rooted in transcendence, leave the individual to re-imagine his or her own subjective reality, and a hypersensitivity to being offended. The lens for seeing and understanding the world becomes, in true Marxist form, the oppressor and oppressed.
‘Racism’ is a readily available term to all who consider themselves oppressed, and using it is a ‘double whammy’: it immediately apportions guilt to the ‘other’ while giving the user a self-righteous moral high ground. The word has become arguably the most prevalent of all ‘isms’ in the pantheon of political isms. It is not a catch-all label to categorise and dismiss. Fallen human nature naturally shows prejudice and preference. In a civil society, this crosses a line when judgement of another is based unreasonably on skin colour; a better description may be ‘racial prejudice’ rather than ‘racism’. Why? Because the latter is now so quickly and loosely bandied about that it is not a description, but a politically charged label intended to silence and shut down.
Having absorbed the doctrine of cultural relativism, we cannot say that one culture is better than another, although we know that, in fact, all cultures are not equal. We cannot even say that one culture is ‘primitive’ and another ‘mature,’ or even that one might be in decline because all cultural markers have been flattened. So, race is presumed to be the foundation of identity, and the accusation of ‘racism’ is called upon to do a variety of jobs. Not only does it act as a kind of surrogate for culture, but it also acts as one for religion, which means that one can take offence if his or her culture or religion is criticised. Discussion that only a few years ago was normal has now become impossible.
Was Winston a garrulous tongue on the run? Yes. Was he provoked? Yes. Were his comments ‘racist’? No. Should he resign as foreign minister? No. He was in the House, a place of robust debate and opinions.
*Bruce Logan is a Family First board member
