Welcome, to our attempt to explore the murky, confusing issue of racist behaviour and what lies behind it. Your light on the issue will be appreciated.
Why do white English people act racialistically?
The Tear Fund prayer diary last month referred to ‘the misbelief that some ethnic groups are superior to others’. The Introduction to the report of the Committee for Minority Ethnic Anglican Concerns (CMEAC) published today speaks of the ‘heresy’ of racial injustice. In this blog I want to suggest that the understanding of racism that both statements imply is skewed mistakenly – not entirely false but with emphasis not in the right place, so that wrongly focused understanding distorts our conception of appropriate actions. Put simply, it over-emphasises the ideological roots of racism at the expense of pragmatic factors.
The above references to ‘misbelief’ and ‘heresy’ point us to the realm of ideas. It is not difficult to produce reams of evidence pointing to the malign influence of ideas of ‘race’, of hierarchies and rankings of superiority, or the atrocities and brutalities connected to them. But as we consider the reality of racism in Britain, particularly today but also extending back over the past half century, I believe that, as a broad and imperfect generalisation, racist behaviour is better explained as people acting in what they perceive as their own best interests rather because in their minds they place people in a hierarchy of superior/inferior races.
This latter ideological interpretation is appealing. It gives a clear account of the causes of racism and the ways to eradicate it. It appeals to people who have been trained to use their minds to think in terms of ideas and abstractions. It appeals to Christians by tapping in quite directly to our faith understanding – beliefs about humanity, salvation, the church, sin. Thus it appeals to what I would refer to as our penchant to ‘over-theologise’ situations, and to understand people as operating in theoretical and ‘spiritual’ spaces, rather than in the hard, everyday decisions of material reality, choices and self-interest. Also, seeing racism as an issue of the mind that we can counter gives a quick route to the pleasurable frisson of being on the right side of history.
But in fact I think that overall British people are pragmatists, not theorists. We go by what works. It is a risky claim to make, but I don’t think the holocaust could have happened in Britain. Rather it marked a Germanic preference for abstract thinking, a theoretical ‘Final Solution’, which over-rode practical reality and which actually distracted from and damaged the German war effort. (The superb film ‘The Zone of Interest’ gives a chilling portrayal of the holocaust as a management exercise, devoid of any inter-human awareness or respect). The down-side of the British pragmatic emphasis is a short-sighted and unimaginative lack of attention to theory, management skills or long-term thinking. (Here, football enthusiasts might want to contrast Gareth Southgate with Jurgen Klopp).
(My contrast between Britain and Germany also raises questions about the increasingly widespread use of the term ‘white’ as an attempt to describe a particular mind-set and way of being. As with its binary opposite umbrella term ‘UKME/GMH’, far too much variety is being encompassed to make the terms useful).
‘Pragmatic’ Racism.
By this I mean simply that racism can happen simply when people think they are behaving in their own interests, without any abstract under-girding. The following extended quotation from Glenn Loury’s memoir ‘Late Admissions’ (to be reviewed shortly) suggests the line of argument:
‘I had been developing a theory of racial inequality, one that took seriously the notion that blackness remains a real social impediment, while rejecting the notion that we can adequately explain racially inequality by making recourse to normative ideas about moral error, individual prejudice, and de jure discrimination. . . Blackness carries with it a social stigma and people with dark skins, in general, received less fair treatment in America than those with light skin. You could look to figures on discrimination, housing, bank loans, and other areas and find that this is the case. The concept of racism was too imprecise to have any real power to explain how this stigma could perpetuate itself. ‘Racism’ connotes a kind of irrationality, a mistaken and illogical preference on the part of the racist about who deserves fair and just treatment, about who is worthy of respect and trust. But it seemed to me that stigma could be more readily explained as both a rational response to a set of social circumstances and the cause of those circumstances. Imagine the case of the stereotypical New York City cab driver who does not want to stop for young black men because he fears being robbed. He believes picking up a young black man to be less wise than picking up, say, and old white lady, because he believes that young black men are, on the whole, more likely to rob him than old white ladies. Now let's also say that, as a statistical matter, the cabbie is correct. No matter how unlikely he is to be robbed by a young black man, he is still more likely to be robbed by one than by an old white lady. Cabbies then rarely choose to pick up young black men’. (p 346, describing the USA in the 1990s, and summarising an argument in the book of his lectures ‘The Anatomy of Racial Inequality’).
One can think of similar situations where a person may discriminate because they think it in their own best interests to do so. The young Pakistani woman crosses the street to avoid a couple of young black men because she has experienced having a valuable necklace ripped off from her. This is insulting and humiliating for the most probably law-abiding black men that she avoids, but it is rational behaviour on her part. (I sense, by the way, that it is increasingly common for women to be warned to be wary of all men, understandably, for personal safety reasons; and yet to publicly issue such general warnings on a race rather than a sex basis would be out of court). An employer who prefers not to appoint someone with a foreign name (and so possibly limited English) because there is a risk of it weakening the cohesiveness of his work force; or the woman who resents foreigners moving into her street because it diminishes the strength of a common neighbourhood culture are similarly seeking to protect their own pragmatic interests.
All these instances can fairly be described as racist and unjust, of having long-tern negative consequences for the entire society, and in some cases should be subject to legal sanction. But they are not based on concepts of racial superiority or heretical denials of the unity of humanity. They can’t be countered at an ideological level.
How to counter ‘Pragmatic’ Racism.
Be sympathetic to the costs of racial diversity for some white people.
Such costs do not fall equally on all white people. For what David Goodhew (in ‘The Road to Somewhere’) terms as ‘somewhere’ people – those for whom a particular, locally rooted identity is of long-standing significance – then ethnic diversity means a genuine loss of shared identity and common culture. People, of course, have the resources to adapt and change, to appreciate the new, and to recognise the positive benefits that newcomers bring. But it is unjust for those with a differently configured identity – that is Goodhew’s more likely middle class ‘anywheres’ – who have been shaped by location change, education or simply personality quirks, to hector and sermonise against those for whom ethnic change has brought loss is arrogant and insensitive. This type of approach – often coming from. attributing racism to ideological rather than pragmatic sources - has had damagingly malign consequences in Europe and North America by fuelling the rise of populist politics.
But suppressing grievances prevents them being understood. The political theorist Eric Kaufmann has written of how ‘Cultural arguments are recast in economic terms, in order to comply with anti-racist norms which place boundaries on what can be expressed’ (in ‘Whiteshift’, p 169). By this process personal discontent generates large scale criticisms of ethnic groups, in turn fuelled by people making generalisations on which there is little evidence. Thus the failures of individuals are turned into negative traits in the whole ethnic group.
By contrast it is sympathetic listening to personal grievances that neutralises their tendency to inflate into fully fledged racist attitudes, and enables some opportunity to contextualise that personal experience within both the wider flow of historical racial injustice and the prospect of an increasingly harmonious and fulfilling society.
Generate good experiences.
Ideological racism is its strongest form is impervious to positive experiences. Group X are inferior to us, depraved, and continuing to exist, if at all, then only for own benefit. Only thus could slavery in the Caribbean and North America or the holocaust be thought possible. By contrast, whilst pragmatic racism may justify contempt or exclusion it is malleable. For example, perhaps because they are individual and personal, inter-ethnic marriages are very much more widespread than would have been thought likely fifty years ago. The ethnic boundaries that exist are far too variable and ad hoc to limit such personal relationships. Even if the racist cliché that ‘you are ok, you are not typical!’ witnesses to racial stereotyping it also indicates that the stereotype is pervious to evidence.
Sports clubs, political parties, unions, special interest groups, and workplaces where people interact are venues where racism built up by pragmatic self-interest can build up can be brought down by the benefit that white people discover in their cross-ethnic interactions. Churches, of course, ought to be and very often are major players here. I know people whose journey into faith in Christ was spurred forward by the experience of a joyful multi-ethnic church. In this respect national church leaders should be less concerned with theoretically focused laments about institutional racism and rather be energetically promoting policies for the growth of richly diverse parish churches that weaken attitudes developed by pragmatic racism.
Encouraging the sharing of gifts.
Asian corner shops have been one of the great corrosives of pragmatic racism. They are, literally, convenience stores. They meet a real need of people, and anyone who has needed a pint of milk (or even a cigarette) at 10.30 at night will be grateful for them. Over time, beyond simple financial transactions gratitude, appreciation, respect and affection grow. Young Asians may resent the stereotype they are shackled with (or ironically embrace it for the name of a music group) but it has supplied an important bedrock for the social acceptance and economic success of their ethnic group.
Ideological racism is impervious to the contributions of a minority – often it has been the most successful minorities that have experienced the most brutal racism. But pragmatic racism, for all its vulnerability to superficial judgements, knows when it sees benefits and is open to change of mind. The high profile of minority ethnic politicians or the successes of sports people causes negative racist assessments to decline. Society becomes more open.
Bishop Martyn Snow’s emphasis on the sharing of gifts (in ‘An Intercultural Church for a Multi-Cultural World’) points in the right direction. In the rich cultural and theological diversity of world Christianity there is much that the Church of (or in) England has still yet to take on board. It is in the tasting of those riches that the stultifying effects of racial exclusion are overcome.
Conclusion.
Conceiving of racism as having ideological roots invites sweeping generalisations and stirring denunciations. It pits us in a mighty battle. And that has been necessary at times. But to see that as the best explanation of white racism in Britain today misleads us. It invites us into a moral struggle where it is easy to know which side to be on. But that is the struggle of another time and another place. This is certainly not to say that racism is not a concern nowadays, but the above quotation from Professor Glenn Loury recognises that ‘the concept of racism was too imprecise to have any real power’ and that ‘normative ideas about moral error’ don’t cover our reality.
By shifting our understanding away from seeing racism in large-scale abstract superior/inferior terms, and instead seeing it generated by choices and attitudes held because people see them as their own interest we are able to take those concerns seriously, both to recognise when they have some validity, but also to play up the positive benefits that come from welcoming and providing equality and justice for minorities.
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Add On.
At Wimbledon on Monday the three British winners all had ‘foreign’ names; the four British losers all had ‘traditional’ names. Thank God for immigrants.