self-racism

[miriam_e]

It's funny, you know. People are really quick to denounce racism (as they should -- racism is a dangerous and mind-twisting error in thinking), but those same people are often the very first to practise racism themselves.

Nobody should be ashamed of their genetic or cultural heritage. It is stupid to feel shame over something that other people have done and that you have no control over. But likewise, and for exactly the same reasons nobody should feel proud of their genetic or cultural heritage. I'm constantly surprised by how many people don't see this and are able to easily hold mutually contradictory views on this topic.

It has become fashionable to believe that people, particularly those in marginalised groups, should be proud of who they are. It seems to have grown out of an honest and compassionate desire to undo some of the damage wrought by racists who have tried to portray others as inferior. But two wrongs don't make a right. We should simply dismiss racism and acknowledge that we are all just humans -- all brothers and sisters. None is intrinsically better or worse than any other. All should be helped to maximise their own potential. If someone feels that their potential is best reached by studying their forebears' culture or genetics then that is perfectly valid and no better or worse than studying semiconductor physics.

It is easiest to see the danger in racial pride when some group feels that their cultural mythologies form a pure and unchanging truth. Often these people will say that science is just another mythology. But that isn't true. Mythologies depend upon "truths" handed down, unquestioned and unchanged, requiring blind faith in what someone once said. Science is the exact opposite of that because it relies upon questioning beliefs and changing the bases of our understanding so that we can find out how the world really works, rather than just someone's say-so.

Comments

[gillen.livejournal.com]

I'd argue that racism is stupid because everyone should be ashamed of their genetic and cultural heritage. We are all of us born from ignorance and genetic backwash and it's sheer luck more than anything else that we don't have fins and drool more often than we do.

As for "racial purists", inbreeding is nothing to be proud of. Centuries of it even less so.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Heheheh :)

Well, yes, that's the glass-half-empty view, and some days I find myself inclined to agree, but at the same time we are a truly amazing species with extraordinary potential. This is true of all of us, even those poor, sad, racially pure inbreeds.

Our genetic heritage gives us the damaged machinery to make vitamin C, rendering us one of the very few creatures on the planet than can get be deficient in it. Our genetic heritage also gives us our insanely complex symbol manipulating brain, letting us understand and use electromagnetic fields in microscopic circuits of stunning complexity. Our cultural heritage encourages us to blindly follow arrogant voices who advocate trampling on others to feed our own greed. But that same heritage helps us to value knowledge and is gradually leading us to shrug off those egotists... I know it is painfully slow, but it is happening.

We need to be aware of the horrific blunders our forebears have made and we need to understand how easy it is for us to do just as awfully, but I'd argue we shouldn't be ashamed of what we are. By the same token we shouldn't be proud either. People in the past have done wonderful things, but I own no part of the credit for that.

We just are, and each of us has a chance to do something cool, or screw it up badly. Our choice.

[qu-is.livejournal.com]

"People in the past have done wonderful things, but I own no part of the credit for that.". Exactly.

I never quite understood the pride people take in something that they had no control over. Nor in the pride people feel in their 'pure' blood when is actually a liability in terms of adaptability and sustainable survival as a secies. Diversity is the key to prosperity - not inbreeding (we all know that any species that over specialises risks a sudden death)

If people must be proud of something they have no control over let it be the diversity our species has so far been capable of - and to use that pride to bring acceptance and joy in the worlds diverse possibilities.

Although I'm a culture-less mongrel though so maybe I just don't know what having a culture feels like.
;)

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

If people must be proud of something they have no control over let it be the diversity our species has so far been capable of - and to use that pride to bring acceptance and joy in the worlds diverse possibilities.

Wow! Really nicely put.

Yep, there are a lot of us culture-less mongrels these days, thankfully. :)