Let me begin with my premise, namely that virtually everyone is something called "racist," which I'll get around to defining in a bit. One of the problems with my premise, and it's a significant problem, is that there doesn't appear to be anything concrete in the real world that corresponds to something called "race." Biologists and physical anthropologists came to the conclusion 50 years ago that "race" doesn't really exist on its own. Race, it turns out, may be more of an epiphenomenon, something that arises out of the inherent structures and priorities of various cultural contexts. If this is correct, then "race" is a tool rather than some objective thing that exists of its own accord. A convenient Aesop's Fable emerging due to forces, "race" as an epiphenomenon would potentially have much in common with consciousness. It's worth noting that the "race" in "critical race theory" is also viewed by critical race proponents as an epiphenomenon that obfuscates numbers and statistics regarding wealth inequality, incarceration disparateness, vertical mobility, and other structural elements baked into the American experience.
However, taking a deep breath, let's ignore all that for now. Critical race theory isn't going anywhere soon, so we can circle back to it another time. Today, I just want to promote my theory that pretty much everyone is racist, including me. My theory requires my personal definition of what is racist, which I will explain in due time. But first, some personal history.
Growing Up
I grew up in a lily-white small coal mining town in Pennsylvania, just 10 miles or so from Centralia, the famous little berg that's now abandoned as it falls into the 50-year-old mine fire burning underneath it. By lily-white, I mean my town had no black people. Zero. We were sans African Americans. Until I turned six, in 1963, I had never seen an African American.
When I was six, my father decided to take me on a summer trip to visit my aunt and her family, whom I had never met, in Philadelphia. It was just my dad and me in the car as we drove the two hours. A few minutes into the trip, my father launched into a serious monologue about how black people were "just like us" and there was no reason to be concerned. Minutes passed, and he started on the same topic again. He had been an engineer in the U.S. Army, he explained, and worked with many black people. They were "just like us."
If there was one thing my religiously attending Lutheran Sunday school had taught me, it was "Red and yellow, black and white; they are precious in His sight," so I had never really considered skin color as making people different. I couldn't understand why my dad kept repeating this stuff. I just nodded my head in agreement.
Finally, after another hour or so as we approached Philadelphia, he broached the subject of "Philadelphia has a lot of black people" a third time. I had struggled to figure out what he was getting at. I interrupted and asked, "So auntie and my cousins are black?" Dad stopped his spiel and started laughing. I had no idea why he felt my conclusion was funny, but it turned out that, no, auntie wasn't black.
My Personal History with "Nigger"
It may come as a surprise to people, with my being a self-avowed racist, that I have never actually called or referred to anyone as a "nigger." As I mentioned, I grew up in a hard-scrabble, completely white town, so it's been odds-against that I never referred to anybody as a "nigger." I'm not particularly proud of this; it just kind of happened via Sunday school and Spider-Man comics. My non-use of "nigger" in that way is a curious byproduct of happenstance and my micro-culture. It's sort of similar to my never having been with a prostitute in the Biblical sense (I have hung out with a few). Not really something to be proud of per se, but now that it's part of my self-definition, it's not likely that I'll break the pattern.
Just because I never called someone a "nigger," however, does not mean that I haven't used the word. I have zero problems discussing the word "nigger" by saying "nigger." In fact, it seems silly to do otherwise. And I have quoted other people directly who used the word "nigger." I have also said, "Well, that is what is referred to as 'nigger rich.'"
Are these uses of "nigger" why I consider myself racist? No, they are not. If you think that banning the saying of it solves much of anything, good for you. I'm not that kind of optimist.
Why Everyone is Racist
Saying you're not racist doesn't make you not-a-racist. In this era of 24/7 personal surveillance, never saying anything racist also does not bestow unto you not-a-racist status. Nobody knows what goes on in that head of yours, so recording what comes out of your mouth isn't necessarily much of a clue as to your racism. And if we suddenly acquire mind-reading skills, I'm not sure that completely solves the "who's a racist" dilemma either. Is what percolates through our consciousness a sufficient measure of us?
My theory, which would define 99.9999% of us as racist, bypasses what comes out of our mouths, what flits through our minds, and all manner of self-reporting. If we physiologically react differently to people different from us, then I submit that we are racist. To the degree that our culture defines race in terms of skin color or physical features, then if we physiologically respond differently to "the other" than we do to clones of ourselves, we are racist.
Thus, if we are hooked up to a GSR (Galvanic Skin Response) monitor, an EEG, and an EKG, and our physiology responds in disparate fashion to a room full of "crackers" versus "niggers," then we are racist. Your body doesn't lie. I'm not saying that our responses need be heightened or more extreme to indicate racism. I'm saying that difference in reaction would be the indicator.
Cultural Conundrum
If "race" isn't really a thing, as physical anthropologists have argued, then we all need to step back in awe and examine the effects our culture may impose on our physiology.
Consider the brilliant Dave Chappelle's character, Clayton Bigsby, the blind black white supremacist who think he's white because no one's told him otherwise. Think about Bigsby's physiological reactions to people he's told are white or black. In his series of Bigsby sketches, Chappelle plugs into the unsolvable nature of our cultural labyrinth, which traps us in a maze without perspective and without anything we can use as a mirror.
We are all racists, which is quite a thing to be when there may not be something called "race."
Bob Dietz
January 24, 2022
