Monthly Archives: May 2011
The Racialists Evidence: Biased research – Finding What Your Looking For
A major problem with professional racialists is their dependence on each other for facts. If a sociologist publishes a bogus study like the ones previously identified, inevitably his/her colleagues will take that study at face value because the result will reinforce their own position. They will in turn cite that study which will be cited by other racialists and so on until a normal unassuming person is convinced at the mere mention of “studies show.” This credulity is the driving force of the myth of an “institutionalized racism” in America. If a study has a certain conclusion, no matter its credibility, it is seen as gospel. For example, Wise writes:
The Invention of Race
Race should be irrelevant, and society should work towards this ideal. The people around you should be judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin as Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said. Every time humankind has emphasized race terrible consequences followed. Treating people as individuals and not as part of a group defined by race, sex or class is still one of the newest and best ideas of humanity. Categorizing people into races is not only morally problematic but scientifically useless. Racialists however, work to make race more relevant and emphasize it in every facet of society.
The Racialists Evidence: Relying on the Unreliable
Often professional racialists will use unreliable sources to make a point with the illusion of factual backup. A good example of this is when Tim Wise declares on his website that “police in New York City are blatantly profiling blacks and Latinos, stopping and frisking them in massive numbers, even though in 90 percent of all cases, the people they stop are released without any charge because they are found to have done nothing illegal.” This is a very strong claim. What is his proof? It is a link to a website called racismreview.com where a blogger named “Jessie” declares the same. What more evidence does one need to slander a city’s entire police force after all? Fortunately the RAND corporation did a study of 500,000 police encounters in 2006 in order to test the occurrences of racial profiling. Their findings had a different conclusion than “Jessie.” The RAND study concluded after taking into account actual percentages of crimes, arrests, demographics, and suspect behavior that there was virtually no statistical difference between white and non-white encounters. Or in other words, the amount that non-whites were being searched was proportional to the amount of crimes non-whites commit in New York City. Amazingly RAND found that of the over 15,000 police officers in New York City, only five officers appear to have stopped substantially more black suspects than other officers, while nine officers stopped substantially fewer black suspects. (“Analysis of Racial Disparities in the New York Police Department’s Stop, Question, and Frisk Practices.” Greg Ridgeway, RAND Corporation 2007) Wise effortlessly libels the entire NYPD based on the authority of “Jessie” even though it isn’t apparent how such conclusions were determined, and much more reliable sources were available.
The Social Virtue of Talking About Race
Among those who are waging a war against colorblindness, it has become a social virtue to talk about race. This is especially true on college campuses where race awareness clubs are formed, and racialist events are held. If you find yourself in one of these events, you will most likely listen to a guest speaker or sit around in a circle and discuss race in America in very abstract terms. Not everything will be abstract; they will give hard facts about disparities between races, (all of which will be either wrong or misleading) and they will make clear accusations against white America, but in terms of solutions, things will become vague. The whole time there will be a sense that those who choose to come to these events are the select few with the courage to talk about race. This makes talking about race a kind of virtue in and of itself. There are two main problems with this: 1. People become so pleased with themselves for talking about race that they convince themselves they’ve actually done something 2. Most of the issues they attribute to race (which is nearly every issue), don’t in fact have to do with race.
Geronimo
Since Osama bin Laden’s death controversy has stirred due to the code name used for bin Laden: “Geronimo.” Various Native American groups and websites have accused the military of being Anti-Native American because of this code name. In the age of being offended at everything, it is no surprise that this is what is troubling people. The code naming of bin Laden probably had more to do with Geronimo being one of the more famous outlaws that evaded the US Military for decades, not any direct comparisons of the actual person. Also the term “Geronimo” is commonly used to describe a daring action. It also may have simply been random, like most code names. Even if the code name was chosen because they believed “Geronimo” was fitting, it still isn’t an attack on all Native Americans. There is no comparison between Geronimo and bin Laden, but Geronimo was no one to look up to. He was blood thirsty, extremely violent, and cared about nothing but war. It is perfectly reasonable to dislike Geronimo, but love Native Americans in general.
