SORRY, MY (DE)FAULT

“We do not deal much in facts when we are contemplating ourselves.” Mark Twain

Words are like knives.  If used carelessly or with evil intent, they can cut and wound, cripple, and leave permanent scars.  But when words are used with skill and precision, they carve out a space in a conversation or dissect a weak position in a debate.   And in the same way that knives lose their sharp edge with careless, unintended use, so too do words lose their sharp definitions through careless and unintended usage.  They become blurry and dysfunctional, blobbing out to overlap related words, until their edges meet and combine so that neither has a unique definition. 

Both dull knives and blurred words are hazardous to the user.  A dull knife requires more force to cut, and with more force comes greater chance for injury to the user.  Blurred words get in the way.  They occupy space in speech or text, but are not load bearing.  And blurred, unfocused words sever the connection between speaker and listener, writer and reader, creating a linguistic disconnect between the message sent and the message received.

The preceding could serve as an introduction to essays on many of life’s little challenges, but they fit particularly well with this nettlesome question:  Am I a racist?  The thought came to me during a dinner table conversation, when Ellen and I were describing a day in the workplace.  I noticed that when I recounted conversations with various co-workers, I was more specific when telling about one with a black colleague, saying that “I was talking with a black guy at lunch today.”  In contrast, for white colleagues I didn’t specify that “I was talking to a white guy” – just “talking with a guy.”   As soon as I pointed it out, we realized that, absent any specification of race, while listening to an account of a workplace conversation, we both assumed the person spoken with to be white.  Because our default conversationalist was white, in order to accurately depict a conversation with a non-white person, we had to specify race.  At the time of our discussion, black was the politically correct term for non-brown people of color.

Digging deeper into how I used “black” as a descriptor, I clearly couldn’t attribute the practice to seeking to add credibility to the views the person expressed.  That’s pretty much universal, mentioning that one had been “talking with a doctor” if the subject was elective surgery or “talking with a civil engineer” if the topic was building a bridge.  Clearly, something more was going on, because if I was speaking with a doctor or engineer who wasn’t white, I specified that I had talked with a black doctor or black engineer.  It was this, in particular, that brought me to consider whether I belonged to the category of racist.  I decided to treat the question as a research problem (being, after all, a white scientist), beginning with finding out just what it means to be a racist.  As with all of the “-ist” terms that we use to describe behavior, the definition derives from that of the corresponding ism, “racism.” 

The broadest definition of racism that I found begins with:  practices reflecting the belief that humanity is divided into distinct biological groups called races.  By qualifying by color, I was revealing my belief that I, a member of one biological group, had talked with a member of a biological group distinct from my own.  Inherent in that practice was this prickly point:  In order for one person to be perceived as distinct, that person must be perceived as in some way different from one’s own self, and it has become pretty much impossible to escape the idea that different connotes better or worse.  The act of differentiation, dividing into groups on the basis of perceived differences, is no longer viewed as neutral or non-judgmental.  The very term “non-judgmental” has become oxymoronic, because judging itself is no longer neutral, but implies distinguishing between right and wrong, winner and loser, desirable and undesirable.  Consistent with this understanding of the connotation of “different,” the broad definition of racism concludes with:  and that members of a certain race share certain attributes which make that group as a whole less desirable, more desirable, inferior or superior.

At first, I thought that the “and” gave me some wiggle-room, some chance to escape the racist designation because, in order to practice racism, one’s belief in distinct biological groups must, according to the complete definition, be accompanied by belief in the inferiority of one group versus the other.  But if, as discussed above, the mere perception of difference, the basis for distinction, implies superiority or inferiority, then the concluding half of the definition is tautological, a linguistic redundancy.  Simply discerning a race-linked distinction entrains discerning some degree of superiority or inferiority, and thus qualifies as racism.

One of the factors complicating this analysis is the relatively recent change in definition of the word “discrimination.”  Discrimination used to be a desirable attribute of thinking people, based on the definition:  recognition and understanding of the difference between one thing and another.  It was seen as desirable to be a discriminating person, a person of discriminating tastes.  But in modern usage, that definition has fallen into a distant second place, replaced almost entirely by:   the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex. 

I didn’t want to admit to being a racist or practicing racism.  Yet undeniably I could be found guilty of both, because I was engaging in racial discrimination.  I would have preferred to characterize my linguistic choice as intended to help my listener share the moment, to more fully comprehend the conversation being described.  But it was so obviously an unnecessary qualification, adding nothing to the value of the story.  I’m going to treat this as a cautionary tale, a flashing yellow caution light, a wake-up call, one that raises my awareness of my practice of discrimination.  I’m going to assume that racism, of the sort that I engage in, is an inescapable part of human nature, an essential element of consciousness.  And with that awareness comes the determination to make sure that discrimination doesn’t lead me to presumption about behavior or values, and, even more important, that it doesn’t make me a bigot.  Having to write an essay leading me to the conclusion that I engage in bigotry would be a truly difficult task.