Brenton
Is Racism Justified?
October 4th 2007 13:30
We treat different people in different ways. We have to. People are different. We don’t try to demand folk with wheelchairs climb the stairs, and we don’t ask Vietnamese actors to play Michael Jackson in the biopic of his life.
However, when we decide on how to treat people based on race, we run into the issue of racism. The best way to describe racism, I find, is to regard it as ‘racial discrimination’ – specific discrimination based on an individuals race or ethnicity. And there is a question of if racial discrimination is ever appropriate to which I would have to say “yes”. Now it’s very easy to get all indignant and be all like ‘that’s not cool man! We’re all the same on the inside! Don’t be hating!’
You’re a Customs Officer. You have to do baggage checks at a flight leaving Vietnam. A large amount of the Heroin smuggled into Australia is taken in from Vietnamese locals. Who are you going to pick?
You are a police officer in a remote Australian community. Somebody walks past you with a bottle of mentholated spirits. They tell you it’s just groceries for their parent. In one scenario they’re Greek, in the other, Aboriginal. Would your reaction be racially discriminate?
If you’re Investigating terrorism do you start with Koreans? White extremist graffiti, do you ask an Indian? We have to go with the clues we have, and sometimes the only clue we have is a face. A race. An ethnicity. A culture. A stereotype. A presumption.
The complexity with racism is that the concept in itself seems to have become synonymous with the idea that we should treat everyone the same. This is obviously untrue, and when failing to pretend that we are all exactly the same is perceived as synonymous, we run into problems. The question is – to what extend does treating people differently for all their differences become an act of hatred, and to what extent does it become an act of common sense?
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However, when we decide on how to treat people based on race, we run into the issue of racism. The best way to describe racism, I find, is to regard it as ‘racial discrimination’ – specific discrimination based on an individuals race or ethnicity. And there is a question of if racial discrimination is ever appropriate to which I would have to say “yes”. Now it’s very easy to get all indignant and be all like ‘that’s not cool man! We’re all the same on the inside! Don’t be hating!’
You’re a Customs Officer. You have to do baggage checks at a flight leaving Vietnam. A large amount of the Heroin smuggled into Australia is taken in from Vietnamese locals. Who are you going to pick?
You are a police officer in a remote Australian community. Somebody walks past you with a bottle of mentholated spirits. They tell you it’s just groceries for their parent. In one scenario they’re Greek, in the other, Aboriginal. Would your reaction be racially discriminate?
If you’re Investigating terrorism do you start with Koreans? White extremist graffiti, do you ask an Indian? We have to go with the clues we have, and sometimes the only clue we have is a face. A race. An ethnicity. A culture. A stereotype. A presumption.
Racism? Discrimination?
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