When is a Racial Slur not Offensive? Never.

Not long ago, Prince Harry, son of the late Princess Diana and third in line for the British throne, unleashed a storm of controversy after a three-year-old home video was released in which the prince used the terms paki and raghead. The video was shot while Prince Harry was still a cadet at Sandhurst, the Royal Military Academy.

In the first scene the prince pans his camera over fellow soldiers waiting in an airport departure lounge, pausing on fellow cadet Ahmed Raza Khan and referring to him as “our little paki friend.” In another scene, he tells another soldier that he “look[ed] like a raghead.” Prince Harry rightfully caught flak and did the right thing by promptly apologizing, but he’s had more than his fair share of apologists who want us to believe that calling someone a paki or raghead is not really that offensive. But they’re wrong: directing a racial slur at someone is always offensive.

Rod Richards, a former Royal Marine and Foreign Office minister in the Conservative government of John Major had this to say in defense of Prince Harry’s use of the slurs:

I am a Welshman and it was quite common for people like me to be called Taffy. Similar nicknames are also used for people from other parts of the world. The use of the word ‘Paki’ doesn’t surprise me but in a military context, it is not derogatory. People are making an issue out of something that is not an issue.” 

And this was the response of Michael Evans, Defense Editor of the Times Online:

Prince Harry was clearly not attempting to be deliberately offensive towards his Pakistani colleague but appeared to be using the pejorative term in a light-hearted way. Similarly, the term ‘raghead’ is used not infrequently in the Army when soldiers are referring to the ‘opposition’ in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Richards and Evans, and the many others who defended the prince, are missing the point. Paki and raghead are not mere pet names that can be tossed around willy-nilly. They are racial slurs and that makes them offensive. For starters, paki and raghead are used solely in reference to South Asians and Arabs/Muslims respectively, and never as terms of endearment or respect. Furthermore, calling people names based on their skin color, ethnicity, language, or region of origin is plain wrong. Even kindergarteners know that. After all, nobody chooses their skin color or where they were born, and nobody should be called names because of things over which they have no control.

But the bigger issue here is that unlike nicknames, which may stem from an individual’s height, weight, or hair color, racial slurs are used against entire populations. And, unlike nicknames, racial slurs are created and used in specific  historical and political contexts. In other words, they are created in a context of inequality in which one group (let’s call them the namecallers) creates and uses a slur while simultaneously doing violence to, marginalizing, exploiting, or otherwise denigrating another group (let’s call them the namecallees). For this reason, it is impossible to separate a racial slur from the context in which it was created.

Take, for example, two common American slurs—nigger and gook. These words were created, and came into popular use, at a time when the namecallers were doing some kind of violence to the namecallees. Nigger came into use at a time when Africans were being captured and sold into plantation slavery in the New World, and continues to be used as a derogatory term to this day. Gook came into being as long ago as 1899 and has been used sequentially against Filipinos, Japanese people, Koreans, and Vietnamese people. Is it any coincidence that these uses followed the sequence of America’s wars in Asia?

Similarly, paki came about at a time when newly arriving South Asians were experiencing hostility, to say nothing of violence, at the hands of native-born Brits. Is it any wonder, then, that attacks against South Asian immigrants came to be known as paki bashing? Michael Evans, the Times editor, lent (perhaps inadvertently) support to this point when he reminded his readers that “the term ‘raghead’ is used not infrequently in the Army when soldiers are referring to the ‘opposition’ in Iraq and Afghanistan.” Put another way, this means that British and American soldiers are doing violence to Arabs and Muslims, all the while referring to them as ragheads.

Wars might end and time—to say nothing of equal rights legislation—might pass, but racial slurs do not cease to be offensive, nor do they lose their power to denigrate. Because they are conceived and used in violence, they can never go back to being mere words. To call someone a nigger, a paki, a gook, or a raghead is not just to remind them of the violence done to people who shared their skin color, religion, or birthplace. It is also to point out that they are different, that they do not belong, and that they will always be outsiders in the dominant culture. After all, can nigger be separated from the brutality of the Middle Passage, plantation slavery, and Jim-Crow segregation? Can anyone honestly claim to have successfully divorced paki from paki bashing? When will gook lose its connotation of napalm and free-fire zones? And, long after the wars in Iraq in Afghanistan come to an end, what meaning will raghead retain? Will it really be possible to draw a neat, sharp line between the word and the violence done by British and American soldiers to the people they called “ragheads“?

To be clear, this is not to argue that anyone who uses a racial slur is a racist. The question, ultimately, is not whether it is possible for someone to use these words and simultaneously not be a racist, but whether it is decent to do so in the first place! After all, racial slurs on their own do not constitute racism but their use is an essential component of it. Using racial slurs is an exercise of power by the namecaller, used to establish his dominance over the namecallee and everyone else who shares his skin color, religion, language, or birthplace. In addition to being reminders of past violence, racial slurs let the namecallee know that he does not belong, that he is inferior to the namecaller. The intended use of a racial slur is immaterial: the context in which it was created—in other words, how it acquired meaning and thus the power to offend and demean—is what really matters.

So while Prince Harry may not be a racist (although showing up to a party wearing a swastika armband does little to rule out the possibility), his casual use of racial slurs proves that a top-notch education does not necessarily endow its recipient with common sensitivity, let alone common sense. As for Ahmed Khan, Prince Harry’s “little paki friend” (now a captain in the Pakistani army), there is no way to know how he feels about having been called a little paki: the army has barred him from discussing the matter.

At the end of the day, Prince Harry’s affinity for swastikas and racially insensitive language says a lot about his level of cultural sensitivity, but at least he has enough sense to apologize when he has caused offense. That’s much more than can be said of the people who rallied to his defense and tried to argue that paki and raghead aren’t so offensive after all.

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McCain’s Anti-Obama Ad was More Than Just Cynical.

Last week, the McCain campaign released a TV ad calling Barack Obama “the biggest celebrity in the world” and comparing him to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. I have to say I didn’t really expect John McCain et al. to play clean but this is pretty low, even by their standards. For starters, the ad reaches for the heights of hypocrisy. After all, as Carrie Budoff Brown points out, McCain has been hogging the media spotlight for much of his own career. He’s a regular on the late night talk shows and he even had a cameo in Wedding Crashers. In other words, he has embraced the celebrity moniker. Barack Obama’s response—saying the ad was cynical but not racist—is far too charitable a reaction. Paris Hilton’s mom, Kathy, was actually closer to the mark in her response!

Certainly, we would be naive to think this attack ad is a fluke, or a one-off. No doubt this is just the beginning because, mixed in with the stink of hypocrisy, is the unmistakable stench of Rovian political machinations. Using a candidate’s strengths against him was, after all, a technique perfected by Karl Rove in the 2004 “swiftboating” of John Kerry, and the Obama “celebrity” ad smacks of a similar touch. In 2004, the swiftboat ads used Kerry’s military record against him, and now, Obama’s popularity is similarly being used to diminish his appeal.

So why would celebrity necessarily be bad for Obama? Well, being a celebrity is generally a positive thing in the entertainment industry but it’s not such a great asset in politics. Celebrities are valued for one set of qualities, politicians for another. Britney’s fans may appreciate her looks or her ability to sing and dance. It’s harder to identify which of Paris’ qualities makes her famous, but we can all agree that even the most adoring fan would think twice about voting either of her or Britney women into the White House. What, then, does any of this have to do with Barack Obama? Why compare the presumptive Democratic nominee to a pair of celebutantes? It’s really quite simple. First off, we can be sure that education or educatedness—or whatever other qualities might prepare someone to lead a country—do not rank very high on the list of qualities people love in Paris or Britney. This is not to imply that Britney and Paris are unintelligent or uneducated. The point is only that  these women are beloved not for their being qualified to lead the country. The Obama comparison thus implies that Obama, like Britney and Paris, is popular—because of his looks or some other quality—but not for his ability to lead. Ergo: Barack Obama is very popular but he’s not ready to lead.

But that’s not quite the end of the story. Entertainment—music, film, sports—has been the one area of public life in which Black people have gained the greatest visibility in American society. Black athletes, actors, and musicians have attained tremendous fame and secured professions for themselves by entertaining the American public. In my view, these accomplishments should be seen as a testament to the resilience of Black people in this country. Alas! No good deed goes unpunished so the Black community is repaid with binary stereotypes that place intelligence and athleticism/artistry/musical talent at opposite ends of a spectrum. “Sure,” the argument goes, “Black people are good entertainers but they’re not so smart. This is why there are so few Black directors, quarterbacks, or music executives.” In other words, talent and intelligence become mutually exclusive categories.

There is, however a deeper level to the athletic/musical/artistic talent-versus-intelligence binary. There is often an implicit assumption that Black people are good at what they do because of some inherent, magical talent that enables them to effortlessly excel at something. This view maintains, for example, that a top Black athlete isn’t at the top of her game because she trains hard and is disciplined. Rather, it’s talent that propels her to the top. Likewise, Barack Obama’s rise to the top of the Democratic presidential race is not due to his intelligence, hard work, grassroots organizing experience, and campaign strategizing. No. Like the magical negro, Barack’s success is due entirely to circumstances beyond his own control. In fact, his success is nothing less than magical because it is so contrary to his own abilities. In other words, Barack Obama is succeeding despite himself (Lets not forget that Rush Limbaugh used to play a song entitled “Barack the Magic Negro” on his radio show).

John McCain’s ad is therefore nothing less than an attempt to remind the American people that there is actually less to Obama than meets the eye. Yes he’s popular, just like Britney and Paris. And, just like Britney and Paris, he’s good-looking. But, just like Britney and Paris, he’s nothing more than an attractive package, pretty on the surface but lacking the depth, the experience, the intelligence that would make him capable of leadership. After all, the ad seems to ask us, who would want Paris and Britney—or Barack Obama, for that matter—to lead this country? By overlooking Barack Obama’s other qualities and presenting him as a superficial, one-dimensional caricature (I say caricature because there is certainly more to Paris and Britney than what’s shown in the media), the ads also aim to devalue him by negating his personal accomplishments. After all, Barack Obama is an impressive person and a formidable candidate in his own right. From his organizing days in Chicago, he has experience bringing people together and transforming ideas into action. He’s also a constitutional lawyer and a professor and, lest we forget, a United States Senator. But by ignoring all of Obama’s other traits and focusing only on the external and superficial, the McCain ads seek to convince us that there’s nothing more to Obama than his fame.

They might as well have just come out and reminded us that he’s nothing more than a talented Black entertainer.

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Long Before Chuck Norris Put the “Laughter” into Manslaughter, He Was Putting the “Pro” into Propaganda.

Chuck Norris has been around for ever, it seems. In addition to discovering the fountain of youth and famously brawling with Kung-Fu legend Bruce Lee, he’s also been in a bunch of movies. For much of the last twenty years, however, he’s been flying under the radar, having spent much of this time as the star of “Walker: Texas Ranger” which, I’m ashamed—or, depending on how you look at it, proud—to say I’ve never watched. But now he’s enjoying a bit of a resurgence in celebrity, thanks to the ubiquitous “Chuck Norris Facts,” and his appearance on Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee’s campaign ads.

Huckabee opens one of these ads with

My plan for securing the border? Two words: Chuck Norris.”

I cannot think of a better person than Chuck Norris to secure the US border, and I’m happy Mike Huckabee agrees. Because long before Chuck Norris became anybody’s “plan to secure the border,” he was fighting—and killing—America’s most-feared people. On the screen, of course.

Although Chuck Norris had been making movies since 1968, I discovered his work roughly two decades later, due to a series of coincidences, chief among which was the fact that I had yet to be born when he got his first movie role. As it turned out, it was already the mid-1980s when I saw my first Chuck Norris film and by then, it seemed like he was starring in a new movie every year. Three of these—Missing in Action (1984), Invasion U.S.A. (1985), and The Delta Force (1986)—really stayed with me and, thanks to the power of nostalgia and the internet, I’ve had the opportunity to rediscover Chuck Norris. It all started with Chuck Norris Facts and, next thing I knew—thanks to Netflix—Missing in Action was in my DVD player.

I remember watching Missing in Action in the ’80s and at the time thinking it was pretty cool. I mean, here’s badass Chuck Norris in Viet Nam killing people and blowing sh*t up like it was going out of style! What could be more awesome? Or racist, as I realized in watching the movie again. In case you’ve never seen Missing in Action, it stars Chuck Norris as Corporal Braddock, a Viet Nam veteran and former POW who managed to survive excteme cruelty at the hands of his captors and eventually escape from the camp where he and other GIs were being held. He returns soon after as part of a US-government delegation hoping to ascertain whether the Vietnamese government was—despite its official denials—holding POWs and MIAs. Of course, Braddock very quickly gets down to business, i.e., the  business of killing people and blowing stuff up. He also rescues some POWs, but not before breaking into the home of a top general and killing him in his bed.

When I first watched the movie, my prepubescent moral framework only registered satisfaction at seeing Chuck Norris dispatch the “villains” without so much as a flinch. After all, despite my politically unformed mind, it was quite easy to pick out the villains—they were the brown-skinned ones. Watching the movie again as an adult, however, I found myself deeply troubled by the wanton violence committed against the Vietnamese characters. I mean, Braddock kills almost every Vietnamese soldier he encounters, even stopping in one scene to kill four whose greatest crime was being out on patrol nowhere near the POW camp Chuck Norris was heading for.

Even worse than the grotesque violence was the completely warped political and moral message of the film. At no point do we get to see why or in what context US soldiers were in Viet Nam. There’s no way to know that these GIs were embroiled in a civil war thousands of miles away from their own country. The Vietnamese, for their part, are simply bad guys. Nowhere is the US role in Viet Nam even remotely examined. In one scene, the Vietnamese generals organized a press conference during which they accused Braddock of committing war crimes, arguing that he was imprisoned on war crimes charges and not as a POW. A group of bedraggled Vietnamese peasants are then brought in and asked to publicly accuse Braddock of war crimes. Instead, the shamefaced peasants all avoid eye contact with him and the last one, a frail old man, apologizes to him in Vietnamese. Braddock accepts his apology and forgives the peasants’ betrayal.

Of course, anyone who knows even a little about the war in Viet Nam knows that war crimes were par for the course for US soldiers. From “free-fire zones” to napalm to Agent Orange, it seems there were few war crimes that were not committed in Viet Nam. But you wouldn’t know any of this from watching Missing in Action. On the contrary, the movie takes a legitimate Vietnamese claim and makes it look ridiculous. What you see instead is a heroic American soldier who was so good to the Vietnamese that the peasants brought in to incriminate him are too guilt-ridden to even look him in the eye. And we know that Braddock cares about Southeast Asians because he’s deeply hurt when a Vietnamese assassin botches an attempt on his life in Bangkok, instead killing several Thai bystanders. Braddock cares so much that, as he uses his bare hands to shove an axe head into the would-be-assassin’s chest, he lets him know how much he was affected by the death of those innocent Thais.

I realize now that the point of Missing in Action was neither to inform nor to educate. But I’m also sure it was not meant solely to entertain. It was meant to assuage Americans’ guilt over the outcome of the Viet Nam War, not to mention revise history to portray GIs as kind and compassionate towards the Vietnamese people. But the ’80s was also the coldest decade of the Cold War, and no chance was missed to propagandize against Communism. So naturally, Chuck Norris’ adversaries were the Communist Vietnamese, whom he casually kills whenever the opportunity presents itself, which was often, considering he was in a country full of Vietnamese people.

Missing in Action, however, was not the first and only time Chuck Norris did onscreen battle with America’s phantasms. In 1981, he starred in An Eye for an Eye, in which he battles an Asian drug ring. Invasion U.S.A. stars him as a retired CIA agent who single-handedly thwarts a Soviet invasion of Miami. And in The Delta Force, he goes up against Arab/Muslim hijackers. This film actually gets honorable mention in Jack Shaheen’s book/documentary Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Villifies a People for its role in propagating very negative stereotypes of Arabs. I have to confess that my youthful antipathy towards Arabs in general, and Palestinians in particular, was in no small part due to The Delta Force and other movies of that ilk. But that’s neither here nor there.

What’s noteworthy is that American politicians have a long history of using bêtes noires as political footballs, and the film industry is often a willing accomplice. After all, the manipulation of fear is an age-old political strategy, and candidates have long used people’s fears and insecurities to win votes. Wherever there is fear, there is political gain to be made. Once upon a time, Native Americans, slaves, and the Irish were feared. Then it was Communists and Anarchists. Then it was homosexuals and Arabs. Now it’s Latinos. And Arabs. And Muslims.

Because Chuck Norris has such a long history of battling America’s bogeymen—from Asian drug gangs to Communists—it’s only natural that he would be called on to secure America’s borders against our latest national nightmares. Today’s bogeymen, however, are not Communists. They are terrorists and illegal immigrants. It’s fitting then that Chuck Norris—who has so much experience in fighting America’s cinematic enemies—would be recruited on TV to fight against the illegal immigrants/terrorists who, we are told every night on TV, are trying to sneak across the US border to take away our jobs and blow up our shopping malls.

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Dog’s Not Only Racist, He’s Also Kinda Stupid.

Duane “Dog the Bounty Hunter” Chapman just got outed to the National Enquirer for being a racist jackhole. A&E, the network that carries his reality show has pulled his show off the air indefinitely. And how did Dog get outed? Well, he was letting his son, Tucker, know that he didn’t like Tucker bringing his Black girlfriend over to their house. What Dog didn’t know is that Tucker, obviously sick and tired of his dad’s racism, was taping the conversation. It went something like this:

Dog: Look son, I don’t like you bringing your Black girlfriend over. It’s not that I’m racist or anything. I really don’t have anything against your girlfriend. I just don’t trust her. But that has nothing to with the fact that she’s Black because, as I’ve already told you, I’m not a racist. It’s just that . . . well . . . you know . . . we use the word “nigger” a lot around here and I’m worried that your “nigger” girlfriend might get drunk one day and decide to tell the National Enquirer that I use the word “nigger” a lot, which would give people the false impression that I’m a racist which, of course, I’m not. And if people start thinking I’m a racist, that would spell the end of my career, not to mention tarnish the sophisticated and polished image I’ve worked so hard to cultivate over the past 30 years.

The Superficial has an excerpt of the actual conversation. I only gave you a gist of it here. I don’t do Dog justice, though, so you should read the excerpt yourselves to get an authentic Dog experience.

But you know, I kinda feel where Dog is coming from. I know he’s not a racist. It’s just so much harder for Dog to stop using the word “nigger” than it is to ban his son’s girlfriend from their house. And it’s definitely a lot harder than convincing his son to break up with his girlfriend.

Hey Dog, I bet you’re pretty disappointed that your son Tucker turned out so rotten, eh? Here he is mixing with colored folks and doing God knows what with that Black girl when the lights go out. Oooh! That must have really been burning you up! So you did what any reasonable, rational, non-racist parent would do in your situation. You tried to give him some fatherly advice about the perils of dating Black girls. And how does the ungrateful wretch repay you? He tapes a private and personal conversation between a concerned, non-racist father and his son, and gives it to the National Enquirer! Why on earth would he not see your point and break up with his girlfriend immediately? What is the world coming to?

But cheer up, Dog. Now that A&E’s indefinitely suspended your show, I’m sure you’ve got a lot more time on your hands. And I’ve got just the thing for you. I’ve been toying with an idea for a great new reality show. It’s called “Dog the Imbecile Racist Who Doesn’t Know When to Keep His F*cking Mouth Shut.” You’d be perfect for the starring role. Better yet, somebody ought to give Tucker a show of his own in which he can talk about how much he hates his father’s f*cking guts for being such a racist pr*ck. Come to think of it, that’ll be much more entertaining than watching anything Dog the Racist is in.

Man! I bet Thanksgiving dinner over at Casa de Chapman is going to be very interesting this year.

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First Dr. Watson, Now Dog the Bounty Hunter.

Did I miss the memo? When did blatant racism become fashionable again? I mean, what the eff is going on with people throwing around racially insensitive remarks like they’re going out of style?

Recently, Dog the bounty hunter, born Duane Chapman, was caught on tape dropping n-bombs left and right (for those of you not hip enough, “n-bomb” is a euphemism for a very offensive slur against Black people) during a telephone conversation. The tape was originally leaked to the National Enquirer, and E! Online published an excerpt:

I’m not taking a chance…not because she’s black but because we use the word n—er sometimes here. I’m not going to take any chance ever in life of losing everything I’ve worked for 30 years because some drunken n—er heard us say n—er and turned us into the Enquirer magazine…I’m not taking that chance at all never in life. Never…”

The best part is that Dog, who has his own TV show on A&E, was having that nice telephone chat with his son, Tucker, about Tucker’s girlfriend! You see, Tucker’s girlfriend is Black and Dog was afraid she might expose his casual use of the n-bomb to the media, thereby ending his career. It turns out Tucker was not too thrilled with his dad’s racism either, so he sold the tape to the Enquirer for a hefty sum. A&E is pulling Dog’s show indefinitely off the air.

It’s fitting that Dog’s worst fear—that his racism would be exposed by no finer a publication than the National Enquirer—came true. And, in an Oedipal twist worthy of the greatest of the Greek tragedies, this fear came true because of his own son! Not bad for a day’s work on Tucker’s part, exposing his dad for the ignorant racist that he is and raking in a ton of dough in the process! That’s the sort of entrepreneurial thinking that’s made America great.

Tucker, thanks for outing this racist. I owe you one.

Now that Tucker’s shown that there’s money to be made in that game, I wonder if this will start a new trend of celebrity racists being outed by their family members.

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Dr. James Watson Resigns.

James D. Watson, the eminent geneticist who ignited an uproar last week with remarks about the intelligence of people of African descent, retired yesterday as chancellor of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, and from its board.

Read the rest of the article here.

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Human Species Projected to Split in Two

The BBC reports that evolutionary theorist Oliver Curry of the London School of Economics predicts that in the future, humanity will split into a “genetic upper class and a dim-witted underclass.” According to Curry:

The human race would peak in the year 3000—before a decline due to dependence on technology. People would become choosier about their sexual partners, causing humanity to divide into sub-species. The descendants of the genetic upper class would be tall, slim, healthy, attractive, intelligent, and creative and a far cry from the ‘underclass’ humans who would have evolved into dim-witted, ugly, squat goblin-like creatures.”

I’ve got news for you, Dr. Curry! That split has already begun! Have you been to a Wal-Mart lately? Just kidding, of course! But seriously, everything he predicts is already happening in terms of class, at least in the US. Poor people—regardless of “race”—are getting lower-quality education, health care, housing, and food. Obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and other chronic illnesses tend to predominate in low-income communities where the environment tends to be more polluted. What’s worse, this has been happening for ages. Why do you think factories were packed into London’s East End? Because rich Londoners didn’t want the wind blowing smoke and pollution into their West End homes.

Furthermore, like in every modern society, people are attracted to money, so rich people always get the best picks when it comes to spouses. Because our economic systems are so closely intertwined with our political systems, and because both systems privilege men over women, we end up with rich old men being able to—because of their power and/or wealth—get attractive younger women. The late Anna Nicole Smith and her late husband are but one well-known example. But long before Anna Nicole, there were Diana and Charles, which never made sense to me because, as I understood, the Spencer family had some wealth of its own.

Ultimately, I’m always worried when anyone uses the word “race” because I don’t believe there is such a thing as biological race. Racists think of “race” in the human population the way everyone think of breeds of dogs or cats. In reality, as long as we can reproduce with people who look physically different—and I’ll go on record here as being strongly in favor of “race-mixing”—we are just one race. Having said that, I’d be curious as to whether two real “species” of humans will emerge, as predicted by Dr. Curry. By this I mean, will members of one group be unable to reproduce with members of another. And by “reproduce,” I don’t mean simply have sex. Will such unions bear viable offspring who are fully functional and capable of bearing offspring of their own? If these two distinct groups will indeed be able to “cross-breed,” we shouldn’t think of them as two species or even two races. They will merely be two groups of people who have different physical characteristics.

If Dr. Curry’s predictions do come to pass, I’m afraid we’re already setting the stage for a continuation of the racist thought that so dominates our society today. Dr. Curry is projecting modern racism thousands of years into the future, already talking about genetic upper and lower classes. You don’t have to be German to find such talk deeply troubling. A good friend once told me that as humans, we can realize only the future we imagine. If we’re already imagining an unequal future split between good-looking, intelligent humans and “dim-witted, ugly, squat, goblin-like creatures,” the future looks very bleak indeed for humankind.

Just to be safe, I should probably start hitting the gym, the tanning salon, and the library. I certainly don’t want my descendants ending up in the genetic underclass.

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For Dr. Watson and Other Racists, Racism’s Beauty Lies In Its Simplicity: Part I

I never expected blogging would pay off but on Monday, Oct. 22, it did. Because of a post I had written last week about Dr. James Watson’s statements (see this posting and the associated comments), I was invited to be a guest on the BBC’s “World Have Your Say” program. Unfortunately, rather than adress the substance and merit of Dr. Watson’s words, the show’s presenters chose to focus on his right to free speech; I tried, during my 60 or so seconds of airtime, to argue that the issue was not one of free speech. However, because we had been allowed to speak only in the last five minutes of the show, I and another African blogger (both based in the US) couldn’t go into any detail or address the real substance of what Dr. Watson had said. That’s why I’ve decided to use this space to say what I would have said, had I been given more time and had the show been more focused on racism, which I believe lies at the heart of Dr. Watson’s words.

But first, a recap. Last week the renowned scientist and Nobel Prize winner brought down a firestorm of criticism on his own head after he told the Sunday Times that he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours—whereas all the testing says not really.” He also said that although he hoped everyone was equal, “people who have to deal with black employees find this not true.” Since then, the good doctor has been suspended by his employer, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, and removed from its board of directors. The London Science Museum, which had invited Dr. Watson to give a talk on his latest book canceled his appearance, and the mayor of London, Ken Livingston, issued a statement condemning Dr. Watson’s remarks as “racist propaganda masquerading as scientific fact.” All this negative press forced the famous geneticist to hastily recant and issue a statement of apology in which he says “there is no scientific basis” for anyone to infer from his words that Africans are genetically inferior.

Despite the backtracking, I think the mayor of London is absolutely right to say that Dr. Watson’s words were nothing more than a pathetic attempt to use modern science to justify old racism, a clear case of trying to put new wine into an old wineskin. Why do I say Watson’s words were racist? Ask yourself this question: How many people who didn’t already believe that Black people are less intelligent actually read those words and thought, “Hmmm . . . I guess I was wrong about this! Now that I’m hearing it from a scientist, I believe that Black people are, in fact, less intelligent”? Not many, I would assume, and of the ones who might have, how many would have been Black? Conversely, many people did try to use those same words to justify what they already thought about Black people’s intellectual inferiority—some of them even posted comments on this blog. It seems Dr. Watson’s words had only two consequences, depending on the person reading them:

1. They failed to change the mind of someone who didn’t already believe Black people are not as intelligent or

2. They were unquestioningly accepted by someone who already thought Black people were less intelligent and then used to justify pre-existing beliefs.

Without any scientific backing for those remarks, Dr. Watson was simply and simplistically alluding to a widely held belief that Black people are lazy and less intelligence than White people. The simplicity of thinking behind those statements leaves me feeling that they were nothing more than the expression of a racist opinion.

After all, simplicity is at the heart of racism, an ideology which maintains that the greatest determiner of a person’s character is ”race” (i.e., skin color, hair texture, physical stature, etc.). This simple and simplistic—yet disappointingly widesperead—mindset maintains that if a person is intelligent, hard-working, or kind, it must be because of his/her “race.” In other words, “race” is all there is to a person. To the racist, the essence of the “nigger” shown in the caricature above lies in his physical attributes. A “nigger” has black skin, bulging eyes, buck teeth, big, red lips, etc. To become a “nigger,” simply change your appearance by blackening your face and reddening your lips or, better yet, buy Nigger Make-Up and hey presto! Instant “nigger!” (Go here or here for an intelligent and academic look at the origins, uses, and meanings of the word “nigger.”) To the racist, the “nigger” has no personality, no emotions, and no history. In fact, the “nigger” has nothing but his physical appearance.

Herein lies the beauty of racism and racist thinking. Once the physical attributes have been identified and deemed to be the “nigger’s” defining characteristics, the next step is simply to attach social meaning to them.

For the racist, skin color is infused with all of a person’s qualities—always negative if the person is not White. Once this social meaning has been “encoded” into a person’s “race,” the next step is to lump everyone who belongs to that “race” into the predefined categories. Pretty soon, everyone who looks like a “nigger” (i.e., has black skin, curly hair, etc.) is a “nigger.” Even worse, everyone who fits that physical description must, by definition be everything that a “nigger” is: lazy, violent, unintelligent, dishonest (or any number of other negative qualities). The human being is thus robbed of individuality—even worse, humanity—and denied the chance to prove her/his own merit as an individual person. Rather, by being stripped of identity, of ”personhood,” the “nigger” is lumped into an undifferentiated mass of people all of whom have the same qualities forced onto them. Here’s a simple formula I devised to illustrate my point. Follow it and soon, you too will be thinking like a racist:

1. Identify the “defining” physical characteristics of the object of your hatred (in the case of the “nigger” above, they’re black skin, curly hair, buck teeth, and bulging eyes)

2. Attach social meaning to those physical characteristics (e.g., the “nigger” is lazy, violent, dishonest, unintelligent, or any number of other negatives)

3. Broadly apply that social meaning to every person who shares the same physical characteristics as the person in Step 1 (e.g., anybody who has black skin, curly hair, buck  teeth, or bulging eyes is lazy, violent, dishonest, unintelligent, or any number of other negatives)

Such racist thinking recognizes no geographical or national boundary and ignores environmental, cultural, religious, and other differences, choosing instead to see “race” (skin color/hair texture) as the defining and unifying attribute of the “other.” This is why British racists use “wog” for Black Americans, Africans, Black people from the Caribbean, Australian Aborigines, and even dark-skinned Indians. And, although “race” in the American context has no biological basis, skin color and hair texture have been infused with so much social meaning that ”nigger” is equally used against Black Africans, Black Americans, and Black people from the Caribbean, despite DNA studies showing that  ”30 percent of African-American males [who participated in a Howard University study] have a white male ancestor.” But more on genetics later.

For now, it’s enough to only point out that lumping people into an undifferentiated mass is a form of dehumanization. Such dehumanization through undifferentiation was the reason Nazis shaved their victims’ heads, dressed them in the same clothes, and took away their names and replaced them with numbers. Members of an undifferentiated mass of people lack individuality, lack identity, lack personhood, and consequently, lack humanity. This practice serves the primary functions of simplifying and justifying the exploitation, brutalization, and general dehumanization of an entire population in order to put that population’s land, labor, wealth, and natural or other resources at the disposal of someone else. This was as true of colonialism in Africa as it was of North American slavery and the Jewish Holocaust.

Secondly, racism is inherently a simplistic and apolitical ideology, laying the responsibility for an individual’s success or failure in life squarely at the feet of that individual. By looking only at skin color or other physical attributes, the racist need not look at that person’s interaction with other persons through, say, colonialism or enslavement, and how that interaction might also impact who, and where in life, that person is today. Rather, racism enables the racist to bypass the hard work of thinking, allows the racist to look solely at a person’s “race,” and to attribute that person’s situation in life to his/her skin color and/or hair texture. Racism and racist thought, in sum, are artificially and deliberately created ideologies that serve  the social, economic, or political purpose of devaluing and dehumanizing people in order to marginalize and disenfranchise them. Once that has been done, the victims of racism cannot fully or equally participate in their societies, which in turn makes them vulnerable to exploitation and further marginalization.

Read Part II here.

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For Dr. Watson and Other Racists, Racism’s Beauty Lies In Its Simplicity: Part II

Read Part I here. 

So, back to Dr. Watson’s racist statements. The racism lies not just in what he said but why he said it. Dr. Watson ignored social, environmental, political, and cultural factors, instead trying to to use “race” to explain why Africa was doing so poorly, and why he was not optimistic about the continent’s future. He also argued that the races were not equal (presumably he also meant other “races” besides Black and White). But in reality, he was not proposing anything new. Rather, he fell back on simplistic racist assumptions—Africans are not intelligent and the races are not equal—and later, after he had come under fire, tried to use his position as a scientist to couch his original remark in scientific terms. The jury is still out on whether intelligence is or isn’t genetically predetermined but what we do know indicates that genetic difference, or similarity, is not so neatly tied to “race.”

More importantly, Dr. Watson’s statements rested on a common and essential element of racist thinking, the belief that people who share the same physical characteristics (skin color, hair texture, etc.) also share personality traits (intelligence, industriousness, etc.) regardless of environment, culture, religion, or any of the other factors that may affect a person’s personality. In the interview, Dr. Watson says that Africans are less intelligent, according to ”studies” he had seen (he does not elaborate on how these were conducted or who the subjects were, but that’s a lesser point). He then goes on to add that anyone who has ever had Black employees knows that people of different races are not equal. In other words, Dr. Watson—who ought to know better—is conflating Africans with Black Americans (I assume Dr. Watson has had only Black American, not African, employees), completely overlooking differences in culture, environment, language, religion, etc. In a classic racist display, he observes that Black Africans and Black Americans face similar economic and social challenges, but he concludes this must be because they have similar skin color and/or hair texture.

Dr. Watson should know that because of the widespread rape of slaves in North America, very few Black Americans would be genetically identical to Black Africans, but he ignores this obvious fact in favor of making a blanket statement based on skin color and hair texture. Of course, I’m not implying that Africans are all genetically identical. Quite the opposite. Dr. Sarah Tishkoff, now an assistant professor in the Biology department at the University of Maryland, wrote as far back as 1999 that genetic studies have revealed

an enormous amount of diversity within and between the African populations, and we found much less diversity in non-African populations. Only a small subset of the diversity in Africa is found in Europe and the Middle East, and an even narrower set is found in American Indians.”

Put simply, there is more genetic diversity among the human populations on the African continent than there is in all the rest of the non-African populations combined. Someone with Dr. Watson’s background in DNA research should know that this diversity would mean that, even if Black Americans and Africans were really less intelligent, it would be very unlikely that their “lack of intelligence” came from the same genetic source. To clarify, Black Americans share a genetic predisposition to Sickle Cell Anemia with their West African ancestors because most of them are descended from slaves taken from West Africa. However, the large genetic diversity among African peoples means that Black Americans cannot be genetically identical to East or South Africans because even their West African ancestors are not genetically identical to those other African peoples. Dr. Watson, in making his inference about Africans’ and Black Americans’ intelligence cannot, then, have been basing his statement on genetics because that would have precluded a common genetic root. Rather, he was—in true racist fashion—ignoring the social, political, and economic realities of Black Americans’ and Africans’ lives, focusing instead on the most superficial things both peoples share: dark skin and curly hair.

The other thing that struck me as racist was his focus on the question of lower intelligence while talking about Africans and Black Americans. Why did he pick that particular issue? To me, that would be like a modern scientist being interested in proving “scientifically” whether or not Black men have a gene for large penises, or whether brown-skinned people have higher sex drives (an argument Dr. Watson himself has made before). How ridiculous would Dr. Watson have sounded if he had suggested that Jews possess a gene that predisposes them towards avarice?! But because he chose to discuss Africans’ intelligence, people actually defended him, arguing that, as a scientist, he should be allowed to propose new scientific possibilities!

I’m not a geneticist and I generally oppose attempts to explain individuals’ behavior through racial or genetic arguments but, where there’s scientific evidence, let it speak for itself. But Dr. Watson’s statements were not based on scientific evidence, which makes me strongly suspect his motives. Nor was he proposing a new direction for genetic science. He was absolutely not talking about using modern science to break new ground? I mean, there are many differences among individuals of different “races” that could be studied at the genetic level, but why did he have to start from an old racist “truism” (Africans are less intelligent/the races are not equal)? The fact that he then tried to back it up with unscientific anecdotal evidence (if you’ve ever had Black employees, you know the races are not equal) makes me even more suspicious. After all, the question of difference in intelligence between the races is as old as racism itself. It predates genetics. Why would he be so concerned about using genetic science to prove or disprove a viewpoint that has existed and even thrived in the total absence of the science that could have proved or disproved it?

Furthermore, if Dr. Watson were so intent on using genetics to explain certain qualities in Black American or African people, he could easily have started out with something positive. For instance, statistics show that elderly White men have the highest suicide rates in the US. Dr. Watson could have expressed his interest in finding a gene to explain this (we know there is one because suicidal tendencies seem to run in families). Better yet, he could have talked about an “optimism” or “resilience” gene that might explain why, despite their widespread social, political, and economic marginalization, Black Americans tend to have much lower suicide rates than White Americans. Instead, he chose to focus on something negative, the racist idea that Black people are less intelligent than White people. 

At the end of the day, the beauty of racism lies in its simplicity and Dr. Watson’s remarks demonstrate this simplistic thinking. For people who can’t be bothered to study social sciences, economics, and politics, race “theory,” racist thinking, and outright racism are ideal. Everything about an individual or group can be explained simply by looking at skin color, hair texture, or any of the other signifiers of “race.” The underlying social, political, and economic order is never examined and challenged, so power relations remain intact. The racist in turn remains assured of his or her own superiority, itself the product of nothing more than an accident of birth that resulted in his or her having been born with the “correct” skin color. The racist never needs to compose a concerto, write a great novel, or even read one for that matter. She or he is more than content to know that other people who share his or her skin color have done so. This also absolves the racist of the need to prove his or her own intelligence, because that burden of proof is shifted onto people who were not fortunate enough to have been born with the right skin color or hair texture. Dr. Watson—in lending his voice to the question of Black and African people’s intelligence and industriousness—has joined a long and disgraceful line of pseudo-scientists who have, for centuries, attempted to argue that non-White people, be they from Africa, Australia, Asia, North America, the Caribbean, or the Middle East share one unifying characteristic: Their dark skin means they are not equal to Europeans. Even worse, Dr. Watson has thrown a bone to modern racists who—without considering science, economics, or politics—have always believed Black people are less intelligent than White people.

In making those utterly prejudiced and unscientific statements, Dr. Watson has shown the world that, despite his cutting-edge research, when it comes to social and political issues, he is living two centuries in the past. I am very sorry that the “World Have Your Say” team allowed him to escape the scrutiny, analysis, and eventual denunciation that his words so richly deserve.

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