The Philosophy of Freedom

by Caleb Nelson

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  Remember, we are born knowing nothing which means ignorance is our default condition. Unless we have specifically learned something, then we remain ignorant of that thing. You can’t know anything until you learn it. Unless you have taken a graduate level class on cultural competency, you’ve likely never been exposed to these ideas in any depth. Unless you’ve taken time to consider and allowed yourself to be challenged, you likely remain ignorant of these issues. Hearing that you have a pro-racist ideology is likely making you feel angry, defensive, and perhaps like dismissing this book as hippie nonsense. If you’re feeling challenged, that’s an indication that you have some new information to thoughtfully consider. Keep in mind that having a pro-racist ideology doesn’t mean you are an intractable, hate-filled bigot. It simply means that no one is exempt from the process of being socialized by the culture they grow up in. Like any other false indoctrination, these hidden beliefs and ways of acting need to be brought to light and eliminated.

  Most white people never question their assumptions about race, let alone realize they even have assumptions about race. Having a pro-racist ideology is the automatic consequence of being unaware of how race shapes life and our everyday reality. The ability to completely ignore, remain unaware and unaffected by racial issues is one of the privileges of being white. And the ability to ignore racial matters means the assumed superiority of whites goes unchallenged within us.

  There are hundreds of small and unnoticed ways we might exhibit a pro-racist ideology. For example, did you notice that the last few paragraphs make the implicit assumption that you, the reader, are white? Part of being the majority culture is viewing your race and culture as the normative standard. This would mean assuming the author is white and the audience will be too. Someone sensitive to racial issues would have noticed the slant immediately. Just as fish don’t know they’re wet because they haven’t experienced air, so white people do not know what it means to be white. Whites in America don’t have the experience of growing up as a minority to provide a contrast. Because whites don’t face the negative effects of racism, they can remain blissfully unaware of its existence. Minorities do not have that option. Minorities are brought face to face with discrimination, prejudice, and implicit racism on a regular basis. They don’t have the option to ignore racial issues. Even if a white person grew up as the only white in their neighborhood and was picked on, they are still connected to the majority culture, and it will be part of their identity.

  Talking about race can be an uncomfortable experience for white people, especially for fear of being accused of being racist. Anxiety leads to defense mechanisms, which are often justified considering how often conservatives are accused of racism simply for disagreeing with a policy. One common defense mechanism is to deny racial issues exist. A variant of denial is to minimize the importance of racial issues. If you have found yourself being dismissive as you’ve read this section, you are refusing to consider racial topics with an open mind. If you are upset or emotionally reactive to this subject, it indicates you feel threatened by it.

  Of course, part of denial is denying you’re upset. There are other easy-to-see defense mechanisms. Have you ever caught yourself saying, “I don’t see color”? Unless you’re visually impaired, you see color. Whether you fixate on it is another matter. What about, “I have Black friends”? Having Black friends does not mean you’re free from implicit biases. When faced with stories of racism, do you respond with examples of prejudiced minorities to prove it can go both ways? The fact that anyone can be prejudiced does not change or negate the reality of racism. When you’ve been told you have advantages and privileges because of white skin, have you responded with stories of your own struggles, how you worked hard for what you earned, and how nothing was handed to you on a silver platter? These responses are a reaction to the perception that you are being viewed as racist. To argue against statements like this implies that the issues don’t exist or aren’t important. If any of these examples have applied to you, it is an indication you have not fully explored your racial identity and your racial sensitivity could use work.

  I, (Kenneth) was born well after Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered. When I came on the scene, the Civil Rights movement was just something in the history books that seemed as far removed from me as World War I or the Wild West. I knew that the KKK and white supremacist groups still existed, but knowing only of explicit forms of racism made me think it wasn’t really a large issue. I wondered to myself, “Why are we still talking about this? It’s been more than a hundred years since the Emancipation Proclamation, and segregation ended before we even had color TV! Why can’t we just move forward?”

  At this point in my life, I was unaware of implicit racism, and largely unaware of how we can believe one thing consciously, but believe something completely different on a deeper level. Social psychologists have called this the “dual attitude system.” This is how it is possible for a person to consciously reject racism while implicitly holding a pro-racist ideology. Again, we are not consciously aware of ideas we hold implicitly. I was unaware of how implicit beliefs translate into attitudes and behaviors.

  On a very primitive level when humans see other entities, they make instinctive classification of “self” and “other.” That which is not like us is the “other,” and we have a visceral distrust and unease with that which is different. If they’re not part of our tribe, they’re an unknown, and thus a possible threat.

  “It also appears that different brain regions are involved in automatic and consciously controlled stereotyping. Pictures of outgroups that elicit the most disgust (such as drug addicts and the homeless) elicit brain activity in areas associated with disgust and avoidance. This suggests that automatic prejudices involve primitive regions of the brain associated with fear, such as the amygdala, whereas controlled processing is more closely associated with the frontal cortex, which enables conscious thinking. We also use different bits of our frontal lobes when thinking about ourselves or groups we identify with, versus when thinking about people that we perceive as dissimilar to us.”

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  Birds of a feather do not simply flock together; they also keep other species at a distance. This well established behavior is called the in-group, out-group bias, and it is based on our attitudes and thoughts. We are biologically predisposed and society reinforces those beliefs. How can behaviors spring from implicit beliefs?

  Here’s some evidence as an example,

  “1,115 identically worded emails were sent to Los Angeles area landlords regarding vacant apartments. Encouraging replies came back to 89 percent of notes signed ‘Patrick McDougall,’ to 66 percent from ‘Said Al-Rahman,’ and to 56 percent from ‘Tyrell Jackson.’ Other researchers have followed suit. When 4,859 U.S. state legislators received emails shortly before the 2008 election asking how to register to vote, ‘Jake Mueller’ received more replies than ‘DeShawn Jackson,’ though fewer from minority legislators. Likewise, Jewish Israeli students were less likely to alert the sender to a misaddressed email that came from an Arab name and town (‘Muhammed Yunis of Ashdod’) rather than from one of their own group (‘Yoav Marom of Tel Aviv’).”

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  As this small example shows, our in-group, out-group biases make us treat people differently based on whether they’re “one of us.”

  WHITE PRIVILEGE

  You’ve probably heard the expression “white privilege.” Among other things, white privilege is comprised of benefits and advantages which minorities lack. In the previous example, the privilege of being white was manifested by being more likely to be responded to, which can translate into having an easier time finding housing, or receiving information. White privilege is partially the privilege of not having to face discrimination based on skin color.

  Because whites have been in the majority in America, they are in a position to sustain the implicit belief that whites are superior. Since the pro-racist ideology is implicit, the
greater cultural power of whites was a fait accompli.

  Consider the legacy of slavery in America. Slaves were social pariahs from the beginning, but after emancipation, they now had the responsibility of finding work among people that hated them in a land they didn’t choose to come to. What would life be like for their children and grandchildren who may have had to work as sharecroppers? What would it have been like to grow up where there was a constant threat of being raped, beaten, or lynched and there was nothing that could be done about it? What sort of educational opportunities would have been possible, what chances for upward mobility? How possible would it be for someone in this situation to advance economically or socially? Consider on the other hand those who used slave labor to amass great wealth and power. Their children would have started life well up the social and economic ladder. They would have had many opportunities for advancement.

  Of course there are exceptions, not all whites were rich, land-owners, not all owned slaves, and there were Blacks who managed to get out of their impoverished conditions. In America we tend to have a pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps mentality. We tend to attribute success and failure to character alone and ignore contextual factors. This is called the fundamental attribution error. For example, if someone cuts us off in traffic, we assume it’s because they’re an idiot, but if we accidentally cut someone off, we don’t conclude we’re idiots—we blame the sun in our eyes or a dirty windshield. Our American “Can Do” spirit tends to blame people in poverty as being lazy and unambitious. We ignore failing schools, gang violence, broken homes, addiction, and lack of opportunities. Not to mention the learned helplessness that can come from being socialized in such an environment. With no examples or role models, without ever being encouraged, without friends and family who moved up and out, it is extremely unlikely a person would ever even entertain the possibility that they would be able to achieve and escape poverty. This would obviously go for people of any ethnicity, but even whites born into poverty start life with higher social standing than minorities in the same conditions. Regardless, the effects of racism are still reverberating through America’s social and economic fabric.

  The aggregation of prejudice from the majority’s pro-racist ideology translates into discrimination on a systemic level. The universal human proclivity for people to stick with what is familiar, paired with power being largely concentrated among whites, means minorities will face barriers and challenges that whites will not. In this way, personal prejudice becomes institutionalized. For example,

  “To test for possible labor market discrimination, M.I.T. researchers sent 5,000 résumés out in response to 1,300 varied employment ads. Applicants who were randomly assigned White names (Emily, Greg) received one callback for every 10 résumés sent. Those given Black names (Lakisha, Jamal) received one callback for every 15 résumés sent.”

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  Again, minorities can be prejudiced, they too can hate people based on ethnicity, but what they do not have is the power to discriminate on a systemic level. Currently, only whites have that power in America. Only those with lighter skin have privileges and advantages that minorities do not. It is not intentional; it is merely a consequence of millions of individual positions, decisions, and perceptions in aggregate.

  Perhaps in reading this section you may wonder if it is racist to make generalizations about race. Keep in mind it is one thing to acknowledge cultural differences exist; it is quite another thing to reduce a person to a racial stereotype. Understanding group differences does not mean treating people as drones of a homogenous collective.

  How does all this talk of groups apply in a book that is fundamentally about the individual? A person’s culture is an integral part of who they are as an individual. To refuse to see cultural attributes in a person is to remove them from the context they exist in. To truly “see” an individual implies seeing every bit of what makes them who they are. Explicit racists will deny individual differences exist and see people as stereotypes. On the other side of the coin, those with a pro-racist ideology will often ignore race for fear that noticing it would mean they are racist. When you have examined your own identity and feel comfortable with differences, it is only then you can see the person more completely. You cannot appreciate the uniqueness of an individual if you deny the major components of their identity that come from their race and culture.

  Being culturally sensitive does not mean thinking that every member of a given ethnicity is the same. It does not mean treating people according to your assumptions, stereotypes, or previous interactions with others like them. Each person has their own “culture,” so to speak. Each person is a unique blend of their personal beliefs and values and those they gained from their socialization process and racial identity. Being culturally sensitive means acknowledging and respecting people’s racial background; it means asking them how they define themselves and prefer to be treated.

  It is a great undertaking to deconstruct and come to understand one’s ethnic identity and cultural assumptions. As strange as it sounds, in order to pursue individualism and treat everyone we meet according to their character, we have to be aware of their identity in the group they come from. We have to understand the role that culture and racial experience plays and consciously learn to see past biases we may not have even known we have. We have only briefly touched on the major points of this common blind-spot and hope everyone will make it a topic for further inquiry. A pro-racist ideology is a subtle form of collectivism and must be transcended if we desire to be fully rational humans.

  THERE OUGHT TO BE A LAW!

  The government is not the answer to racism, prejudice, or discrimination. Many of the modern government remedies to correct discrimination use discrimination itself to combat the issue. For example, the policies of Affirmative Action encourage decisions to be based, not on individual merit, but on an individual’s race or membership in a social group. This well-meaning legislation was designed to circumvent the power differential of whites and minorities, but what ends up happening is employers are forced to hire individuals not for their skills, but to meet a quota of diversity. Sadly, Affirmative Action is the opposite of someone being judged on the content of their character.[202] So much for Dr. King’s dream.

  A student group at Texas A&M asked other students why they would support Affirmative Action’s policies in academics and the workplace, but not want to sign a petition to apply the same “racial consideration” policies to the sports teams. Some answers were very enlightening, “No, that should be based on talent.” The contradictory thinking had many students stumped for a response.

  [203] If you are trying to put an end to racial discrimination by racially discriminating, you are doing it wrong.

  Many cry, “But if we don’t have laws there will be discrimination; we would still have segregation!”

  Actually, “segregation” was enforced by law. The solution was freedom, i.e. repealing those laws. Freedom never came with the promise of a perfect world. Even though new Civil Rights laws accompanied the least racist America we have ever seen, the means, such as Affirmative Action, cannot be justified. Undoubtedly, without those laws there would still be bigots who would refuse to do business with anyone other than their own ethnicity, but there are anyway. As stupid as that is and as much as we disagree with them, we still can’t morally force them to change their actions in regard to their own property and their own conscience. All we can do is try to educate them to remove their hatred, and refuse to do business with them until they do; we can use peer pressure to coax them into doing good.

  We can help create in them a proper self-esteem so they won’t seek a false substitute in racist activity. Having more freedom means having more responsibility to do the right thing. Racism is evil. It is vile. But the only thing the government can (should) do about it is what it should do for every individual—protect him or her from physical force.

  The Politics of Evil

  PART 1: STATISM

&n
bsp; “[Americans] do not wish to curtail the activities of this government; they wish, rather, to enlarge them.”

  [204] - Woodrow Wilson

  “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”

  - John F. Kennedy, Inaugural address

  All the collectivist theory we’ve discussed, when applied to the philosophy of politics, leads to only one possible outcome: statism. Statism is the philosophy of collectivism applied to politics, guided by the policy of concentrating extensive social, economic, and political controls in the state at the cost of individual liberty. Statism is a large tree: its roots are collectivism, and its many branches include theocracy, absolute monarchy, National Socialism, fascism, communism, democratic socialism, democracy, and authoritarianism. These differ only in form and tactics—not ideology. Regulations, taxes, controls, and other governmental coercions are manifestations of the basic principle of statism which is that man’s life belongs to the state.

  Statist policies and tendencies can be identified because they look first and foremost to the State, whether federal or local, to address issues and find solutions. Solutions to be found through private entities, persuasion, free markets, or freedom are disregarded completely. Franklin D. Roosevelt illustrated the statist mentality perfectly, saying, “It may be that an unprecedented demand and need for undelayed action may call for temporary departure from the normal balance of public procedure . . . I shall ask Congress for . . . broad executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.”