'I am not a Racist'

'I am not a racist ' This phrase is often heard nowadays , normally as an introduction to making some comment which may involve judgedment or criticism of another racial, cultural or religious group .


It was often repeated in the recent debacle on the so called British Channel four reality show of 'Celebrity big Brother ' when a young lady who has by the way become a 'celebrity' solely by appearing on a previous series of this show, Jade Goody , now a household name was accused of making racial remarks against a fellow contestant , Shilpa who apparently is a super star in India's film industry . Now I didn't watch the show but that wasn't even necessary ,for all the media and even the serious radio stations and newspapers had the antics of these characters as their main news story,it was difficult to avoid.As if not to broadcast the adventures of these 'celebrities ' the news station or newspapers might lose their readership or viewers .

So this Jade person together with another female contestant did some bullying and in the process made racial comments against Shilpa. I believe on one occasion she referred to the Indian actress as' Shilpa Pappadum'.

The radio stations and newspapers went to town and Jade was accused of racism even by the show's presenters , to which she bitterly protested :'I ain't a racist!' and cried as she said this , she stated that she 'takes people as they are '.




So what is racism ? , I would like to explore . I would think it is on an individual basis the belief that another race is inferior to one's own or of lesser intelligence or moral worth, or something like that . On a collective level I would say it is the outright opression or attempt to dominate , persecute or wipe out another race .

Now most people can be accused of racism if we take the first definition ,suppose I was to say I don't like the Swiss , does that make me a racist ? I guess so. I state that I don't like the Swiss because of they way they talk and their eating habits disgust me . Is this not my right regardless of government legislation. Is this not more a xenophobia , of which I believe is the natural human condition ? Most of us if honest find ourselves surrounded by a group of people speaking an unintelligible language amongst themselves , eating strange food and behaving in a manner which we are unfamiliar with would feel a little strange and possibly phobic .This does not mean that I would like to arrange a mass extermination of the Swiss people? Of course not ,it would probably mean I am a little ignorant of Swiss people and somewhat bigoted . If I got to know a Swiss person and became great friends with that person I would learn about his or her language and customs and might even become lover of the Swiss . On the other hand I could even get married to a Swiss person and still not really like the Swiss way of life or mentality although I would no longer be ignorant but somewhat bigoted or opinionated . So this type of racism although very widespread could be considered innocuous .

On the other hand supposing I had come accross millions of Swiss that had just immmigrated to this country looking for work and settlement . I might see them as a group that presents a threat of taking my employment opportunities and using 'My
Country's ' resources . And although I am an immigrant myself having been on the receiving end of this view myself , it could still be a possibility . Now if my xenophobia developed to such a degree that I joined a nationalist party that is dedicated to getting rid of these people in a violent manner , then what would follow if this party got into power and started to literally wage war on the Swiss immigrants would be real racism , a very dangerous thing .

So using the example of the Swiss seems quite sanitised as they as a group are quite affluent in the world and if anything are not known as immigrant workers or as an indigenous group that has been invaded. If we make the same comments about another race for example Australian Aborigonese , Jews, Indigenous Americans or Afro Carribbeans then it becmes much more emotionally loaed , sensitive , complex and explosive .This is because these people in history have been persecuted with real racism and are still feeling its consequences in today's generations .

Now lets come back to our original example with the two local white English girls making some derogatory comments , targeted at the Indian contestant's race . Well if race was used in the bullying process , this we could call 'type one racism ', the type that is near enough impossible to erradicate . It is the type of agression that would have been targeted at a ginger haired person or obese person , just down right cruelty targeting the victim's personal attributes whatever they may be . The 'type two racism' of course is the ugly face of racism. It has not only taken its place throughout human history and in the past few centuries but also continues to this day .Take the plight of the Palestinian people , a group occcupied in their own land , living with the utmost humiliation , degradation and under a racist regime imposed by the occupying state of Israel , which seems , with the support of the powerful western imperial nations to dominate every aspect of these peoples' lives crushing any organised military resistance with maximum force and devastation . This is racism , And I really wonder if this is our natural human condition given similar circumstances .

Yet even under this aggressive, destructive and institutional racism of the above example and many others throughout the world there is still a trace of hope as many Israeli citizens see the reality of this madness and struggle to influence their leaders' and their fanatical patrons to change some of their policies .And many Palestinians would want to make a settlement without the use of indescriminate violence .Some Israeli soldiers refuse to serve in the army for this reason alone . The killing that goes on between the two groups of this conflict creates fear and hatred .There is little choice for the Israeli or Palestinian , involved in this conflict to say 'I'm not a racist' ,Whatever an individual believes in this situation , it is 'us or them' , people are dying around them , they have lost relatives and friends, they live in fear of their lives taken by a stranger. So in this example when a group is threatened by another there is fear and suspicion of the other group, this could develop into denying the weaker group civil rights , the rest is the history of mankind; war , suppression ,violent resistance and revolution .

So when I hear people state 'I ain't a racist' , it means nothing. This is a cliche with the notion that:'There are good and bad in every race ', is so pointless , and begs the question . Of course there are good and bad , or likeable and less likeable people of all races but this has no bearing on what these good and bad people would do when the battle lines are drawn and often the battle lines are drawn between race , religion , region or political affiliation , regardless of the personality traits of individual members of either group.

So racism then is very difficult to define , it is true that at its ugliest it is when one group of people persecutes and attempts to eliminate another , on its most harmless it could be a person not wanting his daughter to marry a person of a different race . The one is abhorrent the other could be seen as bigotry or even by some as a freedom of choice and right of opinion . The danger is when the latter type escalates into the former and when people develop the belief that one group is inherently inferior to their own and that it is justifiable to exploit them , peresecute them and ulimately wipe them out . This is truly dangerous and could be the reason that the political correct legislators of the western quasi democracies
make even the utterance of a comment as mild as Jade's unacceptable . The 'thought police' having from their own point of view , good intentions , have taken away from us the freedom to think the unthinkable ; for whatever is good or bad about us we will ultimately have bad thoughts about people , sometimes even about their race without paradoxically wanting to exterminate them or consider them inferior, But Alas the Orwellian thought police of the political authorities have terrorised us to such a degree that when someone like the rich fool Jade says 'I ain't a racist ' you can see the look of fear on her as if to be branded as such ,she is signing a contract to being lynched.


So racism is a complex subject and should in its most dangerous form be unacceptable but to define it and to erradicate it is difficult as the cntradictions above show . Sadly it is not going away, for as our serious news stations are debating whether Jade is a racist or not and how terrible racism is , our good leader is sending more troops to Afghanistan and is maintaining others who in Iraq are risking their own lives to occupy a nation that was no threat to us : An aggressive, illegal war waged on citizens of another country ;That's racism , some must be accountable who are they ?