I thought about adding this to the "Prejudice" thread in the Back Alley, but I decided to start a new one here in Random Babble instead in hopes that people will save their vitriol, ad hominem and otherwise, for there and not put it here. So, Kevin, I'd ask that you keep the threads separate. (Obviously, if people cannot resist the temptation, feel free to combine/delete/whatever.)
Anyway, I have three observations.
First, that the concept of race itself is, arguably, itself intrinsically racist. What is the purpose of the classification? Seriously? It is to say these people are "different" in their humanity than these other people. Well, I'm sorry, but that isn't the case.
Oh, people may be culturally different by virtue of how they have been socialized to deal with others because of the particulars of their tribal/ethnic/national/religious background. But the notion that somehow human character is going to be correlated with skin pigmentation, lip shape, hair curliness, or any of the other indicia we might use to separate "race" from those other categories, well, that strikes me as silly if not ludicrous. It seems to me that if you distinguish Joe #1 from Joe #2 because #1 is "black" and #2 is "white", you are making a racist distinction. And that is true, whether you yourself happen to have dark skin or light.
Or to put it another way, we're all racists (since we've all made that sort of distinction). Which brings me to ...
Second, talking about race is useless and counterproductive unless one is simply counting the distribution of physical characteristics (e.g., figuring out how to deal with sickle cell anemia); its not helpful, at all, in getting anywhere on the questions of human character and human quality. Insofar as there are "group" characteristics we might be able to use to distinguish good people from bad people, ethically sound people from ethically suspect from moral from amoral from immoral from evil people, those group characteristics are already going to be accounted for by the other sub-categorizations of societies and cultures: ethnicity, religion, age, political affiliation, and the like.
And so ...
Third, the real question for discussion is when each of those traditional group divisions is legitimate to use as a way of separating people of one sort of character from people of another. When, if ever, is it legitimate to prejudge an individual who possesses the characteristics of the anthropological category called "Hispanic" or "Jew" or "American" or "Republican" and say they have a particular characteristic of moral character?
I think there are times when it is okay. I do not believe all cultures are equal. Some human constructs are badder than others. And if I see a middle-aged person who has spent all his/her life in a culture I consider "worse" or "more wrongheaded" or "more likely to commit bad acts", I'm going to pre-judge that person and require him/her to affirmatively demonstrate how, despite having spent his entire 50 years of life in that culture, his individual character fails to share its evils.
Call that a prejudice of mine, if you will. Personally, I prefer Habermas' slightly less argumentative term, "prejudging," because I don't believe it is possible to avoid some of those prejudices; we can't survive if we assume everyone in a culture is an exception to every bad cultural feature. To my mind the question isn't whether we are prejudiced against this group or that one. It isn't
whether we are anti-Semitic or anti-Catholic or anti-Muslim or anti-Hispanic or anti-American or anti-African-American or anti-German or anti-whatever. It is
when we prejudge in one of those ways.
And, that, I submit, is a really hard thing to determine. And, unfortunately, it is a thing where it is very easy to "go too far" in one's prejudgings.
I have no solution that I can guarantee works in all cases. I do have some rules of thumb I try to live by:
1. I tend to believe that I should treat people as individuals as the default, and let my knowledge of an individual's behavior, even if that knowledge is of a very small sample of their history, shape my prejudging of their character. If a student acts like a whiner or manipulator or spoiled in the first week or so of class, I'm going to be more likely to prejudge him as a whiner/manipulator/spoiled until such time as he proves otherwise by a longer term pattern of conduct, regardless of whether I know anything about his life prior to or outside of my class. However, I'm not going to assume that all my students are whiners/manipulators/spoiled from day one even though I believe many of today's students are.
2. I tend to be more likely to prejudge people, and impose on them a greater burden of rebuttal, who have been in a culture I consider "bad" or "inferior" longer. If I meet a Muslim who has been living in Iran since the Revolution of 1978, I'm much more likely to prejudge him as likely to be a Shi'a who buys into the teachings of the Ayatollah Khomeini, teachings which I consider reprehensible than I would one of my Muslim-American students who has lived all his life in Southern California. It is not that the person who lives in Iran all his life is necessarily going to be a terrorist or more likely to be violently anti-Christian; it is that the person who remains in a place run by such ideas for 35 years is more likely to be at least a silent collaborator (since otherwise it's a high probability he'd have been dead by now).
3. I strive to be open to any evidence that would rebut my prejudging of a particular individual. My standard for rebuttal vis-a-vis an individual member of a group is not "beyond a reasonable doubt," it is not "clear and convincing evidence". It is not even "preponderance of evidence". Those are standards for a courtroom, for those situations where our "unwritten codes of reasonable conduct toward our fellows" have already broken down or come into actual and specific conflict. If one is in court, choices have already been made by someone with respect to someone else that may be actionable at law. Legalistic standards are for actual disputes that the parties cannot resolve themselves; they are not for our everyday dealings with individuals.
No, my standard about "relaxing the prejudging" is not a legalistic one. It is merely, "believable positive evidence." Is there evidence, provided by the person's interaction with me or with those who I trust, that leads me to believe this person is an exception. If there is, then I strive to eliminate the role the prejudging would otherwise play.
Do I always succeed in applying these rules of thumb correctly? Of course not. But I believe I do better for admitting that I will sometimes prejudge than by idealistically claiming "we should never be prejudiced against people because they're in a group. I don't think that's possible. And expecting the impossible, of others OR of myself, simply leads me to more condescension, sanctimoniousness, self-righteousness, and hypocrisy.
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Romans 12:2 (NKJV)