Is Snow a Racist?

Yes, but aren't we all?

H. L. Mencken, "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple and wrong."

I ran across this quote today and it sparked an Old Fogey rant on American’s search for simplicity in tackling the major problems facing our country. As a historian, I have spent my entire career studying perhaps our most complex problem: racism. Probably no subject has more mythology. Whole groups of people are sure that they have the answer:

1. The Genetic Geniuses--Africans are just naturally inferior and very little can be done to change that fact.

2. The Black Victims--all of African Americans’ problems are caused by white racism and ending it is the single solution.

3. The White Victims--white employment problems are caused by affirmative action (plus maybe out-sourcing and immigration) and high taxes are the result of hand-outs to lazy welfare queens as well as illegal immigrants and inner-city black criminals.

3. The What Me Worriers--although there was racism in the past, very little remains today and those who claim it does are “playing the race card.”

4. The Color Blinders--the best way to deal with racism is by ignoring it.

5. The Homogenizers--if we could all just learn to be like the 1950s white sitcom families, all our cultural decay would be arrested.

6. The PC Warriors--words are harmless and making a big deal out of them is both stupid and corrosive.

This last one was on display yesterday as Tony Snow flubbed once again his new role as Bush’s press secretary by using the term “tar baby.” Although he claimed the term had a non-racist origin in the Uncle Remus stories, the term is widely perceived as being derogatory to African Americans. His use of it was insensitive and/or stupid. However, the debate over his statements illustrates a larger and more important issue: the persistence of institutional racism. Snow was probably not intentionally being racist, but that’s not really the point. Racism can flourish without anyone making a conscious effort to be bigoted.

The English language and American idioms are biased in favor of people of European descent who are also male. For example, we European-Americans are collectively referred to as “white.” Do you actually know anyone who is white? Even Albino people are very pale pink. However, think of all the connotations of the word white, such as pure, good, just, and enlightened. Conversely, black often denotes evil, ignorance, and other detestable traits. None of us were around when the black/whites labels first appeared. Yet all of us is subtly influenced by the inherent bias. It takes a very conscious effort to weed out such institutionalized racism from our language. Words do indeed influence perception, which becomes the basis for action.

Another example of institutional racism involves a natural tendency among human beings to be most comfortable around people who are like us. When one group, through historical circumstances, ends up in charge of most economic and political structures, this tendency means that hiring (or electing) people like them further concentrates power within that group. Few today make a conscious effort not to hire minorities; instead there is an automatic assumption that white males (like them) are the best candidates. Every blind study of hiring practices, lending decisions, and real estate actions demonstrates that African Americans with precisely the same credentials as European Americans are more likely to be denied job offers, loans, and the opportunity to be shown certain real estate properties. Only a conscious decision to promote diversity can overcome this institutional racism.

A clear, simple answer about racism is most likely wrong.