Judeo-Christian heritage? Hardly

I’m really tired of hearing people say “we are founded on Judeo-Christian beliefs” or “we have to remember that this country was founded on Judeo-Christian principles.” It is a phrase that often comes out of the mouth of Sarah Palin, that ridiculous walking ball of Silly Putty (who is so loved because she has no personality of her own and simply imprints the image of whatever is around her). Knowing at least a smattering of history, philosophy and theology, I know this not to be the case. While the country was originally founded by people who were Christian (that fact is not in dispute here, although many argue that many of the founding fathers of the United States were deist or agnostic), the principles that make Canada the country it is have at best coincidental resemblance to Judeo-Christian principles. At worst, they are in direct violation of biblical commandments.

The first thing I want to say is that this idea of Judeo-Christian anything is a complete farce. Jesus was a Jew who preached Jewish principles – nothing he said (including his famous “love your neighbour” bit) was a unique moral philosophy. Where Jesus diverged from the Jewish tradition is in man’s relationship with Yahweh, not in a person’s relationship with other people. Most of the rest of what we would call “Christian ethics” were written by either (the Apostle) Paul of Tarsus who had never met Jesus, or by Christian biblical scholars like Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas several centuries after the time of the gospels. The later Christian philosophers were influenced heavily by Greek philosophy (which predates Jesus by several centuries), which was in turn influenced heavily by the Egyptians, and so on back through the ages. The point is that so-called “Judeo-Christian” philosophy, at least when it comes to matters of ethics, does not come from Jesus at all, but from either the Torah or from non-religious, non-divine sources. Anything that Christianity has to say about ethics is either Jewish or Greek/Egyptian in origin.

The second thing I need to say as a pre-amble is that it is impossible to talk about the foundations of Canada without talking about the foundations of the United States. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is, for the most part, cribbed from the US Bill of Rights, which is in itself part of the Constitution of the United States. Say what you will about the Americans, but if ever there was a group of people who figured out a system of secular justice and a stable society without appeal to religion, it was those guys. You may compare for yourself, or you can take it from me that any discussion of the founding principles of modern Canada can be seen as comparable to the founding principles of the US.

It is also important to note that Canada was a part of Britain until 1867, and didn’t establish its own internal constitution until the 1980s. It is necessary then to distinguish between “modern Canada”, with its codified system of rights, and “historical Canada”, which is essentially England. There is a fair argument to be made that if England was founded on Christian principles, then Canada was as well. However, this argument falls apart in two important places. First, England’s system of rights was drastically influenced by the US constitution, and as such it bears little resemblance to the monarchist state it once was. Second, the argument can equally be made that the Constitution Act of 1982 was a codification of the founding principles of “the nation of Canada” – a recognition of those principles already held dear to Canadians; a retroactive “foundation”. Thus, whatever is in the Constitution, despite the fact that it came later than the British North America Act of 1867, can be reasonably called the founding principles of the country of Canada.

In order to evaluate whether or not Canada was founded on a Judeo-Christian ethical system (which is more accurately described simply as ‘Jewish’, since uniquely Christian teachings are theological rather than moral), it is necessary to establish a codification of these principles. It simply will not do to merely assert ‘these are the principles’ – they must be written down somewhere that we can all agree on. Luckily, Canada has the aforementioned Constitution (I will also, for illustrative purposes, refer to the US Constitution on occasion) as its codified principles. The Torah is the source of Jewish moral tradition, and there are hundreds of regulations and legal exhortations in that document. I think it is fair to use the oft-invoked passages from Exodus, colloquially known as the Ten Commandments, as a codification of Jewish principles. Sure there are other rules and regulations (almost the entire books of Leviticus and Laws, for example), but the Ten Commandments are the founding ethical document of the tradition, so presumably all others are reflections or developments of that document. Uniquely Christian ethics, which I have argued are adaptations of Jewish principles, are generally taken from Jesus of Nazareth’s Sermon on the Mount, which I will use as the “founding document” of Christianity.

The Constitution of Canada or, The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

The part of the Constitution we really care about for the purpose of this discussion is the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Sadly, the document starts with the following phrase:

Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law…

Religious Christian groups lobbied to get it in there, and Muslim groups were happy about it too since it doesn’t specify which God it’s referring to. I will assume they mean the Flying Spaghetti Monster and let it go. Clearly I’m about as wild about the inclusion of this passage as dogs are about the vacuum cleaner, but it doesn’t really matter. The listed rights are the important “meat” of the constitution, not the language of the preamble.

There are many legal issues in the Constitution (the role of parliament, the rights of the PMO, judicial stuff, mobility rights, language rights, etc.) that speak more to making the country run under the rule of law rather than a reflection of moral principles. While these have literally nothing to do with the Bible (and thus I could score cheap points by saying “look! No Jewish anything here!”), that’s an apples and oranges comparison. What we’re after is the ethics and morals bits of the constitution, not the legal errata.

The Constitution lists these as fundamental freedoms:

  • freedom of conscience,
  • freedom of religion,
  • freedom of thought,
  • freedom of belief,
  • freedom of expression (my personal favourite),
  • freedom of the press and of other media of communication,
  • freedom of peaceful assembly, and
  • freedom of association.

    • As you can see, there is a great deal of overlap between this document and the US Bill of Rights. Many of the other ones that I haven’t listed here (unreasonable search and seizure, habeas corpus, etc.) are clearly direct rip-offs. Canada’s legal code, which would take about 50 posts of this length to explore sufficiently, is subject to the Constitution such that any law that violates this document are untenable. For interest, the main difference between the Canadian Constitution and the US Constitution is what is known as the “general limitation clause”, which abridges all of the rights if such violations are demonstrably justifiable in a free and democratic society. This is why we can prosecute hate speech here – a position that I do not agree with.

    The Ten Commandments

    So what do the Ten Commandments say about the Charter? Are the Commandment principles reflected in the founding document of Canada? Let’s first look at the (paraphrased) list:

    1. I (Yahweh) am the Lord thy God (violation of freedom of religion, belief)
    2. You shall have no other gods before me; you will not make and/or worship religious idols (violation of freedom of religion, belief)
    3. You will not blaspheme against the name of God (violation of freedom of expression)
    4. Keep the Sabbath holy (no violation, no endorsement)
    5. Honour your parents (no violation, no endorsement)
    6. Do not murder (or kill, depending on who you ask) (in accordance with the legal code, albeit with caveats)
    7. Do not have sex with someone you are not married to (no violation, no endorsement)
    8. Do not steal (in accordance with the legal code)
    9. Do not bear false witness against someone else (in accordance with the legal code)
    10. Do not desire or wish for anything that belongs to someone else in such a way that disregards the rights of others (violation of freedom of conscience)

    By my count, the Charter violates four of the Ten Commandments, is in accordance with three, and is completely indifferent to the remaining three.

    Let’s look at where the two documents agree (murder, theft, perjury/slander). These are regulations that are present and discussed at length in Plato’s Repulic, which is completely separate from the Jewish tradition. Without knowing in depth the moral codes of all of the world’s cultures, it is at least sufficient to say that rules against murder, theft and lying are not exclusively Jewish and do not require appeals to divine command to make them work.

    As far as the indifferent commandments go, Canadian law (with the Constitution as its ostensible source) does not expressly forbid adultery, nor does it require citizens to honour the Sabbath or honour their parents (to the contrary, the Canadian legal system allows for the courts to supersede the wishes of the parents for the best interest of the child). These are not equivocal “if you feel like it” rules in Biblical law, they must be followed and carry as much authority as rules about murder and theft. Canada chooses to completely ignore them.

    “Christian” Ethics

    The foundation of Christian ethics is the Sermon on the Mount, and includes the Beatitudes and other uniquely Christan moral exhortations (turning the other cheek, not resisting evil, etc.). The Beatitudes promise recompense to those that mourn, the meek, those who are persecuted, the pure of heart, and those who hunger for righteousness. It is more difficult to equate these vague prophecies with “rules” as such, but they can be seen as moral guidelines. There are other tenets of Christianity such as charity, care for the sick, and self-denial that are held up as moral guidelines. Like murder and theft, these are principles that are seen in other cultural and religious traditions that pre-date Christianity. It is entirely false to call them “Christian principles”; they are better identified as “merciful principles” that do not require a deity to be practical.

    Even allowing for those moral guidelines that are uniquely Christian, the Charter and the legal code of Canada is largely indifferent. There are no laws either rewarding adherence to or punishing divergence from ‘turning the other cheek’. Assault is punished, but the law allows for punishment to be mitigated by considering who initiates the offense. That’s not turning the other cheek; in fact it directly contradicts the idea of turning the other cheek. However, it is not a violation of common ethical principles nor is it a violation of the Constitution.

    Concluding Thoughts

    These “think pieces” are getting longer and longer each week, and perhaps I should be apologetic for that. It is my hope to generate thought and consideration with these essays, rather than accepting bold statements like “We are founded on a Christian ethic” as fact – it could not be further from the truth. Most of our laws either defy or are completely indifferent to any kind of Biblical prescripts. But none of that is important, the most important part of these Biblical exhortations is the question of why they are right or wrong. Religious regulations are built upon the foundation that they are the will of God. Even those rules and laws that agree with the Jewish and Christian moral exhortations do so coincidentally, not because the country recognizes a deity – in fact these coincidental agreements are seen in other societies and cultures that have no Jewish or Christian heritage. We don’t have rights and freedoms because God says so, we have it to preserve a lawful, just and democratic society. The good of the society (and, by extension, of the people) is the source of right and wrong, not YahwAlladdha.

    Of course, all of this is to say nothing of the fact that many things in the Bible are contradictions of its own rules: murder is wrong but there is capital punishment (stoning) for blasphemy or adultery; we must turn the other cheek but Jesus destroyed the money-changers’ tables at the temple. The fact is that any number of Biblical passages can be used to justify any number of acts. Taken in its full context the Bible reads like a book of fables coupled with the oral history of a nomadic tribe. Considering the number of minor things that are capital offenses, I’m really glad we aren’t founded on Judeo-Christian principles.

    Even the most pious amongst us don’t bother to follow all religious rules. It’s wildly impractical to do so, and anachronistic in many cases (if you’ve ever had a cheeseburger or a taco you’ve broken Biblical law, and how many of you still plant or plow fields?). We all make judgments of right and wrong that are entirely external to scripture on a daily basis. To assert that religious text or tradition are the source of these judgments is simply not supported by any evidence. Our standards of right and wrong are references to secular and not religious values. Our codified laws recognize this fact and not only don’t force us to obey Biblical laws, but allow us to directly violate them with no repercussions. Canada was founded on rational thought and consequentialist ethical deliberation, not the ancient words of an invisible being in the sky.

    What you missed this week: May 17th-21st

    In case you missed it this week, I:

    Make sure to tune in this week for:

    • A refutation of the idea that we’re founded on Judeo-Christan principles;
    • An exposition of what’s (apparently) really important in politics;
    • The Pope getting tantalizingly close to the truth;
    • A blitz on free speech; and
    • More comedy… kind of

    All this next week!

    Movie Friday: Never been kissed

    I’ve talked before about religion’s bizarre obsession with sex. This video made me laugh, but it’s not really funny.

    It’s about the most thinly-veiled abstinence advocacy I’ve ever seen. It goes beyond sexual celibacy and says that even kissing is off limits. I’ve seen little kids smooch each other. It’s about as small a deal as can possibly be. Kissing is a expression of affection that seems to be universal. If you’re lucky enough to receive a kiss from someone you care about, it’s an amazing thing. Why anyone would want to deny people such a simple pleasure baffles the rational mind.

    There’s also a very telling moment, where the dad says:

    What kind of man do you want your husband to be? Do you want a man who saved all his love just for you? One who never even kissed another woman, so he could share that just with you?

    Seems like you got some of the words wrong there, dad. Let me fix that for you:

    What kind of man do you want your husband to be? Do you want a man who has no clue what the hell he’s doing? One who’s never even kissed another woman, so he has essentially zero shot of being able to gratify you sexually?

    There, much more accurate. They of course don’t show the kiss between the husband and wife, since the sight of Johnny Haircut slobbering all over her face as he tries to wrap his lips around hers would be a bit too much to handle. I’ve seen bad kissers; I’ve been kissed by bad kissers. Some people need all the practice they can get.

    The guy who asks Pamela out and tries to kiss her is right to smirk – she straight out runs away from him. And it wouldn’t be a heavy-handed awkward Christian morality play unless there was some girl who kissed her boyfriend… with disastrous consequences (note: consequences not shown, just vaguely alluded to). Let’s assume she had sex with her boyfriend out of a sense of obligation. The problem isn’t kissing in this case, it’s that her friend is a spineless moron. If you’re not ready to have sex, you’ve got to learn to say so. When we don’t have honest discussions about sex with our children, this is the kind of shit that happens. It’s not because we didn’t tie their chastity belts on tight enough; it’s because we didn’t give them the wherewithal to say “I’m in charge of my sexuality.”

    Some guys I know are still wowie-zowie about virgins. I’m 25 years old – if I meet a girl my age who’s a virgin, I’m wondering what happened in her past to make her that way. There’s nothing inherently wrong with not having sex, but it’s definitely unusual. “Saving yourself” for marriage is basically condemning your would-be spouse to having to teach you how to fuck. Sex is fun, and when done properly, is safe. Fetishizing sex and constructing elaborate taboos about what is essentially a biological function only serves to make us more obsessed, and more likely to do something stupid and dangerous.

    John Legend gets it EXACTLY right

    I’ve said this before, it’s REALLY nice to hear my ideas coming out of the mouths of other people:

    John Legend says its okay to see race (sorry, embed code was refusing to work and I don’t know enough HTML to troubleshoot it).

    John Legend is a singer/songwriter who has collaborated often with the likes of Common, Mos Def and Kanye West. He’s also a really smart guy, apparently.

    “…I’m black and I love being black, and I don’t want somebody to love me despite the fact that I’m black or be blind to the fact that I’m black and love me; I just want them to love me for whoever I am individually. But it’s okay that you see me as a black guy too.”

    He’s absolutely right, incidentally, about how to get racist ideologies out of the public narrative: tear down the stereotypes. Not simply by saying the stereotypes are wrong, but by surrounding people with examples of how they’re wrong.

    It’s a tough world out there, ladies

    I mentioned this last week – as much as I make jokes at the expense of women, I do consider myself a feminist (insofar as I think all people should receive equal rights and equal protections under the law). I also see a great deal of parallel between women’s struggle for civil rights and the black struggle for same. Both are historically-repressed groups that were denied fundamental rights and freedoms based on deep-seated prejudice; both groups had to fight legendary battles to achieve recognition as human beings; and both groups are facing a kind of “hidden” “polite” form of prejudice today. We look at our history and say “black people/women have achieved equality, so we can stop worrying about a solved problem.” While the major injustices have been overturned, it will take far longer than a few decades to truly level the playing field to a point where groups are actually “equal”.

    And there’s still a lot of women, both in places close to home and far away, who still face major oppression and violence as they pursue their human rights.

    Polygamy is one of those things; on paper it seems innocuous enough, but in practice it almost always means horrible repression and abuse of women by men. There are people who try to dress it up prettily, using diplomatic language to make it seem as though it’s not a practice that springs from a view that women are mindless cattle. Apparently, none of those people live in Malawi:

    A spokesman for the Muslim Association of Malawi told the BBC… if polygamy were banned, many women would be left without a husband and become prostitutes.

    I consider myself lucky to have many female friends. The majority of those friends are unmarried. I am reasonably sure, that none of those unmarried friends are prostitutes (I tried to ask, to get you more precise numbers, but only got slapped in the face for my efforts).

    This part is my favourite:

    “Every woman has the right to be under the shelter of a man.”

    See? They’re crusading for women’s rights! Every woman has the right to have her life yoked to a man who can’t commit to her alone. Why would you try to deny them this fundamental freedom? Ladies of the internet, I hereby offer to “shelter” all of you. If you’re into it, I can try “sheltering” two of you at a time (perhaps while a third one watches)! I make this offer because I care about your rights. Now show me ‘dem boobies!

    Ladies, are you no longer a virgin? Tired of being “honour-killed” by your father and brothers because you slept with someone and brought shame on your family? I know I am; who isn’t? Well now for the low, low price of $2700, you can have your hymen surgically restored! Fool your friends! Impress your family! Don’t get executed for asserting your basic human freedoms! Can’t afford the $2700? Is your new husband totally insensitive, near-sighted and clinically brain-dead? Try our new discount elastic pig-blood fake hymen! It’s made in China, so you know it’s safe!

    The person quoted in the article says that this deplorable practice of requiring virginity (only in one partner, and surprise surprise it has to be the woman) isn’t religiously-based. This may in fact be true, since no one religion is unique in its sexual depravity, but I don’t buy it. This issue blurs the line between religion and culture. It’s a chicken and egg thing – does religion devalue women because the societies who birthed that religion are sexist, or does religion instill a fundamental hatred of women in society at large? Secular societies are the ones with the best human’s and women’s rights records. Is that an accident? Maybe neither explanation is right; maybe it’s both. Either way, it seems to suck to be a woman in the eyes of YahwAlladdha.

    This is probably the most horrific thing I’ve heard in a while. I talked about the burqa yesterday, and a few weeks back, both as specific highlights of my ideas around religious vs. cultural tolerance, and I’m still not sure how I feel about the whole thing. What I can tell you is that you’ll never convince me that they aren’t a tool of religious and sexual repression. This story, one in apparently 150 similar attacks per year, puts that claim to the lie. Two sisters had motherfucking acid thrown into their faces for the arch-crime of not being covered from head to toe. I live in Vancouver. There are some sexy women here. Not all of them dress (at least to my eyes) modestly. Some go out of their way to be immodest in their dress. Amazingly enough, however, we don’t have a rash of rapes taking the city by storm. It’s almost as though men here see women as human beings, not objects to be used for our pleasure and permanently disfigured with motherfucking acid (are you serious?) when they displease us. But that’s crazy, right? Women are merely objects created for the comfort of men by the all-knowing YahwAlladdah.

    These problems all seem to be happening in far-away backward-ass countries. We don’t have to worry about that shit happening here, right?

    Hopefully by now you’ve learned that when I ask a rhetorical question like that, I always disagree with the answer. For those of you who don’t know, it is common cultural practice in parts of the world to surgically remove the clitoris of women at a young age. I use the word ‘surgically’ extremely loosely – no anaesthetic, no sterilization (not of the tools anyway, many women end up infertile or die as a result), and not performed by doctors.

    I’d like to take a moment here to talk about the clitoris. The clitoris is probably the coolest thing on the human body. Unlike the penis, which has multiple roles (tonight, the role of Macbeth will be played by my schming-schmang), the clitoris has one function – to make sex awesome for women. That’s it. That’s all it does. It has no reproductive role, it doesn’t even act as a target for infection like the appendix or tonsils. It’s there just to please you. If some company developed a product that made sex that much more fun for women, you’d better believe that every woman (and twice as many men) would go broke buying it.

    But what do religious groups want to do? Of course, they want to cut it off! Why should women enjoy sex? They’re just there to make sandwiches (in between making babies). And the AAP wants to help them accomplish this. There is no medical advantage to FGM. There is no reason on Earth to surgically alter the genitalia of baby girls (or baby boys, for that matter). The only reason to do it is religious stupidity, and the AAP has decided to bend over backwards to allow this practice to gain a foothold here in North America. Way to go, AAP. That’ll show those uppity women who want to go through life without discomfort and trauma every time they want to have some sex.

    But that’s America. We don’t do that here. Well, not unless you’re a Conservative senator. Then you tell women who want to assert their rights that they should “shut up” on issues that are important to them. After all, why should women’s rights be an election issue? Women aren’t even allowed to vote! Wow, is it 1919 already? How the time flies!

    My point in all of this is that, for whatever reason, there remains a fundamental prejudice against women. I’m not going to turn this into a blog about feminism, but in all of the above stories, religion plays a huge role in keeping women oppressed. Nobody can take an honest look at the state of affairs today and claim that religion doesn’t lead to fundamentally sexist practices. The only way to ensure that women achieve equality under the law is to remove all religion from both the laws and public life. Religion should be like auto-erotic asphyxiating masturbation – only behind closed doors, as long as nobody gets hurt.

    P.S. MOTHERFUCKING ACID! How do you get your hands on ACID? I’m willing to bet money that most of these assholes haven’t even taken a chemistry class! Who’s giving them motherfucking ACID?

    Re-Update: France and the niqab

    Just in case anyone is interested in continuing to follow this story:

    French President Nicolas Sarkozy has ordered legislation that would ban women from wearing Islamic veils that fully cover the face and body in public places, the government said Wednesday.

    Belgium has recently gone down the same road. Of course, I’ve had my issues with Belgium before, where I felt they were poised to infringe upon free speech and censor their own history. There’s a debate brewing up in Australia as well, although I am not entirely convinced that the robber in this story wasn’t trying to make a political point. I’ve never heard of anyone in Canada using a burqa as a criminal disguise, but I’ve only been paying attention to this issue for a short while.

    There’s another side to this issue that I want to discuss, but I’m not sure how qualified I am to do so – the issue of women’s rights. Many people cite the burqa as a symbol of male repression, disguised in religious trappings. Muslim men are not exhorted to cover their bodies from head to foot (although modest dress is recommended for both sexes). Surely the sight of a good-looking Muslim guy inspires just as much lust in the women of the world as vice versa. The glaring double-standard reeks of hypocrisy. However, the counter-argument is that many Muslim women who are not required to wear the burqa (or the hijab, or the niqab, or any of the other permutations) choose to do so. Taking away their right to dress as they see fit, say critics, is just as much an abrogation of women’s rights as requiring them to cover up.

    My feeling on this issue, as articulated by Sam Harris, is that “choosing” to wear a burqa is like a person “choosing” to remain celibate or “choosing” to give money to the church: religious teachings are drummed into you from birth, and it’s not possible to make a truly informed and un-coerced “choice” when the weight of your entire family and community is on your back. Again, this reeks of paternalism “you aren’t capable of making a choice, so I’m going to make it for you.” I believe that’s what they told black people in the Jim Crow era.

    I have mixed feelings about this. I suppose this is precisely what I recommended, but I’m uneasy about the government passing bills that outlaw religious practice – I just don’t think we should make laws that encourage it. This one is a very difficult line to draw and I’m really not sure what side I’m on. On the one hand, it sends a clear and unequivocal message to the Muslim world that the secular world will not sit idly by and capitulate to their ludicrous demands to allow women to be demonized and exploited. On the other hand, any time a law is passed that targets one particular group rather than setting a standard for all, my hackles get raised.

    I’d love to hear some feedback from you on this.

    Racism: a definition

    I recently got into a friendly debate with a friend of mine over my use of the word ‘racism’. She objected to my broad definition, and my labeling of rather innocuous and neutral events as ‘racist’, preferring to reserve that label for more overt, “classic” racism. I thought I’d use this platform to discuss my definition, and why I think mine is better and more applicable to a contemporary context (Jen, feel free to refute my position in the comments).

    I use a definition that I refined from a social/psychological definition of group prejudice:

    Racism: the attribution of personal traits to an individual, or group of individuals, based on ethnic background.

    So when a police officer “randomly” pulls me over to check my driver’s license and to make sure I own the car I’m driving, or when by buddy Atif gets “randomly selected” for airport security checks, that’s racist. Similarly, when an old guy says to by buddy Howie An (who has Chinese parents) “you’re fit because you eat a lot of rice”, that’s also racist. Sure, the second one is a kind of “aw, shucks” racism that isn’t inherently negative, but it’s still racism.

    There’s an article, somewhat dated now, but still correct, in Slate. The basic thrust of the piece is as follows:

    Whites may have been horrified by the fire hoses and police dogs turned on children, but they could rest easy knowing that neither they nor anyone they’d ever met would do such a thing. But most racism—indeed, the worst racism—is quaint and banal. There’s nothing sensationalistic about redlining (segregating investment areas for banks and supermarkets based on the racial makeup of the region) or job discrimination.

    My definition goes a bit further than Slate‘s, because under mine an act or phrase doesn’t necessarily have to be negative to be racist. Certainly nobody would make the claim that the old guy Howie encountered was saying anything bad about either Howie or people of Chinese descent. My point is that it doesn’t matter, it’s still racist. The guy was assuming, either accurately or incorrectly, that Howie eats a lot of rice because he’s Chinese. It’s a race-based individual judgment.

    I will share a story of my own. Recently, I was out for drinks with a friend and some of his crew. One of the girls with the group, I’ll call her “Sally” for the purpose of this post, and I were talking at one point in the evening. I don’t remember exactly how it came up, but Sally asked me what my background was (I think she said something like “where are you from?”) I told her I was from Canada, and then (predictably) the conversation went something like this:

    Sally: No, but where are you from really?

    Me: Vancouver

    Sally: Fine, what’s like, your background

    Me: I’m black

    Sally: Okay, but where are your parents from?

    Me: They can’t be from Canada?

    Sally: Why are you making this so difficult? I’m not being racist or anything, I’m being complimentary! I love black people!

    Me: You love all black people?

    Sally: Yeah totally! You guys have good taste in music, and you’re so laid-back!

    This is conversation I’ve had more times than I care to recall. First of all, there’s a lot of things that I do that don’t fall into the “black people” stereotype: I am an accomplished classical violist; I have two university degrees in science; I grew up in a small mountain town in rural BC. You’re not going to see a guy like me on BET or TBS, unless it’s as a completely tokenist character (“wow, this black guy is so different from the other ones on the show! We’re diverse!”) The only black people I’ve ever seen who even remotely resemble me are Alvin from The Cosby Show and Lem from Better off Ted, and even then they were socially awkward turbo-nerds. I’ve long made peace with the fact that I’m not archetypal, it doesn’t really bother me. What does bother me is the implication that my entire identity can be boiled down to the colour of my skin, or more specifically the colour of my father’s skin. While my racial identity does inform my outlook on life, so does my scientific training and my musical background. It doesn’t matter that Sally wasn’t saying anything negative about me, the fact is that she was attributing to me the characteristics of people who may or may not be like me in any way, simply because we have similar skin colour. I was at a different bar talking to a different girl who told me that I was probably good at scaring people because I’m black, and that “(us) guys” are good in a fight. Again, not necessarily negative, but definitely not true (most of the time I’m about as threatening in a fight as an asthmatic koala bear).

    This perhaps wouldn’t be a big deal if it didn’t go any farther than conversations at bars with drunk girls. The reality is, however that we form impressions of other people based on race, whether we acknowledge it or not:

    The roots of racial prejudice lie deep within the brain, research has suggested. A study found that when we watch someone from our own race do something our brain simulates the action mentally as a form of empathy, known as ‘mirroring’.

    The study has a lot of flaws, the biggest being that it only observed white participants, but the principle is likely sound – we are primed to view people who look the same as we do differently than those who are dissimilar. Sally chose to share her positive impressions of black people. I wondered immediately what other impressions she might have based on my race, considering how black people are portrayed in media.

    Race, whether we like it or not, is still a part of our decision-making apparatus. Racism, for the most part, has taken on a much more subtle and innocuous form (unless of course you live in Nova Scotia). The way that we identify it and deal with it needs to change to reflect this. The Slate article talks about Dogg the Bounty Hunter and Michael Richards’ use of the word “nigger”, and how the reaction from both of these men was “I’m not racist.” Of course you’re racist. You live in a racist system. You can’t just decide to be non-racist by sheer force of will.

    I’ll drop a bombshell on all you readers right now: you’re racist.

    Here’s another one: I’m racist too.

    We are products of the system that raised us, and the system has deep racist roots. Pretending as though it doesn’t exist, or that racism is only when you’re actively campaigning for the supremacy of a single racial group (that’s how it’s defined in the dictionary, albeit with my definition tacked on as #2) is ignoring the real and present influence that racism has in our day-today lives.

    My friend (the one with whom I had the semantics debate) wanted the word ‘racism’ to shock and appall people, such that if your actions were labeled ‘racist’, you’d immediately stop doing them because of the emotional impact of the word. The fact is that the kind of “classic”, white-hooded lynch-mob ‘racism’ has all but completely faded from day-to-day reality in Canada (and for the most part in the US, although there are still a few holdouts). In my mind, restricting the word to only those kinds of actions would only serve to make the problem worse, since people would be incredibly unwilling to admit to having any race-based prejudice for fear of being associated with violent hate groups. The status quo would be maintained in perpetuity, and no progress could be made. The way to remove racism completely is to expose and discuss it dispassionately, not condemn people for the attitudes instilled in them by society while the rest of us smugly say “well at least we’re not racist.”

    Another common colloquial use of the word is to refer to any group bigotry. I recently got yelled at on an online forum for suggesting that Richard Dawkins wasn’t being ‘racist’ when he made disparaging comments about Muslim people. The comments were targeted at people of the Muslim faith, suggesting that this particular religious tradition was more repressive of women than others. I’m not sure whether or not that’s true, but it’s certainly the case today. However, my point was that Dawkins was referring to Muslim people, not Arab or Persian people. The fact that those nationalities are disproportionately represented among British Muslims is irrelevant; the comments were about Islam. People on the forum were not having it. Apparently, in their minds, ‘racism’ simply means bigotry against any group. Sexism is racism, homophobia is racism, nationalism is racism. This argument is patently ridiculous, under any definition. Race bigotry is a specific phenomenon with specific hallmarks. Race bigotry might often parallel nationalistic bigotry, but they are not the same thing. I can decry the stupidity of Christianity and the way it infiltrates politics without hating white Americans, I can bemoan the corruption in African countries without hating black Africans, and I can detest the actions of the Chinese government without having any particular animosity towards Chinese people. The fact that there are large overlaps is completely separate from the label of ‘racism’, the defining characteristic is the method of grouping people. If it’s by race, it’s racism; if it’s not, then it’s something else.

    This has been a mammoth of a post, and I thank you for sticking through all of it. The take-home message of this piece is simply this: our definition of racism cannot be simply relegated to vicious acts of brutal, overt repression; nor can it be thinly spread over all types of prejudice. Racism is a real phenomenon with real effects. Claiming “I’m not being racist” is a fallacy; we are all products of a system in which racism is endemic. Nobody, not even yours truly, is immune from its effects. I offer my definition – attributing race-group stereotypes to an individual – as a useful and value-neutral meaning for the word. It encapsulates “classic” racism, but allows us to intelligently discuss issues of race prejudice happening in society without risking censure or being labeled as ‘a racist’.

    What you missed this week: May 10th-14th

    If you didn’t catch it, this week I:

    You missed all of that! Make sure you don’t miss this week when I:

    • Give you a better definition of racism;
    • Update you on the burqa ban;
    • Talk about some super-keen women’s rights violations;
    • Pick on China; and
    • Show you a hilarious religious morality play.

    So make sure you stay tuned!

    Movie Friday: Hurray for Cartoons!

    I love cartoons. I always have. Even now that I am more grown up, I still get a thrill from watching shows like South Park, Clone High, The Simpsons, and others. Animation is a way of portraying the world without being fettered by reality.

    Then again, sometimes cartoons are so racist you wish they would stick a bit closer to reality. This week’s Movie Friday is about the history of race portrayal in cartoons. In light of my previous post about the Tintin book, I thought it would be worthwhile to examine our history in North America. This post is a two-fer, but overlap a bit.

    Cracked.com made  a great deal of hay about the contents of this specific video, and the article is worth checking out.

    The second video has had embedding disabled, so you’ll just have to follow this link if you want to watch it. It’s more of the same though. Racial differences are exaggerated and lampooned for sport. It is tempting to castigate the creators of these cartoons for their racism, but I see it as being simply a reflection of the ethos of the day. There are lots of examples of racist attitudes prevailing in today’s television. As one example, there are no non-white characters on Friends, Seinfeld, or How I Met Your Mother, despite the fact that they all take place in New York City with a huge non-white population. We haven’t rid ourselves of racism; it’s simply been transformed into something less obvious.

    Writer/director Spike Lee, with whom I do not always agree, created an excellent film about this phenomenon called Bamboozled. While he, of course, focused on black people in the United States, the lessons can be extracted to portrayals of any ethnic minority groups. I can’t recommend enough that everyone watch this movie. It is an eye-opening and perspective-changing view of race in media, and the phenomenon of subverted systemic racism in North America. Seriously, watch this movie.

    So the next time you’re watching your favourite show, spend a segment looking at race portrayal with a critical eye and see if you can’t detect some race bias. It’s often subtle, but it’s definitely there.

    Racial mixing on the rise

    From time to time, the media turns a statistical finding into “news”. This article is one of those times.

    More than 340,000 children in Canada are growing up in mixed-race families, a new report from Statistics Canada reveals, and the number of mixed unions is growing much more quickly than that of other partnerships.

    I am heartened by the findings, of course. As the product of a mixed union myself (two, technically, after my dad re-married) I am obviously a supporter of marrying whoever you want to. As different groups begin to live together, go to school together, and work together, people become more exposed to other cultures and ethnic groups. As time goes by, they start wanting a bit more exposure (of the boobies kind) with other cultures and ethnic groups. Of course, this has a particular application to Canada.

    Of course because I’m a damn addict, I looked at the comments at the bottom of the story. There’s a lot of very vocally (at least behind the anonymity of the internet) racist people who say that the reason people are getting married is because black guys come in and get white women pregnant. I suppose they’re free to think that, but there’s actually something much more interesting (and supported by evidence) at play here.

    What’s interesting is that the increase in inter-racial marriages isn’t an issue of simple familiarity (seeing different kinds of people in your day-to-day life), nor is it people becoming particularly philosophically enlightened. There is a phenomenon in social psychology called ‘in-group bias‘. Basically, you are more likely to favour members of your own group to the exclusion of those in other groups. This was tested at a summer camp with boys who were randomly assigned to two different groups. Of course, the groups were made to compete against each other in various activities, which fostered resentment and a strong polarizing of the two camps. Once animosity between the two groups of young boys had been fostered (ah, the 50s… a more innocent time), the researchers went to work trying to tear down the barriers. Simple sports and team activities didn’t seem to work.

    “It is predicted that contact in itself will not produce marked decrease in the existing state of tension between [p. 159] groups.”

    The only thing that got the kids to work together was when they had to pull for a common goal: unblocking the water cistern, and getting to a movie. Once they were working together to achieve something they both wanted, the bias against the other group diminished almost immediately.

    “When groups in a state of friction are brought into contact under conditions embodying superordinate goals, the attainment of which is compelling but which cannot be achieved by the efforts of one group alone, they will tend to cooperate toward the common goal.”

    By the end of the camp, the two groups that used to hate each other were playing, eating, and doing regular kid stuff together. This is a pretty powerful phenomenon, and illustrates an important fact: simple co-existence does not foster co-operation. There needs to be a next step – working toward a common goal. What occurs at that point is that the “group” identity dissolves and is replaced by another identity (in this case, the one of the “camp”). Instead of seeing one’s self as being a member in opposition to another group, you see all the people as members of the same group. This is a very powerful effect.

    In the same way, we’re going to see more racial mixing as a result of people of different backgrounds not simply sharing the same geographic space, but sharing education, workplaces, etc. This process won’t happen by simple diffusion; if we want to see increase co-operation between groups, the concepts of “us” and “them” need to change. Racial identity shouldn’t be abolished, but the weight with which we use race to identify both ourselves and each other ought to be reduced in favour of something more useful. This already happens with team affiliations (think of Remember the Titans), and will continue to happen in professional groups and educational facilities.

    Re-defining our in-groups is the way forward. Taking some of the mystery and sting out of racial issues will help accomplish that.