Racism and Elitism

Racism and Elitism

He's a racist!! He is a racist!!

Wow, what an epithet. What's worse, being called a racist or being called a terrorist? These days, it's hard to say. We as a society have demonized the term “racist” so effectively that it has become difficult to think of something even worse to call another person.

Now, don't get me wrong. I do not defend racism. But I would like to begin by defining racism. According Merriam Webster, racism is “a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.” To be sure, race is a primary determinant of some human traits, such as skin color, hair, and eyes. Racism exploits these obvious differences to impute other perhaps real differences and certainly imagined differences so to claim that “my race is superior to your race.”

Simply stated, racism is an obvious mechanism whereby I can claim that I am superior to you. I am better than you. You are inferior to me. It is spun in many different ways, but it always comes down to the perception that some folks are better that other folks and I, of course, belong to the group of better folks.

The members of our society that have been particularly virulent in their demonizing of racism are the elites of our society. They are, after all, our natural leaders, are they not? Referring once again to Merriam Webster, the elite is “the choice part, the best of a class, the socially superior part of a society, a group of persons who by virtue of position or education exercise much power or influence.”

The elites of our society lead us because they are our social superiors, because they are better educated and by inference are therefore smarter than the rest of us. From my observation, one becomes an elitist through education, position, and ideas.

There are two real requirements to admission to the world of elitism. The first is that I must define myself as an elitist through my own self image. The second requirement is that my fellow elitists also regard me as an elitist colleague. Of course, there are many groups and subgroups of elitists, some of which are superior to others. Position, power, and influence are used to rank elitist groups. Most elitist groups accept their pecking order ranking. Many elitist individuals work hard, sometimes very hard, to move themselves into a superior elitist group.

In summary, some elitists are better than other elitists, but all elitist are superior to you and me. Furthermore, as a function of their elitism, elitist are duty bound to lead and even take care of those of us, who by definition, are inferior. We certainly are not as smart as they.

Putting all this into perspective, it is evil for one group of people to claim superiority over another group of people when the differences between the groups are obviously physical and racial. But it is OK for one group of people to claim superiority over another group of people because the superior group views themselves as actually being superior by virtue of their own perceived superiority.

Racism is evil, elitism is good. If the logic of that statement escapes you, it is perhaps because the statement is illogical. Placing oneself above others is evil. Period.

There is no difference between racism and elitism. Each seeks to elevate oneself and ones colleagues above others. Although racism and elitism use different proxies for their self perceived superiorities, the proxies are equally bogus. They are moral equivalents.

Since racism and elitism are moral equivalents, elitists have condemned themselves and their elitism through their demonizing of racism. It is too bad and very sad that they are not smart enough to have yet figured that out.

In fact, “some folks are better than other folks” just ain't so. You are not superior to me, and I am not superior to you. It's really very simple. Just because you and I are different in some way or another does not make either of us superior to the other. We're just different. It doesn't matter whether you and I are individuals, groups, or nations. We are still just different.

February 3, 2009