What is racism? Recently, One Standard Deviation wrote about how human biodiversity doesn't accept any of the premises found in the following definitions of racism:


1(a): 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.
1(b): a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others.
2: a policy, system of government, etc., based upon or fostering such a doctrine; discrimination.
3: hatred or intolerance of another race or other races.


I would like to go in another direction. Some words come to have strong emotions attached to them. "Racist" delivers the message that you are an illegitimate person. You are outside the bounds of respectability. You should be drummed out of polite society. It's the emotional equivalent of calling someone a criminal.

That being the case, it's my position that 1(a) and the first part of 1(b) are underhanded attempts by liberals to demonize ordinary people who see the evidence differently, and especially to marginalize hereditarian researchers. Believing the races are genetically different is a belief about facts, and an incorrect belief about the facts is not illegitimate. If I believed that phlogiston causes combustion, that makes me mistaken, not evil.

And frankly, I don't even see how a belief that one race is better than another is criminal either. If someone believes that blacks are the best race, I would ask myself how they come to that conclusion and how do we determine what is best, but it's only the contempt for other races or mistreatment correlated with, but not the same as, beliefs in superiority that are destructive and wrong. If you treat me fairly, what do I care if you think my race is not as accomplished as yours? So you have a goofy belief? So what.

And in 1(b) the belief that genes determine cultural achievement is made illegitimate. You're on outlaw if you think that way. I say nonsense. It's the same as before: it's not immoral to have a mistaken belief. And what if it turned out to be true? Then it would be criminal to believe true things, by that definition.

In my view, the only things worth passing judgment on are: 1) having ill will toward a race of people; and 2) favoring the unjust treatment of them. So all the haters of any race are racists in my book. Of course, the problem is that liberals see hatred in every conceivable thing, so even this more narrow definition is commonly abused. People hate when they say they hate. If you hate and deny it, you're like everyone else and accept that hatred is wrong. You just have a problem you need to fix. To wish ill will on others and to embrace it proudly is true racism.

Exploiting another race is also unacceptable. Slavery is bad; second-class citizenship is bad. Equality under the law is what every non-racist favors. Now all this is clear. What is less clear is that the desire for special treatment and double standards by minorities is racist. Favoring one thing for my race and another for yours is racist. Racial preferences for mine and racial discrimination for yours is racist. Favoring the interests of my race over the interests of yours is racist. That being the case, racism in America today is most concentrated among non-whites. Our current president is a high-profile example of a racist. He believes the law should favor blacks over whites in college admissions and jobs. This for us, that for you. Racist.