The problem is not Racism. The problem is…. Discrimination. It would really help if Americans, white, black, liberal, gay, Asian, conservative, man, woman and child weren’t illiterate.
“discriminate verb 1. To make an unjust or prejudicial distinction in the treatment of other people, especially on the grounds of race, sex or religion.” (Sometimes all three at once.)
The operative word here is “treatment” which means what you do to someone else; how you behave toward them. You can swear at people because they’re black, you can curse women outside Planned Parenthood or detest your own children. But you can’t beat them up, or deny them their rights, liberty and well-being. A cartoonist can insult Allah, but a Muslim can’t shoot him to death for it. If you treat someone unjustly by violating their rights under the Constitution and law, for example by denying them the right to vote, refusing to bake their wedding cake or slugging them with a baseball bat, you are committing a crime. The crime is called discrimination. The protesters are protesting discrimination and they don’t seem to know it.
I haven’t heard the word discrimination on social media or TV twice in 3 1/2 years.
Racism is a noun not a verb. There is no action involved. Racism is as natural as red ants not mixing with black ants. It is a belief, instinct, a feeling in your head which makes it a constitutional privacy right. My ex-wife can hate me, even wish me dead, but she can’t kill me. Racism does not = discrimination. You can’t punish people for what they think, or wring it out of them. We’d all be in prison. Its what you do that counts.
Discrimination, on the other hand, is criminal behavior that can be minimized, outlawed, policed, punished and stamped out. Of course we have many laws already insuring against discrimination (except the Equal Rights Amendment could be ratified if Virginia got off its ass.) Enforcing laws against discrimination, enacting new ones when necessary, should be the object of democratic Constitutional gov’t.
If Americans, from CNN to the streets of Portland, were a little better educated they would stop using the word racism and use the word “Discrimination” which is what they’re really protesting about and a worthy target of law enforcement. I don’t see stamping out racism as an achievable or remotely rational goal.
The unfortunate choice of the word racism, like defund (next essay on USA illiteracy), leads to a reality that nobody involved in the “House divided” actually knows what they’re talking about. That’s a bad thing.
