What isn't racist these days? If you listened to the woke Left, almost everything these days is racist. In 2020, the Smithsonian Institute declared logic, individualism, politeness, and "objective, linear thinking" as a part of "white culture." Earlier this year, Time magazine branded exercise as a form of white supremacy. Here are a few other things that the woke have called racist: homework, classical music, white babies, white paint, cycling (also see here), meritocracy, mathematics, the art industry, theatre, monkeypox, swimming, health care providers, Thanksgiving, and gardening.
The list of what the Left can call racist or bigoted can go on for ages. Google "the problem with racism in..." or "[insert thing] is racist" and odds are that you will find someone who has called something racist. And if it is not out there, I would be willing to bet that it is only be a matter of time before someone from Woke World calls something racist. For those who are woke, it is not a matter of whether something or someone is racist. It is a matter of "how it is racist." The problem with calling everything racist is not simply because it is intellectually lazy to do so. This oversimplified view is a narrow viewpoint not based in reality.
By this so-called "logic," a disparity that exists in the world automatically means racism. As I am going to illustrate shortly, that is simply not that case. Let's start off with some questions that I know are going to irk the woke crowd:
- Does the NBA disproportionately having black basketball players mean the NBA is discriminatory against white people?
- Men are more likely to commit crimes. Does that mean that the system is sexist against men or is it that men are more prone to aggressive behaviors than women are because of testosterone and other aspects more typical with men?
- U.S. Hispanics live longer than white people in the U.S. Is the health system rigged against non-Hispanics or are there genetic or cultural factors to consider?
- Does the fact that Asian-Americans are much less likely to be in prison mean that the system is in favor of Asian-Americans and wants to screw over everyone else, or is there a cultural element in play?
- Men are more likely to commit suicide than women are. Is society meaner towards men or are men less likely to open up about their emotions than women are?
- In terms of undergraduate college enrollment, 58 percent of students are women and 42 percent are men. Does this mean that those working in college admissions offices hate men?
The examples above are mainly of people who are mostly considered in the majority or not consider particularly oppressed. If you are white, male, Christian, and/or heterosexual, the woke would consider your Original Sin to be your existence. Even before wokeness took a stranglehold on the Left, it was common for those on the Left to attribute racism and discrimination as the major causes of disparity that exists in the world. Since identity politics play a major role in the woke way of thinking, I would like to highlight a few examples that affect minorities and marginalized individuals to better illustrate the oversimplified view of the woke that everything is racist and/or bigoted.
Gender Wage Gap. In America, women earn 82 cents for every dollar earned by men (Pew Research). At first glance, this seems unfair that women would earn less. As I have brought up since 2013, this is not an apples-to-apples comparison. Once you factor in educational attainment, occupational choices, and labor attachment, the wage gap all but disappears. Men are more likely to work longer hours. Women are more likely to have part-time jobs, in no small part because many women prioritize raising their children. The gender wage gap does not exist because of discrimination, but due to career choices that men and women make.
Dating Transgender Individuals. I remember reading a study showing how nearly 90 percent of people are not interested in dating transgender people (Blair and Hoskin, 2019). Only 3 percent of heterosexuals were interested in dating someone who is transgender. It was higher among gay men (12 percent) and lesbians (29 percent). Bisexual and nonbinary individuals were at 50 percent. While the authors never asked the respondents why, one of the co-authors ascribed this unwillingness of dating transgender people to discrimination.
There is a more obvious explanation as to why most people do not want to date transgender individuals than discrimination. For the vast majority of people, sexual and romantic attraction are based in biology. It is not about being attracted to gender identity, but one's sex. Gay men are attracted to other men. Heterosexuals are attracted to the opposite sex. Sexual attraction is about sex, what a concept! I cannot imagine how difficult it is for a transgender person to date. At the same time, "the very basis of the gay rights movement was that sexual [orientation] is a personal matter that is not beholden to anyone else's wishes or expectations."
Marriage taxes and racial disparity. While the topic of marriage taxes is more obscure, this piece from the Left-leaning Urban Institute caught my eye because it proves my point. Urban found that black couples were about 7 percent more likely than white couples to incur a marriage penalty under tax law. This sounds like it could be an example of discrimination. Thankfully, the analysts over at Urban are smarter than that. They recognized that it is tricky to deal with these disparities because the tax treatment of marriage does not explicitly refer to race. Both spouses are more likely to work in black couples than white couples. Also, black married couples were more likely to claim children as dependents than white married couples. While there is a disparity between black and white married couples, it was not due to a racist tax code.
Using "They/Them" Pronouns on Job Résumé. Earlier this year, the people over at business.com released survey results about people who use "they/them" pronouns on their résumé. They found that nonbinary individuals who use pronouns on their résumé are about 10 percent less likely to get hired for a job. Forget for a moment they did not include those who use "he/him" or "she/her" pronouns on their résumé to see if it was an issue with preferred pronouns generally or "they/them" pronouns specifically. The author's conclusion was that this hiring trend was due to discrimination.
Time to play Devil's Advocate. Maybe it comes off as virtual signaling for someone to add information that lacks practical purpose in the hiring process. Maybe it is because it is a subtle political statement, a point I made last year when criticizing the practice of preferred pronouns. Maybe it could be perceived that you are more likely to be difficult to work with or could be a liability. Maybe including this particular something that has zero bearing on job performance shows that you are less concerned about how your skill set would benefit a potential employer. All are plausible reasons that have nothing whatsoever to do with bigotry against nonbinary individuals.
Conclusion
If a woke person does not like a certain outcome or takes issue with a certain disparity in life, it is easier to call it discrimination. I am not here to say that racism and bigotry have never existed nor do they exist. To say that would be a denial of history. At the same time, to attribute every disparity to racism or bigotry is a denial of reality. Simply because a certain correlation exists does not mean the causation is inevitably racism or bigotry. To quote the Foundation of Economic Education:
The problem with this [assumption of racism] is that human interactions are inherently messy and subjective. We treat each other all kinds of ways for all kinds of reasons. In this type of environment, if you look for a phenomenon in an interaction you will find evidence for it; even if the phenomenon doesn't actually exist in that interaction...A scholar will look at complicated interactions and will weight the evidence in search of the truth. An activist will dig for anything that supports their pre-existing dogma.
As I illustrated above, it would have some weird conclusions if disparity automatically meant bigotry, especially when we are talking about differences between such large sets of people. We have to be able to understand the intricacies of a given issue and see what is contributing to a given problem if we are to solve it. It might feel nice to be on a certain high horse thinking you are going to fight "institutional racism" or "stick it to the white supremacists." But screaming about a nebulous, amorphous "systemic racism" and immaturely calling people "racist" or "a bigot" simply because they disagree with you on a policy proposal will accomplish nothing for the betterment of society.
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