{"id":44682,"date":"2019-08-27T10:23:35","date_gmt":"2019-08-27T14:23:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?p=44682"},"modified":"2019-08-27T10:23:35","modified_gmt":"2019-08-27T14:23:35","slug":"what-is-a-racist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2019\/08\/what-is-a-racist.html","title":{"rendered":"What Is a Racist?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Have a look at this story<\/a>:<\/p>\n

A recent public forum was shocked Thursday when Jean Cramer, a Michigan city council candidate, said that she wanted to keep \u201cMarysville a white community as much as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to CBS News<\/a>, Cramer is one of five candidates vying for three city council seats in November, and racism is so embedded in her DNA that she didn\u2019t see her comments as racist or against blacks, yet she added that she didn\u2019t want \u201cforeign-born\u201d people to settle in Marysville.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Note that Cramer didn\u2019t see her comments as \u201cracist or against blacks.\u201d We\u2019ll come back to that.<\/p>\n

For context, it\u2019s important to note that Marysville is a small town of 10,000 north-east of Detroit and is 98 percent white and 0.3 percent African American, the Guardian<\/a> notes. Kramer probably thought she was among friends, but according to news accounts, the crowd laughed awkwardly and then became audibly baffled.<\/p>\n

The town\u2019s acting mayor, Kathy Hayman, said: \u201cI don\u2019t even know that I can talk yet, I\u2019m so upset and shocked.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hayman then pointed out that her father was Syrian: \u201cSo basically, what you\u2019ve said is that my father and his family had no business in this community.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At this point, Cramer addresses interracial marriage:<\/p>\n

Cramer then noted that she had nothing against the acting mayor\u2019s father but Hayman needed to know that her parents\u2019 union was the opposite of right.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs long as, how can I put this? What Kathy Hayman doesn\u2019t know is that her family is in the wrong,\u201d she said, CBS News reports.<\/p>\n

\u201c[A] husband and wife need to be the same race. Same thing with kids. That\u2019s how it\u2019s been from the beginning of, how can I say, when God created the heaven and the earth. He created Adam and Eve at the same time. But as far as me being against blacks, no I\u2019m not.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Note that last sentence\u2014after issuing a broadside against interracial marriage, Cramer insists that she\u2019s not \u201cagainst blacks.\u201d\u00a0Cramer wants to make absolutely sure that you know that, while she wants to keep Marysville \u201ca white community\u201d and opposes interracial marriage, she is not absolutely racist or\u00a0against blacks.<\/em> Far from it!<\/p>\n

Well you know what? During the civil rights movement, white segregationists in the south insisted that they were absolutely not racist.<\/em> I once read a sermon from the late 1940s in which a white southern minister inveighed against integration or interracial marriage, while simultaneously informing listeners of how very much he loved<\/em> black people.\u00a0This was common.<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve long felt that Americans have a very troubled relationship with the term \u201cracist.\u201d You say you\u2019re not racist? Okay! You\u2019re not racist!<\/em>\u00a0Or at least, that seems to be the mentality. There\u2019s a sort of an implicit assumption that an actual racist person<\/em> would never insist that they\u2019re not racist\u2014that such a person would of necessity claim the term and glory in it\u2014but that\u2019s not actually how it works<\/em>. Most racists will insist until they\u2019re blue in the face that they\u2019re very much not<\/em> racist.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m reminded of a conversation I had a few days ago with a friend, exploring the terms \u201cwhite nationalist\u201d and \u201cwhite supremacist.\u201d Are the two worth distinguishing from each other, or are they actually just the same thing?<\/p>\n

White nationalists want the U.S. to be a white nation state.<\/p>\n

White supremacists believe that the white race is superior.<\/p>\n

In general, white supremacists are also white nationalists\u2014they believe that the white race is superior, and that the United States ought therefore to be a white nation state. But is the reverse true? Are all white nationalists also white supremacists, as a general rule or sort of default? Cramer and others like her would object to such a claim, arguing that you can<\/em> argue in favor of keeping a community (or a nation) white without<\/em> also believing in the innate superiority of the white race.<\/p>\n

We could keep asking questions in an effort to get Cramer to slip and reveal that her reasons for wanting to keep her community white are in fact very racist<\/em>. Cramer, of course, could simply keep denying such claims. She could argue\u2014as that 1940s southern preacher did\u2014that both white and black people<\/em>\u00a0are better off living in separate communities, and that it\u2019s not racist to say this. Cramer could well spend the rest of her life insisting that she has no racial animus against black people.<\/p>\n

In the end, perhaps the easiest way to counter such defenses is to point out that\u00a0it does not matter.\u00a0<\/em>If the ideas and policies you support result in discrimination against minority groups\u2014and worse\u2014does it actually matter whether or not you are proven to be \u201cracist\u201d? Maybe this is part of the problem\u2014a focus on beliefs,<\/em> which are easy to assert or deny.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m reminded of the evangelical focus on faith instead of works, where what matters is what is in your heart,<\/em> not what you do<\/em>. You can\u2019t work your way to heaven, after all\u2014and only God knows the heart. Or so the framing goes. Is the same thing happening here? Are we so focused on what is in people\u2019s hearts\u2014on whether people are racist\u2014that we\u2019ve spent too little time focusing on actions, and on the outcomes of specific beliefs or policies? (White progressives\u2019 fight against high density housing developments in communities across the country would certainly suggest as much.)<\/p>\n

Cramer wants to keep black and \u201cforeign-born\u201d people out of Marysville, Michigan. There\u2019s no way to put this goal into action without acting in a discriminatory manner and creating a hostile environment for people of color who do move to Marysville. Rather than arguing with Cramer over whether or not she\u2019s actually a racist\u2014which keeps the turf in her head and thus on her terrain\u2014the best approach might be to ask her what policies she would put in place to achieve her stated goal.<\/p>\n

I have a <\/b>Patreon<\/b><\/a>! Please support my writing!\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m reminded of the evangelical focus on faith instead of works, where what matters is what is in your heart, not what you do. You can’t work your way to heaven, after all—and only God knows the heart. Or so the framing goes. Is the same thing happening here? Are we so focused on what is in people’s hearts—on whether people are racist—that we’ve spent too little time focusing on actions, and on the outcomes of specific beliefs or policies?<\/p>\n

Click through to read more!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":44688,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,112],"tags":[208],"class_list":["post-44682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-social-justice","tag-race"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat Is a Racist?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I'm reminded of the evangelical focus on faith instead of works, where what matters is what is in your heart, not what you do.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2019\/08\/what-is-a-racist.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What Is a Racist?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I'm reminded of the evangelical focus on faith instead of works, where what matters is what is in your heart, not what you do.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2019\/08\/what-is-a-racist.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Love, Joy, Feminism\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-08-27T14:23:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/166\/2019\/08\/miniature-3589682_1920-1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"768\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"510\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Libby Anne\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Libby Anne\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2019\/08\/what-is-a-racist.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2019\/08\/what-is-a-racist.html\",\"name\":\"What Is a Racist?\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2019-08-27T14:23:35+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-08-27T14:23:35+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#\/schema\/person\/fae465c1bbb5cbdf26c9e73bfd1b73d2\"},\"description\":\"I'm reminded of the evangelical focus on faith instead of works, where what matters is what is in your heart, not what you do.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2019\/08\/what-is-a-racist.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2019\/08\/what-is-a-racist.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2019\/08\/what-is-a-racist.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"What Is a Racist?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/\",\"name\":\"Love, Joy, Feminism\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#\/schema\/person\/fae465c1bbb5cbdf26c9e73bfd1b73d2\",\"name\":\"Libby Anne\",\"description\":\"Libby Anne grew up in a large evangelical homeschool family highly involved in the Christian Right. 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