Thread by @amir_faizal_

RACISM THOUGHT EXPERIMENT

This is a *THREAD*, approaching racism as an epistemological problem.

Whether you believe in racial superiority or not, give this a read.

We sometimes hear statements like "Malays are lazy" or "Chinese are materialistic" or "Indians are drunkards".

These are generalisations or racial stereotypes, and they're prevalent in multicultural societies.

You can observe such sentiments in multicultural places like USA or UK or Canada or Malaysia.

I'm curious about the racists. Consider the X race, towards which you are racist.

How many X people have you actually met?

Let's say that your country has 50 million people. X makes up 40% of the total population. That's about 20 million people.

Have you met all 20 million people? If not, why are you racist towards X?

You might say, "Oh I met a lot of them-

-and they are all <insert negative trait>."

But what is "a lot of them"? What are the numbers?

Do you mean you have met about 50% of X people and you observed that trait in every single one of them?

By the way, 50% of 20 million is 10 million people.

Do you know everyone?

if not, how are you confident in your racism?

Then you might say "Oh you can see it on social media!" well, how do you know that social media presence accurately reflects the statistics of X people?

For all you know, you may only see the loudest and most critical voices of the-

X people, which may only constitute an incredibly tiny minority of the whole X population.

So again, why are you racist towards X if you can't even prove that it's an inherently X trait?

You might then say "Oh it's a social/cultural problem. It stems from their culture."

Now this is interesting. This argument perhaps has some merits. Human beings generally sort themselves to groups (whether it's race, religion, class, etc.).

And it's possible (perhaps likely) that the people in those groups share some similar traits that you dislike.

Correct?

The problem here is that some groups are different than others.

For example, you don't get to choose the race that you're born with (if the concept of race is relevant at all).

If you're born an X person, you can't fundamentally change it. Yet, you are now lumped into a group-

-that is known for having <insert negative trait>. How is that fair or rational?

Another problem here is that culture doesn't exist in a vacuum.

It changes, morphs, acts, reacts, rise, and fall according to multiple social, political, and economic factors. Dynamics.

So to simply dismiss an X person just because he/she belongs to the X race, ignores the fact that the entire world literally influences the trajectory of the X race and its "behaviours".

The truth is, any behaviour can be exhibited by anyone, but racists just think that when-

-X people commit it, it's because they are racially inferior.

But when racists themselves commit it, it's because they are people too and they struggle.

This is what we call as the "ultimate attribution error".

In this case, when X people do good, it's because of "luck" or -

"hidden motivations" or "situational" or "circumstantial reasons".

But when racists themselves do good, it's because they have good personality or integrity.

It is the false assignment of ingroup and outgroup behaviours or acts.

This is one aspect of prejudice.

If indeed you somehow found out that 90% of X people (45 million) exhibit <insert negative trait>, then you maybe have a case that it's a cultural thing. But here's the issue, that doesn't warrant racism.

That should be a point of interest and investigation, to know the reasons.

It should be deep curiosity and radical empathy, rather than being merely prejudiced towards the X group.

And the reason that that's better is that by being racists, you are essentially condemning them to a life of inferiority just because they are born that way.

Be careful.

You are denying the possibility for good, self-determination, self-actualization, and evolutionary progress of the X group.

You wouldn't like it if other groups of people paint your group as being terrible just because they are racist towards your group, so why would you?

I can think of no sustainable argument justifying racism.

If you are racist towards X, neither statistical nor cultural argument can back up your racism. The truth is, if you are racist towards X, and you meet an X person and you become explicitly racist towards X, here, read:

You don't even know them. You don't know what they like, dislike; their choice of music; their moments of bliss and despair; their love towards their family and friends; their childhood and memories - you essentially know nothing important about them, and yet you view them-

-all the same or "generally" the same.

Truth is, it's not statistics that convinced you, but internal biases and prejudices.

And we should get rid of that.

We should be rational and make conclusions based on morality and data instead.