Thanks for your article on Racism. I had heard a doctoral student at Fuller
Theological Seminary  make the point that racism was germinated within the
European Enlightenment, and therefore, is a relatively recent social
construction.  I had not investigate the origin of racism myself and was
pleased to read your confirming statement.

Unfortunately racism is alive and well in modern society not only in this
country but in many others as well. What was distinct about the atrocities
against the Jews in Germany in the 1940's was that phenotypically the two
groups were nearly identical. (As you know genetically, we are all about
99.7% identical.)

I wish you the very best in your teaching, your research and in your
writing.
 

Thomas Harang
Human Resources Consultant
Employers Group

Ps.

I teach cultural diversity for the University of Phoenix, adjunct. I plan to
reference your article in one of my upcoming classes.

Dear Mr. Harang:  It is a sign of how busy I have been that I am now acknowledging your very kind e-mail.  I wrote the piece as part of a writing assignment that I gave my students (I completed the assignment also as a good role model); and I have posted the essay and the e-mails I received on my course page.  The e-mail correspondence has been very interesting.  You can access the course page (Seminar in Social Psychology) from my website, linked below in my signature.  [10/12/00]

Dear Prof. Fairchild,
Modern-day racism in public policy is much broader and profound  than
rejection of affirmative action.  It is in the public policy of history's
richest, most technologically advanced and productive nation, that denies the
services essential for healthy development and equal opportunity to  its
young whose parents cannot protect them from poverty or  afford  access to,
i.e.:  adequate health care, child care, education and transition from school
to a suitable job.

The grossly disproportionate share of these victims  of this public policy of
our corporate-warfare-prison state  are  Afro Americans and Latinos -   the
historic victims of racism.

The 4 year old movement for  CHILDREN'S & YOUTHS' BILL of RIGHTS for EQUAL
OPPORTUNITY  seeks to make this a major public issue.

I'm mailing to you a copy of C&YBREO and my article "Stop Our War on Our
Kids" with hopes that you will join it's distinguished endorsers, and share
it with those who share your social justice concerns.

Nicholas V. Seidita, Contact for C&YBREO
Tel. (8l8) 886-4489, Fax (8l8) 882-796

Mr. Seidita:  Please forgive the long delay in responding, I get way too many e-mails.  I do share your concern for Children and Youth and would be happy to endorse your proposal.  Note that I have posted my article on racism on  my course website (I wrote is as an exercise for my students in my Seminar in Social Psychology) and am linking the emails to that web page.  My course page can be accessed from my home page at Pitzer College.  [10/12/00]

If you are interested in Here are a coupe books that I recommend, if you
have not read them already. They deal with the influence and history of
African Muslims in the United States.

1. Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas , by Sylviane
Diouf (this book should be a must read for any course of African-American
History)

2. African Muslims in Antebellum America, by Allan D. Austin

Both books deal with an aspect of our history that is seldom discussed or
hidden, or glanced over by the Afro-centrists.  They also so that our
history did not begin when we arrived in this country.
/

Mr. Taylor:  Thank you for your suggestions on important books on African Muslims.  I shall endeavor to acquire them and read them, perhaps incorporating some or all in future classes.  Note that I have posted my article on racism on  my course website (I wrote is as an exercise for my students in my Seminar in Social Psychology) and am linking the emails to that web page.  My course page can be accessed from my home page at Pitzer College.   [10/12/00]

I think that was a damn good article--keep up the good work and I hope this
inspires you to continue writing and educating yourself to better society.

I take issue with several of the conclusions that you espouse in you article.
The two major errors you commit are that 1) Any one who opposes affirmative
action, preferential hiring or other quota driven programs is or must be a
racist, and 2) That the obvious reason for minorities who are poor is that
they also must be the victims of racism. Lets look at the latter first. In
most instances, poor people of whatever race, religion or ethnic background
are not well educated. They lack the basic tools that would enable them to be
trained for better paying jobs, assuming they are even employed. Where the
person in question is a woman she is more than likely to have had several
children at a young age, coupled with early parenthood is the probability of
a limited formal education. In many instances, both among whites and
minorities, they are single parents and are receiving no assistance from the
father. Limited education coupled with the burden of parenthood doesn't allow
much time for anything but a low paying dead end job. We can debate the
effect of drugs on minorities and their communities. We can debate the effect
of "gangs" and non related juvenile crime as causes. But we both know the
reality is that people who get an education have a better chance to succeed
than those who don't. The employment market is such that almost no employer
is going to turn down a qualified applicant based on his or her racial
profile.
    Preferences are a problem. the reason being the give a benefit not to the
person who has been wronged, but rather to some unidentified member of a
group who may or may not need or want the preference. They also work against
people who probably committed no wrong but may be punished because of what
their father, grandfather or great grandfather may have done.
    You cannot blame racism for Aids, you can blame the lack of reasonable
protection during both hetero and homosexual practices as the major cause. As
far as race related cancer, heart disease, infant mortality, etc. I think
that they are probably more economically related than ethnically related.
    Are there racists? Absolutely! But there will always be racists,
homophobes and  anti Semites. I believe what we have in the USA is not hidden
racism but rather class bigotry. The rich and well off middle class look down
on the poor, and they do it whether they are white or black.
    Your article merely gives fuel to those people who are left behind in all
societies, so that that they can wrap themselves in the flag of victimhood
and blame "whitey" for their failings.
    I look forward to discussing with you in more depth.
        Newton I. Waldman, Esq. BA, LL.B

Mr. Waldman:  Please forgive the terrible delay in responding to your correspondence.  The issues are very complicated, but I certainly agree that education is a key to both the cause and solution of poverty, and Black poverty in particular.  The problem is that far from offering an "equal educational opportunity," the truth is that Blacks, other minorities and poor Whites attend schools, in the main, that are underfunded and overcrowded.  Part of the basis for this institutional discrimination is racial, as we live today with the legacy of restrictive covenants and other forms of employment and housing discrimination.  We live in a society that was structured on the basis of racial exploitation and many of these institutional practices continue to exert their influence to reproduce class inequality; but race and class are in many instances indivisible.  The problem with AIDS is twofold:  the possible deliberate or accidental spread of the virus in many parts of Africa, and the indifference of the West, with its comparatively vast health and other resources, to the dying in sub-Saharan Africa.  Affirmative Action was designed to break down some of the institutional barriers to access to education and employment; and without it, we will continue to see the perpetuation of differential opportunity.  [10/12/00]

Dear Halford:
As an expert on racism, perhaps you would care to review my website:
http://www.jeffsarchive.com

Sincerely,
Jeff

Thank you for your note.  Your site is very impressive.  When time permits, I will explore it in more detail.  In the meantime, I have posted the URL to the site within the webpage where I list the e-mails I received in response to my op-ed in the LA Times on Modern Racism.  The page is linked to my course, Seminar in Social Psychology, and be accessed from my home page, linked below.  [10-12-00]

10-12-00:  Thank you for your e-mail.  My time is bad so I will be brief in response.  I will use ALL CAPS to distinguish my replies from your questions and/or points of view.

Date sent:       Mon, 11 Sep 2000 19:29:51 -0700
From:            Bourbon Jerry <jbourbon@telnor.net>
Subject:         "Modern day racism:
To:              hfairchild@PITZER.EDU
Copies to:       letters@latimes.com

Sir:

    I read your column "Modern-day racism masks its ugly head" today in the L.A. Times.  Where do you get your ideas?  When you say that those who "quest for equality" are "averse racists", I assume you are talking about the anti-affirmative action partisans.  Yet, is it racism to question a system which benefits the black middle and upper class (Not the lower class, how many ghetto residents do you see in your classes?) at the expense of the working white class.  The white upper class is not losing anything to affirmative action, which is why the mainstream media and corporate America have not been very active in opposing it.  They have there own brand of affirmative action, it is called "wealth".  However, the white lower classes do not have this, and they get screwed by a program which is supposed to remedy past wrongs, from which they are not benefitting.

MY IDEAS CAME FROM READINGS IN A COURSE THAT I AM TEACHING, PLUS LIFE EXPERIENCE.  I SUSPECT THAT IT IS THE CASE THAT MIDDLE CLASS BLACKS BENEFIT MORE FROM AFFIRMATIVE ACTION; BUT WITHOUT IT THEY HAVE A COMPETITIVE DISADVANTAGE AGAINST EQUALLY, OR LESS EQUALLY QUALIFIED WHITES.  STILL, THERE IS MUCH TRUTH IN WHAT YOU SAY ABOUT THE CLASS ISSUE.

    You say that came about in the 1800's, in Europe.  Really?  The Chinese and Japanese didn't hate foreigners before then?  They had to learn it from the Europeans?  The Roman war against the Carthaginians wasn't a racial war?  Damn, I must have learned all the wrong history.  Maybe I should sue my college professors.

I AM REFERRING TO THE DEHUMANIZING RACISM THAT TREATED AFRICAN CAPTIVES AS CHATTELS, AS LESS THAN HUMAN.

    You say that the economic gulf is widening between white and black in America.  Interesting.  So, in other words, it must have been less wide before.  When?  In the 80's under Reagan?  In the 60's under Jim Crow?  Before then?  Do you have any statistics that prove this point?  If so, why are not they in your article.  If not, why did you print a lie?

THE DATA ON THIS IS READILY AVAILABLE IN ANY MAJOR NEWSPAPER.

    Finally, you say that racism is "at work in the apalling statistics of AIDS in Africa".  Funny, I thought that the AIDS epidemic in countries like Zimbabwe or Zambia had grown so bad (25% of adult males?, Whatever the numbers, they are indeed terrible.) primarily because corrupt, brutal and homophobic leaders like Kenneth Kuanda and Robert Mugabe spent most of the 80's and early 90's denying that AIDS existed, blaming the homos for the problem, or blaming it all on the CIA.  Am I to assume that Kuanda and Mugabe are closet whites, sent to infect Africa.  In countries like Uganda, where the epidemic was attacked early and publicly, infection rates are not much higher than in non African third world countries.

THERE IS COMPELLING EVIDENCE TO SUGGEST THAT AIDS WAS SPREAD IN AFRICA BY THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION.  AMAZING, I KNOW.  THERE IS EVEN MORE EVIDENCE TO SUGGEST THAT THE HEALTH ORGANIZATIONS OF THE WEST ARE CONSPICUOUSLY INDIFFERENT TO THE 30 MILLION LIVES DUE TO BE LOST IN AFRICA WITHIN THE NEXT FEW YEARS DUE TO THE RAVAGES OF AIDS.

    I would be interested in your response to this letter.
Sincerely,
Jerry Bourbon
Tijuana, BC, Mexico
 

Date sent:       Thu, 12 Oct 2000 18:12:45 -0700
From:            Bourbon Jerry <jbourbon@telnor.net>
Subject:         Re: "Modern day racism:
To:              hfairchi@bernard.PITZER.EDU

Sir:    Thank you for answering, I thought you were not going to.  You mention that AIDS has been spread in Africa by the W.H.O.  I have read that one of the vectors of AIDS in Africa may have been imunization campaigns in the late 70's/early 80's which (not knowing any better) re-used needles.
Maybe true (definitely true that needles were re-used) maybe not.  Also, unfortunately, I think your number of 30 million is going to be low.  Countries like Zimbabwei or Rwanda may end up effectively depopulated.  But, to repeat, whoever (or whatever) caused AIDS, and whether or not it was intentional, so called leaders like Mugabe certainly are not helping to remedy the situation.

    You failed to mention what is, I think, the greatest anti-black (and anti-poor in general) problem today.  That is the war on drugs.   You have no doubt read about the goings on in Tulia, TX.  This kind of crap, far more than any adjustment in affirmative action or debate about AIDS or economic progress, is what is destroying black America today.  It is also destroying the First, Second and Fourth Ammendment rights that ALL Americans theoretically enjoy.

    Again, thank you for your reply.

Sincerely,
JERRY BOURBON

Dear Mr. Fairchild,
After reading your article, I am wondering if there could ever be a time in this country that you would feel that the threat of racism was not a huge part of any black American's life.  You are saying, it seems to me, that white America is still largely racist even if not overt and not even consciously done.  If you believe that to be correct, you must believe that there should be specific quotas based on the percentage of the population (guarantee of equal outcome), since otherwise blacks would not be able to make it on their own.  I, for one, believe you don't give blacks enought credit for intelligence and ambition (for disclosure purposes, I am white; I do not know, nor care, what your race is).

You cite certain studies, etc. in your article, but do not reference where you got your information.  Which scientists in the mid-1800's ordered "Europeans at the top of the scale and Africans at the bottom"?  What contemporary research demonstrates that the "aversive racist is unaware of his or her racism"?  You also seem to ascribe the higher rates of preventable deaths from hypertension, heart disease, cancer and violence to (incredibly) racism.  What about factors such as diet and genetics?  And who are the diseases preventable by?

What exactly is the preference for the "status quo of white privilege"?  Is it that a greater percentage of white children grow up with a father figure in the house?  I cannot claim to know the comparative statistics of that factor, but based on what I have heard and read I would believe that there are a greater percentage of white children growing up with a father in the home and that that has much more to do with a child's "success" than any aversive racism in our society.  I am not saying that it is impossible for a single mother to raise a great person (my sister is doing it), but I see the difficulty in accomplishing that, especially in raising a son.

How do you reconcile your theory with the fact that, as you admit, the proportions of African Americans (I really dislike these hyphenated terms.  Most African Americans are about as African as I am German.  See Out of America, by Keith Richburg) in the middle and upper classes have increased?  Is white America selectively racist?  Can the proportion of black children reared in poverty be attributable to any other cause besides racism?  You say that the presence of blacks in the higher echelons of society is about a tenth of what "one would expect" if there was true opportunity.  If there was no opportunity, how do any blacks make it?  I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that you are black.  You are a professor at a prestigious college.  How did you make it?  How did the following people make it: Barbara Jordan, Ward Connelly, Tiger Woods, Clarence Thomas, Oprah Winfrey, Earl O

There are some white people who are jerks and there are some black people who are jerks.  There always will be.  There will never be a "level" playing field, but in this country it's more about money than color at this time.   As holocaust survivor Viktor Fankl wrote, there are only two races of people in this world- the decent and the indecent.  I truly believe that is what most Americans are "unconsciously aware" of.

Sincerely,
Mark Schneiderman

Mr. Schneiderman:  Please forgive the delay in replying to your letter.  You raise a number of important points that deserve a response:  (1) You wrote, "You are saying, it seems to me, that white America is still largely racist even if not overt and not even consciously done.  If you believe that to be correct, you must believe that there should be specific quotas based on the percentage of the population (guarantee of equal outcome), since otherwise blacks would not be able to make it on their own."  I am not saying that "White America is still largely racist," because I only know one America, and it is more than White.  I am saying that racism plagues this country, and is in the hearts and minds of every one of its citizens.  Some of us are aware of the reality of racism and do what we can to counter it.  Most of us are aware and unaware of racism and engage in ideas, thoughts, and practices that perpetuate racist disorder.  To suggest that I believe that Blacks are somehow incompetent is a stretch of logic and imagination that I do not have time or interest to address; or to raise the racist codeword of "quota" is similarly something that I cannot effectively address.  But I will say this:  policies and practices that more or less guarantee unequal outcomes, according to race, are racist.  (2) You wrote, You cite certain studies, etc. in your article, but do not reference where you got your information.  Which scientists in the mid-1800's ordered "Europeans at the top of the scale and Africans at the bottom"?  What contemporary research demonstrates that the "aversive racist is unaware of his or her racism"?  The 19th Century European scholars who advocated the above-referenced positions were:  Linnaeus (in Systema Naturae, first published in 1735, who placed the "races" of "man" in the "Great Chain of Being"), Joseph Arthur de Bogineau (1816-1882), Robert Knox (1791-1862), Wilhelm Christian Dohm, Edward Tyson (the English Anthropologist), Peter Camper, Dr. Charles Caldwell (a champion of pseudo-scientific racism from 1811 to about 1850), George Calvert (the American phrenologist), Richard H. Colfax, Lord Kames, Voltaire, Sir William Lawrence, William Frederick Van Amringe (the New York lawyer who published in 1848).  The list is actually quite long, and continues through contemporary times.  My article, and the email responses that I have received, are posted on my course web page, Seminar in Social Psychology.  Reference materials are contained therein if you are interested in educating yourself more adequately on this issue.  (3) You wrote, What contemporary research demonstrates that the "aversive racist is unaware of his or her racism"?  See Confronting Racism:  The problem and the response (1998), edited by Jennifer L. Eberhardt & Susan T. Fiske, particularly the chapter by John F. Dovidio and Samuel L. Gaertner, "On the nature of contemporary prejudice:  The causes, consequences, and challenges of aversive racism."  (4) Indices of health and disease are related to povery; poverty is related to racism, segregation, discrimination, and the planned inequality of access to the resources that make for healthful living; (5) Success stories in the Black community are the exceptions that prove the rule.

Thank you for writing.  Your questions have been illuminating and thought provoking.

Dear Dr. Fairchild;
 I read your column with great interest since I've been saying something
like what you said for several months now.  The reason there is all that
unconscious racism is that it is such an engrained part of our culture
and, of course, has been for a *long* time.  I thought of writing an
article about it but, unlike yourself, I don't have the obvious work or
skill tag that you have in your job.  The difficult thing, as I see it,
is to get people to become aware of their unconscious racism and be
willing to divest themselves of it.  Stated another way, get them to
become aware of that pestilence as it permeates our culture.  That's *a
lot* easier said than done.  Still, it certainly needs doing.  Your
article is a start, it seems to me.  Another few decades of that sort of
thing and maybe we'll
get somewhere; eventually.  Best wishes.  Bill  Pryo

Mr. Pryor:  Thank you for your kind message.  You may be interested in knowing that my paper was in response to a class assignment (I write along with my students, as a role model).  My article, and the e-mail correspondence it generated, are linked to my course web page, Seminar in Social Psychology (you can get to it from my Pitzer College Home Page).  Much of the correspondence was as illuminating as it was disheartening.  [10/13/00]

Dear Prof. Fairchild:

Your essay provides a "How-To" guide for the practice of American racial
politics by the black politician.  In it we find the latest politically
correct racial jargon and the judicious use of disparate numbers of
African-Americans in the higher levels of American society.

The semantic foundation for black/white racial politics in this country
relies to a great extent on the definition of racism, which is a much
changeable and flexible noun in the African-American community.  The essay,
after rejecting scientific definitions of race as racist, finds America's
"unique" racism began as an intellectual justification for the enslavement of
millions and a reaction to abolitionism.  This narrow definition serves the
purpose of placing racism squarely, and solely, on white shoulders.  If
racism exists in a broader context than that, which of course it does, it
isn't mentioned here.  Following in the tradition of flexible definitions, we
are then introduced to "aversive racism" which holds, according to the essay,
that white ideals of equality are actually a mask for "unconscious" white
privilege.  Aversive racism is said to be manifested by whites who oppose
black priority programs and policies.  A prime example, presumably, was the
white support for attempts to correct the corruption of affirmative action in
California.  The passage of Proposition 209, which contained language, almost
verbatim, from the U.S. Civil Rights Codes and which was overwhelmingly
endorsed by the voters, meets the aversive racism criteria.

Many people, white and black, have noted that some, if not most, American
blacks have squandered special preference in schools and the work place.  If
entrance requirements were too rigid, tests too hard, tasks and assignments
too difficult, then they had to be racist.  As a result, the standards were
lowered, work requirements thinned and the conclusion reached that many
blacks never wanted a level playing field in the first place.

The essay moves along to the position that, among other things, the numbers
of black HIV/AIDS victims and those suffering a variety of other health
problems, inordinately large numbers in poverty, a lack of numerical parity
in the higher echelons of corporations and government, etc., is proof of
aversive racism at the least.  Ignoring, conveniently, the huge numbers of
blacks who moved into the middle class in the past 40 years, leaving those
less fortunate behind.  Middle and upper class blacks are nonetheless held
blameless for the plight of those left in poverty or worse since they, by
definition, can't be racist and racism is the culprit.  It is a simple enough
rubric.  Bulletproof, really.  The race numbers will never reach parity
because the targets will always change and racism will always exist because
its definition will always change.  Such are the dynamics of American racial
politics.

The essay makes a brief excursion to Africa where, it is stated, many of that
continent's problems, AIDS, poverty, starvation, etc., are due to "old
fashioned" racism.  This fits the racial politics model too.  To accommodate
the rather nagging notion that most American blacks have no desire to
repatriate to Africa and never have, the reason "must" be because racism has
befouled the dark continent too.  This of course ignores the fact that the
(black on black) genocide occurring in E. Central Africa has caused hundreds
of thousands of deaths and is the worst example of inhumanity in this century
since the European holocaust (white on white).  Furthermore, tribal hatreds,
the brutality of the warlords and the venality of the politicians have
rendered first-world aid programs ineffective and/or virtually useless.
African leaders are unmentioned, can't be racist, and therefore also held
blameless in this essay's take on the reasons for Africa's misery.

In view of the forgoing, closing your essay by stating that racism must be
rejected and true equal opportunity advanced is, unfortunately, just so much
eye wash.  This essay is about black racial politics.  If modern, symbolic,
aversive or, however defined, racism cannot be wholly blamed for
African-American and, by extension, African problems, then the key formulae
for African-American racial politics would be revealed as very flimsy indeed.

Sincerely,
Bob Swanson

Mr. Swanson:  Thank you for taking the time to write.  Your letter is very carefully crafted and well articulated.  We should agree to disagree.  It may interest you to know that I have placed my article and the e-mail correspondence that ensured on my web page, linked to my course, Seminar in Social Psychology (the Times article was a class assignment that I completed with my students based on the week's readings).  Links are easy to find on my web site.  [10/13/00]

Halford H. Fairchild makes a valuable point in describing modern racism.
But he's kidding himself (or us) if he thinks racism began in the 1800s.
In the 2nd century BC, Aristotle claimed superior humans, such as the
rational Greeks, should rule over their cultural inferiors.  A papal bull
delivered May 4, 1493, expressed the desire that "barbarous nations be
subjugated and brought to the faith itself."

Acting on a similar impulse, Columbus captured a dozen or two Indians on
his first voyage and took them home with him.  That began a slave trade
between the mainland, the West Indies, and Spain that eventually "cleansed"
the Caribbean of natives.  Depredations against the hemisphere's "savages"
continued for 300 years before the so-called Age of Enlightenment.

In short, let's not oversimplify our history.  Racism may have reached its
high (or low) point under the 19th century's captains of commerce, but it
probably extends back to the dawn of civilization.  The usual suspects--the
Crusades, the Inquisition, and the Indian Holocaust--are proof enough of
that.

Rob Schmidt
[Address and phone deleted by HHF]

Mr. Schmidt:  Thank you for writing.  The nuance you may have missed in my article was that I was talking about that form of racism where the targets were dehumanized, animalized.  This said, you make a number of excellent points.   It may interest you to know that I have placed my article and the e-mail correspondence that ensured on my web page, linked to my course, Seminar in Social Psychology (the Times article was a class assignment that I completed with my students based on the week's readings).  Links are easy to find on my web site.  [10/13/00]

Professor Fairchild,
I'd just like to say I enjoyed your article in the L.A. Times yesterday. I
found it to be a true portrayal of racism in America today. Your article was
very much needed and hopefully will be read, understood and provide some
insight and guidance to many in the population needing direction. Keep up
the good work!
Jim Goodson
Manager, Procurement Cost Analysis
Aircraft & Missile Systems - Southern California
562-593-1582

Mr. Goodson:  Thank you for your kind message.  You may be interested in knowing that my paper was in response to a class assignment (I write along with my students, as a role model).  My article, and the e-mail correspondence it generated, are linked to my course web page, Seminar in Social Psychology (you can get to it from my Pitzer College Home Page).  Much of the correspondence was as illuminating as it was disheartening.  [10/13/00]

Hi, I just wanted to comment on your article in the LA times yesterday and
say I enjoyed reading it. As a matter of fact it is in line with my study on
"Psychological Effects of Racism in Employment" I'm doing this study for APA
conference next year. A team and I went to APA this year and received the
Presidential Citation Award for Outstanding presentation. I also have plans
on attending the Multicultural Summit in January 2001. I just wanted to know
if you've done any studies on racsim in the work force and it's effects.

A little about me; I'm a 37 year old African American male in graduate
school at Phillips Graduate Institute under the direction of president Lisa
Burke PhD. Also, I wanted to know if you could possible give me some tips on
publication. I'd like to get my work published.

Thanks for all of your assistance

Mr. Franklin:  Thank you for your kind message.  You may be interested in knowing that my paper was in response to a class assignment (I write along with my students, as a role model).  My article, and the e-mail correspondence it generated, are linked to my course web page, Seminar in Social Psychology (you can get to it from my Pitzer College Home Page).  Much of the correspondence was as illuminating as it was disheartening.  Regarding publication, you may wish to join the collection of scholars who are members of The Association of Black Psychologists and who publish in Psych Discourse, which I edit.  Both the Association and Psych Discourse are linked to my website. Other tips:  submit, submit, submit!   [10/13/00]

Editor
LA Times

Professor Halford Fairchild, like so many liberals, is part of the
racism problem, rather than its solution.  ("Modern-Day Racism Masks Its
Ugly Head", LAT Sep 11)  Black Americans hear nothing but "racism,
racism, racism" negativism from such liberals.  As if there were a
(Republican) white racist behind every tree.  Sure there is, professor.
Sure there is.  Racism is anything but "unique", despite the professor's
pandering to fear and hatred.     Liberals seem more intent on
eliminating every furrowed white brow, interpreted as "racism", than far
bigger problems for blacks, such as children having children, and
raising them without a father.   Booker T. Washington demonstrated great
wisdom when asked about what could be done for blacks.  He said, "Leave
us alone."

John Jaeger
[Address and phone deleted by H. Fairchild]

Mr. Jaeger:  Thank you for your kind message.  You may be interested in knowing that my paper was in response to a class assignment (I write along with my students, as a role model).  My article, and the e-mail correspondence it generated, are linked to my course web page, Seminar in Social Psychology (you can get to it from my Pitzer College Home Page). [10/13/00]

Sir -

I was fascinated by your well written article in the L.A. Times on modern-day racism.  Good job.

I have a question.  Can you point me to a reference regarding your statement, "Muslims had mirrored this process of intellectually justifying enslavement in the earlier enslavement of East Africans."  I would very much appreciate it.

Thank you in advance for your time and thought.

Kevin Petersen

Mr. Petersen:  Thank you for taking the time to write.  Take a look at "The expansion of Islam and the symbolism of race" by David Brion Davis, in Racism, edited by Martin Bulmer & John Solomos, Oxford Uniersity Press, 1999.  The piece is excerpted from the book by Davis entitled Slavery and Human Progress, Oxford U. Press, 1984.  Also, I received an email that provides additional sources.  My article, and the email correspondence it generated, is linked to my Social Psychology Seminar that you can access from my website.  [10/13/00]

Dear Dr. Fairchild,

I wanted to thank you for your interesting article on racism that was
published in the Times. The historical context you provided was helpful in
understanding the dynamics of contemporary racism. As a fellow educator
working in the area of diversity and institutional change, I appreciated
your insight. I've shared your article with my staff and you may be hearing
from one of my colleagues, as I suggested inviting you to speak at our campus.

Hopefully, we'll have an opportunity to continue this discussion in person
some time.

Regards,

Marshall Sauceda, Assistant Dean
Student Development Services
Loyola Marymount University

00 [10/13/00]

  I have lots of thoughts on your recent piece on the L.A.
Times editorial page, but I will keep my comments brief. You can't win this
argument, because you  can't win the majority's acceptance.  I am
approaching 60, white, a former member of CORE (40 years ago) and won't
accept the charge of closet racism.  All my life I  have welcomed blacks
into my neighborhood, my house, my life and would, should the occasion
arise, (when my son marries) welcome them into my family.
Nevertheless,  I oppose affirmative action, when it means disguised quotas.
We still have lots to do to improve equality of opportunity, but I won't
support efforts to  guarantee equality of results.   I think you will
find out that its not possible to muster a majority for that approach.  You
cause would be better served if you directed  your energies to something
that can make a difference.

 Sincerely,
 Ron Carriere

Mr. Carriere:  Thank you for your message.  You may be interested in knowing that my paper was in response to a class assignment (I write along with my students, as a role model).  My article, and the e-mail correspondence it generated, are linked to my course web page, Seminar in Social Psychology (you can get to it from my Pitzer College Home Page). I suppose we differ in that I see nothing wrong with equality of results:  all children should excel academically, all workers should thrive economically, all businesses should have an equal opportunity to compete and succeed.   [10/13/00]

From:            "Ron Carriere" <rcarriere@earthlink.net>
To:              <hfairchi@bernard.PITZER.EDU>
Subject:         Your OP Ed piece
Date sent:       Fri, 13 Oct 2000 21:27:45 -0700

There aren't many folks who have a problem with equality of results if that’
s the way it works out when competition is open and winning is based on
merit.   Lots of folks (a majority) have a problem when the government tries
to guarantee equality of results.  Sometimes open competition judged on
merit means that the members of one group do much better than members of
other groups.   Only people who spend their lives in the academy find that
outcome puzzling.  The average voter understands that Blacks are greatly
over represented in the NBA and Asians at the best of California's State
universities, because more of the best basketball players are found among
Blacks, and more of the best students are found among Asians.

Over the years I have thought about these results a good deal.  I know that
life would be easier for us all if things didn't work out that way.  The
easy, but I believe false explanation, for these differences is
discrimination.   Discrimination is, of course, a factor in many things, but
here, I think, a minor factor.   I saw a better explanation on the
sweatshirt of a young black woman attending a summer workshop at UCLA.  It
said, approximately,

"No matter how good you think you are, there is someone, somewhere, who is
practicing and he is getting ready for when you meet.   And if you decide to
spend your time congratulating yourself on your accomplishments, while he
spends his time practicing, when you meet he will beat you."

That shirt made quite an impression on me, in part, because of a
conversation I had with a recent graduate of our local high school.   He was
an athletic kid who had played on the local basketball team.  And somehow he
or the team had been invited to play against a big city Black High School,
maybe Compton.   He thought he was pretty hot.  He learned a lesson.  He
realized he could hardly play the game.

The same principle gets played out in academics with different groups the
winners. The high school my 16 year old attends has an Asian population of
fewer than 5%.   I'm guessing, but it looks to me as if the top 5% the class
is at least 50% Asian.   We have lived here since my son was in
kindergarten, so I think I know why.  These kids have been practicing,
practicing for the big academic competition (for the time when they mail
their applications off to Berkeley and UCLA and Claremont and Pitzer) and
they have been since the earliest grades.  They have given up movies, TV and
hanging out at the mall and skateboarding with their friends.  My son has to
a large extent absorbed the culture too.   He has spent a couple of thousand
hours in math drill in an Asian import after school math program.  By my
reckoning he has spent at least 3,000 extra out of school extra practice
hours trying to keep up with this elite group.  So what do these kids
deserve?   That entrance to State sponsored elite universities be based
solely on what they have accomplished.  And it shouldn't matter if the
results are unequal. If it turns out that 75% of the kids at Berkeley are
Asian based on a color-blind test, then so be it.   They deserve it, they
worked for it.

Sincerely,
Ron Carriere

Mr. Carriere:  Thank you for your reply.  Your argument is well articulated.  I only have this to say in response:  For many millions of children, of all races (but disproportionately Black and Latino), the so-called "color blind" tests examine areas of academic achievement on which they have not been taught.  In addition, many of the items are constrained within a parituclar cultural frame of reference.  I know of many thousands of youngsters, most of them Black and Latino, in Los Angeles (and many millions by extention), that attend schools where they not only have no books, they have no teachers.  And it is well known that these students, once they reach the high school level, have comparatively little access to Advanced Placement courses, which places them at a distinct disadvantage not only on "standardized" tests but also in comparisons of Grade Point Average.  In the context of structured inequality of educational opportunity, any "standardized" admissions criteria are inherently discriminatory.   Basketball is an arena of comparative equal opportunity, at least among players.  I wonder how the complexion of corporate America would change if it offered a similar equality of opportunity.  [10/16/00]
 
 

Dear "Professor" Fairchild,
I read your race baiting article in the LA Times.  The Times is known for your kind of drivel so it did not surprise me to see it there.  But I kept wondering how did someone as ignorant as you finish college - did you buy your diploma and then get hired because you were black or are actually qualified to teach anything?

I suspect your hatred of whites is because you are a mediocre hack and will never be anything but mediocre. Too bad for you. Frankly instead of teaching psychology, you should be in therapy. You certainly shouldn't be teaching anyone. If I were the President of Pitzer College I'd put you back in the mental institution you escaped from.

Ms. Hodson:  Thank you for taking the time to write.  It may interest you to know that I have posted my article and the email correspondence on my website, linked to my course, Seminar in Social Psychology.  Your comment is, well, illuminating.  [10/13/00]

Mr. Fairchild,

I disagree with your general premise.  By your reckoning any one who has a position on any issue that happens to effect a minority can be called an aversive racist.

There might be structured inequality but inequality is inherent in a structure.  It is when there is no mobility within the structure that you can assert racism.

A structure without difference is like all the children in Lake Woebegone being "above average."

Karen Gray

Ms. Gray:  Thank you for taking the time to write.  It may interest you to know that I have posted my article and the email correspondence on my website, linked to my course, Seminar in Social Psychology.    [10/13/00]
 

Dear Professor Fairchild:

Regarding your September 11 piece in the LA Times on averse racism, I must
say that a strong case can be made against your theory by your own words.
You make the point that "slavery required racism and was the proximate cause
of it."  Since you cite Roman and Greek cultures to make your argument, you
surely must be aware that their slaves were often captured enemies who were
commonly integrated into their societies and did quite well for themselves.
They may have looked upon Ethiopians and others with respect, but they still
held then as slaves.  The slaves were frequently of similar racial stock to
the owners and could hardly be subjects for racial discrimination anyway.
But would they really have been a lot

In Muslim countries, not only East Africans were held as slaves.  Caucasian
females were valued as concubine slaves for their racial characteristics but
they also enslaved Caucasian males.  Then of course in Africa, we have the
only two countries in the world where slavery is still openly practiced and
we find blacks owning blacks.  How does this set with your theory?  Is the
phenomenon you describe only apply to the US and why so?

Of course racism still abounds in the US and some individuals still believe
their race  superior to others.  Many Japanese-Americans look down on whites
as inherently inferior but I don't think that bothers many Caucasians.  If
you don't believe this, speak to people who have worked for Japanese owned
companies in the US.

Even if such a thing as aversive racism exists, what are your specific plans
to cure it?  People in your field are in a prime position to help alleviate
the problems you describe.  How?  Not by publicly wringing your hands and
blaming everything on white racism.  How about doing everything you can to
prepare young African-Americans to compete on their merit?  Rebuilding the
African-American family might be a necessary first step.  Why continually
remind them of how unfair the world is.  We all know that already.

John Relle
Thousand Oaks, CA

Dear Mr. Relle:  I apologize for the delay in replying to your e-mail.  It may be even more true that racism was caused by efforts to abolish slavery, as such effort required the development of the rationale to perpetuate slavery.  Slavery in other places, at other times, did not include the dehumanization that was uniquely American.  Here, the enslaved Africans were viewed as savage non-humans; and that is the difference.  The problem is large and multifaceted and requires intervention on many levels.  Part of it requires within-group growth and development (among African Americans), part of it requires the acknowledgement of the reality of racism in contemporay society. Such an acknowledgement is a prerequisite to undoing racism and its sequelae.   [10-3-00}

I would be curious to know if there is any independent scientific or
sociological studies that support your opinion. I whole heartedly believe
what you say. However, I would like to read some data findings that would
aide my discussions with people of non-color. Particularly, studies that
have been conducted by groups that don't have any other agenda then to find
out what is true. This would help me tremendously.

Thank you for your help.
Larry Johnson

Mr. Johnson:  Please forgive my delay in reply.  My article was actually based on a set of readings in my seminar in social psychology this semester.  So most of not all of the information comes from laboratory and field studies as well as historical documents.  My course syllabus is informative in this regard and is posted on my website (see my course syllabi for this semester, Psychology 194).  When time permits, I will add my article and the e-mail responses I received to that website.  Thank you for writing.  [10-3-00]

Date sent: Wed, 13 Sep 2000 00:21:17 -0400 (EDT)
From: Gwalkerhcc@aol.com
Subject: Racism in the Justice system in America
To: hfairchild@PITZER.EDU

Good morning Professor Fairchild:
I have read your article in Monday' s September 11, 2000 edition of the Los
Angeles Times newspaper titled Modern-Day Racism Masks its Ugly Head, with
great interest.

My family waited almost ten years while the good old boys in President
Clinton's hometown of Hope, Arkansas used every stalling tactic that they
could devise to prevent us from having our day in court regarding a
fraudulent timber sales contract which none of us were a signatory on, but
cheated us out of a major portion of the legacy left to us by our father. We
finally went to court on February 28, 2000 and the jury ruled against us.
We were not surprised. We are looking for a medium to go nationwide with our
experience in Arkansas. Would you be interested in talking with us for the
purpose of evaluating our experience for consideration as a possible topic
that you might want to write an article on?

It is absolutely impossible for me to explain all of the details in this
message. But as a recent example of just how unfair the legal system is in
Arkansas. The court will not allow us to purchase a copy of the transcript of
the trial that was held on February 28th of this year.

Thanking you in advance for your consideration.

Sincerely,

gwalkerhcc@aol.com

Thank you for your e-mail. I'm doubtful that I could be much help inasmuch as I am swamped already. I'm sorry about the court case and wish you well in your pursuit of justice. I am positing my article and the e-mails it generated on my course web site (Seminar in Social Psychology). If you prefer that yours be handled anonymously, please let me know.

Date sent: Wed, 13 Sep 2000 00:22:23 -0400 (EDT)
From: TNSpencer5@aol.com
Subject: (no subject)
To: hfairchild@PITZER.EDU

Dear Prof. Fairchild:

Thank you for your primer on racism. I had no idea of its history and
assumed, like most people, that it has always been as it is here and now. I
was unaware how much it had to be invented to justify the systematic
oppression of Africans.

I was really caught off guard to learn that a modern, equal-rights supporting
white person like me is still guilty of "aversive racism" because I don't
support "programs and policies that seek to undo white privilege or provide
advantages to black on the basis of historical discrimination." (This sounds
suspiciously like fancyspeak for "affirmative action," which itself is an
Orwellian cover for plain old race discrimination.)

I'm sure you've heard about every pro and con argument on the issue of
affirmative action programs, so I'll spare you all but what I see is the
single fatal flaw of these designs.

It's simple. Affirmative action doesn't judge people as individuals. Say
all you want, but it comes down to that.

"White privilege," you say? Please. Most of the people I know wish they had
a tenth the pull of a Vernon Jordan. And his kids should get a step up in
college admissions? Not if we judged applicants as individuals, instead of
by skin tone.

Please keep up the good work. I look forward to your future contributions in
the newspaper. But in the future, you may have better luck swaying the
opinions of us apparently racist white people by addressing how it is that us
legions of post-1960s whites, weaned on a relentless cultural message of
equality, are now supposed to embrace racial preferences, if that's what
you're after.

Sincerely,
Ted Spence

Mr. Spence: Thank you for your email regarding my op-ed piece. Affirmative Action is much maligned because it is much mis-understood. In California, for example, there was affirmative action in State Contracts so that women and ethnic minority groups could receive some consideration. The result? Less than 20% of state contracts went to firms owned and operated by women and/or minorities. Over 80% went to firms owned and operated by White males. The political consensus? These women and minorities were getting more than their "fair" share. In any event, my article and the e-mails it generated will be posted on my course website (Seminar in Social Psychology). Thank you, again, for writing.

Date sent: Wed, 13 Sep 2000 10:07:19 -0700
From: Kevin Shannon <kevinshannon8000@hotmail.com>
Subject: Editor's Challenge
To: Hfairchild@PITZER.EDU

Professor Fairchild;

Your (Sept 11) article is very timely & well written. But are you referring to pink-skinned people as "white" people in your writing? Another professor, in say the chemical engineering or physics dept, could not make such an error in nomenclature and have it stand unchallenged.

-Kevin Shannon

Mr. Shannon: You raise an interesting point, and it is well taken. This, in fact, is the nature of racism: it is premised on the false conception (construction) of "race." Black people are brown, White people are varying shades of "flesh." I am placing my article and the e-mails I received on my course web site (for Seminar in Social Psychology). 1
 

From:            "Kevin Shannon" <kevinshannon8000@hotmail.com>
To:              <hfairchi@bernard.PITZER.EDU>
Subject:         Re: Editor's Challenge
Date sent:       Wed, 4 Oct 2000 09:26:00 -0700

Yes;
And now the new generation is left with the clean-up of these false labels.
Thanks for your earnest response! The label "black" at least has notable
resistance, while the word "white" has been applied to 100 million US Census
forms with barely a shout or whimper. NASA scientists must have been
distracted in their recognition that there is not one single "white" person
on planet earth!
-Kevin Shannon

Date sent: Wed, 13 Sep 2000 20:32:02 +0100
From: John Dawson <jdawson@nanosecond.com>
Subject: proposed study
To: hfairchild@PITZER.EDU

Dear Dr. Fairchild:

I really enjoyed your editorial in the LA Times, Sept. 2000, about modern racism. I am a white 46 year old male living in Fresno. I am a lawyer and software inventor, and I studdied philosophy at Occidental College, graduating in 1976. Over the past five years I have spent a good deal of time

with African Americans, having lived with an African American female. Although I always had thought of myself as a well educated and liberal minded person, but sure enough I discovered that I unconosciously harbored steroetypes about Black people. Let me tell you how this self-realization came about.

Basically, it is embarrasing to admit this - I only now realize that Black people are as different from one another as White people are. It hit me like the dawn of a new day - Blacks as human beings enjoy as much individualism as whites. Sure, you can predict things about Blacks with statistical accuracy - say the liklihood of working for the Post Office instead of being a golf pro at a country club, or the liklihood of being a Democrat. But you can say the same thing about whites. So knowing a person's color is no help at at all at in foretelling who a person is inside. It is very humbling to me to realize that in fact I steroetyped people without realizing it - this is so at odds with the character goals that I had held up for myself - goals which I thought I had met.

 So you are so right to notice the unconscious nature of white racism against Blacks. You are right on target, and though I didn't recognize it in myself, I easily recognized unconscious racism in other whites.

Over the years I have thought about a test to document unconscious white racism. (Others, not mysel.) I formed this hypothesis in the seventies, and year after year it is borne out. It happpened again over the weekend. So I thought I would pass it on to you - perhaps you can turn it into a study that will yield statistically significant results. Your editorial inspired me.

I love pro basketball, and read all that I can about it. It struck me how odd it is that in sports journalism, white players are never compared to black players, and black players are never compared to whites. For example, I recently read about a newly drafted white rookie whom they compared to two famous white players. Sorry, I can't remember their specific names, but it bore out my hypothesis. These white players had nothing in common with each other, at least nothing except their white skin. Their positions and style of play were totally distinct. I could think of many Black players whose style of play was more comparable to the rookie, but none was mentioned.

I first became of this curious phenomenon in the seventies. So help me I can't ever recall seeing a white player compared to a black on or vice versa, no matter how much the game of the player in question might resemble the game of a player of the opposite color. It really is odd to me that players are not compared to players of the other color. For example, Tim Duncan plays just like Larry Bird, except bigger, stronger. Smooth, with great foot work, but not exceptionally fast. Uses position instead of raw speed; not an Olajuwan. A superb passer and rebounder and shooter. But definitely not the flashiest player or the most athletic. Just like Bird. To me it is uncanny that nobody ever has observed that in print.

This would be easy to quantify with modern text search tools. To the extent that LA times coverage is digitized and stored in archives, a statistifcal proof of what I am saying would not be difficult to achieve.

And one would presume that sports coverage of Blacks in the mainstream media is hardly a bastion of conscious racism. Indeed, sports was one of the early battlegrounds for equality - an area of human endeavor where persons of color have excelled.

Drug laws are another area whre unconscious white racism clearly can be perceived. Witness the one hundred fold sentencing differential between the "white" cocaine laws and the "black" cocaine laws. Crack, the Black way to do coke, is smoked. Whites snort it. If you a Wall Street guy who can afford to snort it - a far more expensive way to get high becaues it is less efficient - the sentencing laws are far more lenient. Maybe the judges figure that if you waste coke while getting high because you snort it, you are doing the public a favor that should be rewarded with a lighter sentence than the guy who smokes crack. But I doubt that it is so rational. Instead, it is unconscius racism.

I am pleased that you mentioned in your article the multiracial nature of ancient Egypt. I have seen the mummies in the British museum. The Egyptian pharoahs were blondes. You mention that ancient Egypt was tolerant - is this merely surmise or is there strong evidence to support this? When I read Black studies materials, it strikes me that the Egyptians are idealized in a way that is at odds with reality. This diminishes Black Studies.

Your article made me think of things in Colombia. My best friend on the internet is a Black Colombian lady. She informs me that in her country being black is nothing more than a cosmetic difference - like being a red head or brunette. This is so far from the state of affairs in this country!

Here is another interesting question to research. Given demographic trends, is it not the case that a researcher could state with fair accuracy when the races will be mixed to the degree of X? And if this so, then at what point does race become merely semantical? Race always has been an idea

and not a biological fact. Whitness the nineteenth century nomenclature about "ocatagoons" etc., But when will the day come that race is not merely not biological, but also no longer a "trait" of a person in any sense whatsoever, even culturally. In the days of slavery "a drop of oil spolied the milk." If you were one percent black, you were black. That is, you were black unless you suceeded in the demeaning activity of "passing." But today Black's don't have to pass, and at the same time, visible pure blackness in the skin becomes more and more rare. So not only is race no longer s

I have had a book kicking around in my head about this. Many scholars acknowledge that race is not a genetic trait, but primarily, a labelling process, and thus, an idea. If this is so, it will be interesting over the next thirty years to study how the process of racial classification will out

last discernible physical differences themselves. We become closer to one color, but the classification process will persist like a bad dream, like a vestigial limb. Inevitably, we will reach the point where the nomenclature of race is as useful as tits on a boar? When will that happen? Will genetic testing ever be offered as the "solution" if colors are so faint that being color blind is inevitable due to the limits of perception? Or will race as an idea - and thus as a fact - have outlasted its usefulness?

And if this is what lies ahead, there are drasatic policy questions along for the ride. For one, how can race based remedial social programs work if the races themselves merge into one? Cultural advantages based on past discrimination will persist, but skin tone differences will not. So what do we do then? When we reach that point, should we declare victory and move on?

Tiger Woods is an example of where things are going in my opinion. He is not White, but he is not African American as his mother is Asian. Whom will he marry? A white? And if he does, how will his kids fit in if racial classifaction is still part of America's cultural and political life? When his kids are 13 years old and covering the history of race in their social studies class, will they have a hard time separating King from the days of slavery? My old child did, my little Johnny when he was in Kindergarten. He came back from shool after Martin Luther King day very upset, telling me how the Blacks had to have their own drinking fountain on the slave ship.

How will Tiger Woods kids fill out the race question on the census form? Why should they have to?

To me it is fascinating to go on the net and look at the dating services. People describe themselves as "American Indian, African American, and Irish." How long until it is universally acknowledged that being part Black is no different from being part Irish?

This is the most intriguing aspect of the study of racism to me. The history of racism as an academic pursuit needs to evolve into an ethno-epistemology. Above all, it should be intellectual history. Ideas are facts, and race is an idea.

For the purposes of the question at hand, racial classification schemes may be consisdered as generic. Whether it is the Klan or the Census Bureau, for the purposes of the question it does not matter. How will the clutural prediliction to characterize people by color play out when the colors blend? This obviously is the anti-miscegenationist's worst nightmare come true. But demographics are as inexorable as a glacier. Demographics is not merely a social science - it also is a natural science because its essence is the documentation of reproduction, the quantification of biological e

vents. So we reasonably can expect the mental and cultural endeavor of racial classification to outlast the existence of race itself - much as anti-communism has outlasted communism. It is not hard to imagine many PH.D. theses originating from this subject. So I think we are on the cusp of something.

I live in Fresno but I would love to meet you some day. I go to Southern California several times a year. I would love to share ideas with you. Thanks, John Dawson (559) 224-9246.

 Mr. Dawson: Thank you for your e-mail. It may interest you to learn that I am posting my article, and the e-mail responses, on my course web page. It may also interest you to know that, in another class I am teaching, we are looking at bulletin board postings on Tiger Woods, the Williams sisters, and other comparable (white) athletes. Stay in touch for the results.

 Date sent: Wed, 13 Sep 2000 16:00:49 -0400 (EDT)
From: Mcaurelius@aol.com
Subject: L.A. Times editorial
To: hfairchild@PITZER.EDU

Dear Dr. Fairchild,

I closely studied your piece in Friday's Times. I really would like to
understand why so many Black people seem to feel so inconsolably and
persistently aggrieved. The (relatively few) black people I have known well
have been, like yourself, well-educated, articulate and prosperous; in short,
very much "just like everybody else." However, I have never discussed any of
these very sensitive issues with them, at least not since I was in the open,
questioning, questing atmosphere of young college students.
I am afraid to go anywhere near these topics, because it seems that
everything and anything may be insulting. I have read many articles by Black
persons complaining bitterly about the "insensitivity" of Whites. Or should
I say Americans of African ancestry and of European ancestry, or something
else? Everything seems to offend someone, from minor (at least to me) topics
such as hair texture, to serious racial epithets.

I recently read, with considerable anguish of my own, an essay by the
Black newspaper-writer father of a small girl. She had been introduced to
the word "nigger" by a little White friend. Her father was devastated, as he
tried to explain to her what it meant, and why her young friend may have said
it without meaning harm. My sympathy for the father was for allowing a word
to have so much power over him, and my greater sympathy for the child was
because her loving, caring father was passing this on to her.

"Modern racists," such as my self, would never call a Black person a
nigger. I have never heard, in real life, anyone but a Black person use that
word. I have heard it used in a friendly, perhaps chiding, manner. It is
obvious to me that this is strictly an intra-racial privilege, and in fact
excludes me. I will, however, cross the street if a group of swaggering,
glowering teen-age boys, of any race, is coming my way. I will attempt to
minimize my contact with any service-workers whose English I do not
understand, whatever their race or ethnic origin.

There is one area in which my behavior is different towards Black people.
I will avoid anything but the most superficial of conversations with new
acquaintances. I have talked to Cubans about Bautista and Castro. I have
talked to (former) East and West Germans about the communist era and W.W.II.
I have talked to American Japanese who were interned. But I am afraid to
talk candidly to real, live Black people, face to face.

I feel that there is an irrational hypersensitivity to "racism" prevalent
in many Black people. It makes debate, or even reasonable discussion,
impossible. If you don't agree; it is proof of your racism. (Individual
Black people themselves probably have the worst time with this; i.e., Colin
Powell.) However, I would like to point out some factual errors in your
statements. If the problem is so great, surely you do not need to misstate
history to demonstrate it.

1. Racial prejudice was certainly present before the mid-1800s; remember
"Othello?"

2. Slavery does not require racism; the Greek and Romans may have respected
the Ethiopians, but they certainly had slaves, of all races.

3. It seems natural that Whites would favor the "status quo of white
privilege," but publicly imposed white privilege has been removed, and
sometimes replaced with much more explicit and far-reaching "minority
preference."

4. HIV began in Africa and rages there, as well as in minorities communities
here; it is spread by drug-use and promiscuous sex, which are personal
choices.

5. Likewise, preventative health measures, such as exercise and diet, are
one's own responsibility. Where public health measures are effective in
minimizing risk, such as immunizations and sanitation, all Americans are
relatively well protected.

6. There are too many African American children reared in poverty. These
children are brought into the world, and into poverty, by their own parents.

As I read this over, I feel that you may be right. I am a racist,
certainly by your definition. Public policy cannot mandate respect for each
other, or personal responsibility for our treatment of other people, or of
ourselves and our children. Declaring White people to be racist and Black
people to be deprived does not help anyone. White people feel guilty, or
lucky, or defensive, or protective of their "privilege." Black people feel
angry, or helpless, or victimized, or even embarrassed. There is suspicion
and resentment on all sides.

You have made me conscious of my racism. My prejudice tells me that
(many) Black people blame White people for all of their problems, and are
helplessly waiting for someone to "make it up to them." It tells I will
never feel comfortable in the presence any of Black people, and they probably
don't want me to feel comfortable, but guilty and liable. It tells me that
even the most educated and privileged of Black people harbor feelings of
resentment and perpetual inequity. Strangely enough, I think you believe
these things, too. Is that common ground, or just the definition of the
problem?

Sincerely,
Carolyn Bixby

Ms. Bixby: Thank you for your insightful comments. One way that we can shirk responsibility for social ills is to blame the victims for their victimization. Black people caused their death due to AIDS; Black people caused their children to be reared in poverty, etc. It may interest you to know that I am posting my article, and the e-mail responses I received on my course web site (Seminar in Social Psychology). Once again, thank you for writing.

Date sent: Wed, 13 Sep 2000 20:50:34 -0700 (PDT)

From: charles starke <chazb14@hotmail.com>
Subject: Modern-Day Racism Masks Its Ugly Head
To: hfairchild@PITZER.EDU

Dear Sir: It was of great enlightment to have readyour article in the
L.A.Times(9-11-00)..The contents in your article has reasurred my
understanding of how and why racism still exist. Just the idea of not having
any aid sent(that is in comparison, to other aid ,that is sent to European
war torn countries)to Africa to combat Aids is ridiculous. I hope someday,
this disease will be eradicated.

It is good to know, we have men like yourself, who have the courage to
disspelled such ideaologies as racism. Once again,thank you for your
article. I sincerely wish you the best, in your future endeavours and as
your growth as an educator.

THE LORD MADE US OF ONE BLOOD

CHAZB14

Date sent: Thu, 14 Sep 2000 16:05:32 -0400 (EDT)

From: Dafinuts@aol.com
Subject: Your editorial
To: hfairchild@PITZER.EDU

Dear sir:

I am truly sorry you feel that way. There will always be racism. You
cannot change some people. You seem to be racist against whites. There was a
war fought to free the slaves over 100 years ago, did you know that? Most
people are not racist. Were there not white people who helped to get rid of
the Jim Crowe laws? My advice is Get Over it and move on!!!! You are
espousing a victim mentality. How did you get to be a college professor if
there is so much racism? By hard work!

You talk about the economic gap between white & black Americans. The
majority of black children reared in poverty are born to single teenage
mothers or have no father in attendance. Is not this significant? The major
cause of poverty among all children is people having children they cannot
afford and expecting the state to give them a handout. In other words, the
Welfare State.

Why when racism was more accepted (in the 1920s & 30s) were black
families more intact? Yes, there were and always will be problems, but with
males taking responsibility for children they sire there would be many less
blacks in prison! (it has been studied that the majority of men, black &
others, in prisons had no father in the home) . This is the major problem
going on with blacks and others in poverty.

I hope you do not teach this crap in your class in school. If you teach
your students that racism will hold them back you're wrong. You should teach
that they should work hard and they will get ahead!!!!!

Respectfully,
Dafni

Dafni: Thank you for taking the time to write. It may interest you that I am posting the collection of e-mails I received on my course web page (the essay I wrote was a class assignment to integrate a particular set of readings which I completed along with my students). I won't respond to your point of view except to say that it is interesting that the mixed complexions of African Americans, today, is due to the privileges that White men took with their enslaved women. Interesting is it not, that instead of taking responsibility for their children, they sold them! Was it hard work that makes White men rule the earth? Or stolen lives and stolen lands?

Send reply to: "Tom Hoffman" <thoffman@aoc.net>

From: "Tom Hoffman" <thoffman@aoc.net>
To: <hfairchi@bernard.PITZER.EDU>
Subject: Re: falsehoods
Date sent: Thu, 14 Sep 2000 13:49:50 -0700
Organization: American Office Centers

Dear Sir,

Assuming "the inherent equality of people" will certainly lead to your
conclusions. However, the concept of equalty is a mathmatical concept that
has no real meaning. There is nothing in real life that is identical to
anything else; not a person, not a plant, not a micro organism. We are all
unique individuals. Any equality or sameness is merely a necessity of our
logic (mathmatics).

----- Original Message -----

From: <hfairchi@bernard.PITZER.EDU>

To: <thoffman@aoc.net>
Sent: Monday, September 11, 2000 12:55 PM
Subject: Re: falsehoods

> Date sent: Mon, 11 Sep 2000 09:25:41 -0700
> From: Tom Hoffman <thoffman@aoc.net>
> Subject: falsehoods
> To: hfairchild@PITZER.EDU

> Send reply to: Tom Hoffman <thoffman@aoc.net>

> Organization: American Office Centers

> Dear Sir,

> It is simply untrue that racism is a current event not found in Greek,
Roman and
> Egyptian civilizations. All these peoples had slaves. The Greeks thought
> nothing about annihilating and enslaving their fellow Greeks who lived a
few miles
> away in the closest Polis or City State.

> Fear (hatred) of the different is unfortunately a basic human
instinct. Who can
> be held responsible for unconscious racism?

> How do you know what the racial makeup of a system of "true equal
opportunity" would look like?

> I suggest to you that a case can be made that today's America is the
least
> racist civilization in human history. Why are so many people of all races
and
> creeds clamoring to become American? I suppose the could all be
> "unconsciously" misguided.

> Sincerely,
> Tom Hoffman

> Thank you very much for your feedback. You may be interested to
> know that my article was a response to a set of readings that was
> assigned to my seminar in social psychology (the first two weeks'
> readings). You may access the course syllabus at:
> http://bernard.pitzer.edu/~hfairchi/courses/psy194F2000syl.htm
> I did the same writing assignment that I gave my students, based on
> the course readings, and was fortunate enough to get it published.

> It is my sense that the Greek, Roman and Egyptian racism was not
> dehumanizing as was the racism that was a product of slavery and
> genocide (of indigenous populations around the world).

> As citizens of the world, we are all responsible for racism, both
> conscious and unconscious.

> If we assume the inherent equality of people, then a system of true
> equal opportunity ought to show proportionate representation in
> most fields.

> America provides a wonderful opportunity to understand, and
> challenge, racism in its various forms.

> "Stay Strong in the Struggle"
> Halford H. Fairchild, Ph.D.

From: "Holliday, Bertha" <bholliday@apa.org>
To: "'E2e4mate@aol.com'" <E2e4mate@aol.com>
Subject: RE: Article by Fairchild
Date sent: Thu, 14 Sep 2000 14:18:16 -0400

Hi Hal! Congratulations on your op-ed! As always your comments were
thoughtful, measured, and provocative. Job well done!! Bertha

================================
 
 

Date sent: Fri, 15 Sep 2000 21:29:40 -0400 (EDT)
From: SForrestB@aol.com
Subject: Recent Article
To: hfairchild@PITZER.EDU

Dear Mr. Fairchild:
In your recent article of Sept. 11 appearing in the L.A. Times, you state
"The current effects of recism have lead to a widening of the economic gulf
between white and black Americans.

I would like to hear your response to the research contained in "The Bell
Curve" which seems to prove that after adjusting for a number of factors,
including IQ levels, Blacks are actually over-represented in many of "the
higher escalons of corporate America...." I look forward to the day when
American's are brave enough to look at the data and understand that because
some races appear to show more raw intelligence than others, this doesn't
mean that any race is "superior" or "inferior" to any other. I am sure you
are aware that in general, IQ testing shows Asians to have higher IQ's than
whites, and that Jews show even higher IQ's. Hispanic's and Blacks,
according to the compilation of over 150 IQ tests show the lowest IQ levels.

This would appear to explain much, if not all, of the disparity in economic
performance among these groups. Certainly the data show that no other factor
is as important.

While the data may not support your ideological preferences, you should be
intellectually honest enough to either accept it or refute it. If you cannot
empirically refute it, then your article is a serious distortion of the facts.
It might also be worth recognizing that the poorest American blacks are
wealthy in comparision with the average, or even the well above average,
Black in Africa.

Of course, factual observations of this kind are not politically correct and
besides it is far more convienient to blame the supposed effects of racism
for Black performance in America than to understand the deeper and more
fundamental causes. As it is, I must say, that your article is nothing more
than a rehashing of the same old blame game sentiments that have appeared in
print daily for many years. Why not be different, study the facts and
present reality as it is. Once their is no one to blame, so many people will
be able to look at their lives without bitterness and make the most of life,
rather than looking outside of themselves for reasons for failure.

Yours,
SB

SB: Thank you for you comments on my op-ed piece. Time does not permit a full response, unfortunately. However, I do with to point out that The Bell Curve was/is so much pseudo-scientific nonsense. You speak of intellectual honesty, then you should be aware that The Bell Curve did not examine IQ at all. You should also be alert to the fact that the best predictions of The Bell Curve were able to explain on average 5% of the variation in occupational and/or SES achievements; so 95% was/is explained by factors other than the "IQ" that Herrnstein and Murray didn't measure. To assert that Blacks are "over-represented" in corporate America, based on so-called "IQ" test scores, is not modern racism, but the old-fashioned variety. I hope you don't mind, but I am posting the e-mails I received on my web site, as a link to the LA Times article. It should be up and running in a few days.

Date sent: Fri, 15 Sep 2000 11:34:59 -0700

From: John Franzblau <bg169@lafn.org>
Subject: Op-Ed Piece in the LA Times
To: hfairchild@PITZER.EDU
Copies to: John Franzblau <bg169@lafn.org>

Send reply to: bg169@lafn.org

I very much enjoyed your op-ed piece in the LA times on September 11th.
The one paragraph that I found particularly curious was about "In a
series of interesting experiments, some in the lab..."

How can I get copies of these experiments? Are they available on the
Web? I've read articles about studies (The Urban Institute) similar to the ones you
mentioned, and would be fascinated to read the actual studies, even articles talking about
the studies would be interesting.

Thanks for you help, and I hope to read more of your op-ed pieces in the
future.

-John Franzblau

Mr. Franzblau: Thank you for your e-mail regarding my op-ed piece in the L.A. Times. In response to your query, I was referring to material in Jennifer Eberhardt and Susan Fiske's Confronting racism: The problem and the response, and edited text that I am using in my Seminar in Social Psychology. The chapter, in particular that you will find of interest, is by John Dovidio and Samuel Gaertner. I am posting the e-mails I received on my course web page.

Date sent: Fri, 15 Sep 2000 18:57:44 -0500

From: "Goodwyn, David" <david.goodwyn@verizon.com>
Subject: Thank You for Bring Me Up to Speed
To: "'hfairchild@pitzer.edu'" <hfairchild@PITZER.EDU>

Dear Mr. Fairchild,

I had intended to drop you a note earlier but work got in the way. I just
wanted to say I found your short essay in the Sept. 11, 2000 Los Angeles
Times interesting. I would have to assume you ascribe to the view uttered
by Johnny Cochran that "racism touches everything in America today." You
might be right. White America... all white America, whether liberals or
conservatives, Republicans or Democrats are either overt or, at the very
least, closet racists. On the other hand, you might be wrong.

You wrote... "We can best understand the contemporary reality of racism by
delving into its past. In antiquity, knowledge of racial differentiation
was not necessarily accompanied by dehumanizing sentiments; indeed, the
ancient Greeks and Romans looked upon the ancient Ethiopians with respect
and romanticism. The ancient Egyptians' awareness of racial variation did
not carry with it the dehumanization of those who were superficially
different."

Oh really? While one has to agree that these three early civilizations
where extremely advanced for there time, we must also agree they were also,
at times, extremely barbaric.

All three aforementioned peoples practiced slavery. Might you find this
facet of there daily lives acceptable due to the fact that in many cases,
the slaves were other than black?

No rational man in American today discounts the horror and unjust treatment
afforded Africans brought to America to work and live as slaves. But to
hang any and all problems facing black America today to the heavy, hidden
hand of racism is infantile. To teach and preach to young black children
that there path is blocked by "the man" working secretly to keep them in
"their place" does more harm to these children than all the David Dukes
rolled into one.

Let me ask you these questions.

1. Did you become a professor of psychology at Pitzer College due to
your hard work and effort or because "Massa" decided to give you a break.

2. Is the slaughter of young black men in our inner cities, by the hand
of other young black men due to a breakdown in the family structure and
reliance on the welfare state or because "Massa" is forcing them to do it.

3. Do you young black men abandon the mothers of their children because
"Massa" forced them do it?

4. Do young black men drop out of school... turn to crime... to
drugs... or to alcohol because "Massa" forced them to?

What you should be preaching and teaching, Mr. Fairchild, is that America is
a land of opportunity. Yes, there are obstacles, but if you work hard, stay
focused and persevere, you can, regardless of gender or race, succeed in
this country.

I have a good friend, Vincent Hwampa. He was born in Nigeria along with his
wife, Edith. Both have obtained their Masters Degree and Vincent is working
on his doctorate. He shared with me once that American Blacks have no clue
how lucky they have it. If they really wanted to see rife mistreatment of
blacks, they need only travel to Africa. There, he said, you will see true
inhumanity to black African peoples. At the hands of other black Africans.

Vincent, a real African, would be appalled that a learned man as yourself
could believe such drivel. He would tell you to challenge the young minds
that come to your classes... not keep them shackled in the ghostly chains of
slavery.

One last question... who has the biggest problem with the color of one's
skin? You... or me? You have judged me a racist simple because I was born
white. Until now, I would could not have judged you at all because I did
not know the "content of your character". Now, however, I am in the
position to make a judgment. I find your ideas repugnant. Your skin color
has nothing at all to do with it. I find David Duke's ideas, and those of
his ilk, to be repugnant as well. Stop looking for the "Boogie Man".

Don't allow young, black men and women to use the "Massa" mentality as an
excuse for underachievement. Rather, challenge your young charges to seize
the day and make it theirs!

Dave Goodwyn - CAA

VERIZON Information Services
Los Alamitos Sales Division
(800) 635-5850 x 7263
Fax: (562) 799-7181

David.Goodwyn@verizon.commailto:David.Goodwyn@verizon.com

Mr. Goodwyn: I will reply to your queries in "ALL CAPS." Please don't take this as shouting at you, I just want to make it easier for you to distinguish your text from mine.

Date sent: Fri, 15 Sep 2000 18:57:44 -0500

From: "Goodwyn, David" <david.goodwyn@verizon.com>
Subject: Thank You for Bring Me Up to Speed
To: "'hfairchild@pitzer.edu'" <hfairchild@PITZER.EDU>

Dear Mr. Fairchild,

I had intended to drop you a note earlier but work got in the way. I just
wanted to say I found your short essay in the Sept. 11, 2000 Los Angeles
Times interesting. I would have to assume you ascribe to the view uttered
by Johnny Cochran that "racism touches everything in America today." You
might be right. White America... all white America, whether liberals or
conservatives, Republicans or Democrats are either overt or, at the very
least, closet racists. On the other hand, you might be wrong.

YES, I AGREE THAT RACISM HAS OMNIPRESENT EFFECTS IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICA; NOT JUST FOR WHITES, BUT FOR ALL.

You wrote... "We can best understand the contemporary reality of racism by
delving into its past. In antiquity, knowledge of racial differentiation
was not necessarily accompanied by dehumanizing sentiments; indeed, the
ancient Greeks and Romans looked upon the ancient Ethiopians with respect
and romanticism. The ancient Egyptians' awareness of racial variation did
not carry with it the dehumanization of those who were superficially
different."

Oh really? While one has to agree that these three early civilizations
where extremely advanced for there time, we must also agree they were also,
at times, extremely barbaric.

All three aforementioned peoples practiced slavery. Might you find this
facet of there daily lives acceptable due to the fact that in many cases,
the slaves were other than black?

I AGREE; HOWEVER THE SLAVES OF THE ANCIENTS WERE STILL REGARDED AS PEOPLE; NOT ANIMALS. THAT IS THE DISTINCTION I TRIED TO CONVEY.

No rational man in American today discounts the horror and unjust treatment
afforded Africans brought to America to work and live as slaves. But to
hang any and all problems facing black America today to the heavy, hidden
hand of racism is infantile. To teach and preach to young black children
that there path is blocked by "the man" working secretly to keep them in
"their place" does more harm to these children than all the David Dukes
rolled into one.

BLACK AMERICA FACES MANY PROBLEMS; THEIR ORIGINS ARE COMPLEX. THE ABOVE PARAGRAPH DOES NOT APPEAR TO BE IN RESPONSE TO ANYTHING THAT I HAVE SAID.

Let me ask you these questions.
1. Did you become a professor of psychology at Pitzer College due to
your hard work and effort or because "Massa" decided to give you a break.

MY ACCOMPLISHMENTS ARE DUE TO HARD WORK, TO BE SURE, BUT THE DOOR WAS PRIED OPEN THROUGH THE OFTEN VIOLENT PROTESTS OF A RAINBOW COALITION OF COLLEGE STUDENTS IN THE 1960S AND 1970S. TOKENISM IS THE RULE IN AMERICAN HIGHER EDUCATION, WHICH EXPLAINS THE ENDURING PERCENTAGE OF BLACK FACULTY AT 1-2%.

2. Is the slaughter of young black men in our inner cities, by the hand
of other young black men due to a breakdown in the family structure and
reliance on the welfare state or because "Massa" is forcing them to do it.

ENSLAVEMENT WAS BOTH PHYSICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL. BLACK MEN CONTRIBUTE TO THEIR OWN DEATHS THROUGH THE INTERNALIZATION OF SELF-DISPARAGEMENT. THE RESORTING TO VIOLENCE IS A PRODUCT OF THE CULTURE OF VIOLENCE THAT CHARACTERIZES WHITE AMERICA AND THE BLOCKED OPPORTUNITIES FOR MEANINGFUL ALTERNATIVES.

3. Do you young black men abandon the mothers of their children because
"Massa" forced them do it?

I'M UNAWARE OF THE PHENOMENON, AS YOU PHRASE IT. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CASTRATION OF BLACK MEN (A RESULT OF THE ACTUAL PHYSICAL CASTRATION PERPETRATED ON MANY HUNDREDS OF BLACK MEN, BY WHITE MEN), BLOCKS THE ADOPTION OF MANHOOD, INCLUDING FATHERHOOD.

4. Do young black men drop out of school... turn to crime... to
drugs... or to alcohol because "Massa" forced them to?

EDUCATION IS A KEY TO POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE OUTCOMES. AMERICAN EDUCATION IS BEST THOUGHT OF AS AN APARTHEID SYSTEM OF SEPARATE AND UNEQUAL.

What you should be preaching and teaching, Mr. Fairchild, is that America is
a land of opportunity. Yes, there are obstacles, but if you work hard, stay
focused and persevere, you can, regardless of gender or race, succeed in
this country.

THIS IS ESPECIALLY IF YOU CAN, FOR 200 YEARS, STEAL AFRICAN PEOPLE FROM THEIR HOMES AND CULTURES AND FORCE THEM TO WORK, FOR FREE, ON LAND STOLEN FROM THE INDIGENOUS POPULATIONS.

I have a good friend, Vincent Hwampa. He was born in Nigeria along with his
wife, Edith. Both have obtained their Masters Degree and Vincent is working
on his doctorate. He shared with me once that American Blacks have no clue
how lucky they have it. If they really wanted to see rife mistreatment of
blacks, they need only travel to Africa. There, he said, you will see true
inhumanity to black African peoples. At the hands of other black Africans.
Vincent, a real African, would be appalled that a learned man as yourself
could believe such drivel. He would tell you to challenge the young minds
that come to your classes... not keep them shackled in the ghostly chains of
slavery.

One last question... who has the biggest problem with the color of one's
skin? You... or me? You have judged me a racist simple because I was born
white. Until now, I would could not have judged you at all because I did
not know the "content of your character". Now, however, I am in the
position to make a judgment. I find your ideas repugnant. Your skin color
has nothing at all to do with it. I find David Duke's ideas, and those of
his ilk, to be repugnant as well. Stop looking for the "Boogie Man".

Don't allow young, black men and women to use the "Massa" mentality as an
excuse for underachievement. Rather, challenge your young charges to seize
the day and make it theirs!

THANK YOU FOR TAKING THE TIME TO WRITE TO ME. I DO NOT JUDGE WHITES AS RACIST BECAUSE OF THEIR SKIN COLOR. SOME OF THE WORST RACISM THAT IS ALIVE TODAY IS PRACTICED BY PEOPLE OF COLOR, INCLUDING AFRICAN AMERICANS. THIS IS THE DUAL TRAGEDY OF RACISM IN CONTEMPORARY TIMES.
 
 

Date sent: Sun, 17 Sep 2000 12:44:50 -0700
From: gwinkel@ivic.net (George Winkel)
Subject: L.A. Times -- "Modern-Day Racism Masks Its Ugly Head"
To: "Halford H. Fairchild" <Hfairchild@PITZER.EDU>

Dear Professor Fairchild,
I would like to complement you on your scholarly editorial dated September
11, 2000, which appeared in the L.A. Times. The article was entitled
"Modern-Day Racism Masks Its Ugly Head."

<http://www.latimes.com/news/comment/20000911/t000085714.html>

We like your forthright way of stating the history of the racism problem.
You wrote, "We can best understand the contemporary reality of racism by
delving into its past." In your delving you seemed to find the ancient
Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians without the prejudicial idea of "race," which
we know today. You continued: "The idea of race took on the patina of a
scientific enterprise primarily in the early to mid-1800s, as part of what
is largely known as the European Enlightenment. …" No doubt, this
formulating a pseudo-scientific "race" theory timely relieved antebellum
"white" people’s guilt for continuing their colonial exploitation after the
"heathens" had become Christian, removing that justification for enslaving them?
I occasionally contribute letters and guest editorials to Charles Michael
Byrd’s Interracial Voice web magazine <http://www.webcom.com/intvoice/>, and
also to James A. Landrith, Jr.’s, Multiracial Activist
<http://www.multiracial.com/> web site. Perhaps you did not have us in mind
when you wrote, "There are those who assert that racism is obsolete and not
a contemporary problem." Nonetheless, our viewpoint de-emphasizes racism,
which we do not regard is our primary concern. We regard racism as merely a
symptom of a far more endemic, sinister thing. We recognize that more
sinister societal ailment is "race."

We are a multiracial movement, and our aim through various tactics (e.g., a
"multiracial" checkbox on govt. forms, et al.), is the eventual abolition of
"race." The tenor of your article was clearly that racism lives on unseen,
albeit behind a mask. But it seems to us almost as if we could elevate
nearly your whole article, by substituting "race" for "racism." It might be
clear then how "race" -- the belief it exists -- stealthily permeates
society. If our contention is true -- that believing, accepting "race" is
primal racism -- then your article sketches only the merest mention of the
endemic infestation of this thing’s "ugly head." And yet, your learned
article seems to typify, too, the subtle nature of the "race" problem. You,
a "modern-day" psychology professor write of "race" as if you accept it --
as if you believe it exists as a "scientific" "fact" of life. You clearly
are not challenging its existence. Rather, you concern yourself in your
article only with "race’s" spontaneously remitting symptom, "masked racism."

You wrote how mid-nineteenth century scientists,