Contemporary (Western) attitudes about racial-justice are typically based on the belief that any person who causes racial offence is necessarily a racist (Urquidez 2018; Blum 2004). Another way, hurt feelings about race entail racism. While this ‘inflationary’ idea of racism has found vociferous support among racial-justice ideologues and some academics, it also faces serious objections. Here I argue that defining racism just in terms of offence or racial disrespect obscures the variety of motives associated with discriminatory or offensive conduct and negates the normative authority of the term.

Racism can be broadly defined as discrimination, antipathy or devaluation of others just on the basis of race. It seems reasonable to assume that not every case of differential treatment is racial discrimination, and that discrimination against people of a particular race is not necessarily discrimination just on the basis of race. It is, for example, possible to discriminate culpably but opportunistically, where race is merely a contemporaneous contingency rather than the primary criterion of choice, or where the primary criterion is other than race. Also, “racially ignorant and insensitive remarks need not be based on racial antipathy or inferiorization.” (Urquidez 2018) On the systemic level, “Bare inequality between racial groups is not, purely in its own right, a source of concern… Social structures, practices, and processes cannot themselves be regarded as racially unjust unless they are animated by racial antipathy of some sort.” (Blum 2004) The distinction between action (or state) and the justification of action (or inaction) is crucial to making consistent practically-normative or moral judgements, and therefore crucial to understanding of racism.

This view is disputed by Glasgow (2009) who maintains that special justification is not a necessary condition of racism; a person is racist if and only if that person “is disrespectful toward members of… groups of people who have been identified and treated as if they were members of the same race.” For example, Glasgow considers an example from Blum (2002, 53): “in a high school class, a Haitian American girl is asked to give ‘the black point of view’ on an issue relating to race”. While Blum considers this merely a case of ignorance or insensitivity, Glasgow feels that the teacher implicitly reduces the race of the student to a homogenous group, and thus fails to recognize the student as a distinctive individual. Glasgow asserts that this failure is racially disrespectful, and racial disrespect entails racism irrespective of justification. More generally, Glasgow expresses (but does not substantiate) the belief that causing offence (at least in relation to race) is always morally, ethically or otherwise normatively wrong. But this won’t do: any useful account of racism must “clarify why racism is always immoral (without trivializing the moral judgment by making it a matter of definition).” (Garcia 1997, 2)

Blum (2002, 8) further contends that Glasgow’s definition of racism is both too narrow, having “obscured the wide range of different types of moral wrong or ill”, and misleading, because racial disrespect need not of itself entail racism unless motivated by inferiorization and antipathy. It is certainly possible to be disrespectful to all racialised groups, including one’s own, what would entail no racial prejudice; or be insolent about race only in jest; or be disrespectful when angry but later feel remorseful. There is an even stronger, analytical argument against granting the normative status of ‘racism’ to racial disrespect. Since disrespect is a value-judgement that may vary from person to person, Glasgow’s shift of the normative focus from ‘racist justification of action’ to ‘judgment about being disrespectful’ cannot consistently satisfy the minimal conditions of normative authority – I have argued to that end in Why we Cannot have the Right Not To Be Offended. In essence, subjective judgement provides only explanation of our reasons and feelings, not their objective justification (Setiya 2003).

The popular (inflationary) assumption – that every disrespectful or discriminatory treatment involving race entails racism – equivocates between action and justification of action. This, I argue, amounts to either inconsistent or incomplete normative reasoning. If action or a consequence of action can be wrong just in-itself, then justification cannot at the same time be subject to normative sanction (it is inconsequential to the normative-value of action), but this thesis itself requires normative justification which is nonetheless absent. If, on the other hand, justification can be subject to normative sanction, then the associated action is not necessarily wrong, and so the original assumption is false.

My contention, following Urquidez (2018), “is not about what the current definition of ‘racism’ is, but about what it ought to be”, with the aim of ensuring that the ordinary usage of the term has objectively normative status. This is an urgent theoretic challenge since “the moral reproach carried by the term is threatened by a current tendency to overuse it” (Blum 2002), what could potentially inflame rather than assuage racial tensions. According to Blum, the accusation of racism has evolved into a mere slur, an expression of disapproval in the racial domain, and this attitude could itself constitute a form of prejudice that is ethically on par with racism. Nevertheless, The Washington Post tells us, unrestrained expression of this attitude is “good for your health, according to science”. Since any statement or action by a person of a different race can trigger the feeling of racial offence, the inflationary account of racism reaches its practical limit in the following conclusion: if you are “white” then you are objectively (or structurally) a racist (TED). Accusations of racism when one does not feel antipathy or devalue other races is likely to be deemed disrespectful, and so the above formula can be universalised for every “colour”, thereby reducing the inflationary concept of racism to triviality. It tells us nothing about what specific reasons for action are objectively right or wrong.

What then ought a properly normative definition of ‘racism’ be? Following the broad criteria of racism identified by Blum, antipathy toward some races but not to others is, uncontroversially, racism. Belief in differences between races, including unequal capacities and susceptibilities, does not entail racism as long as the belief is rational – based on honest appraisal of personal experience and readily available evidence – and is not associated with antipathy. If, on the other hand, evidence is absent, or ignored, or used selectively to support such a belief, and a value-judgement is based on this belief, then the resulting judgement entails inferiorisation and therefore racism (with or without antipathy). This may also work in reverse: if a person believes that there are No differences between races despite readily available evidence to the contrary, that may also entail racism if on the basis of such a belief one devalues real capacities of one race or inflates the capacities of another, with the effect of judging the former as relatively less capable than it really is.

Blum, L. I’m not a Racist, But… The Moral Quandary of Race. Cornell University Press, 2002.

The Moral Quandary of Race. Cornell University Press, 2002. Blum, L. What Do Accounts of ‘Racism’ Do? Racism in Mind. Cornell University Press, 2004.

Racism in Mind. Cornell University Press, 2004. Garcia, J. L. A. Current Conceptions of Racism: A Critical Examination of Some Recent Social Philosophy . Journal of Social Philosophy, 1997.

. Journal of Social Philosophy, 1997. Glasgow, J. Racism as Disrespect . Ethics, 2009.

. Ethics, 2009. Setiya, K. Explaining Action . The Philosophical Review, 2003.

. The Philosophical Review, 2003. Urquidez, A.G. What Accounts of ‘Racism’ Do. Journal of Value Inquiry, 2018.

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