Justifying one form of racism justifies all forms of racism, historical and to be invented. All advocates of racism claim that their vilifying and persecuting certain categories of people are justified.
Today, the fact that certain census categories of people are “underrepresented” in particular categories or groups in relation to their percentage of the population is taken as proven evidence that anti-minority racism is at work. But it isn’t only minorities who are in some cases “underrepresented.” In the contemporary period males and whites are underrepresented in many important fields, e.g., government service and universities, although this is disregarded as entirely irrelevant by diversicrats.
Government and institutional racist guidelines now require “marginalized minorities” and “racialized individuals,” BIPOC (black, indigenous, people of color), LGBTQ2S++ (lesbians, gay, bisexual, queer, two spirit, plus others of the 76 non-binary genders), and females, the disabled, and Muslims to be hired, funded, given awards, and provided with segregated events and spaces. Males and whites are often explicitly excluded, e.g., in ads for jobs or notices for funding.
This sounds like a good deal for the minority beneficiaries. How is it harmful? Here are four of the main ways that it’s harmful for all parties.
First, racism cuts both ways. Prejudice, bigotry, scapegoating, and discrimination isn’t guaranteed to always go in one direction. What happens if today’s targets of racism get fed up and decide to turn the tables? Do we really want to encourage the return of historical bigotries and racisms?
Second, this isn’t just anti-white racism, it’s also a racism of low expectations that replaces achievement, merit, and excellence with skin color, gender, sexuality, disability, and ethnicity. Apparently the preferred categories of people, especially BIPOC, aren’t deemed capable of achieving high standards of learning and competence. Thus, to advance BIPOC, standards are lowered and done away with entirely: advanced courses in high schools are cancelled; standardized tests are no longer required for admission to university; quality criteria are disregarded in industry; and performance standards are lowered in the police and the military.
The replacement of merit with “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) guarantees that capability and competence are no longer the criteria by which people are selected. This means that future engineers, doctors, airplane pilots, generals, and judges won’t be able to do as good a job as meritorious candidates who weren’t selected. Was the new bridge you’re about to drive over built by a “diversity” engineer? Do you want to be operated on by a “diversity” surgeon? How did the person flying your plane get in that seat? Will our new generals be capable of protecting us from foreign enemies? Does the judge that you face know about the law?
The stigma of the “diversity” hires clings to all minorities in a regime of favoritism. No matter how smart, capable, and deserving of respect someone is, if it’s believed that standards of merit were set aside for them, they will forever be looked down on. This isn’t exactly beneficial for those members of minorities who were meritorious, but are now classed with their less-capable category mates.
Third, the majority of citizens in both the United States and Canada are white. Is it wise to treat the majority unjustly, to vilify and exclude them?
Public opinion surveys show that the majority of people in the United States no longer have faith in the institutions of the country, especially in the media and in Congress, and there’s been a decline in faith and recruitment in the police and military, previously always the highest regarded. For the first time, universities, today the source of DEI racism and sexism as well as far-left political ideology, are seen by the majority of surveyed respondents as not worth attending. Alienating the majority from the institutions of the country is a sign that the country is breaking down and faces ugly possibilities in the future.
Fourth, America and Canada are countries that have to secure their places in the world. They aren’t like our snowflake students for whom our universities have provided “safe spaces” where their verities will never be challenged and they never have to face people different from themselves. The United States and Canada live in a world of other countries in which actors see opportunities to advance their countries at the expense of others. In other words, the United States and Canada are in an ongoing and never ending competition with other countries.
World history shows many countries and peoples gaining strength and rolling over their neighbors. Imperial conquests have been common for millennia. Rome, Islam, the Mongols, the British, the Russians each conquered and ruled half the world. German National Socialists and Imperial Japanese tried but failed. Now China aims at conquering the world. The United States and Canada is in the way, but are they capable of stopping China?
One way that China is preparing for the competition and conflict to come is by educating their population to the most advanced level possible. Chinese students rank at top of international comparisons of educational competence. In contrast, Canada is well down the list, and the United States is way down the list in reading, math, and science. American urban school systems have many schools without any students up to grade competence.
The Chinese version of TikTok is geared toward education, unlike the American version, which is geared to sexual transition, anorexia, and self-mutilation. China and Russia don’t deny science, the way biology is now denied in the United States and Canada, but focuses on science to advance their economic and military strength.
American universities are obsessed with DEI. After 50 years of preferential admissions under “affirmative action,” the results are well known: Weak students do poorly. Now that merit has been expunged from universities, how will the United States and Canada compete with China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran, where students are assessed for performance, not “diversity”? Racism is not only unjust, it’s also extremely unwise, weakening the United States and Canada in the face of their enemies.
Philip Carl Salzman is Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at McGill University and Senior Fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.
