As an applicant to med school, meritocracy may hurt me; I may benefit if racism gets me in the door past other more qualified applicants. As a patient, however, I want my doctor to be the most qualified person available; to the extent that racism prohibited the most qualified people from becoming doctors, I (and all other potential patients) suffer. Now, let’s count the number of white people who are med students, and the number who are patients, and decide whether on balance racism helps or hurts white people.

As a building contractor, meritocracy may hurt me; I may benefit if racism gets me a bridge-building contract that otherwise would have gone to some other, better builder. As a member of the public, however, I want bridges to be built on time, on budget, and to stand up over time; to the extent that racism impeded the best builder from building a project, I (and everybody else wanting to use the bridge) suffer. Now, let’s count the number of white people who are in the bridge building business, and the number of white people who cross bridges, and decide whether on balance racism helps of hurts white people.

When Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers, he probably displaced some white player who otherwise would have gotten on the team. And Robinson won a lot of games. On balance, is a white Dodgers fan – even a racist one – happy or sad for this development? On the other side of the coin, is a white soldier who is stuck in Iraq – even a racist soldier – happy or sad that Donald Rumsfeld, not Colin Powell, got to manage the occupation of Iraq?

I know this seem too obvious to say, but Gary Becker got a Nobel Prize for saying it: Everybody benefits from excellence – yes, even white people. Everybody suffers from incompetence – yes, even white people.

I would think that the primary way racism of any sort harms the racist is that it is bad to be a racist. It’s bad to be bad. It’s bad for you, not just because it has bad consequences but merely because it’s bad to be bad.

But there are all sorts of bad consequences of racism on those who are exhibiting it. One is that much of what’s excellent in the culture that surrounds us, including things racists appreciate and rely on, is due to those racism harms and victimizes. So there’s a kind of inconsistency in any kind of racism that names things as bad in the person one isolates as “other” and therefore bad. It’s bad to be inconsistent, because it’s irrational.

Also, we’re all morally and socially interconnected, and harm toward an entire community of people is thus harm toward an entire segment of humanity, and we’re all part of humanity. Thus harm toward other human beings of any sort (including racism) is thus harm to ourselves inasmuch as we are all human. Crimes against humanity are crimes against ourselves.

It’s only after all that that I’d bring in things like how our lives will be better off externally when we interact in a moral way with those who are different.

thanks

tim