I thought about doing a post on this epithet before the mass shootings over the weekend, so the timing is coincidental. The "race-traitor" epithet is used both by (some) whites and blacks. Is that ever a legitimate category?
1. According to the Urban Dictionary, it's sometimes used for sexual "race mixing". That's an illegitimate use of the designation.
2. In addition, it's applied to individuals accused of selling out the interests of their own race. That's more complicated:
i) I think there are cases where that designation is legitimate. For instance, there are black politicians who support policies detrimental to the black community. Because, historically, the Democrat party is majority white, you have black Democrats who kowtow to liberal white policies in order to be players in the Democrat party.
To take another example, Mainland China is assimilating Hong Kong. It has stooges in the Hong Kong government who betray the interests of the Hong Kong people. The same may be said for the Hong Kong police. Likewise, there are white Democrats who promote policies that discriminate against whites.
ii) That said, in my anecdotal experience, it's my impression that white racists have a white first ethic. You put your own race first. You should have greater solidarity with members of your own (white) race than other races or ethnicities. But that's absurd. By that logic, I have greater solidarity with Elizabeth Warren than Russell Wilson, Mayor Pete Buttboy than Sen. Tim Scott, "Caitlyn" Jenner than Bobby Jindal, Rosie O'Donnell than Francis Chan, Boy George than Izzy Folau, Elton John than Michael Nazir Ali, Richard Dawkins than Voddie Baucham–to name a few.
iii) Perhaps a less extreme version of (ii) would claim that all things being equal, you should have greater solidarity with members of your own race. That's the default position, but it can be overridden.
However, that's too abstract to be meaningful. Race is always one factor among many, and some factors are much more important to individual and social identity than biological race, such as religion, common interests, biological sex, and sexual orientation.
iv) Finally, race is fluid. Many individuals can't be classified as members of one biological race. Biological race is a spectrum, easier to sort out at the ends of the spectrum than in the blended middle. That's why racial purists abhor "miscegenation". They understand that racial categories are often rather arbitrary and unstable.
A couple of examples from World War 2:
ReplyDelete1. The Japanese argued all Asians should resist the British and the Americans because whites were foreign colonizers while Japanese were fellow Asians. However, most Asian populations under Japanese occupation balked at the Japanese. Most Asians chose to side with the British and the Americans. No doubt that's in part because American and British "foreign colonizers" treated Asians far better than the Japanese treated fellow Asians.
2. Similarly, Russians are Slavic. They've always argued they're responsible for protecting all Slavic peoples. A Slavic big brother (pardon the pun). However, when the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union, many Slavic peoples across Eastern Europe initially welcomed the Nazis as liberators despite their closer racial or ethnic affinity to Russia than Germany. Doubtless that's in part thanks to how Stalinist Russia treated their fellow Slavic peoples.