the abuse of racism is a bigger problem than racism itself

I've been reading a leftist humor book, Conservatize Me by John Moe. It's not that good, but there is an occasional observation of interest. In particular, Moe wants to understand why people are attracted to conservative beliefs. Moe is hampered in his efforts, because he decided that some conservative views are bad, while others are tolerable. In particular, conservative views like those expressed by Rush Limbaugh are evil and don't need understanding. Despite that flaw, and it is a major flaw, Moe does shed some insight on conservatism appeal. The one that impressed me was his explanation for the appeal of traditional values. Moe observes that people in small town America are friendlier than people in big cities, like Seattle where he comes from. Moe construes this friendliness as traditional values, and he has a point.

I told a leftist friend, who was extolling big cities, about Moe's observation. His immediate response was that small town America is not a friendly place if you are a racial minority. It was all too typical. Racism has become the all-purpose excuse to disregard the positive aspects of America. No matter what is said positive about America. The leftist response always involves some accusation or racism. Sample conversation: "American won the most gold medals at the Olympics." "Who cares, America is racist."


Thus, making accusations of racism has become an more important excuse to avoid serious political conversations than even making comparisons to the Nazi regime. And it use is every bit as frivolous. One simply labels one's opponents as racists rather than make real arguments. And to be clear, the right is as guilty of this as is the left. Listen to the preposterous "pro-life" arguments against abortion rights on the basis that abortion is somehow racist, and you'll get my point if you haven't already. (Google Margaret Sanger, abortion and racism, & I'm sure you'll get my point. N.B. I haven't done this google experiment personally, but if you get different results than I predict, please let me know.)

There are two important observation to be made in response to the conversation stopper user of racism:
1) Modern America is about the least racist society that the world has ever known. 2) Racism is not the worst thing we can do.
Let's examine both.

In the America where I live, I see black people and white people talking and chatting all the time. I see little black kids playing with little white kids and little asian kids in my neighborhood all the time. I live in a country where it is assumed that the worst crime one can do is being racists. Yet, after talking an "anti-racist", you would expect to see a "colored only" water fountain in every small town in America. Surprising you don't. What you do see instead in small town America is quarrels about gay rights. Some wacky small town high school students who fail to realize America's outrageous racism decide to confront the sexual orientation issue, because while they rarely hear racist comments, they frequently hear homophobic ones. And guess what? These small town high school students win more often than not. Is it too much to admit that no fairer and more decent a nation has existed than America today?

Racism is not the worse thing we can do. It is our duty as human beings to stop horrible abuse of women like genital mutilation, forced marriages, and honor killing, before we worry about subtle issues of racism, like the pain of a black corporate executive who doesn't become CEO. If this means discouraging from living among us racial groups who want to be mutilate, kill, and enslave their own daughters and sisters, we should so. We should not allow their barbarity against women to spread. Civilization's goal is to reduce barbarianism, not permit it to expand. Of course, it's not really a race that does such things but a religion--but a little bit of anti-Arab, anti-Persian racism to stop the evil treatment of women would not be such a bad thing. As long as people backed off from it when the Arab or Persian says they aren't muslim.