The tsunami, Pearl Harbor, and FaceBook
A colleague brought to my attention a compilation of anti-Japanese comments from FaceBook posted at the blog Pharyngula. (Ignore the source: I am well aware that P.Z. Meyers is an anti-religious bigot, but that is irrelevant to the question at hand.) The vituperative tone of all of these comments betrays a meanness of spirit that is very sad. It goes beyond schadenfreude to reveal a profound hatefulness. As my son just put it, this is sick vengefulness.
The common theme of almost all the posts is an explicit link between the tsunami and Pearl Harbor: “Remember Pearl Harbor,” “Karma is a bitch”, “Couldn’t happen to a nicer country.” Pearl Harbor is, of course, iconic in the American imagination, but it seems a stretch to believe that genuine anger over the attack on Pearl Harbor (almost 70 years ago) lies behind these comments. After all, looking at the pictures of the posters, it is fair to assume most of them are young enough that their grandparents lived through WWII.
Therefore, it seems to me that Pearl Harbor is standing in for something else–a floating signifier, as post-modernists would say. So what is the source of the anger and hatred? One (non)explanation is that it really is not coming from anywhere: that these are simply callow individuals who are getting a cheap laugh at someone else’s expense, and “Pearl Harbor” is just a convenient cultural hook to hang their anger from. This is possible but it does not seem to be probable. Certainly I do not remember similar comments after Haiti’s earthquake (Pat Robertson’s maunderings excepted) or after the tsunami in Indonesia. There were some tasteless jokes, but they seem to me different in both degree and kind.
Another possible explanation is that it represents an irruption of anti-Asian bigotry. Anti-Japanese and more generally anti-Asian racism have a long history in the United States, particularly on the West Coast, reaching its nadir in the Japanese internment camps during WWII. But it has continued: one need only look back to the anti-Japanese outbursts during the 1980′s. One example I remember in particular was an anti-Japanese demonstration organized by the UAW (not a proud moment for the union) which involved the destruction of Japanese cars coupled with the invocation of Pearl Harbor: “remember Pearl Harbor–buy American.”
This second explanation seems to better capture what I am seeing here. Evidence for this comes from another source. As I was mulling over this post, one of my kids introduced me to another viral video: Asians in the Library.
Here we have the racism plainly exposed in this sophomoric rant: the insinuations about not being “American”, the fake “Chinese” accent, the critique of family life, the conflation of the disparate cultures of the Asia into a monolithic “Asian”. And at the end, she ties it up with a dismissive reference to the tsunami in Japan. The author of this video is angry and in the end the subject of her anger are “Asians”.
I am not interested in debating whether the people who made these posts are “really racists” or if they “really meant to hurt anyone.” I think that that is beside the point, because the problem exists not on the level of individuals but within our culture. We need to examine critically the persistence of these racist tropes in American society, and what we need to do to extirpate them.
I want to frame the question in this way because this manifestation of racism is a perfect illustration of the concept of a “structure of sin.” Racism, as a sinful act, is the work of individuals. But each racist act in the past contributed to building institutions and cultural norms that perpetuate and maintain this racism, and shape the actions and perceptions of the individuals now living in it. Bob Blauner, in his thoughtful article Talking Past Each Other, argues that this is what separates whites and minorities in discussions of race. Whites what to see racism as a personal, individual action; minorities want to expand the discussion to discuss structural racism.
Comments are closed.
Is there a culture that is not racist? Do the Japanese, for example, never insult people of other ethnicities in any way?
In other words, I would like to know what evidence there is that this is a problem with American culture, rather than fallen human nature in general.
The Japanese in fact have their own problem with racism. It is primarily directed towards Koreans or towards the Burakumin, descendants of members of an outcaste in the Medieval period. So, no, America is not alone in having this problem.
However, the problem with your appeal to fallen human nature is that since it explains everything, it explains nothing. Racism is a real and abiding problem in America, and can be best understood contextually, within the bounds of American history and culture. We cannot address this problem by generic appeals to our sinfulness: we need to confront the actual sin.
The American bishops said it well back in 1979:
The structures of our society are subtly racist, for these structures reflect the values which society upholds. They are geared to the success of the majority and the failure of the minority. Members of both groups give unwitting approval by accepting things as they are. Perhaps no single individual is to blame. The sinfulness is often anonymous but nonetheless real. The sin is social in nature in that each of us, in varying degrees, is responsible. All of us in some measure are accomplices. As our recent pastoral letter on moral values states: “The absence of personal fault for an evil does not absolve one of all responsibility. We must seek to resist and undo injustices we have not ceased, least we become bystanders who tacitly endorse evil and so share in guilt in it.”
This kind of hatred is simply evil. To turn a blind eye to it is to excuse evil. Chalking it up to fallen human nature suggests that no sin should be decried, because all sin is the result of such.
Comments linking the tsunami to Pearl Harbor are so ignorant that they should be ignored. However, I think that the real fear and hatred of Asians has to do with the success of Asians in America, as well as in their own countries, and the general feeling that the gains made by Americans over generations are now slipping away.
“Racism is a real and abiding problem in America, and can be best understood contextually, within the bounds of American history and culture.”
I agree it should be understood contextually. I disagree that the context in which it should be understood is limited to “the bounds of American history and culture”.
Forgive me getting personal a moment, but it might help to explain where I’m coming from: If you had come to my house last Christmas, you would have seen people who are white, black, Filipino and Mexican — and all but the Mexican are related by blood! The Mexican is my mom’s boyfriend of 10+ years, who is also my son’s confirmation sponsor.
My parents divorced when I was 3 or 4, and I was raised for most of my childhood by my mom and my black stepfather; and as mentioned in another post, I grew up a white minority in a minority-majority community.
In my high school circle of friends, race was so unimportant to us that we could casually toss off epithets and no one would bat an eye — including the N word. We were proud of the fact that we had moved beyond race, when most of the country still seemed obsessed with it.
So for me, the ideal is not that racial epithets never get uttered, nor that people of one race never make fun of people of another race. That stuff means nothing. The ideal, rather, is that no one gives a crap about race, including not giving a crap about racial epithets. This is how I view Martin Luther King’s “not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character”. It means we’re blind to race.
Now the problem I have with your approach, is that instead of working towards color-blindness, you’re working away from it, by focusing all your attention on a single group of racists: white ones, while ignoring the fact that people of every race and ethnicity do exactly the same thing that white Americans do. In fact, I submit that white Americans (and Europeans too for that matter) are more sensitive about race, and work harder than people of any other race or ethnicity, to avoid offending people of other colors and ethnicities living in their midst.
The fact that incidences of offense still occur, in my view result from two things: (1) fallen human nature – no matter how much you try to educate and shame people into not being hateful of those who are different from themselves, a certain number will do it nevertheless; and as a matter of fact, (2) the more you try to “re-educate” and shame them, the more you make them conscious of race; and furthermore, by obsessing over the issue, and how ashamed they ought to be of themselves, the more you wound their pride, which, due to fallen human nature, leads them to assert themselves by rebelling.
In my opinion the appearance of, for example, nooses on college campuses in situations where “racial tensions are high”, in the vast majority of cases is caused by young people being sick and tired of being preached to, and seeing an opportunity to yank the chains of the shamers. They know too well that the sensitive liberals are going to be all up in arms and falling all over themselves with shock and dismay, and they, quite simply, think that’s funny as heck.
In short, I feel strongly that the fingers need to stop pointing all in one direction, toward white people, on the issue of race. If we must talk about it, we should talk about it as a human issue, a universal phenomenon, which is but one of many symptoms of our fallenness. Otherwise you are moving away from colorblindness rather than working towards it — making people color-conscious rather than colorblind.
“Racism” is a dark manifestation of tribal identity, a stage most people enter at some point in childhood. In modern societies, many, but not all people eventually learn to self-identify with something other than a family, gang, region, sports team, culture or nation. So yes, there will always be some people in any given culture who behave like Andrea Wallace. Trying to extirpate that perspective is as hopeless a project as trying to keep all adolesents
One way to measure “structural racism” is to look at what fraction of a society’s members identify or operate from a tribal perspective. I like Susanne Cook-Greuter’s approach to describing development and assessing a culture by how many of its members operate at different stages. See her web-site at http://cook-greuter.com. By this measure, the USA is rather behind most other industrialized countries.
I liked Jimmy Wong’s response to the Wallace video,… He exemplifies a creative response by someone who clearly sees through the tribal mentality. Of course, those who aren’t as far down the road as Jimmy is, either support the anti-asian perspective, or retaliate with hate mail and death threats,… which is apparently why Andrea Wallace doesn’t go to UCLA anymore.
(I’m not sure if WordPress willl link the video, or how to make it do that).
Agellius,
the problem with your analysis is that it remains ahistorical. By continuing to reduce racism to individual acts, and by equating bigotry by whites and minorities, you are overlooking the historical reality of racism in America. The key point is not that whites are more prone to believe stereotypes or say racist things. Rather, the point is that in the United States, it is whites who created a social/cultural system in which they are on top, and in which their racism has had social consequences.
Take your example of the noose. Ignoring for the moment the question of motivation, look at the fundamental asymmetry of this symbol. Can you name a single symbol that a black, latino or asian could direct towards a white person that conveys the same social-historical message of oppression and violence? I have been thinking about this for a couple days (whence the delay in this response) and I cannot. So yes, given the historical reality that racism in America meant a white majority oppressing a non-white minority, a racism that created on-going structures of sin that still affect non-white communities, I am going to concentrate on white racism.
Similarly, while the ideal of “color-blindness” has a superficial appeal, it ignores that fact that throughout much of history in the US, whites have been able to ignore race because being white has never had any negative consequences, and quite a few positive consequences. We don’t have white folks stopped for “driving while white”, or being asked for their papers because someone thinks they are illegal immigrants from Canada, or have silly, a priori assumptions made about their intellectual abilities.
If the US is ever going to reach the ideal state where race does not matter (a goal which I would like to reach), then it is going to have to work through the fact that today, race does matter. I am not interested in “shaming” or “re-educating” people, but the fact remains that confronting race in America is uncomfortable for most white folks. This should not be surprising: seeing ourselves as God sees us, and not as we would see ourselves, is almost always an uncomfortable experience.
Finally, with regards to your noose example: can you give a concrete example in which your interpretation makes sense? The examples I am familiar with, such as UC San Diego, a noose always seems to show up when the minority community is reacting to a racist incident of some kind (such as the “Compton Cookout” at UCSD). The message is not “I am yanking your chain” directed to white liberal administrators, but rather “sit down and shut up” directed to minorities who have the temerity to protest.
Finally, with
David:
I appreciate you courteously engaging my arguments.
You write, “… the point is that in the United States, it is whites who created a social/cultural system in which they are on top, and in which their racism has had social consequences … given the historical reality that racism in America meant a white majority oppressing a non-white minority, a racism that created on-going structures of sin that still affect non-white communities, I am going to concentrate on white racism.
I’m open to being convinced on this point, but I still feel like your “structures of sin” is an imaginary construct, since you have yet to tell me specifically what structures or institutions exist, which are in themselves racist, and in what way, apart from individual acts of racism. Are you referring to the educational system? Are people being taught that whites are superior in school? Is the media spreading the idea that non-whites are less than human? Please point to a single actually existing “structure” of the nature which you keep purporting to describe.
You write, “… while the ideal of “color-blindness” has a superficial appeal, it ignores that fact that throughout much of history in the US, whites have been able to ignore race because being white has never had any negative consequences, and quite a few positive consequences.”
This is true, but in fact is a truism. Really, all you’re saying is that whites happen to be the majority in this country. If another group were the majority then the history of racism in this country would have been different. Naturally.
You write, ” We don’t have white folks stopped for “driving while white”, or being asked for their papers because someone thinks they are illegal immigrants from Canada, or have silly, a priori assumptions made about their intellectual abilities.”
As far as “driving while black” or whatever other color, I can’t help being skeptical as to how widespread it is. Is it not likely that every time a black person is pulled over, he is likely to view the experience through that lens? A white guy might be pulled over and experience rude treatment from a police officer, and would just think, “Man, cops are rude sometimes!” Whereas a black guy is more likely to think, “That cop would never have treated a white guy that way!” So I suspect that a lot of “driving while black” stories are the result of people assuming that they were treated a certain way because of their race, when they might have been treated that way regardless. If anything, it seems that police officers would be more paranoid about mistreating minorities due to the likelihood of an accusation of racism being filed against them.
As far as asking for papers, well duh, people are not asked to produce papers to prove they are not illegal Canadian immigrants. But that’s because there is not a problem of millions of Canadians sneaking across the border and living here illegally. If Ireland or Russia were directly to our north, and if that country were dirt poor compared to us, and accordingly millions of Irish or Russians with heavy accents were sneaking across the border and living here illegally, then I have no doubt that people with Irish or Russian accents would be asked to produce papers in some circumstances. After all, first-generation Irish immigrants were treated rather shabbily at one time, despite being the same color as the majority.
You write, “If the US is ever going to reach the ideal state where race does not matter … then it is going to have to work through the fact that today, race does matter.”
Fine, you want to work through it. But what exactly does that mean? What should we be doing that we’re not doing already, in order to “work through” it?
You write, “… with regards to your noose example: can you give a concrete example in which your interpretation makes sense? The examples I am familiar with, such as UC San Diego, a noose always seems to show up when the minority community is reacting to a racist incident of some kind (such as the “Compton Cookout” at UCSD).”
As I have argued before, a party where people of one culture make fun of people of another culture, is not necessarily an expression of hatred. If a black fraternity were to have a party where they made fun of how whites look and act, we would never hear about it on the news (nor in my opinion should we). Nevertheless we always do hear about such parties, and there are always these “outcries” over them. This is what I described in my last comment as a situation where “racial tensions are high”, and is precisely the kind of situation where my scenario would apply: You have young college students who see a golden opportunity to yank the chains of the liberal establishment and make them go apoplectic. Yes, it’s a sick brand of humor, nevertheless if you can’t acknowledge that this is exactly the type of thing that immature young people often engage in, then we must be living in two different worlds.
If you had, say, a crusade for good manners on campus, and all the professors were constantly harping on the students about how crude and impolite they are, and announcing a zero tolerance for bad manners – you would be practically *begging* for an outbreak of manifestations of rudeness. Get up in front of a graduating class and announce that crude and undignified behavior will not be tolerated at this year’s graduation exercises, and see how many loud, fake farts you get during the commencement speech. Crude, yes, immature and inconsiderate, certainly. But nevertheless, exactly what you would expect under the circumstances.
Substitute “racial sensitivity” for “manners” in the above paragraph and perhaps you may see my point.
Of course I realize that there is a history of mistreatment of non-whites in this country, which is painful for all of us to look back upon. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that racism is lessening with each generation. In terms of the public sphere, it’s already reached the point of virtually zero tolerance. If you are mistreated due to your ethnicity or color, your only difficulty will be proving that it occurred.
To the extent that it now remains, it’s not a public, institutional phenomenon but a private one: It has not yet been stamped out of the heads of every individual, and sometimes these individuals get together under private auspices to express it – because the private sphere is the only one in which it is tolerated. Yes, that’s bad, and I wish and pray that it won’t last much longer.
Nevertheless, the more you try to insinuate yourself into this private sphere in an effort to “extirpate” private attitudes, the more these people are going to feel like they are being besieged on every side, and insulted and lectured to. I find it highly doubtful that this is going to lead to any genuine change of heart, but is far more likely to result in acts of rebellion in the form of deliberate manifestations of the very attitudes you are trying to get rid of.
Genuine conversion on matters of morality takes persuasion and experience. Nagging and condemnation are not going to get it done.
Agellius,
I appreciate you courteously engaging my arguments.
This is part of the new Vox Nova Service Agreement: we have to be nice to our customers!
I really should be busy grading, so instead of writing a more comprehensive response, let me respond to your points more or less in order.
With regards to “structures of sin”: they are all around us. Black, urban ghettos are the consequence of structures of sin: redlining, racial covenants, “steering” by realtors, all created this pockets of poverty racial isolation. Drug sentencing laws that treat blacks and whites differently (crack vs. powder cocaine). A justice system that incarcerates blacks and latinos at rates far higher than their numbers in society.
Here is a more pertinent example: “Compton cookouts”, “Pimps and Ho’s” parties and their ilk. These are, despite your assertions, not the result of young people “yanking the chain” of their liberal authority figures. This came up at my institution and based on extensive conversations with students it was clear that this is not what was going on. To them, these are “harmless fun” with no racial implications at all. So there is some cultural framework that makes crude, sick, racist humor “okay” to large numbers of white students.
Structures of sin are created by individual, sinful acts, usually intentional ones. The key point is that they compound on themselves, and shape how people see and react to people and events.
This is true, but in fact is a truism. Really, all you’re saying is that whites happen to be the majority in this country.
No, this is not a truism: it is a historical fact that has consequences. This is why we have “Compton cookouts” and nooses, but no symmetrical events. You speak hypothetically about if “black fraternity were to have a party where they made fun of how whites look and act” but can give no examples. I don’t believe any such examples exist. I raised this very point after the last “pimps and ho’s” party at my school, and a large group of minority faculty and students discussed this. Not only had no one ever heard of such a thing, no one thought it was something that minority students would ever do.
As far as “driving while black” or whatever other color, I can’t help being skeptical as to how widespread it is.
Here I do not think you are taking seriously the experiences of blacks and latinos. Heck, I have been stopped for the sole reason that I was a Mexican-American. The circumstances were such that I am absolutely certain of this. I did not read this through a racial lens: up until that point in my life I was not part of a minority community that could provide such an interpretation. But it was pretty clear to me what happened. This is what I meant in my original post when I said that whites in America can ignore race: since whites are not stopped for being white, this must be a hegemonic explanation, and so blacks are not stopped for being black—there must be another explanation.
This gets to the heart of the problem: in my experience and in the richer and broader experience of my minority students, acts of racism and racial discrimination still occur. The problem is not, as you say, “proving that it occurred” but rather getting the white majority to acknowledge that it is happening. I agree that with the dismantling of segregation and Jim Crow, racism has diminished. It has not been extirpated even in the public sphere, and I don’t think it has decreased as much as many whites would like to believe.
I am not interested in launching a crusade, or shaming or nagging anyone. My biggest goal, when I teach this, is to get my students to look critically at race in America, and to question their own preconceptions. This, in and of itself, makes a lot of students defensive, and I get accused of hating white people, or wanting white people to feel guilty about something “they never did” or “happened a long time ago”. More generally, at my school I am not interested in starting thought police: if four white students want to hide in their rooms and complain about minorities, fine. But when their private attitudes become public (as in the “Asians in the library” video), then this becomes a public problem with consequences. It is more than bad manners: it is hurtful, and in the context of America’s racist past, it sends a message that minority students are not welcome at the school. This is not my interpretation of the situation: this is what the students tell me. This came out most poignantly a few years ago when a student made a documentary about a series of racist incidents that occurred during his senior year. He called it “Someplace I call Home”. You can buy the DVD on line: I would recommend it.
David:
You write, “Here is a more pertinent example: “Compton cookouts”, “Pimps and Ho’s” parties and their ilk. These are, despite your assertions, not the result of young people “yanking the chain” of their liberal authority figures. … To them, these are “harmless fun” with no racial implications at all. So there is some cultural framework that makes crude, sick, racist humor “okay” to large numbers of white students.”
You misread me. I did not say the parties are the result of yanking chains. I said I suspect that placing nooses in public during the (inevitable) outcry resulting from the parties, is often yanking chains. The parties, I agree, are most likely considered harmless fun. And there is definitely a cultural framework that makes crude, sick humor OK. It’s called “youth and immaturity”.
Referring to the parties as “racist humor”, I think begs the question. I saw the pictures you linked to, and I submit that in most cases they were making fun of culture rather than race: Ghetto culture, gang culture, hip-hop culture. (Equating those things with “black people” in general would be a racist attitude.) Which, you know, even blacks themselves do. The movie “Don’t Be a Menace” is a classic example (as are numerous other movies): It’s all about making fun of ghetto and gangster culture. The primary difference between that movie and the parties we’re talking about, is that the actors in the movie are mostly black, whereas at the party they were white.
Does the skin color of the participants alone make an activity racist? If so, I see no logical reason why that attribution of racism itself should not be considered racist, since it’s based not on the activity per se, but solely on the skin color of those who engage in it.
You write, “You speak hypothetically about if “black fraternity were to have a party where they made fun of how whites look and act” but can give no examples. … I raised this very point after the last “pimps and ho’s” party at my school, and a large group of minority faculty and students discussed this. Not only had no one ever heard of such a thing, no one thought it was something that minority students would ever do.”
I don’t know whether that’s the most reliable source of information. In the context of a discussion of white racism, in which minority students are complaining of racist treatment by whites, is it surprising that they would deny that they themselves would ever do such a thing? I’m not saying they necessarily would. However, what about the movie “White Chicks”? What about Eddie Murphy’s (very funny) Saturday Night Live sketch in which he puts on white makeup and enters the “white world” to discover how white people really act when blacks are not around? Not to mention, again, Richard Pryor’s (and any number of other black comedians’) constant contrasts between the behavior of whites and blacks, in which he mocks the speech and alleged behavior patterns of whites?
This is not evidence of whether black frats would hold those kinds of parties, but it does show that minorities are not “above” mocking whites. (And why should they be?) Besides, who do you suppose constitute much of the audience for “White Chicks” or Murphy or Pryor (not to mention “Don’t Be a Menace”)?
I’m not saying these are bad things, not at all. Like most people, I consider them harmless. I just want them considered equally harmless when white college students do them, absent any evidence of hostile intent such as threats or violence.
You write, “My biggest goal, when I teach this, is to get my students to look critically at race in America, and to question their own preconceptions. This, in and of itself, makes a lot of students defensive, and I get accused of hating white people, or wanting white people to feel guilty about something “they never did” or “happened a long time ago”.”
I think they’ve got a point. When you lump “white people” together into a mass called “society”, and then call “society” racist, you are lumping all white Americans in with racists. And that’s quite simply offensive. Really no different from lumping all Muslims into a mass of people called “Islam”, and then calling “Islam” violent.
You write, “But when their private attitudes become public (as in the “Asians in the library” video), then this becomes a public problem with consequences.”
The fact that you call the library video a “public problem” illustrates my problem with your approach. What that girl did was in fact a private act. Yes, she posted it in a public forum, but she is an individual expressing her personal attitudes (which she has every right both to adhere to and to express), not the public attitudes of the society at large. (The public attitudes of society at large are expressed in the fact that she was forced to leave school.) To blame her attitude on whites or “society” in general, is what really bugs whites who are bending over backwards not to be racist, some of whom might be descendants of those who fought and died to end slavery, who overwhelmingly approved of civil rights laws, and who make up the vast bulk of public opinion resulting in people like Jimmy the Greek and Rush Limbaugh getting fired when they say things that are even debatably racist. (Oh, and who elected Barack Obama president.)
The glaring fact is that civil rights laws were not passed because blacks fought for it and demanded it. Black voters were and are a small minority of the electorate. Civil rights laws were passed because the majority of white voters agreed with them.
In short, if you would lay off the “society in general” stuff (which translates to “whites in general”), and instead present it as a minority of whites who are the problem — just as Muslims would like Americans to concentrate on the minority of Muslims who condone terrorism — and also talk about the fact that a minority of people of virtually every color and ethnicity also insult and make fun of people of other colors and ethnicities (Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing” makes this point very well as I recall) — I suspect you would get a lot less resistance.
Now that I’m thinking of it: Imagine a professor getting up in front of a class which is mostly Muslim, and lecturing them on how Islam as a whole condones terrorism and it needs to stop. With Israeli classmates also in the room. Would it be surprising if that went over like a lead balloon?
If you want whites to be more sensitive to where you are coming from, it might help if you were more sensitive to their point of view as well.
To clarify: By “whites” in my last sentence, I intended to refer specifically to your white students.
I have been very careful, in both my teaching and in the above posts (albeit implicitly) to distinguish between “racism” and “racists.” They are different. Someone can say something racist without being a racist. (In passing this seems to be a far more charitable stance.) I don’t think my students who hold “pimps and ho’s” parties are racists: I think the symbol set and stereotypes they are drawing are racist. I don’t blame a student for being unreflective; I try to help him/her reflect on what he/she is doing or saying. I am sensitive to their points of view, but I certainly do not privilege them, which, in the end, is what the most defensive students want: that their view of reality should be regarded as normative.
I am not going to drop the “society in general” approach, because any attempt to analyze racism solely in terms of individual acts is a woefully inadequate approach, both historically and in the contemporary world, to understanding questions of race.
And I am going to highlight and criticize our society on racial matters until these irruptions of racism die away.
I leave the final word to the USCCB, whose 1979 statement is as true today as when they wrote it in 1979:
The structures of our society are subtly racist, for these structures reflect the values which society upholds. They are geared to the success of the majority and the failure of the minority. Members of both groups give unwitting approval by accepting things as they are. Perhaps no single individual is to blame. The sinfulness is often anonymous but nonetheless real. The sin is social in nature in that each of us, in varying degrees, is responsible. All of us in some measure are accomplices. As our recent pastoral letter on moral values states: “The absence of personal fault for an evil does not absolve one of all responsibility. We must seek to resist and undo injustices we have not ceased, least we become bystanders who tacitly endorse evil and so share in guilt in it.”
As usually happens, neither of us seems to have changed the other’s mind. But I enjoyed the discourse and thanks again for letting me say my piece to my heart’s content. Not that I have any reason to expect any less from you personally, but I find it refreshing whenever I don’t have to worry about my comments being “moderated”.