I spent the bulk of my life as a minority. When I was seven years old, my family and I moved to Singapore – a country where the majority of the population is Chinese. I lived in Singapore until two years ago, when I came to this country for college. Even though I have been living in countries where I was a minority for two-thirds of my life, I had never directly encountered racism. I used to believe that racism was an archaic idea that had died out decades ago along with slavery and colonialism. I did not doubt that racial stereotyping was widespread or that people have an innate tendency to favor those of their own race. But the idea of a person disliking someone purely because of his race seemed too barbaric to be true in today’s multicultural world. I placed more trust in the existence of Santa Claus than in the existence of people who support segregation.
Unfortunately, my belief in Santa Claus was once again shattered over the past semester. Several events didn’t help, such as the alleged incident where college students urinated on and hurled racial slurs at a group of Asians, or my own personal experience when I ran into some girls who did not want to stay too long in an area because “there are a lot of Arabs around here,” didn’t help. But those incidents were not what made me change my outlook on society.
A few months ago, my friend showed me a white supremacist website. I do not want to mention its name, but suffice it to say that it is wildly popular. Its forums attract close to 35,000 visitors every day, some of whom claim to be students at our University, who openly speak out against diversity, clamor for segregation, sling racial slurs of the worst kind and proclaim that whites are genetically superior to everyone else. Posts about eugenics, the holocaust being a hoax and Martin Luther King Jr. being a despicable person are nothing out of the ordinary. What is more frightening is that not all the forums there are based on politics or white supremacist philosophy. Visitors frequent the forums to discuss a range of topics from homemaking to music and entertainment. To them, white supremacy is not just a topic – it’s a community and a way of life.
It is easy to dismiss these white supremacists as uneducated and lacking in intelligence. But what frightened me the most was that the majority of them are hardly uneducated or lacking in intelligence. They are able to pen very intelligent and eloquent arguments to support their cause. They are able to cite credible statistics and evidence to back up their claims. What frightened me the most was that these people are, by most definitions, smart people, and yet they are firm believers in white supremacy. These people are hardly the stereotypical hicks that come to mind when picturing racists. These people could be your neighbors, your co-workers or even the people interviewing you when you apply for jobs.
Over the past semester, I realized that racism has by no means been vanquished. It has simply gone underground. In today’s media, saying something that is even slightly controversial on touchy issues often results in an enormous backlash and endless personal attacks. It is thus hardly surprising that no one dares to openly espouse white supremacist beliefs. This is unfortunate because the best way to tackle racism is not to censor it or to use straw-man arguments, but to fight it head-on. As much as I disagree with and personally dislike white supremacists, their arguments and beliefs should be more fairly represented in the media. I would love to see The New York Times give a columnist spot to a white supremacist just so his arguments supporting segregation and the superiority of the white race can be discussed and debunked by experts.
As things stand right now, someone who starts developing nascent racist beliefs has no avenue through which he can openly discuss his thoughts. He never sees his beliefs discussed or debated fairly in the media, either. As a result, his thoughts stay inside his head and continue to fester. One day, he might stumble across a white supremacist website where he encounters convincing, quasi-valid arguments backed up by statistics from credible sources. With nothing else to dissuade him, he would end up becoming a believer in white supremacy – this is a life story that is frequently narrated by numerous white supremacists. If these same arguments were discussed in the media, more convincing counter-arguments would be brought up that can more effectively persuade people that white supremacist beliefs are flawed.
I used to believe that racism doesn’t exist anymore. Now I realize that it not only exists, but is all around us – it is a major problem that society needs to continue addressing. But we can’t fight racism simply by being more politically correct, shouting down those who make perceived quasi-racist remarks or by censoring all racist opinions. Doing so will only drive it underground where we can’t fight it at all. The best way to fight racism is by allowing people the opportunity to engage in open discourse, even if it involves sensitive topics. It is time to bring racism out into the open where it is at its weakest.
Prabhakar is an Engineering junior and a member of the Daily’s editorial board.