IN PRINCIPLE, Daniel Gantz's Oct. 27 "Self Proclaimed" comic, which depicted an enslaved black man, should not have been offensive. The cartoon merely depicted, satirically, the origins of the University honor code. Of course no one really believes that the honor code, which was started over a decade after Thomas Jefferson's death, was motivated by Jefferson's distrust of his slaves.
And few actually believe that Gantz, or any of the editors who stepped forward to defend Gantz, are racists. The most frequently offered defense of the cartoon is that it was intended to skewer the honor code, not African-Americans. In an interview, Cavalier Daily Editor-in-Chief Patrick Harvey said that he maintains the comic was not racist, though he did say that he sympathized with those who thought the comic was insensitive.
But to say something is not racist "in principle," or that something was not intended to be racist, is only to beg the question: What constitutes racism? When can we recognize something as racist? These questions lie at the core of our society, and it is not enough to dismiss them as either questions that can be answered with regard to abstract principle or individual intent, or as questions that have already been answered. Rather, they point to the underlying problem of mistrust within the University community as well as the country generally.
Race is a question which remains unresolved in our society. One thing we can do to mitigate racial tension, however, is to acknowledge race, to acknowledge the conflict. One further step we can take is to be sensitive, and to not dismiss racial concerns on the basis of colorblindness or other blithe explanations.
The "in principle" rationalization of racism is the most frequently employed defense. It is also the most plainly inadequate. Blacks have enjoyed full civil rights "in principle" since the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868. The "separate but equal" doctrine, the basic governing law of our society for 58 years, was nothing if not a reaffirmation of civil rights "in principle." It declared that blacks were entitled to equality, to equal facilities. But the peaceable separation of the races was race-neutral on its face; it did not implicate equality.
The key step made by the Brown v. Board decision of 1954 was to reject the "in principle" explanation. It did so by declaring the separate facilities unequal by reference to modern authority: that is, "psychological knowledge." It cited non-legal sources, sociological and psychological studies, Gunnar Myrdal's "American Dilemma." Citation of such sources was unheard of in common law and in previous Supreme Court decisions. Appeal to "principle" had previously been enough. Brown's citation of such sources is now widely mocked in legal circles, as many of the studies relied on by Brown were discredited. But the point holds: To reject racially based schooling, Brown had to rely on extra-legal authority.
Similarly, Gantz's comic was not inherently offensive. If members of the community found that the comic conveyed racially insensitive messages, that was merely their interpretation; there are other plausible ways of interpreting the comic. Gantz's comic could have been interpreted as a humorous slap at the honor code, as opposed to the assignation of blame on blacks for the honor code. Similarly, one can interpret the decision of South Carolina to fly the Confederate flag on state property as a neutral recognition of the Confederate war dead, as opposed to an endorsement of Confederate ideals. But whose interpretation can be deemed correct?
The "intent" argument falls victim to the same errors. The intent analysis is built on the implicit premise that the ends justify the means -- good intentions can justify bad outcomes. But is this really true? What if race is a deeply psychological construct, as has been argued, and ill intent and insensitivity always color decision-making?
Recognizing these difficulties, American public policy has been race-conscious since the civil rights era. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 targets discrimination against certain groups including blacks as a special concern -- not discrimination against anyone at any time. Otherwise, to overcome racial difficulties, the tendency is to pretend that if we do not talk about race, the problems will go away. As Enoch Powell observed almost 40 years ago, "Perhaps this habit goes back to the primitive belief that the word and the thing, the name and the object, are identical."
The underlying problem is one of distrust. Racial distrust permeates discourse in a segregated society like the one we live in. One needs only to look to the differing reactions to Hurricane Katrina -- or Gantz's comic -- to recognize this.
Honest racial discourse requires good faith; it requires good faith in believing that when people are tackling racial topics, they are doing so in good faith. No "objective" definition of what constitutes racism is possible in a community animated by distrust.
Noah Peters' column appears Mondays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at npeters@cavalierdaily.com.
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