- Abolish The Laws That Allow Racism
To Go Unchallenged
by G. Scott Mikalauskis
- America is a great country, blessed with more freedom, prosperity, and happiness than some countries dream of. At the moment, our country is under attack by a terrorist army determined to kill us. This is a grave threat, but it is one entirely external in origin; al-Qaeda is a problem not of our making.
America does have one problem of internal origin, and this is the pernicious irritant of racism. (even here we are fortunate; America's racial strife is nothing compared to the troubles experienced by countries like Israel and South Africa.) race relations are much improved from the past; no one is held in chattel slavery any more, and the South's Jim Crow laws are ancient history. Anti-discrimination laws ensure that everyone is treated equally. But despite our gains, mistrust still exists.
Certain demagogues among us make a career of exploiting this mistrust. They can take any perceived slight as proof of racism, and then make public accusations against their enemies. Such accusations are difficult to prove or refute because we can never know what beliefs are in another man's head. We can only know his actions. Given that fact, and given that the law prohibits all overtly racist acts (except speech), the demagogues may be able to keep themselves in business for ever. We can spot the idiot KKK crackpot who is dumb enough to open his mouth, but otherwise we can never really know who is and who is not a racist.
Now, racism itself is the doctrine that some races are inherently superior to others. This doctrine has been used to defend everything from colonial hegemony to genocide. I believe that in this day and age, any honest, unbiased thinker would have to conclude that racism as a proposition is demonstrably false. There are too many winners and losers of all colors for color in and of itself to be a factor in one's success.
To prevent racists-- those who are motivated by racist doctrine-- from further hurting members of "inferior" races, anti-discrimination laws exist. This forces a racist's behavior to conform under pain of legal sanction. Such laws have two unintended consequences. First, the racist has every reason to maintain his beliefs because he never has an opportunity to test them against reality. Second, these laws prevent closet racists from ever being identified.
The main thrust of anti-discrimination laws deal with work issues. companies are permitted to discriminate against neither their employees nor their customers. But are such laws still necessary? We have reached a point where non-discrimination is just good business. Suppose, for example, that McDonald's decided it would no longer hire blacks for management positions, and Burger King began systematically charging blacks 20% more than it charges other customers. This would cut off McDonald's from a tremendous pool of talent, and it would drastically reduce the size of Burger King's market. Wendy's would be the nation's top burger chain by the end of the year.
Therefore, if we are serious about bringing an end to racism, I propose we abolish anti-discrimination laws. Give racists the freedom to practice their ideas in the light of day. Give racists the freedom to act. (I do not mean that we should legalize violent crimes like lynchings, obviously, but permit them to hire, fire, and serve whom they please.) This will give intelligent companies the chance to find and root out racist employees, and it will force companies that pursue discriminatory policies to face hard economic reality. As those companies struggle and fail, the racists that they employ will be forced to rethink their beliefs. As for the rest of us, we would finally be free to create a happy, prosperous, and racially harmonious society. We do not need to fear a lie like racism.
