Category: Race

When people accuse some people of being a racist, they sometimes use a two-part strategy. First, they can deny this. They can even pretend they do not understand how language works or have any recollection of history. Second, they can accuse critics of being racists. This strategy is commonly used to “refute” criticism of sexism and racism. But does it have any merit as an argument? To assess it, I will use the principle of charity and try to make the best version of the argument.

One common opening move in the argument is to deny or downplay discrimination against minorities. Since I am trying to make the most plausible version of this argument, this version will not deny that discrimination and racism did exist. After all, the claim is not that racism and discrimination never existed, just that it either does not exist now or is far less bad than critics claim.

When making this case, the most plausible way is to point to civil rights and anti-discrimination laws. And, of course, one must mention President Obama. When critics point to modern examples of discrimination and racism, the counter is that while modern cases exist, they are rare. For example, one might acknowledge that there are racist police, but they are “a few bad apples.” One might accept that there are racists who say and do racist things, but they are a small number and when they discriminate or use violence, their actions are illegal. Because of this, one would argue, it is fair to criticize the specific racist cop or condemn that particular white supremacist who committed murder. But to speak of systematic racism would be to speak of something that, one might claim, no longer exists.

So, if there is no systematic racism, then those who criticize it are criticizing an illusion. Worse, the argument goes, those who speak of systematic racism involving whites are unfairly and wrongly accusing white people of crimes they are not committing. To illustrate, to speak of white privilege is to claim that white people enjoy advantages over minorities and is to accuse them of being engaged in systematic racism. But since there is no systematic racism on the part of whites, the accuser must be the real racist. After all, they are acting on an unfounded prejudice and attacking people based on their being white.  Thus, those who accuse white people of being bigots and racists are alleged to be the real bigots and racists.

One weak point of this version is that holding that racism is just limited to a “few bad apples” is that there is abundant evidence discrimination exists and is more than just a few bad apples. But this more plausible version can be incorporated into the argument. In this version, it can be accepted that racism against minorities does exist, but racism and against white people is on par with this racism. Roughly put, if it is implausible to deny the existence of racism against minorities, one can instead argue that whites are now equal (or greater) victims of racism.

On this revised version, a white person could accept racism exists, but insist they are not a racist and they are a victim of racism against whites. They would be victims, one infers, because they have been accused of being racist because they are white and not because evidence, they are racists. If they wished to go beyond defending themselves, they could contend whites in general are not racist and hence the critics of racism (against minorities) are bigoted against whites by condemning all whites because of some racist whites. But is this a good argument?

When assessing any argument, there are two general questions. The first is: “is the reasoning good?” The second is: “are the premises true or at least plausible?” One can reason well with untrue claims, reason badly with true claims and so on. Such, we need to assess the above reasoning both in terms of quality of the logic and the plausibility of the claims.

On the face of it, the logic of the argument mirrors good arguments about racism and discrimination:

 

Premise 1: Person P is accused of being X by person Q.

Premise 2: The only evidence given by Q for P being X is that they are of race R.

Premise 3: P’s being R is irrelevant to proving P is X.

Conclusion: Q is being a racist.

 

As an example:

 

Premise 1: Barry is accused of being a racist by Karen.

Premise 2: The only evidence given by Karen for Barry being a racist is that Barry is white.

Premise 3: Barry’s being white is irrelevant to proving Barry is a racist.

Conclusion: Karen is being a racist.

 

But what if someone presents evidence that P is X that is not just based on race?

 

Premise 1: Person P is accused of being X by person Q.

Premise 2: The evidence given by Q for P being X is E (which is not based on P’s race).

Premise 3: P denies E.

Conclusion: Q is being a racist.

 

This is clearly bad logic; although it also does not follow that Q is not being racist—it neither proves nor disproves this. To illustrate:

 

Premise 1: Barry is accused of being a racist by Karen.

Premise 2: The evidence given by Karen for Barry being a racist is an abundance of racist tweets, statements, policies, actions and so on.

Premise 3: Barry denies the evidence and says he is not a racist.

Conclusion: Karen is being a racist.

 

This is also bad logic; denying the evidence does not prove that Karen is a racist. She could, of course, be a racist—but this bad logic does nothing to prove it.

What some people accused of racism do, it seems, is trying to run the first argument. This would be smart, since the reasoning seems solid. Those critical of a racist would contend that the racist cannot use the first argument because the second premise is false. Instead, a racist can only use the second argument in which they deny they are a racist and claims their critics are racist.

The battle, as one would expect, comes down to the truth of the claims rather than the logic. For the “you’re the racist” defense to be a good argument (good logic and plausible premises), then he would need to establish key claims. The exact claims would depend on which specific strategy is being used. Those who claim that racism against minorities no longer exists would need to prove that.  This seems unlikely given the body of existing evidence. Those who claim that it is not as bad as is claimed by expert critics (and not straw people) would need to prove that. Those who claim that discrimination against whites exists and that it is comparable to racism against minorities would need to prove that. An alleged racist would also need to show that the evidence presented that they are racists does not support this claim. Finally, they would need to show that those accusing them of racism are acting from bigotry against whites. Just showing that they are not a racist would not show those accusing him are. They could be wrong, but it would not follow that they are racist.

 The overwhelming evidence is that we white people are not the victims of racial discrimination, despite the claim that we are the real victims of racism.  White people are, however, often right to see themselves as victims—of Trump’s policies.  Most white people do face challenges: corporations have moved jobs overseas, wages have been stagnant, health care is expensive, an opioid epidemic has been ravaging America, and the grotesque mismanagement of the pandemic did incredibly harm. But these are not the result of  white people being white nor of minorities discriminating against whites. Rather, these are the result of the political, economic and social system that has been crafted over the decades—one that hurts everyone who is not rich enough to fare well in this dystopia.

In another way, the matter is also resolved: the lines are drawn, the hats are on and few are switching teams at this late date.

As noted in previous essays, Wizards of the Coast (WotC) created a stir when they posted an article on diversity and D&D. The company made some minor changes to the 2024 version of the game which generated some manufactured controversy.  The company took the approach of “portraying all the peoples of D&D in relatable ways and making it clear that they are as free as humans to decide who they are and what they do.” They also decided to make a change that “offers a way for a player to customize their character’s origin, including the option to change the ability score increases that come from being an elf, a dwarf, or one of D&D’s many other playable folk. This option emphasizes that each person in the game is an individual with capabilities all their own.”

While the AD&D Monster Manual allowed individual monsters to vary in alignment and Dungeon Masters have always broken racial stereotypes in their campaigns, there has also been a common practice to portray races and species in accord with established in-game stereotypes. Drow and orcs are traditionally monstrous and evil while elves and dwarves are usually friendly and good.

AD&D also established the idea that fantasy races have specific physical and mental traits. AD&D also set minimum and maximum scores for the game stats. For example, half-orcs have a maximum Intelligence score of 17, a Wisdom score limit of 14, and their highest possible Charisma is 12. The game also divided characters by sex; females of all the races could not be as strong as the males. A PC’s race also limited what class they could take and how far they could progress. Going back to half-orcs, they could not be druids, paladins, rangers, magic users, illusionists, or monks. They could be clerics, fighters or thieves, albeit with limits on their maximum level. They were, however, able to level without racial limits as assassins. This is why AD&D players are suspicious of half-orc PCs; they are probably evil assassins. As a side note, the only PCs I have killed as a player have been half-orc assassins who decided tried to assassinate me. Given that race has been such an important part of D&D, it is no wonder the changes upset some players.

While some assume all critics of the changes are racist, I will not make that mistake. There are good, non-racist arguments for not changing the game. The problem is that racists (or trolls using racism) also use the same arguments. A difference between the two, aside from the racism, is that honest critics are arguing in good faith while racists (and trolls using racism) are arguing in bad faith. The main distinction is in their goals: a good faith critic opposes the changes for reasons they give in public. Those arguing in bad faith conceal their true motives and goals.

Some claim the people making the bad faith arguments are probably just trolls and not racists. But this distinction does not matter. Consider the following analogy. Imagine Sally takes communion at church. The wine tastes odd and later someone Tweets at her “did u like the atheist piss in ur blood of Christ? Lol!” Consider these three options. First, the person does not have a real commitment to atheism and is just trolling Sally to get a reaction. Second, the person hates Sally personally and was out to get her. Third, the person is an atheist who hates religious people and went after Sally because she is religious.

On the one hand, the person’s motives do not really matter: Sally still drank their urine. That is, the harm done does not depend on why it is done.  On the other hand, one can debate the relative badness of the motivations—but this does not seem to change the harm. Going back to racism, the person’s motivation does not matter in terms of the harm they cause by defending and advancing racism. Now, to the argument.

A good-faith argument can be made by claiming there is in-game value of having distinct character races, such as allowing people different experiences. Just as having only one character class would be dull, only having one basic race to play would also be dull. So, just as the classes should be meaningfully different, so too should the fictional races. While there are legitimate concerns about how racists can exploit the idea that races differ in abilities, it can also be argued that people understand the distinction between the mechanics of the fantasy world and reality. It can also be argued that we can stop the slippery slope slide from accepting fantasy races as different while not embracing real-world racism. One could even make a positive argument: people playing the game get accustomed to fictional diversity and recognize that PCs of different types bring different strengths to the party, something that extends analogically to the real world.

Unfortunately, this same sort of argument can be used in bad faith. One tactic is to use this argument but then slide into alleged differences between real people and then slide into actual racism. As a concrete example, I have seen people begin with what seems to be a reasonable discussion of D&D races that soon becomes corrupt. One common racist (or troll) tactic is to start by bringing up how D&D has subraces for many PC races. There are subraces of elves, dwarves, halflings and others that have different abilities. The clever racist (or troll) will suggest there should be human subraces in the game. On the face of it, this seems fine: they are following what is already established in the game. At this point, the person could still be a non-racist who likes the idea of fantasy subraces and thinks it would be cool to have different options when they play a human. But the racist will move on to make references to real-world ethnic groups, asking how one would stat whites, Asians, African-Americans and so on. The person can insist that they are just following the logic of the game and they seem to be right. After all, if the game has many sub-races with meaningful differences, then the same could apply to humans. And this is exactly how a racist can exploit this aspect of the game. A persuasive racist can convince people that they never moved from discussing D&D into racism and they can use the honest critics as cover. This shows why the change has merit, it could deny racists a tool.

Being an old school gamer, I do like the idea of distinct races in games. This is because of the variety they offer for making characters. While I do not want to yield this to the racists, I can see the need for a change to counter the racists. This would be yet another thing made worse by racists.

A second argument is a reductio ad absurdum argument. The idea is to assume that something is true and then derive an absurdity or contradiction from this assumption. This shows that assumption is false. In the case of races in D&D, some people have noted that the proposed approach would logically lead to all creatures in the game being the same. One person, I recall, asserted that the proposed changes entail that tigers and beholders would have the same stats. Another person joked (?) that this would also mean that gnolls would be “friendly puppers.” The idea was, of course, to show that assuming the changes should be accepted would lead to absurd results: no one wants monsters to all have the same stats and no one wants all the game creatures to be good. 

While this could be a good faith argument, there are some concerns. One is that reducing the changes to absurdity in this manner seems to require using the slippery slope fallacy or at least hyperbole and the straw man fallacy. No one is seriously proposing to give all monsters the same statistics or that they will all be morally good. In terms of the slippery slope, no reason has been given that WotC would take the changes to these absurd extremes. At best these would be poor good faith arguments. Depending on where a person goes with them, they could also be bad faith arguments; after all, they do mirror the real-world racist arguments that claim it is absurd to think everyone is perfectly equal and then argue for racism.

I obviously do not think that all monsters should have identical stats nor that all monsters should be good. But this is consistent with the changes and one can easily adopt them and avoid the slippery slope slide into absurdity. In closing, whatever changes WotC makes to D&D, they have no control over what people can do in their own campaigns.

When the culture war opened a gaming front, I began to see racist posts in gaming groups on Facebook and other social media. Seeing these posts, I wondered whether they are made by gamers who are racists, racists who game or merely trolls (internet, not D&D).

Gamers who are racists are actual gamers that are also racists. Racists who play games (or pretend to play them) are doing so as a means to recruit others into racism. While right-wing hate groups recruit video gamers, there seems to be no significant research into recruitment through tabletop games like D&D. My discussion does not require any racists who game; all that is needed is gamers who are racist. Unfortunately, you can easily find them on social media.

An easy way to summon racists is to begin a discussion of diversity in gaming or mention of the revised 2024 rules. But surely there are non-racists who disagree with diversity in gaming and the changes WotC has made in the 2024 rules? Is it not hyperbole and a straw man to cast all critics of diversity as racists? This is a fair and excellent point: to assume every critic of diversity and the game changes is a racist would be bad reasoning. But while some racists are openly racist, others use stealth. They advance arguments that seem reasonable and non-racist while occasionally letting a hint of racism show through. But not so much racism that it cannot be plausibly denied.

There is also another problem: the honest non-racist critic and a stealthy racist will often advance the same arguments. So, what is the difference, other than the racism? The answer is that the critic is arguing in good faith while the racist is arguing in bad faith.

As a philosopher, I will start with the philosophical definition of an argument. In philosophy, an argument is a set of claims, one of which is supposed to be supported by the others. There are two types of claims in an argument. The first type of claim is the conclusion.  This is the claim that is supposed to be supported by the premises. A single argument has one and only one conclusion, although the conclusion of one argument can be used as a premise in another argument.

The second type of claim is the premise. A premise is a claim given as evidence or a reason to logically accept the conclusion. Aside from practical concerns, there is no limit to the number of premises in an argument. When assessing any argument there are two factors to consider: the quality of the premises and the quality of the reasoning. The objective of philosophical argumentation is to make a good argument with true (or at least plausible) premises. Roughly put, the goal is to reach the truth.

Philosophical argumentation is different from persuasion as the goal of persuasion is to get the audience to believe a claim whether it is true or false. As Aristotle noted, philosophical argumentation is weak as persuasion. Empty rhetoric and fallacies (errors in reasoning) have greater psychological force (though they lack all logical force). The stage is thus set to talk about bad faith.

The foundation of arguing in good faith is the acceptance of the philosophical definition of argument: the goal is to provide plausible premises and good reasoning to reach the truth. This entails that the person must avoid intentionally committing fallacies, knowingly making false claims, and misusing rhetoric. A person can, of course, still employ persuasive techniques. Good faith argumentation does not require debating like a stereotypical robot or being dull as dust. But good faith argumentation precludes knowingly substituting rhetoric for reasons. A person can, in good faith, argue badly and even unintentionally commit fallacies because a person can make bad arguments in good faith. A person can, obviously, also make untrue claims when arguing in good faith. But as long as these are errors  rather than lies and the person put in effort to check their claims, then they can still be arguing in good faith. 

Arguing in good faith also requires that the person be honest about whether they believe their claims and whether they believe their reasoning is good. A person need not believe what they are arguing for, since a person can advance an argument, they disagree with as part of a good faith discussion. For example, I routinely present arguments that oppose my own views when I am doing philosophy.

One must also be honest about one’s goals when arguing from good faith. To illustrate, a critic of changes to D&D who is open about their belief that they are detrimental to D&D would be acting in good faith. A racist who argues against changes in D&D hoping to lure people into racism while concealing their motives would be arguing in bad faith. As would be suspected, a clever racist will conceal their true motives when trying to radicalize the normies. There is also the possibility that a person is trolling. But if someone is trolling with racism it does not matter that they are a troll for they are still doing the racist’s work for them.

While there are objective methods for sorting out the quality of arguments and the truth of claims, determining motives and thoughts can be hard. As such, while I can easily tell when someone is committing an ad hominem fallacy, I cannot always tell when someone is engaged in bad faith argumentation. This is more in the field of psychology than philosophy as it involves discerning motives and intentions. However, sorting out motives and intents is something we all do, and we can divine from a person’s actions and words what their motives and intents might be. But we should use caution before accusing someone of arguing in bad faith and this accusation certainly should not be used as a bad faith tactic. To use accusations of bad faith as a rhetorical device or an ad hominem would be bad faith argumentation and would, of course, prove nothing. But why should people argue in good faith?

There are two broad reasons why people should do so. The first is ethical: arguing in good faith is being honest and arguing in bad faith is deceitful.  Obviously, one could counter this by arguing against honesty and in favor of deceit. The second is grounded in critical thinking: bad faith argumentation generally involves bad logic, untruths, and a lack of clarity. As such, arguing in good faith is ethical and rational. Bad faith argumentation is the opposite. Why, then, do people argue in bad faith?

One reason is that bad faith reasoning can work well as persuasion. If one rejects truth as the goal and instead focuses on winning, then bad faith argumentation would be the “better” choice. 

A second reason is that a person might risk harm, such as social backlash, for arguing their views in good faith. In such cases, hiding their views would be prudent. As a good example, a person who wants to get people to accept human rights in a dictatorship might argue in bad faith, hoping to “trojan horse” people into accepting their views. If they openly argued for human rights, they risk being imprisoned or killed. As an evil example, a racist might argue in bad faith, hoping to “trojan horse” people into accepting their views. If they were openly racist in a D&D Facebook group, they would face censure and might be kicked out of the group. So arguing acting in bad faith is the only way they will be able to poison the group from the inside. A third reason is that bad faith reasoning can lure people down a path they would not follow if it were honestly labeled. Such a use does raise moral questions; some might advance a utilitarian argument to defend its use for good while others might condemn such deceit even if it is alleged it is to achieve a good end.

In the next essay I will look at some arguments against some of WotC’s policies that can be made in good or bad faith

A few years ago the owners of D&D, Wizards of the Coast, issued an article on diversity. In the previous essay, I advanced two arguments in defense of some of what Wizards proposed. One is the utilitarian argument stolen from Plato that harmful aspects of art can harm a person’s character and could increase their chances of behaving badly in the real world. The second is a Kantian style argument that it does not matter whether immoral content causes harm, what matters is that the content is immoral. I ended the essay noting an obvious concern with my argument: the same reasoning would seem to apply to two core aspects of D&D: killing and looting.

As an aside, I lived through the Satanic Panic D&D faced in the 1980s. The argument against D&D was like Plato’s argument but with a Christian modification that D&D would lead people to Satanism and other cults. Like most other moral panics from the right, this was debunked long ago. Now back to killing and theft.

Using Plato’s argument as a template, it is easy to argue that violence and looting should be removed from D&D: engaging in fictional violence and theft could corrupt people and make them more likely to behave badly in real life. I can also reuse the Kantian argument: even if hacking up dragons and looting their hoards had no impact on people, allowing the immoral content of killing and stealing would be immoral. This would allow for an argument from analogy: if D&D should be cleansed of racist elements for moral reasons, then it should also be cleansed of violence and theft on moral grounds. There are two main options in terms of where this reasoning should take us.

The first is to accept the analogy and agree D&D should also be cleansed of violence and theft. This would radically change the game, although some people have run violence-free campaigns. The second is to take this analogy as a reductio ad absurdum of the original argument. If using the same logic (what is known as parity of reasoning) leads to an absurd conclusion, then this can be taken as refuting arguments with the same logic. A well-known example of this is philosophy is Gaunilo’s reply to St. Anselm’s ontological argument.

Since D&D is inherently a game of combat and looting, it would be absurd to remove these elements. This would be analogous to removing cars from NASCAR. Since the violence argument is reduced to absurdity, the diversity argument is absurd as well. D&D should remain unchanged: killing, looting and no diversity changes. While this line of reasoning is appealing, it can be challenged.

For this reasoning to be good,  fictional violence and theft must be analogous to fictional racism within the game. Interestingly, someone agreeing with this reasoning would need to agree that racism, killing and looting are all bad but they should not be removed from the game. Someone who thinks that racism, killing, and looting are all morally fine would not need to make the absurdity argument. They could just argue there is no moral reason to remove any of these from the game. So, can a person believe that killing, stealing and racism are bad while consistently supporting diversity on moral grounds while also allowing in game killing and looting? The answer is “yes” and supporting this requires arguing that the analogy between killing and racism breaks down.

The obvious way to do this is to point out a relevant difference between racism and killing: while racism seems to always be wrong, there are arguments that support morally acceptable violence. These include such things as Locke’s moral argument for self-defense and centuries of work in just war theory. In contrast, there seem to be no good forms of racism or cases in which racism is morally defensible. While someone might use violence for self-defense against a wrongful attack and be morally justified, there seem to be no cases of racism in self-defense: that one must use morally acceptable racism to protect oneself against wrongful racism. Likewise, there is no body of ethics that constitutes just racism theory. To be fair to the racists, they could argue in favor of the ethics of racism and I certainly invite good faith efforts to publicly make such a case.

Because there are moral distinctions in violence, D&D could include ethical violence with no moral problem. It would not be corrupting, nor would it be inherently evil. In D&D people typically play heroes doing heroic deeds such as fighting evil foes and looting their foes to continue their heroic efforts. There are, however, three obvious counters to this argument.

One is that there are arguments that violence is always wrong, and one could be a moral absolutist about violence. If violence is always wrong, then it would be wrong to include it in D&D. While not without its problems, pacifism is a coherent moral view and would certainly make D&D morally problematic if it were correct.

The second is that people play non-good and even evil characters in D&D who engage in evil acts of violence. I have played evil characters myself, my favorite being my delusional anti-paladin D’ko.  One could argue that playing evil PCs would be immoral. The obvious reply is that if one is playing the role and it is not impacting the person, then there would be no moral problem: no one is being harmed, and the evil deeds are fictional. If someone were to get into the role too much and engage in behavior that did hurt other people then that would be wrong as real harm would be done. This could even be harm done at the table. For example, a player who has their character rape defeated foes and graphically describes this to the other players could be doing real harm.  Also, a Kantian might disagree about the distinction between fictional and real evil and argue that to will evil even in play would still be evil.

The third is that even in games where all the PCs are good (or at least not evil), the DM must take on the role of any evil NPCs the players interact with and engage in fictional acts of evil. As such, it would seem hard to avoid including unjust violence in D&D. From a utilitarian perspective, this would be morally acceptable if the fictional violence did no harm, either in terms of corrupting people or inflicting suffering on those involved. Again, a Kantian approach might forbid even harmlessly playing an evil being as a DM but some Kantians are notorious as killjoys.

As my closing argument, I contend there is a meaningful distinction between playing an evil character doing evil acts of fictional violence and having the game content mirror the racism of the real world. To use an obvious analogy, this is the distinction between an actor playing the role of a racist in a movie and knowingly acting in a movie that serves as racist propaganda.  As such, D&D can retain violence, and players can play evil characters (within limits) while avoiding moral harms. But the racism should certainly go.

As COVID-19 ravaged humanity, xenophobia and racism remained alive and well. For example, an Iranian leader  played on fears of America and Israel. He advanced, without evidence, the claim that the virus was created specifically to target Iranians. In addition to conspiracy theories that the Chinese engineered the virus (either to reduce their own population or for use against other nations) there was also a worldwide rise in xenophobia and racism against Asians.

One reason for the xenophobia and racism is that people were looking for a visible enemy upon which to take out their fear and anger. Many people felt helpless and afraid during the pandemic and as humans are inclined to focus on other humans as threats, there was a rise in xenophobia and racism. People are also inclined to seek an intelligence behind dangers, as they did when they attributed natural disasters to gods. Since humans suffer from in group bias and evil leaders feed xenophobia and racism, it is no surprise that people are sought a scapegoat for the  crisis: someone must be to blame. Someone must pay.

The United States, with a long tradition of racism against Asians, saw an increase in xenophobia and racism. While most incidents were limited to verbal hostility, racism in the context of disease raises serious concerns. The United States has a history of weaponizing racism in the context of diseases and we should be on guard against this, because leaders try to appeal to their base and divert attention away from their failings. An example of an American leader’s effort to use xenophobia and racism is Donald Trump using the term “Chinese virus” in place of “coronavirus” or “COVID-19.”

Trump did have excellent, albeit evil, reasons to use these terms. One is that it appeals to parts of his base. This dog whistle sends the message he is speaking to them.  A second reason is that it shifted blame from Trump’s inept and harmful early handling of the pandemic. By presenting it as a Chinese virus Trump created the appearance the threat is the responsibility of a foreign power (and people) and attempted to mitigate his responsibility. Third, it helped create an “us versus them” mentality, with the “them” being other people rather than the virus. Unfortunately, while Trump gained some apparent advantages from this approach, it came with a high cost.

There are those who will defend Trump and take issue with my criticism of him. My first response is that Trump is just an example for the problem of xenophobia and racism. If a Trump defender claims he was not engaged in any racism or xenophobia, then I would refer to the United States being blamed by other for the virus. I suspect a Trump supporter would agree that the xenophobia of other countries towards the United States was not helpful and was, in fact, detrimental.

My second response is that Trump engaged in in open racism and xenophobia. He used the well-worn xenophobic and racist trope of the foreign disease and the diseased foreigner—which was also used in the racism aimed at the allegedly diseased caravans heading towards the United States from the south. That Trump’s defenders had to engage in relentless efforts to explain away his seemingly racist claims undercuts their own case. One would have needed to argue Trump unintentionally but constantly used racist tropes and language. While not impossible, it does strain the boundaries of possibility.

Another piece of evidence is that Trump used his infamous sharpie to cross out “Corona” in his speech and replace it with “Chinese”, showing his use was intended, rather than a slip.  His defenders could engage in verbal gymnastics to explain this. One strategy was to argue Trump used the phrase “Chinese virus” as “Spanish flu” was used. While this approach has some appeal, using the phrase “Spanish flu” is also problematic. Labeling a disease with a specific country or ethnicity tends to lead to stigma and racism. As such, using the “Spanish Flu” defense is like defending the use of “wetback” by saying that people also used “wop.”

A second strategy is to argue that Trump was just referring to where it came from and, for bonus points, one can point out that it was originally called the “Wu Han virus.” One can say that it cannot have been racist or xenophobic for Trump to use “Chinese virus” because the Chinese used “Wu Han virus.” The easy and obvious reply is that the use of the term “Wu Han virus” was also seen as problematic, for the same reasons that “Spanish flu” and “Chinese virus” are problematic. To use an analogy, this would be like a Chinese leader talking about “Caucasian flu” and saying that was just fine because, for example, Americans first started using a term like “Connecticut flu” when the disease first appeared in Connecticut. Since Trump decided to refer to it as the “Chinese flu” and there are no good reasons to use that term, the best explanation is the obvious one: Trump used a xenophobic and racist dog whistle, cashing in on the well-worn trope of the diseased foreigner and the foreign disease. For those who would try to present this in a positive light, one must ask why do this? And why defend him against the umpteenth reasonable charge of racism and xenophobia?

As noted above, there was already racism and xenophobia against Asians (and Asian Americans) and Trump’s insistence on calling it the “Chinese virus” was likely to have contributed to the uptick in such incidents. Using this sort of label also put the United States at odds with other counties. And other countries blaming us had the same effect. Having Americans turn against other Americans is harmful, especially during a crisis in which community unity is an important part of our survival toolkit. It is also harmful to create conflict between nations when cooperation will improve our response to pandemics. A pandemic is a war between humans and a disease. Creating conflict between humans might serve the selfish goals of some leaders, but it harms humanity. As such, a key lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic is that using racism and xenophobia will only make things worse. As it always does.

Since most Americans find overt racism unpalatable, racist politicians and pragmatic exploiters of racism need to avoid it. However, they want to recruit and advance their agenda, so they need to express their racism while maintaining plausible deniability.  The example I will focus on involves racism and migration.

If a politician said, “I will build a wall to protect the purity of the white race from becoming mongrelized by the brown rapists swarming across our border” they would normally not last very long in office. If a recruiter for the alt right said to “normies” that “the inferior non-white races are defiling our women and robbing us our blood and soil…let me also warn you of the covetous Jew…” they would not be very effective at turning normal folks into racists. But racists need a way to get the message out in public while also denying they are racists. This is where dog whistles, coded language and chocolate chipping (see my essay on this) come in. The basic idea is presenting racism in a way that does not seem racist.

When it comes to migration, open racism is not always effective in the public arena. Fortunately for the racist, centuries of American racism against migrants provide tools to lure in non-racists and allow plausible deniability. These tools are effective because they involve presenting concerns that can also be rational and non-racist.

One approach is presenting migrants as criminals who are coming here to commit crimes. It is rational to be concerned about crime and being worried about crime does not make a person a racist. As such, casting migrants as criminals allows a racist to appeal to non-racists and if pressed, they can say they are not racists. They are just worried about crime.

Another tactic is to associate migrants with disease, the claim is they are bringing diseases that will infect us. As with crime, it is rational to be concerned about disease and this does not make a person a racist. This also allows racists to appeal to non-racists and gives them cover in the form of a professed concern about health.

A third tactic is to assert that migrants are causing economic harm by stealing American jobs and exploiting social services like schools, food stamps and welfare. It is sensible to be worried about economic harms and such worries do not make one a racist. Once again, this tactic provides a cloak for the racist, they can deny their racism and assert they are just looking out for American jobs and protecting the taxpayer.

Since it is rational to be concerned about crime, disease and economic harms, how can one discern a non-racist from a racist? While this method is not foolproof, the logical way is to use the facts.

While migrants do commit crimes, they commit crimes at a rate lower than native born Americans. While having more migrants does entail more crime, so does having more babies since more people results in more crime. As such, reducing migration to reduce crime makes as much sense as lowering birth rates to fight crime. That is, not much sense. If one has doubts about migrants and crime, one can examine the police data to see the truth.

While migrants do get sick, they do not present a significant health risk when one considers that Americans are already infecting each other. It is, of course, rational to be concerned that war-torn countries and failing countries might be suffering from a decline in vaccination. But Americans are also falling behind in their vaccination rates, so this is not a threat unique to migrants. As this is being written, Americans are far more at risk to get Measles from Texans and Floridians than migrants.  In any case, worries about vaccinations and disease are better addressed by health care solutions rather than broad migration policies. Examination of health data will show that migrants are not a special health threat. That said, pandemics and epidemics can create special situations that justify restricting travel.

While it is true that illegal migrants can lower wages because businesses engage in illegal hiring practices and can exploit undocumented workers, illegal migrants are not stealing jobs. Rather, they are given jobs illegally. Migrants that are here legally are also not stealing jobs; they are being hired.

The main reasons Americans lose jobs is not because migrants take them. Rather the causes tend to be technological change (such as automation), economic factors (such as natural gas being cheaper than coal), and decisions by business leaders (such as sending jobs overseas). As far as checking on whether migrants have stolen jobs, think about this: how many legally run American businesses have fired American workers and replaced them with migrants here in America? Is there, for example, a big GM plant being operated entirely by Mexicans? There are, of course, American owned plants in Mexico and other countries, but that is because of decisions made by the companies and not due to migrants dragging plants across the border.

If someone endorses harsh migration policies and professes it is because of their concerns about crime, disease and economic harms, the method to test them is to present the facts of the matter. If the person is not a racist, they will be willing to reconsider their position. After all, if they favor harsh migration polices because they believe that they would meaningfully reduce crime and they learn that they will not, they should change their position. If the facts have no impact on their position, then that serves as evidence that just rejects facts or are a racist.

It might be objected that someone could argue migrants are disease carrying criminals who come here to steal jobs and exploit the social system without being racists. While this is possible, they would need to prove their claims and thus overturn all evidence to the contrary. It is also worth noting that the notion that migrants are disease carrying criminals is a an old one. If your family is not pure WASP, it is likely the same was said about your family. So, which is more likely: that past and present migrants were or are disease carrying criminals coming here to steal jobs or that these assertions are just tired racism hidden under a badly worn and threadbare cloak of deceit?

A few years ago, Gucci created controversy with its black balaclava jumper. The jumper could be pulled up to cover a person’s mouth and featured big red lips that echoed blackface. The designer refuted this, claiming he was inspired by the works of a performance artist Leigh Bowery. Katy Perry, no stranger to accusations of cultural appropriation, was also accused of having blackface shoes in her line of shoes. Her defenders noted that these shoes come in many colors and all have the same face. Unlike cases when a person wears blackface, cases such as the Gucci and Perry incidents admit of ambiguity  and allow room for plausible denial. While the United States had a brief phase in which Black Lives Mattered, the pushback efforts have yielded fruit, and it seems reasonable to re-consider topics such as black face.

One approach to determining whether an object, like a shoe, is a form of black face is to consider the creator’s likely intentions. If a designer did not intend to create a blackface object, then it would seem reasonable to infer that the object is not a work of blackface. This is because being a blackface object is more than how an object looks; it must be created (or used) for that purpose.

In support of this view, it can be argued that since an object of blackface is racist, it requires racist intent to create it. A person who creates an object that looks like a blackface object without racist intent cannot be justly accused of racism. To use an analogy, suppose a designer created something in which some see pornographic images.  If the designer did not intend this, they should not be considered pornographers, and the work should not be considered pornography.

As a practical matter, the challenge is determining intent. While this can be difficult, the sensible approach is to consider the person’s history and their explanation of their inspiration and goals. If they have no history of racism and deny that they intended to create a blackface object, then it would be reasonable to believe them.

It could be objected that the creators cannot plead ignorance. While they might not have intended the works to be blackface objects, they should have realized how they would be seen. After all, anyone familiar with American culture and history should recognize such objects and they should be aware of the consequences of selling them. To use an analogy, a designer who unintentionally creates a work that would obviously be seen as pornographic, should be aware of this. If they put it on sale while denying awareness, then they would be selling pornographic images.

It could be replied that a creator might be unaware of the history of blackface or that they do not see the objects as blackface objects. Using the pornography example, a designer might be unable to see what other people think they see. If a designer has no knowledge of the history of blackface or cannot see that their work would be seen as blackface, then they could be excused. Some might insist that they should be aware of history and that they cannot honestly say that they did not see a problem before it was pointed out by others. But perhaps an object being blackface is not a matter of what is in the mind of the creator, but what is in the eye of the beholder.

Behind the saying “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” is the aesthetic theory that beauty is a subjective quality dependent on the judgment (or feelings) of the perceiver. This saying could be modified for perceptions of racism: “blackface is in the eye of the beholder.” The underlying principle would be that whether an object is blackface depends on the judgment (or feelings) of the perceiver.

If blackface is in the eye of the beholder, then it is up to the beholder to determine whether an object is blackface. This could also apply to racism or sexism in general. This might be a matter of judgment or a matter of feeling, depending on the broader aesthetic theory in play. One possible problem with this principle is that whether an object is blackface would seem to be subjective. As such, those who do not see an object as blackface would be as right (or wrong) as those who see it as blackface. However, there is a way to grant some people a privileged right to judge (or feel).

A way to argue for this is to draw an analogy to insult. Whether something is an insult, it could be argued, depends on the target. If the target does not judge or feel that the alleged insult is an insult, then it is not. If the target judges or feels the alleged insult is an insult, then it is. In the case of objects alleged to be blackface, there is the question of who has a privileged position of judgment.

The easy and obvious answer is that target of any potential blackface object would be black people. As such, whether an object is a blackface object would be decided by the judgment or feeling of black people. While one could get bogged down in the problem of group consensus, there are two approaches here. One is to accept the majority opinion. The other would be to judge at the individual level so an object could be blackface for one person but not another. While messy and inexact, this does seem to reflect the messy and inexact reality of such judgments (or feelings). Thus, an object would be blackface if most black people judged (or felt) that it was. Alternatively, it could be done at an individual level: an object would be blackface for an individual if they judged (or felt) it was blackface.

It could be objected that by this definition, anything could be blackface and anything could be racism. Alternatively, one could argue that if blackface or racism is subjective, then this could be used to avoid accusations of racism. That is, any accusation could be met with “that is just how you feel.”

The solution is a messy one: as with disputes over beauty or insults, there would need to be philosophical arguments and the better arguments should settle things. Even if blackface is in the eye of the beholder, better and worse cases can be made that a judgment is reasonable. That no perfect resolution is possible should be expected.

But some might object that being accused of racism has consequences. A person’s career could be ended and their life ruined and surely this should not be left up to subjective judgments or feelings. Turning back to the analogy of insults, there is the question of whether the person making the alleged insult intended to be insulting or not. This can be investigated by considering their history, character and the context of the situation. Likewise, if a work is judged (or felt) to be a blackface object, there is still the question of the intent of the creator. While one cannot know the true heart and mind of another, the creator’s history and character as well as the context can be assessed to reach a plausible conclusion. As such, a person could create a blackface object without intent and without being a racist, just as a person could insult another without intending it. In such cases, the object should be condemned but the creator should be held innocent. Naturally, if the creator’s history and character and the context provide evidence of racism, then that is another matter.

Early immigration laws, such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the Immigration Act of 1924, were intended to “to preserve the ideal of U.S. homogeneity.” That is, they were openly racist and aimed at limiting the immigration of non-whites. Immigration was revised in 1952 and then again in 1965. The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act changed the quota system and removed many of the racial barriers that had marked immigration since the 1920s.

As social norms changed after the 1960s, open racism became largely unacceptable, and most racists switched to coded language and dog whistles. Openly justifying immigration policy based on race became and remains problematic. As such, the narrative changed from preserving the homogeneity of the United States against the threat of non-whites to the narrative of protecting American jobs and protecting Americans from crimes. After 9/11 a new narrative was added, that of protecting Americans from terrorists.

The election and re-election of Donald Trump saw a return of the classic racist narrative. While the mainstream narrative is still focused on crime and economics, white nationalists openly express their fears they will be replaced by non-whites. Sometimes this is dressed up as concerns about culture, but often the white nationalists are honest in their racism. Mainstream politicians, at least for now, still use coded language and dog whistles. Although the code is much more open and the dog whistles much louder. While those ignorant of history might mistake this as something new in American politics, it is a return to its roots. Some would even argue that the core of these polices has always been racist, but the racism has been obscured.

It could be objected that while racism might have been a factor in the past, it does not influence current immigration and border policy. After all, some might contend, those pushing for stronger border control and tighter restrictions on immigration claim their goals are to reduce crime and to protect the American economy. Put simply, the argument is that they are not racists.  They are trying to address crime and the economic threat of migrants. It is just a coincidence that these policies target people who are not white. For this to be true, there would either need to be real problems that would be best addressed by these policies or those supporting the policies would at least need to believe this. As it is difficult to determine what people believe, I will focus on what is real.

While the narrative of the criminal migrant is an American myth, it does not match reality. Migrants are less likely to commit crimes and more likely to be victims of crimes relative to people born in the United States. But migrants do commit some crimes. As such, it can be argued that reducing the number of migrants would reduce the number of crimes and thus these policies are warranted. This would be an odd approach since it would also justify any way of reducing the size of the population based on reducing the number of crimes. Interestingly, this principle would justify public policies supporting birth control and abortion as having fewer people would entail fewer crimes. It could also justify population control in the form of legal restrictions on the number of children: if people have fewer children, then there will be less crime. My point is, obviously, not to argue for population control but to contend that restricting migration to reduce crime makes no more sense than imposing family size limits to reduce crime. While both approaches would reduce crime, they are not an effective or sensible way to address crime. It would be more effective to use social resources to directly address the causes of crimes.

The idea that migrants will steal jobs is a classic myth, but also generally unfounded. Overall, migrants are beneficial to the economy. It is true that migration is not entirely beneficial and there are negative economic consequences. However, the biggest threat American workers face is obviously not being replaced by migrants. It is far more likely that their jobs will be lost to automation, offshoring or changes in the economy. For example, coal workers have suffered not because of migrants taking their jobs, but because natural gas and renewable sources of energy are making coal increasingly obsolete. Ironically, efforts made to help the economy by restricting migration would be more likely to cause economic harm.

Given that the crime and economic arguments used to justify migration and border policy fail, there are few explanations left. One is that those making these arguments believe them, which entails they either have secret information or refusing to accept reality. A second explanation is that these arguments are covers for their real reasons. While speculating about motivations is problematic, the most plausible explanation is that they desire to continue the old racist policies. After all, if they had a good alternative argument backed by facts, then they would simply use that and there would be no need to lie.

In a tragic aircraft accident, sixty-seven people died. In response to past tragedies, presidents ranging from Reagan to Obama have endeavored to unite and comfort the American people. Trump intentionally decided to take a different approach and used the tragedy as an opportunity to advance his anti-DEI agenda.

While Trump acknowledged that the cause of the crash was unknown, he quickly blamed DEI. When a reporter asked him how he knew this, he asserted it was because he has common sense. He also claimed that the crash was the fault of Biden and Obama and that it might have been caused by hiring people with disabilities.

In one sense, Trump is right to blame past administrations. The federal government has allowed the quality of air traffic safety to decline, and one might trace this back to at least Reagan who famously fired the striking air traffic controllers. As with many areas concerned with the safety of the American people, there is a shortage of staff, chronic underfunding and a problem with obsolete technology. Past administrations (including Trump’s) and congress bear responsibility for this. So, I agree with Trump that past leaders bear some of the blame for the tragedy. But I disagree with his false DEI claim.

As is always the case, rational people spend time and energy trying to debunk and refute Trump’s false claims. While this should be done, there is the question of whether this has any practical effect in terms of changing minds. At this point, it seems certain that America is firmly divided between those who reject Trump’s lies and those who accept them or do not care that he is lying. But I’m all about the desperate fight against impossible odds, so here we go.

Trump’s claim that the crash was caused by diversity hires of people with disabilities is easy to debunk. The FAA has strict requirements for air traffic controllers and someone who was incapable of doing the job would not be hired. After all, being an air traffic controller is not like being a member of Trump’s cabinet. As others will point out, this baseless attack on people with disabilities echoes the Nazis.  Trump supporters will presumably respond to this criticism by saying that “liberals” always compare Trump to the Nazis. While some comparisons are overblown, there is a reason why this occurs so often. And that is because Trump and his henchmen are often at least Nazi adjacent. Proud American Nazis know this is true and wish that their fellows had more courage. So, the questions “why do the libs always compare Trump and his henchmen to Nazis?” and “why do Nazis like Trump and his henchmen?” have the same answer. Meanwhile, the “normies” are baffled and the mainstream media generates think pieces debating the obvious. But what about Trump’s DEI claims?

One problem with engaging with these DEI claims is that the engagement provides them with a degree of legitimacy they do not deserve. Doing so can create the impression that there is a meaningful debate with two equally plausible sides. As many others have pointed out, when Trump and his ilk talk about DEI, this is just a dog whistle to the racists and sexists. These bigots know exactly what he means as do the anti-racists; but they disagree about whether bigotry is good. As to why Trump and his ilk bother with dog whistles, there seem to be two reasons.

One is that being openly racist or sexist is seen as crude and impolite. Polite bigots use dog whistles in public, reserving their open racism and sexism for private conversations. People can also convince themselves that they are good because they are not openly using racist or sexist terms.

The other is that there are non-bigots who cannot hear the dog whistle and believe, in good faith ignorance, that DEI might be the cause of these problems. If pressed, they will deny being racist or sexist and will claim that DEI might arise from good intentions but is bad because it puts incompetent people into jobs that are not qualified for. And hence things go wrong. If they are asked about why these people are assumed to be incompetent and whether women, minorities, old people, and people with disabilities can be competent, they will usually grow uncomfortable and want to change to topic. These people are still in play. While the bigots want to recruit them using dog whistles to onboard them into bigotry, they will settle for them remaining cooperatively neutral. If a “normie” expresses doubt about charges of racism or sexism or defends attacks on DEI, this provides cover and support for the bigots, and they are happy to exploit this cover. But “normies” are potential recruits to the side of good, since they have a mild dislike of racism and sexism that can be appealed to. One challenge is convincing them to hear the dog whistles for what they are. This is difficult, since it requires acknowledging their own past complicity in racism and sexism while also facing uncomfortable truths about politicians and pundits they might like and support.

The danger in trying to win over the “normies” is that one must engage with the DEI claims made by Trump and his fellows, which (as mentioned above) runs the risk of lending them legitimacy by creating the appearance that there is something to debate. But it seems that the only way to reveal the truth is to engage with the lies, as risky as that might be.

As a philosopher, my preference is to use good logic and plausible claims when arguing. After all, the goal is truth, and this is the correct approach. However, logic is awful as a means of persuasion and engaging people with facts is challenging because for every fact there seems to be a thousand appealing lies. But there might be some people who can be persuaded by the fact that DEI is not to blame for the crash nor is it to blame for the other things, such as wildfires, that the right likes to blame on it. That said, the core of the fight is one of values.

For someone to believe that DEI results in the hiring of incompetent people, they must believe that white, straight men have a monopoly on competence and that everyone else is inferior to a degree that they are unsuitable for many jobs. So, one way to engage with a possible “normie” about DEI is to ask them what they have in their hearts: do they feel that only straight, white men are truly competent and that everyone else is inferior and suitable only for race and gender “appropriate” roles? If they do not find this bigotry in their hearts, there is hope for them.

 

Asking “when was the last battle of the Civil War fought?” is a trick question; the last battle has yet to be fought. One example of a minor skirmish is when New Orleans began its removal of Confederate monuments. The removal of the first monument looked like a covert operation. Using equipment with hidden company names, the removal crews wore masks and body armor while operating under the cover of darkness and police sniper protection. These precautions were deemed necessary because of threats. In addition to being controversial, the removal of such monuments is philosophically interesting.

One argument commonly used to defend Confederate monuments is the historical argument: the monuments express and are part of history and their removal is claimed to be like tearing pages from the history books. This argument does have some appeal, at least for objects marking an historical event and presenting facts. However, monuments tend to be erected to bestow honors, and this goes beyond marking an historical event and presenting history.

One example is the Battle of Liberty Place Monument. It was erected in New Orleans in 1891 to honor the 1874 battle between the Crescent City White League and the racially integrated New Orleans Metropolitan police and state militia. The monument was modified by the city in 1932 with a plaque expressing support for white supremacy. The monument was modified again in 1993 when a new plaque was placed over the 1932 plaque, commemorating all those who died in the battle.

From a moral perspective, the problem with this sort of monument is that it is not an objective historical marker, but and endorsement of white supremacy and racism. As such, to keep such a memorial in place would be to say the city at least tolerates white supremacy and racism. If these values are still endorsed by the city, then the monument should remain as a warning label. That way people will know to expect white supremacy and racism.

 However, if the values are no longer endorsed by the city, then such a monument should be removed.  This would express the current views of the people of the city. It could be objected that such removal would be on par with purging historical records. Obviously, the records of the event should not be purged. Historical records should aim at recording the facts without praising (or condemning) what has occurred. In contrast, to erect and preserve an honoring monument is to take a stance on the matter; to praise or condemn it.

It could be argued that the 1993 change to the monument “redeems” it from its white supremacist and racist origins and it and similar monuments should remain in place. This does have some appeal, part of which is that the monument expresses the history of the (allegedly) changed values. To use an analogy, a building that once served an evil purpose can be refurbished and redeemed to serve a good purpose. This, it could be argued, sends a more powerful statement than simply razing the building.

However, the monument was originally created to honor white supremacy, and the recent modification could be justly seen as an effort to conceal this fact. Since the monument does have historical significance, it would be reasonable to preserve it. After all, historical artifacts can be kept without endorsing values associated with the artifact. For example, keeping artifacts that belonged to Stalin as historically significant items is not to endorse Stalinism. Keeping a monument in a place of honor, is an endorsement.

The matter can become more complicated in cases involving statues of individuals such as General Robert E. Lee, Confederate President Jefferson Davis and General P.G.T. Beauregard. These men did shape the history of the United States. It also cannot be denied they possessed some personal virtues. Lee is often presented as a man of considerable virtue. P.G.T. Beauregard went on to advocate for civil rights and voting rights for blacks (though some might say this was due to political expediency).

Given their historical importance and roles, it can be argued that they were worthy of statues and that these statues should remain to honor them. The easy and obvious counter is that they engaged in treason against the United States and backed slavery. Whatever personal virtues they might have possessed, they should not be honored for their role in the Confederacy. Statues that honor people who were Confederates but who did laudable things after the Civil War should, of course, be evaluated based on the merits of those individuals. But to honor the Confederacy and its support of slavery would be a moral error.

It could also be argued that even though the Confederate cause of fighting for the right of some people to own other people is wicked, people like Lee and Beauregard earned their statues and their honor. As such, it would be unjust to remove their statues because of the political sensibilities of today. After all, as it should be pointed out, there are statues that honor the slave owners Washington and Jefferson for their laudable deeds within the context of the dishonor of slavery. If the principle of removing monuments that honored those who supported a rebellion aimed at creating an independent slave-owning nation was strictly followed, then there would need to be a rather extensive purge of American monuments. If honoring supporters of slavery and slave owners is acceptable, then perhaps the removal of the statues of the heroes of the Confederacy could be justified on the grounds of their rebellion against the United States. This would allow for a principled distinction to be made: statues of slavery supporters and slave owners can be acceptable, as long as they were not rebels against the United States. Alternative, the principle could be that statues of victorious rebel slavery supporters are acceptable, but those of losing rebel slavery supporters are not. Winning, it could be said, makes all the difference.