Category: Race

Power holders in the United States tend to be white, male, straight, and (profess to be) Christian. Membership in these groups also seems to confer a degree of advantage relative to people outside of these groups. Yet, as been noted in the previous essays, some claim that the people in these groups are now the “real victims.” In this essay I will look at how a version of the fallacy of anecdotal evidence can be used to “argue” about who is “the real victim.”

The fallacy of anecdotal evidence is committed when a person draws a conclusion about a population based on an anecdote (a story) about one or a small number of cases. The fallacy is also committed when someone rejects reasonable statistical data supporting a claim in favor of a single example or small number of examples that go against the claim. The fallacy is sometimes taken to be a version of the hasty generalization fallacy (drawing a conclusion from a sample that is too small to adequately support that conclusion). The main difference between hasty generalization and anecdotal evidence is that the fallacy anecdotal evidence involves using a story (anecdote) as the sample.

Here is the form of the anecdotal evidence fallacy often used to “argue” that an advantaged group is not advantaged:

 

Premise 1: It is claimed that statistical evidence shows that Group A is advantaged relative to Group B

Premise 2: A member of Group A was disadvantaged relative to a member of Group B.

Conclusion: Group A is not advantaged relative to Group B (or Group B is not disadvantaged relative to Group A).

 

 

To illustrate:

 

Premise 1: It is claimed that statistical evidence shows that white Americas are advantaged relative to black Americans.

Premise 2: Chad, a white American, was unable to get into his first choice of colleges because affirmative action allowed Anthony, a black American, to displace him.

Conclusion: White Americans are not advantaged relative to black Americans.

 

The problem with the logic is that an anecdote does not suffice to establish a general claim because an adequately large sample is needed to make a strong generalization. But one must also be on guard against another sort of fallacy:

 

Premise 1: It is claimed that statistical evidence shows that Group A is advantaged relative to Group B.

Premise 2: Member M of Group A is disadvantaged relative to Member N of Group B.

Conclusion: The disadvantage of M is morally acceptable, or M is not really disadvantaged.

 

To illustrate:

 

Premise 1: It is claimed that statistical evidence shows that men are advantaged relative to women.

Premise 2: Andy was disadvantaged relative to his boss Sally when she used her position to sexually harass him.

Conclusion: The disadvantage of Andy is morally acceptable, or Andy was not really disadvantaged.

 

 

While individual cases do not disprove a body of statistical evidence they should not be ignored. As in the illustration given above, while men generally have a workplace advantage over women, this does not entail that individual men are never at a disadvantage relative to individual women. It also does not entail that, for example, men cannot be the victims of sexual harassment by women.  As another illustration, while white men dominate academics, business, and politics, this does not entail that there are not injustices against specific white men in such things as admission, hiring and promotions. These sorts of situations can lead to moral debates about harm.

One excellent example is the debate over affirmative action. An oversimplified justification is that groups that have been historically disadvantaged are given a degree of preference in the selection process. For example, a minority woman might be given preference over a white woman in the case of college admission. The usual moral counter is that the white woman is wronged by this: if she is better qualified, then she should be admitted, even if this entails that the college population will remain almost entirely white.

The usual counter to this is that the white woman is likely to appear better qualified because she has enjoyed the advantages conferred from being white. For example, her ancestors might have built wealth by owning the ancestors of the black woman who was admitted over her and this inherited wealth meant that her family has been attending college for generations, that she was able to attend excellent schools, and that her family could pay for tutoring and test preparation.

This can be countered by other arguments, such as how the woman did not own slaves herself, so it is unfair for her to not be admitted on the “merit” arising from all these advantages arising from generational wealth. One can, of course, consider scenarios such as cases in which the black woman is from a wealthy family while the white woman is from a poor family. Such cases can, of course, be considered in terms of economic class and one could argue that class should also be a factor. This obviously all leads to the moral issue of whether it is acceptable to inflict some harm on specific members of advantaged groups to address systematic disadvantages, which goes way beyond the scope of this essay.

Fortunately, I do not need to settle this issue here. This is because even if such anecdotes are examples of morally wrong actions, they do not disprove the general statistical claims about relative advantages and disadvantages between groups. For example, even if a few white students are wronged by affirmative action when they cannot attend their first pick of schools, these anecdotes do not disprove the statistical evidence of the relative advantage conferred by being white in America. After all, the claim of advantage is not that each white person is always advantaged over everyone else on an individual-by-individual basis. Rather it is about the overall advantages that appear in statistics such as wealth and treatment by the police. As such, using anecdotes to “refute” statistical data is, as always, a fallacy. But what about cases in which members of an advantaged group do suffer a statistically meaningful disadvantage in one or more areas?

While falling victim to the fallacy of anecdotal evidence is bad logic, it is not an error to consider that members of an advantaged group might face a significant disadvantage (or harm) because of their membership in that advantaged group. As would be expected, any example used here will be controversial. I will use the Fathers’ Rights movement as the example. The central claim behind this movement is that fathers are systematically disadvantaged relative to mothers. While there are liberal and conservative versions, the general claim is that fathers and mothers should have parity in the legal system on this matter. Critics, as would be expected, claim that men tend to already enjoy a relative advantage here. But if the Fathers’ Rights movement is correct about fathers being systematically disadvantaged relative to mothers, then this would not be mere anecdotal reasoning. That is, it would not just be a few cases in which individual fathers were disadvantaged relative to a few individual mothers, it would be systematic injustice. But would this area of relative disadvantage disprove the claim of general advantage? Let us look at the reasoning:

 

Premise 1: It is claimed that statistical evidence shows that Group A is advantaged relative to Group B.

Premise 2: But Group A is disadvantaged relative to Group B in specific area C.

Conclusion: Group A is not advantaged relative to Group B.

 

As presented, this would be an error in reasoning because Group A being disadvantaged in one area would not prove that the group is not advantaged relative to Group B when all areas are considered. To use an analogy, the fact that Team B outscored Team A in the fifth inning of a baseball game does not entail that B is leading. It must be noted that a similar argument with multiple premises like Premise 2 could show that Group A is not advantaged relative to Group B. After all, establishing adequate statistical evidence would obviously be adequate. There are, of course, questions about how to determine relative advantage and these can be debated in good faith. One obvious point of dispute would be the matter of weighting. For example, if fathers are disadvantaged relative to mothers, how would this count relative to the pay gap between men and women? And so on for all areas of comparison. This does show the need to consider each area as well as a need for assessing value but this is not unique to the situation at hand and one could, as is often done, assign crude dollar values to do the math.

In closing, while individual wrongs and wrongs done to members of advantaged groups as members of that group can occur, they do not automatically disprove the statistical data. 

 

When it is claimed that the “real victims” are white, male, straight or Christian, there is the obvious problem of explaining how this occurs. It cannot be that white, male, straight and Christian people are systematically excluded from power in the United States. These are the people who currently dominate the White House, the Senate, the House, corporations, academia, and so on. But there is a feeling among some white, straight, male, and Christian people that they are suffering. But what is the explanation?

A “left wing” explanation would be that while being white, male, straight or Christian yields relative advantages, the greatest advantages are held by those who have the greatest wealth and power. That is, class is a dominant factor in the United States. Take, for example, the claim that migrants are stealing jobs. Put this way, white workers are claimed to be victims of minorities. While there are cases in which jobs are lost to migrants, the job woes of Americans are not caused by migrants stealing jobs. While the causes of job losses and underemployment are complicated, a major factor is that those with the power to make decisions choose to do things that hurt American workers. As a specific example, my hometown of Old Town used to have the paper mill as its primary employer. Migrants did not come to Old Town to steal the jobs, ownership of the mill changed and eventually those in charge decided to shut the mill down. This hurt my hometown in ways that it will probably never recover from. One could spend endless hours going through similar explanations of the real woes faced by white, male, straight, and Christian Americans. But this sort of explanation is obviously not going to be presented by those who hold power. But they still need to explain the suffering.

One “non-left” explanation is that the “real victims” are “losing” to the other groups because they are inferior. To use an analogy, back in the day my friends and I did well in the local road races; we were the ruling class of local running. This is no longer the case. The explanation is easy: we are now decades older and are inferior to the young athletes who now rule. One could argue that the same sort of thing is happening to the groups in question: they once ruled America but are now losing to superior groups because they are inferior. But this explanation would clearly be unacceptable to the conservatives who claim that white, straight, male, Christians are the real victims.

One reason for this is the conservative notion of merit and their claims about pulling oneself up by the bootstraps. If these groups are “losing” because they are inferior, then this would be acceptable under a professed principle of merit in conservative ideology. But conservatives do not say that it is morally fine that white, straight, Christian men are losing because they are inferior to their competition.

A second reason conservatives will not accept the inferiority explanation is that it would not be good propaganda or rhetoric. Telling these groups that they are losing because they are inferior will hardly yield the desired results. As such, an explanation is still wanting.

But conservatives do tend to present the “opponents” of these groups as being strong in some manner. This allows the “defeat” to be blamed on the strength of the opposing groups rather than on the weakness of the “real victims.” An obvious problem is that if these opposing groups are presented as strong, this entails their white, straight, male, Christian “victims” are weaker and thus, by conservative ideology, inferior. This creates a challenge for conservatives: the “real victims” must be victims, but they must also be mighty. That is, they must be mighty victims. The reasons given that the groups are mighty(yet victims) vary considerably and fall along a vast spectrum.

In the case of being white, the notion of whites being mighty can range from pride in being white to white supremacy. Moderate examples of this would be people to argue for the superiority of Western (white) culture and point to the accomplishments of white people. Approaching the extreme end would be assertions of fundamental white supremacy and the inferiority of all others. Nazis would be in this area. I must, of course, state the obvious to pre-empt a likely attack: being fine with being white is fine. I’m fine with looking white; but I do not think I am thus superior to others.

In the case of being male, the notion that men are superior to women can range from pride in being a male to complete misogyny. Moderate examples would be those who argue that men and women have different qualities, but men are generally better. Near the extreme end would be full misogyny, the idea that men are vastly superior to women and women are horrible and out to destroy men. One can be fine with being a man; that can be healthy. I am fine with being a man; but I do not think this makes me superior.

In the case of being straight, the notion that being straight is superior to having another sexuality can range from the idea that being straight is more natural to the notion that non-straight people are abominations that should be destroyed. Moderate examples would be those who say that being straight is generally better than not being straight and non-straight people probably have some minor mental illness. The extreme end would involve regarding those other than straight people as perverted abominations that should be cured, locked away or even killed. One can be fine with being straight. I am. But I do not think that other orientations must be perverted or inferior. I do, of course, recognize that there can be evil connected to one’s sexuality. After all, pedophiles and rapists are morally wicked.

In the case of Christianity, the idea that it is better than other religions can range from the notion that it is somewhat better to the view that other faiths are not only inferior but wicked. Moderate examples would be people who think their faith is better because of Christ, but who think that other monotheistic faiths are close to being right (if only they would accept Jesus). Extreme examples would include fanatical loathing and hatred of other faiths, regarding those people as not only wrong but monstrous in their beliefs. This is not to deny that some people are monstrous in their beliefs. Christians should obviously be fine with being Christian—I am fine with my Episcopalian background. But I do not think I am thus superior to others. Once it has been “argued” that these groups are superior, then an explanation must be given as to why they are the “real victims.”

As noted above, the opposing groups that make whites, men, straight people, and Christians into the “real victims” must be strong enough to “win” yet also somehow inferior. These requires that the opposing groups have the traits needed to “win” while also having traits that make them inferior. The “real victim” groups must have the traits needed to “lose” while also having the traits that make them superior. This seems to create the paradox of the mighty victims: the inferior victimizers must win consistently to explain why these superior groups are the “real victims”, but the “victory” must also be unearned.

One way to try to do this is by a sports analogy in which the allegedly best athletes are consistently bested by allegedly inferior athletes. Inferior athletes could win by cheating or through some conspiracy, thus the inferiors consistently and unfairly best their betters. This would, of course, require that the best athletes can never overcome cheating or do anything to prevent it. That is, they are powerless to be anything but mighty victims. But this would seem to require that although they are the best athletes, they are lacking in other ways that allow them to be so easily bested. For this analogy to work with the groups in question, it would need to be shown that these groups are cheating in some manner that cannot be addressed by the alleged superiority of the “real victims.” It is not clear how this would work: that the “real victims” would be superior yet still unable to overcome the cheating of their alleged inferiors.

A second way is to use the ally hypothesis. The allegedly inferior victimizing groups are aided and abetted by traitors in the victimized groups. On this narrative, the traitors can best their betrayed fellows because they are also among the superior groups and aid the allegedly inferior groups to best their own kind. For example, one might allege that there are white traitors helping to victimize their fellow whites. Ironically, this would require that the traitors be superior to the loyalists, otherwise the group loyalists should be able to “win.” So, if whites being the real victims is explained in terms of white traitors, the problem is that this would seem to entail that the “best” whites are the traitors since they are “beating” the “lesser” whites. So, the ally hypothesis falls apart under examination.

A third way is to use the numbers hypothesis; the allegedly inferior victimizing groups have superior numbers, so the mighty victims are “losing.” While it is true that numbers can offset ability, the “real victim” groups are generally not outnumbered. Men and women are roughly equal in numbers, straight people vastly outnumber other orientations, Christians dominate American religion, and white people still have a numerical advantage in America, though we might now be a majority minority (that is, not 50+% of the population but still more than any other group). As such, the numbers argument fails. But there is an explanation that does reconcile the fact that these groups are both “superior” and victims.

It is true that white people, men, straight people, and Christians are victims. But it is also true that people from these groups hold the overwhelming power in the United States. Thus, these groups both hold superior power and contain victims. The victims are, ironically, most often victims of their fellows who hold superior power. So how do the powerful few convince the many in these groups that they are the “real victims” of the out groups?

A main strategy seems to involve pointing to losses in relative advantages between groups and convincing people that these losses are both unfair and caused by the other group. For example, men have lost some of their relative advantages over women in both the law and social norms and nothing stings like losing an undeserved advantage. It seems natural to blame women for this, since they have gained from these changes.  As another example, whites have lost some relative advantages over the years. To use an extreme example, it is no longer legal to own a black person. It is natural to blame people who are not white for the changes. Straight people have also seen same-sex marriage legalized, which some people somehow see as a loss. It is natural to blame people with other orientations for this.  Christianity has had to share more space with other religions and this loss of advantage no doubt strikes some as being victimized. It is natural to blame people of other faiths for this, since they have gained something.

Another strategy involves getting people in these mighty victim groups to believe (or at least feel) that most of their woes are the fault of the other groups, even when there is no connection. For example, the poverty and underemployment that white, straight, Christian men face is blamed on minorities although the economic decisions in the United States are mostly made by a few white, straight, Christian men. Men who are concerned that men die disproportionately in dangerous jobs might blame the feminists but it is obviously not the feminist who exclude women from dangerous jobs, and it is certainly not the feminists who control working conditions or when we take military action. There are also cases in which the harms are entirely fictional, for example Fox’s eternal make-believe war on Christmas.

We thus have a working explanation of mighty victims. A tiny fraction of the members of the group are mighty in that they hold overwhelming power. The other members of these groups are victims, but they are mostly victimized by members of their own groups. Which makes sense: the idea that those with less power are somehow victimizing the powerful is as absurd as the idea that the poor are victimizing the rich.

In my last essay I noted that those who have power in the United States tend to be white, male, straight, and (profess to be) Christian. Given this fact, it might seem odd that some argue that these groups are the real victims in the United States.

Contrary to the evidence, it is now often claimed that white people are the real victims of racism. It is true that white Americans have lost certain advantages arising from being perceived as white. In 1865 slavery was abolished and in 1870 voting rights were no longer restricted by race. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 also resulted in a relative loss of white advantage. As would be imagined, only racists point to these as examples of whites being the real victims of racism. But some whites believe they are now the real victims of racism.

When pressed for contemporary evidence of how whites are the real victims of racism, people typically point to things like affirmative action, Black Lives Matter, criticism of systematic racism, and the fact that Kamala Harris was the Democrat’s presidential candidate. I do not think that most of my fellow white folk are lying when they claim they believe they are the real victims of racism. But I think they are in error. The obvious reason is the overwhelming evidence of systematic racism in the United States is for racism whose targets are not white. I do get why white people can honestly believe they are the real victims. There are ongoing efforts to convince white people that criticism of systematic racism and efforts to offset the negative impact of centuries of racism are racist. There is also the “clever” tactic of accusing people of being racist when they acknowledge the role of the racist’s conception of race as a factor in addressing racism. To pre-empt a likely fallacious appeal to anecdotal evidence, I know individual white people can be victims of racial discrimination. In addition to condemning that as morally wrong I will also note that my concern here is at the group level rather than focusing on anecdotes. It is consistent with white folks like me generally having an advantage because we are perceived as white that some specific white people face real racial discrimination.  And discrimination of this sort is wrong.

Contrary to the evidence, it is also now claimed that men are the real victims of sexism. It is true that men have lost many advantages relative to women. In 1920 women got the right to vote in the United States. There have also been laws passed to protect women at work and at home. Divorce has changed over the years and men (have mostly) lost the “right” to rape their wives. As would be expected, few would point to these as examples of how men are the real victims of sexism. When pressed, common examples involve references to the Me Too movement, certain feminists bashing men, strong female characters in media, changing gender roles, the rights of fathers relative to those of mothers, the charge of toxic masculinity, and Kamala Harris.

It must be acknowledged that there are some real issues with sexism against men; a good example being concerns about fathers’ rights. Men can be victims because of their sex: men suffer the heaviest casualties in combat and far more men than women are killed or injured in workplace accidents. At this point, you might be thinking that I have refuted my own view because I just argued men can be more likely to be harmed because they are men.

I must acknowledge that men are victims of sexism, but they are not generally the victims of the sexism of women. that is, it is not women who are the main cause of the suffering and death of men because they are men. It is the sexism of other men. Men are more likely to die and be injured in certain jobs because there are more men working those traditional male jobs. As an example, more men die in commercial fishing accidents than women because more men work in that field. More men die in battle because other men tend to send them to die in battle.

Rather than engage in a debate over who is being harmed the most by sexism, I agree that men and women are brutalized by sexism and that these problems need to be addressed. As such, men and women are both the real victims here. But what about straight people? Are we the victims of oppression?

Contrary to evidence, it is often claimed that we straight people are the real victims of discrimination. It is true that same-sex couples gained the legal right to marry in 2015 and there are some protections in place against discrimination based on sexual orientation. There is still open opposition to these legal rights and protections and opposition is often cast in terms of how gay rights somehow hurt straight people. For example, one stock argument against same sex marriage was that allowing it would be harmful to different sex marriages; something that absolutely did not happen.

But there are cases in which people are discriminated against because they are straight, which raises real moral concerns about hiring ethics. I do acknowledge the obvious: individual straight people can suffer from discrimination. But this is consistent with the social and legal advantages that arise from being straight in the states. As such, while a straight person can be a victim of discrimination, we straight people as a class enjoy significant advantages. But what about we Christians? Are we being oppressed in America?

While Americans generally recognize that discrimination exists against religious minorities, about 50% of Americans believe that evangelical Christians face discrimination. While the United States freedom of religion and often practices the separation of church and state, Christianity is the dominant religion. As such, some effort is required to claim religious discrimination against Christians in general.

As evidence of discrimination against Christians, people often cite Fox News unrelenting absurd war on Christmas propaganda.  It is absurd that people even need to try to refute what is obviously untrue. After all, Christmas  effectively rules the United States from late October until early January. Most of the other “evidence” of discrimination involves cases in which the separation of church and state is enforced, cases in which religious employers are not allowed to discriminate against employees or customers, and similar cases in which Christians are not allowed an exception to the law. While these do show that the dominance of Christianity in government, society and business has declined, this is not evidence of discrimination.

As in the other cases, individual Christians can face religious discrimination. However, this is consistent with Christianity being the dominant religion in the United States. The same survey in which 50% of those surveyed claimed that evangelicals faced discrimination only 15% claimed that being an evangelical hurt a person’s chances of getting ahead, while 63% agreed that being a Muslim hurt a person’s chances of getting ahead (31% said it hurt chances a lot). I do agree that religious discrimination is real and oppose it but it is wrong to claim that as a group Christians are the victims here.

In closing, while a person from any group can be a victim, the groups discussed generally enjoy advantages and are not the “real” victims. But it is not a contest to be the real victim: we should be morally concerned with human suffering regardless of which group a person belongs to. But we should not be disingenuous when discussing which groups have advantages. You might be wondering why this series is entitled “Mighty Victims.” This will be answered in the next essay.

The people who have power in the United States tend to be white, male, straight, and (profess to be) Christian. This can be confirmed by a cursory look at who holds top positions in government, business, and academics. Membership in these groups confers advantages that increase the odds of having power. Before getting on with the discussion, I need to pre-empty some likely straw person attacks on my view.

First, even belonging to all four groups is no guarantee a person will have power. After all, there are straight, white men who have faith in Jesus yet are struggling with poverty and are powerless. Second, people do have power despite not being members of these groups. For example, I am aware that Oprah and Beyonce exist.  My claim is moderate: membership in one or more of these groups confers relative advantages while being outside of one or more of these groups can confer relative disadvantages. This can be illustrated with an analogy from gaming.

Imagine a basic game rule: to succeed at something (such as getting a job or hitting a monster with a sword), you need to roll a set number or higher on a die. This represents the role of chance in real life. In most games, you can get pluses and minuses to your roll, based on various factors. For example, if your character is related to the king, you might get a plus when rolling to talk the city guard out of arresting you for the bar fight. If your character belongs to an unpopular band of rebels, you might suffer a minus when rolling to convince the city guard to not attack you when they catch you speaking out against the king.

Looking at real life like a game, membership in one or more of these groups would confer a plus on some rolls and not being in these groups might confer a negative on some rolls. To address some more likely strawman attacks, I am not claiming that being in one of these groups always gives an advantage in every possible situation. Nor am I claiming that being outside of these groups always confers a disadvantage in every possible situation. My claim is that a person gains more advantages from being a member of these groups relative to other groups and this is consistent with cases where membership in one of these groups might not yield an advantage or even be a disadvantage. For example, a white male would be at a disadvantage when trying to secure a literary prize for minority female authors. But that same white male would often enjoy many advantages relative to minority women, such as how seriously their views are taken at work.  Pointing out a few examples in which white, straight, Christian men do not have an advantage (or might be at a disadvantage) does not refute the general claim that membership in these groups confers general advantages in the United States.

It is important to note that I am taking these advantages and disadvantages to be, as I have said, like pluses and minuses on random rolls rather than factors that always decide the outcome of events. As a made-up example, imagine that getting a good job requires rolling a 15+ using a 20-sided die. Imagine that for various reasons, such as bias, race and sex are factors that impact your chance of being hired. Put in made-up game terms, imagine that because of bias, being a man would give you a +1 on the roll and being white would also give +1 on the roll to get hired. A white man would make the roll with a +2, a black man would make it with a +1, a white woman would roll with +1, and a brown woman would make the roll at +0. Any one of them could succeed (0r fail) on the roll. But imagine hundreds, thousands or millions of people trying to get good jobs: even small relative advantages will have a significant impact on the overall results. If the relative advantages are larger, the impact will be even more significant and will result in a noticeable difference when large numbers of people are involved. This is what the United States looks like. As such, it makes sense to believe that membership in certain groups confers meaningful advantages in life. Again, these advantages do not guarantee success, nor do they utterly exclude others from succeeding they just rig the rolls, to go with the gaming analogy.

Interestingly, there are those who claim that the members of the above groups (straight, white, male, Christian) are the real victims today not the groups who are underrepresented in having power. I will turn to this subject in the next essay in this series.

https://www.dukeupress.edu/fugitive-modernities

Jessica Krug, a former history professor at George Washington University, admitted to misrepresenting her race and ethnicity. In her confession, she accepted responsibility for her deception while making note of her mental health issues.  This incident was a gift to the right: when it occurred, I learned about it from a Facebook post contending this was proof that there is no such thing as white privilege. While the post asserted this claim without any argument, it did raise an interesting issue.

One could argue that if there is an advantage to a white person masquerading as black, then white privilege must not be real. After all, if a rational person were seeking an advantage by masquerading as another ethnicity, they would take on the most advantageous role. Since the white Krug masqueraded as black and she is clearly intelligent, then it follows that being white is not more advantageous than being black. Therefore, one might conclude that white privilege is not real.

While Krug does refer to mental health issues, she does not claim she took on the black identity because of mental illness. So, it would be a mistake to try to counter the above argument by contending she was crazy and thus gave up her real white privilege. In fact, while her choice was morally wrong, it can be seen as a clever choice in her situation and a case can be made that her masquerade was advantageous while also arguing that this is consistent with white privilege.

The statistical evidence for white privilege is overwhelming. The idea of white privilege is not that white people have it easy or get everything for nothing. In the United States, life for everyone who is not in the upper classes is difficult and often precarious. But being white makes it a bit less bad.  An average white person will enjoy statistically significant advantages over a black person because they are white. Or, rather, other people give white people an advantage in many circumstances. But this does not entail that there are no circumstances in which appearing black can yield an advantage.

As an analogy, matching the current conception of physical beauty yields many advantages and beautiful people are perceived as being better in many non-beauty related ways. But there can be specific and limited circumstances in which not being seen as conventionally beautiful can be advantageous. For example, a company might be looking for models who do not match that conception of beauty for a an ad campaign. As another example, there are some professional contexts in which matching that conception of beauty could be a disadvantage. But these limited cases do not prove that there is no general beauty advantage.

While the academy still favors white people (and more so every day now), there can be specific jobs, awards, fellowships, scholarships, and other opportunities in which being (or appearing) black can be an advantage (or a necessity). For example, when I was at Ohio State a fellow grad student applied for an African-American scholarship. He had dual American and African citizenship and thus seemed to qualify. But he did not because he was a white African-American and not black. There are also certain academic fields where having a specific identity provides more perceived credibility. A humorous example of this is the Black Jeopardy skit on Saturday Night Live featuring Lewis C.K. as a professor of African American Studies at Brigham Young University. It was funny, obviously, because Lewis C.K. is white. In such cases, appearing black can provide a specific advantage that can outweigh the general advantages of being white. While Krug would probably have been successful if she had been honest, this was a very narrow and  unusual case in which appearing black was probably more advantageous. As such, her case does not disprove white privilege; at best it shows that there are very limited and rare circumstances in which appearing black can provide a very specific advantage.

Some on the right might be pleased I have agreed that there can be cases in which a black person can  gain an advantage because they are black. But they should not be that pleased: all I have argued for is that there are very limited cases in which being (or appearing) black can yield a limited and specific contextual advantage. This does not show that whites are at a general disadvantage in the academy. And it certainly does not disprove white privilege. Going back to the beauty analogy, it would be like claiming that one model who succeeded because she was not seen as beautiful proves that there is no advantage to being seen as beautiful.

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.