From the White House to eastern Germany to the British Labour party, racial matters dominate the news. But the words we use to discuss these topics are often misleading or wrong. For instance, the word “racist” has been blunted by overuse. Much as I hate to sound like a commissar of political correctness (another devalued term, by the way), here’s my guide to useless language on racial issues.
Colour-blind: A favourite word of certain conservatives, who claim (often sincerely) that they don’t see colour and that therefore there’s too much talk about racism. Their premise is that people of all colours can get ahead, so nobody should whine about outcomes. This ignores structural racial inequality: in the US, for instance, African-Americans are more likely to attend underfunded schools or be unjustly imprisoned. As long as colour affects life chances, being colour-blind means not seeing reality.
Community: A word that people usually apply to other ethnic groups. I once asked a well-meaning white gentile friend, who was talking about “the Jewish community”, which community he belonged to. He was baffled. He was just himself, an individual, with unique views. Assigning people to monolithic ethnic “communities” is simplistic. For instance, is someone Muslim, Moroccan, French, Parisian, European or all of the above? Second, no ethnic group anywhere is a club with a unified world view that you join at birth.