RACIST NORMS: WHEN THE PARTICULAR IS MADE UNIVERSAL

In philosophy, a debate has raged for millennia regarding universals and particulars. Are universals real or only abstract conceptions? Do universals exist apart from particulars or only through them? Are universals eternal and changeless, or do they change… and so on. Despite the positions taken from numerous thinkers from Plato to Kant, one thing is clear – universals express those common characteristics within some group of particulars. For example, green is a universal attribute of plants that develop through photosynthesis, but each plant is a separate, particular form of plant life. The same goes for us. We are all human, with a universal that defines us as homo sapiens, while each of us in our own way is particularly unique.

The universal is typically derived from the particulars within which there exist perceived commonalities. But within the universal, it is also possible to contrive particulars. About half a century after the introduction of slaves into the Americas, we did just that. In 1691, Virginia passed the first miscegenation laws in North America, prohibiting marriage or cohabitation between Blacks and Whites. Whether a response to Bacon’s Rebellion (seeking to preclude rational tendencies of Black slaves and White indentured servants to find common cause against landowners), or simply a felt need to justify continued abusive, even mortally abusive, slavery of Africans, the particularizing of humans into categories became pervasive practice in the United States and throughout the Western Hemisphere, eventually expanding within the field of Social Darwinism into a hierarchy of human categorization – Caucasian, Mongoloid, Australoid, Negroid, Amerindian, and other mixed “races.”

Social Darwinism, discredited professionally but not universally rejected, framed these particulars as derived from the science of evolution, with different “races” evolving at different rates and in different ways. However, all Social Darwinism did was justify racism. Once a supposed hierarchy of races was developed, with Whites at the top of that evolutionary hierarchy, different forms of violence, oppression, discrimination, and exclusion were practiced as though operating from a sanctified premise, namely, that those not White were of a different, inferior “race.” This pre-and post-Darwinian attitude of superiority, combined with the belief in a God-given directive to subjugate an entire continent, led to Amerindian genocide, selective immigration restrictions, expansion of slavery, systems of exploitation, such as sharecropping, debt peonage and convict leasing, Jim Crow, “separate but equal” discrimination, redlining, union exclusion, mass incarceration, race riots and most recently, the fascistic rounding up of Latinos and the rejection of DEI initiatives.

Even with the rise of the modern era’s Civil Rights movement during the so-called Second Reconstruction starting in the late 1940s and ending in the early 1970s, racism did not end. Instead, it took on different, less explicit forms. Ibram X. Kendi in his book, How to be an Anti-Racist, explains the failure of past anti-racism efforts due to the “incorrect conceptions of race as a social construct (as opposed to a power construct), of racial history as a singular march of racial progress (as opposed to a duel of antiracist and racist progress), of the race problem as rooted in ignorance and hate (as opposed to powerful self-interest).”

I agree with Kendi that race differentiation is predicated on establishing and maintaining power relations and preserving self-interest. But I disagree that ignorance and hate have no role and the conception of race as a social construct is an “incorrect conception.” Preserving preference and maintaining power relations were and remain primary drivers of racism, as is emblematic in, and seems to represent the core of, the MAGA movement. Societal norms and the resulting cultural practices emanating from those norms have sustained and continue to sustain racism, manifesting in day-to-day life through self-perpetuating and evolving social constructs.

Some of these constructs are simple, yet degrading, nuisances, such as the Jim Crow necessity of vacating the sidewalk when a White person approached or having to wait until all Whites have been served before making a retail purchase. Others, like the running of more trains and gathering up the family for an entertaining trip to an announced lynching, were depraved and wanton. Skin bleaching, “acting White,” and feeling the need to act, dress, and carry oneself so as to identify, if not as White through phenotype, then to identify with White (via attitude, education, affiliation, or other connection) to be accepted, or at least get passed gatekeepers – these are things done out of necessity to gain access to employment, education, housing, public assistance and public amenities.

Still, in reviewing particulars of people who are all human but differ in some respects, one might explain unwarranted discrimination as just one group having the ability, the power, to dominate another. But does the persistence of racism depend on something deeper? What would happen if a certain particular was culturally transformed into a universal? If such an effort was successful, what would become of its relationship to other particulars? Does the universal simply disappear or does it split up and find residence with the remaining particulars? What new cultural norms would develop?

It is the position of this writing that just such a development occurred in Western society generally, and in the United States, particularly. Through myriad approaches at creating and maintaining White dominance justified through supposed superiority, the human universal has been pushed into the background, and Whiteness has become the (Western) universal norm for human existence. Some examples, many now viewed as obsolete or becoming so, may suffice:

• God portrayed as a White man;
• Jesus portrayed as a White savior;
• Whites, mostly White men, in charge of the economy;
• Whites, mostly (older) White men, running government;
• Whites, mostly White men, having invented most everything of importance;
• White genocidal invaders portrayed as civilizers of the uncivilized
• Amerindians portrayed as savages;
• Amerindians portrayed as untrustworthy;
• Africans portrayed as immoral savages;
• African males portrayed as sexual predators (of White women);
• African females portrayed as hyper-sexualized Jezebels;
• Asians portrayed as people void of any distinction – they are all the same;
• Asian men portrayed as scheming, weak, ignorant;
• Asian females portrayed as exotic, cunning, subservient gold diggers;
• …And so on.

Those of us who grew up in the Baby Boom generation of White suburban living experienced these racist generalizations on a daily basis. All those around us – elected officials, ministers, shopkeepers, workers, neighbors, teachers, billboard models, civic leaders, actors, newscasters, and more – were all White. Television became our generation’s primary child care provider. Westerns dominated the TV screen. Indians almost always lost battles, but the White settlers and their White protectors were always the noble and righteous ones. The Indians were godless savages, except for those who served as guides for the military and settlers. [A case could be made that the 1950s into 1960s panoply of TV Westerns could be viewed as a companion sequel to the Birth of a Nation.] Africans, as shown in Tarzan movies, were mindless savages. In redlined, White suburban neighborhoods, diversity was restricted to residents whose ancestors came from different parts of Europe. The result of all this socialization was an ingrained, unspoken, understood reality in which White was the norm against which everyone not White became a living contrast, a divergence from the norm. This perceived reality has not changed substantially and there is a case to be made that as the U.S. White population continues slipping into minority status, the desperation to maintain preferential status will increase.

What follows is a current example of how White as the norm is playing out in real time.

Russell Vought, Trump’s Budget Director in 2025, claimed he was stopping the flow of federal funds to NYC infrastructure projects due to the unconstitutional DEI aspects of NYC hiring and contracting.  One might ask, what is unconstitutional about DEI?

It is fairly obvious he is referring to the 14^th Amendment equal protection provisions. Under this amendment, no state can deny any person equal protection of the laws. But that still begs the question of how DEI violates the constitution. This gets to the issue of “reverse discrimination,” or taking laws passed to protect historically oppressed minorities and interpreting the law in a colorblind manner.

All this is possible, I believe, only if we make a certain assumption. That assumption, that implicit proposition, is that White is the norm, and as the norm it is presumed to apply to social hierarchies, economic preferences, and political control. This belief is implicitly held and seen as the natural order of things. Think of other norms that we simply take for granted, without having to consider or justify them. Children are expected to attend school. We do not have to assess the particularities of each child to decide whether or not they should receive an education. It is an expected norm accepted without any further consideration. We go to the store and buy something. We expect to pay for it and for the retailer to accept payment in a number of widely accepted forms. We see a fence surrounding a person’s property. We know that the owner has an expectation that only those invited or having business with the owner are welcome to enter the property. We go to a sports event and we expect fans to cheer for their respective teams. We eat at a restaurant and expect to tip the server, assuming the service and/or food was not terrible.

Using religion, violence and law enforcement to maintain White supremacy was never enough. What was expedient and necessary for the advancement of White superiority was to transform White, as a particular, into White as a universal. Once the particular was accepted as universal it no longer had to be justified or even explained. For those subjected to this indoctrination, its existence became visceral.

For many in our country, sufficient in numbers to have impactful social, political, and economic relevance, we have been socialized to accept White as the norm, and once that happened it became self-sustaining. If I am a White candidate for a job and you are a Black candidate for the same job, more often than not it is unconsciously presumed that hiring me is the right thing to do. Why? Because it advances the accepted norm and everything on the resume and all interactions undertaken as part of the hiring process, are experienced through that lens. Hiring the Black candidate would represent an exceptional circumstance based upon a perception of the Black candidate as “exceptional” (not unlike recognized others in our history like Phyllis Wheatley, Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells, W.E.B.Dubois…). Nonetheless, the Black candidate would likely have had to demonstrate not only that he or she was “exceptional,” but by every measure head and shoulders more qualified than the White candidate. And if the decision was made to hire the Black candidate, this decision would still be grounded in racism. Seeing the candidate as “exceptional,” is a historical racist trope that stands for the proposition that Blacks, in general, are inferior to Whites.  As such, the accepted norm for Blacks is that they are not as qualified for certain employments (along with an encyclopedia’s worth of other accepted derogatory norm-enforcing characteristics), while accepting that, but yes, there are exceptions. Of course the corollary to that racist assumption is that as a general rule, Whites are qualified, except for the exceptional Whites who do not hold to the White standard (e.g. White trash).

DEI is important not because it guarantees fair employment practices. It is important because it makes us think past our reflexive prejudicial assumptions and requires employers and institutions of learning to level the playing field. But once the playing field is leveled, and two candidates are on equal footing for consideration, how do we prevent decisions based solely on decision-maker/applicant affinity? This is where affirmative action has its place, and decisions based upon an appreciation for diversity in workplaces, classrooms and other places has a value that goes beyond strict technical background considerations.

Of course, there is so much more that is necessary to undo the White norm. The first thing is to acknowledge it exists and prevails even without overt racist intentions. Secondly, as much effort as has gone into the cultural promotion of negative caricatures of Blacks and other minorities, that and more must go into a new form of socialization, one that promotes unity in diversity. There must be an honest teaching of history; there must be public space used for open public discussions; we need to get serious and decide on a form of reparations for the wealth created by three hundred plus years of slavery and neo-slavery; young people need to be exposed to diversity in mandatory compensated public service work where diverse groups work together in diverse neighborhoods to address local needs; we need a system of guaranteed work and livable wage income. In other words, we need to make a sea change in attitude, culture and the way we have organized and incentivized our political economy. It is hard work, but the hardest part is taking the first step.