Disclaimer: As a theorist...I am an epistemologist first (an educator first and a half), an ethicist second , and a politics guy 3rd.
The problem of human response to threatening evil is a complex one, but the set of responses seems to be roughly two:
1. Become evil yourself, so as to combat the evil.
2. Oppose the evil without becoming evil.
2 is much much harder to do. Ghandi is revered rightly for responding to evil with non-evil. MLK is rightly revered by many while Malcolm X is revered only by few because MLK responded to evil with non-evil. The open source software people, rightly incensed by closed-source software and especially software patents, have responded properly, without patent thickets.
In some cases, 1 seems to be the only choice. When attacked in the War of Independence...the colonials had no choice but to shoot innocent men who had loyalty to the wrong person(George). In World War II, if people had known about the Gas Chambers, we would have had a question of a Moral duty to respond with evil. All our other wars of conquest are substantially less defensible.
Racism is evil.
Some folks suggest that we be counter-racist...become evil ourselves.
I hold that becoming evil is the wrong choice. Oppose the evil of anti-white racism. Oppose the evil of pro-white racism. And call an evil spade an evil spade.
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I don't believe that racism is evil. Defining racism as evil basically means defining nearly everyone throughout human history as evil. That makes it not a terribly useful concept---unless, of course, one limits the eligibility to white people, which in practice most people presently do.
It is nice to talk a good game about being against both anti-white racism and pro-white racism, but all of the social power to punish racism is in the hands of those who are functionally just anti-white. When nonwhite careers are ended for pushing their tribal interests I might have some patience for this position. I think it is a mistake to view this issue through a moral prism.
Then we have a simple disagreement. I think racism is evil, you don't.
I interact with anti-white racism from my wife's older family, and pro-white racism from my older family. In Chicago where I am again this month, the racism both ways in daily life is palpable. White folks are nasty to black folks, and black folks are nasty to whites. It is noxious in all directions.
You are arguing a lovely relativist position that I have no patience for.
Further...I think the fact that some power-hungry bastards can hijack the human tribal impulse to the 150ish members of your clan to include anyone with the same skin color is an argument for condemnation.
There are 3 positions:
A) Anti-white racism.
B) Pro-white racism.
C) Anti-racism.
The argument: It is good for me and mine, but screws the "other"
(1) doesn't apply to me
(2) is evil.
Furthermore, I am inclined to think that from an effectiveness point of view...pro-white racism undermines the moral case against anti-white racism far more effectively than it undermines the anti-white racists. You're accepting their playing field.
Aretae,
Racism as it is typically defined today does not necessarily entail any particular nastiness. There are lots of racist positions available.
Believing that different races have different distributions of significant attributes---this is almost always called racist but nearly everyone behaves as if they believe it. For my money, this belief is nearly required by any honest observer.
Believing that one's own race is superior. I view this as a value judgment, but most people of most races believe this. I put a particular value on my own coethnics not because of any particular superiority, but rather because they are mine.
Actively disliking other races or wishing bad things on them. In the extreme, actively carrying out pograms against them.
If someone murders several people because they're of a hated race, I'm generally far more concerned about the fact of the murder than of the particular flavor of hatred that motivated them.
As to the moral case against anti-white racism---conservatives have been arguing this for HOW long, and with what results? The way to deal with hostile tribalism is not unilateral disarmament. It is either to:
a) Tribalize defensively or
b) Meaningfully make tribalizing costly to the hostile tribes. This means wielding the social and legal sanctions at least as hard as they are presently wielded against white people.
I don't see B happening. I know its your preference, and I can respect that, but failed-B is not in the interests of my children and children's children.
As an epistemologist, I respond by attempting to define racism. I'd like to see what you think.
A racist is someone who thinks a race is morally superior or inferior to another race.
For example, that Peruvians can commit a crime that Pakistanis cannot. More specifically, perhaps it is wrong for Peruvians to buy pot, but not Pakistanis.
Aretae,
You can try to define racism if you like, but any of the various 'racist' positions I layed out in my previous response are considered actionable racism by the cultural enforcers today.
Like race itself, it is far more important what others think constitutes racism than what it actually is---since neither you nor I hold the whip hand.
The operational definition for racism today is nearly the inverse of what you've defined. Holding other races to the same standards as white people is considered racist.
The problem is the word is broken, much like the modifier social has been destroyed through misuse.
I'll second Jehu on this: not all racism is evil. Furthermore, at least some "racism" (at least as the word is now used) is just the assertion of truth, which is at least sometimes good. Thus, "racism" is a mixed bag.
I don't see self-conscious white political organization as evil beyond the obvious evil of engaging in democracy. It's just white people acting according to the basic programming, preferring the similar. I do think that most of the more overt forms of it ("white nationalism") are counterproductive and therefore dumb -- white people are what they are, and part of what they are is xenophilic. As you demonstrate.
ALrenous,
Racism: the belief that race a feature of individuals that is (a) important (in general), and which should be used (in itself) as a differentiator by the law, or in interacting with individuals.
In a less formal sense (I don't like formal definitions...they're always wrong)...racism is the idea that race matters or should matter personally, and legally.
The attempt, of course, is to carefully avoid in the definition the obvious truths like if you meet a black man on the street, he's statistically very likely to be both lower IQ, and higher testorsterone than the the chinese guy you meet next...and that you should make medical decisions based on race.
I've seen quite a lot of evil attributed to Gandhi by your racism-including standards. He spoke of 'kaffirs' (blacks) very negatively, such as when repeatedly complaining that the Europeans were trying to degrade the Indians down to the level of "raw Kaffirs". Even without that, there's still his insistence that the Jews should have surrendered willingly to the Nazis rather than hiding, which brings me to the elephant in the room:
Gandhi got away with a (mostly) non-evil response because he wasn't facing an evil empire, or at least not a casually violent one.
Against the Nazis, I'm moderately confident that Gandhi would have been shot in short order and his shooter commended for putting down anti-Aryan revolts. Britain, however, had a case of the conscience and could be pressured by Gandhi to stop, with a reaction that can be summed up as "we'd have to kill millions of them to stop this, that's unacceptable". Not that such a thing was unacceptable to the Nazis.
The point to this historical nit-picking is to argue that response 2 is not only harder to do, but also restricted in its applicability. When race hustlers can argue with a straight face that equal treatment is racist, you're set for combat anyway, and you're unlikely to shame them into seeing the error of their ways and accepting equal treatment by standing for equal treatment on principle.
Ghandi, like MLK, was playing good cop while assorted coethnics were playing the 'bad cop'. Such tactics only generally work when you have a fairly soft and civilized oppressor like the British or the US, unless you're seriously seriously fanatical and celebrate martyrdom like the earliest Christians, with really really long time horizons. If you've got that (which you don't), you can win against hardcore, but not genocidal, opponents like the Romans, without a 'bad cop' to support you.
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