Pre-emptive Strikes

Submitted by George Laker (United States), Nov 3, 2011 at 12:39

The purpose of gauging perceptions on racism is to obtain another factor, or metric, in the course of measuring the potentially hostile attitudes among a population. It stands to reason that groups who perceive their governments as racist will oppose their governments. Among other reasons for opposition, such as a desire for religious supremacy - which is an offensive form of hostility -, objections to racism are a defensive manifestation of that very same opposition.

Perhaps the point of eliciting thoughts on governmental racism is to filter out the strongest, most legitimate arguments, with the intention to refute those arguments. No Muslim adherent is going to garner support, among a secular populace, for the view that Canada should be subject to Islamic law to the detriment of all other legal/religious systems. Opposition to racism, ostensibly a legitimate grievance, is a convenient element within which one may launder supremacist views: "If only government X and the society it fosters were less racist, my desire for a religious system favorable to my interests would wane proportionally."

The benefit of confronting these views is that it permits one the opportunity to refute them, but also the opportunity to prove that such grievances are unwarranted - that these grievances are pretexts in their entirety and unworthy of consideration. Inquiry and engagement, in itself, is sufficient to dispel such notions since a truly racist regime would not bother to defend itself or to engage in open dialogue on the matter.

Sometimes the best way to disarm an argument is to pre-emptively dismantle it by direct confrontation. Gauging perceptions on racism is evidence, even in the absence of any greater indicators, that a society cannot truly be as racist as some minority populations insist that it is. Once such arguments are soundly set to rest, the remaining issues regarding the massive desire for some form of religious supremacy may be exposed without obfuscation.

In this way you effectively take away from an aggressor one of the most renowned rhetorical devices - playing the victim.

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