Opposing viewpoints: Hypersensitivity is creating racism

I’m an absolute fashion nut. I’ve spent the last few weeks glued to the collections being presented in New York, London, Milan and Paris.

But a portion of the works presented by the Dolce & Gabbana bore representations of, according to its own statement, “‘Moorish’ figures” that have been deemed by many to be racist.

Dolce has since defended the images in an online statement. I naturally oppose racism, but I think American culture is a bit hypersensitive to it, especially in situations like these. And I think the term needs a bit of an overhaul.

In my opinion, racism is two-fold. Obviously, racism requires ignorance, but I don’t think ignorance on its own constitutes racism. I think real racism also requires malicious intent.

For example, when my cousin was 5, my father and I took him to a Pacers’ game. At one point, he looked at me and said, “I can’t tell the difference between the
players. They’re all black men with no hair.”

Obviously that was an ignorant comment, and we corrected him immediately. But it wasn’t malicious, and I don’t think it was truly racist. He was 5 years old. He didn’t really know what he was saying.

People are not born racist any more than they are born Democrats or Christians. Racists don’t crop up out of thin air.

Years ago, when truly malicious racism was much more common than it is
today, a crusade against it was absolutely necessary.

But I view that movement as having reached critical mass. Now, this highly active crusade probably does more to propagate, rather than eliminate, racist thought.

Absolute racism in the wider sense, what I would call ignorance, still exists. Even my definition of racism, with malicious intent, still exists in this country.

But the kind of overreaction that rises up to meet things like the images
displayed in the Dolce & Gabbana collection does more to perpetuate the
stereotypes that it contained than the original display of those stereotypes ever would have.

If our goal is to eliminate racism and ignorance, then I think we need to reevaluate our priorities.

I believe that racism in this country is already spontaneously on its way out.

When James Holmes killed 16 people during a midnight showing of “The Dark Knight Rises,” there was a movement among journalists to boycott the use of his name. The intent was to avoid giving Holmes what he wanted, press.

His intentions needed attention to survive. The current state of American racism is the same. To survive, it needs us to continue to remind the American public that it exists.

­— drlreed@indiana.edu