The Nature of Racisms and the Prospects for Racial Reconciliation

By Michael Levine

Paper presented at the First International Conference on Race: Racial Reconciliation
October 1-4, 2003, University of Mississippi, USA

I.
I shall argue that a causal account of racism, in particular one that involves a psychological and/or psychoanalytic underpinning, is necessary to understanding (i) what racism is, and (ii) what is morally wrong with it. It is also necessary to formulating strategies for addressing racism. An adequate analysis of racism-there are actually many varieties of racism -- will also show why, along with other longstanding prejudices like sexism and homophobia, it has proven so intractable. I also discuss the bizarre character of racism. It seems odd after all -- inexplicable -- that someone should be hated merely because of his race or colour. It turns out that race and colour have little to do with racism.

While there are undoubtedly many issues concerning racism that need to be addressed, two interrelated questions are primary. First, "What is racism," or closely related "who is racist?" And second, "What are the causes of racism?"1 There are of course many other secondary questions. Scientifically speaking, are there really any races and what are the implications of such a question are for racism? Can people of colour can be racist? Can racism be institutionalised? What policies are racist? Any adequate answer to these secondary issues must be given in terms of an analysis of the nature of racism. Rooted in the fact that philosophers have been unable to explain racism is the related fact that moral philosophers have not been able to adequately explain what is distinctively morally wrong with racism in its various guises or with other prejudices.

In the case of racism and other prejudices, if anywhere, one would expect that moral philosophy would have something distinctive and significant to say both about understanding the phenomena and about why it is morally reprehensible. Instead, what one often gets is an account of racism's immorality in terms of a general moral theory or principle. For example, we are told racism is bad because such discrimination fails to treat people as ends in themselves or because it denies basic human rights. If it is the case that racial prejudice always involves these or other pat moral failings, then it does constitute a reason for supposing racism, in thought or action, to be immoral. But such an account does little to explain the nature of the various prejudices or to give a distinctive set of reasons as to why they are immoral. It gives the same reasons for the immorality of prejudice in general as it does for murder, theft, or assault.

J.L.A. Garcia (1996: 9), for instance, says that the immorality in racism (i) "stems from its being opposed to the virtues of benevolence and justice" and that (ii) "Racism is a form of morally insufficient… concern or respect for some others." This may be true, and yet it may be false that the immorality of racism resides in these two points in any distinctive way. For one thing, it is possible to oppose benevolence and injustice, and to have insufficient concern for others in ways and for reasons that have nothing to do with racism. Racism may be immoral for reasons that make other things immoral as well. But when people talk about the immorality of racism, I take it that they mean something more. They want to tie its immorality to something specific about the nature of racism. To say, for example, as Garcia does (1996: 9), that it "tries to injure people assigned to a racial group because of their racial identity" does not explain the specific nature of its immorality or how it is connected to perceptions of racial identity. To explain these things racism must first be understood in a (deeper) way that keeps it, at least temporarily, separate from moral issues. What needs to be understood is why people hate and try to injure others on the basis of racial or other perceived differences.

A cognitive approach to racism -- one that sees racism as rooted in false beliefs or other cognitive defects is, for example, going to suggest a different account of the immorality of racism than an affectively based one like Garcia's. It is also going to give a different account of how to eliminate or mitigate racism than affectively based ones. But dividing accounts of racism along cognitive and affective lines lacks the requisite nuances and is too superficial to capture any intrinsic connection between racism and its immorality. Psychoanalytic accounts of racism, as we will see, reject the split as mistaken. But even aside from psychoanalysis, the split must be rejected. Contemporary analyses of emotion have shown affect to be connected to cognition and belief in ways that undermine any approach to racism along the lines of such an artificial dichotomy.2

Thus, for moral philosophy to engage with prejudice, explain its immorality, and offer correctives, it must take into account the nature of prejudice. That this should include an understanding of its causes may seem uncontroversial (it does to me) and yet some deny this. This is part of what Ruth Benedict (1940; Harris (1999: 38)) means when she says "in order to understand race persecution, we do not need to investigate race; we need to investigate persecution." But there is not much reason to suppose that Benedict understood the nature of persecution or its cure. She saw democracy as the antidote to racism even though it is apparent that racism, and other injustices, can thrive in a democracy. She appears to conceive of genuine democracy as incompatible with or at least inhospitable to racism. Although this is not necessarily the case, it is at least arguable that democracy, as opposed to certain other forms of government, does not lend itself to the kind of social, political and cultural milieu in which gross injustices, perhaps even prejudices such as racism, can easily thrive over (very) long periods of time. Yet even this seems rather optimistic. Let me illustrate the contentions above.

II.
Rhetorically, Lawrence Blum (1999: 81) asks "Well, what then is racism?" His answer is instructive. "I do not want to give a general definition but to indicate two distinct forms that individual racism takes… the first is racial hatred, animosity, or bigotry -- hating blacks or Jews, or Croats or Hutus[3] because they are blacks, Jews, Croats, and Hutus. The second form …involves seeing another group as humanly inferior… the ways Westerners have seen blacks." Despite his reluctance to attempt a general definition of racism, it seems that Blum means to give an ostensive definition. But his examples do not tell us what racism is.

Is his account meant to be a causal one? Does one hate blacks because they are blacks? Is the hatred caused by their blackness? This seems to be what he is suggesting and if so it is an unintelligible account. To understand what racism is you have to understand why racism takes the forms Blum cites as examples. What is the explanation for it? Why would one hate blacks as blacks -- unless perhaps one had some color phobia? Racism cannot be explained merely as racial hatred or seeing another group as humanly inferior. Until one understands what it is that motivates such hatreds and attitudes, why they come about and in what circumstances, it is impossible to understand what racism is.4

If we can generalize from the case of Blum and Garcia, then philosophers often address the problem of racism without understanding what racism is. Thus, in discussing what is morally wrong with racism, and related questions such as who is racist, and what counts as racism, moral philosophers may not really talking about racism or what is wrong with it; or they are they doing so without an adequate account of racist prejudices. They are talking instead about what is wrong with the ways in which some people act towards others. This is within the purview of what moral philosophers do and should do, but it is not distinctively about racism. They are not talking about racism at all -- confusing the symptoms or signs of racism with racism itself. My claim is not that they have an account of racism that others may disagree with, but rather that they have no account of racism: or they mistake superficial surface phenomenological characteristics or symptoms of racism for racism itself.

To some extent one may be able to recognise racism though its signs ("racist behavior") just as one recognises measles through spots. But to say that one recognises racism through racist behavior is circular in a way that recognising measles via measles spots is not. For what one terms "racist behaviour" will in fact be racist behavior in the relevant sense if it stems from racism, and this cannot be ascertained from the behavior alone. Measles spots are, however, a sure sign of measles. Of course one can be racist and not outwardly behave in racist ways (generally). But the relevant point here is that someone can behave in racist ways and still not be racist even though they will likely taken for one.

The above points can better be illustrated if a genuine account of racism, of what it is, is given. Elisabeth Young -Bruehl (1996: 209) says "we can define prejudices by saying that they are the reflections in attitudes towards groups (and individuals as members of groups) of characteristic modes (usually complex modes) of defense."5 Young -Bruehl goes on to give a detailed account of those defences. If one accepts her account of what prejudices are or something like it, then it will not be possible to explain the immorality of racism or its broader moral significance on personal, social or political levels without recourse to some such account. How, for example, can one endeavour to answer the question as to whether the subjects of racisms (e.g. people of colour and Jews) can themselves be racist (of course they can) if one does not know what racism is or the forms that it can take? In Young-Bruehl's account, the nature of racism is not to be explained in terms of some inexplicable hatred towards some race, but in terms of the nature and sources of the various prejudices-an account of hatred itself. Whether or not her particular accounts are correct is not really the issue here.6 The point is that this is what an account of racism must do.

Psychological or psychoanalytic accounts of racism do not split theories of racism along cognitive and affective lines. However, it is true that many studies of prejudice, including historical, social scientific, and philosophical/moral studies, "assume that racism derives largely from ignorance and false consciousness." Racism, the story goes, stems from a cognitive defect of sorts. It is a matter of false beliefs personally and socially engendered for various reasons.

Lane contrasts this "ignorance and false consciousness" view of racism with one that he presumably endorses and claims is at least complementary. Referring to his edited volume Lane (1998: 32n3) says, "What this collection of essays argues, additionally, is that psychic issues complicate our chances of achieving and sustaining egalitarianism." However, a harsher and more accurate contrast can be drawn than Lane's between the "ignorance" and "psychic issues" views. This harsher contrast claims that the "ignorance" view is fundamentally false and utterly different from psychological, mainly psychoanalytic, theories that seek to explain racism and racist beliefs themselves on psychological rather than cognitive grounds. Psychological, and specifically psychoanalytic, accounts of racism see themselves as subsuming cognitive accounts partly by explaining the origin of racist beliefs in desire and wish-fulfilment. Furthermore, Lane's typology is skewed. The "ignorance view" should not be linked to a false-consciousness view but differentiated from it. The latter is clearly within the purview of "psychic issues" views.

Lane nevertheless illustrates the significance of a psychoanalytic view for understanding why people are racist and for attempting to contain racism. He says (1998: 5) that the "ignorance and false consciousness" approaches to racism

share … an assumption that knowledge enhances cultural understanding while diminishing inter-and intragroup hostility. This emphasis often betrays a foundational hope that humankind, freed from alienation and political strife, would be wholly communitarian … these approaches argue that a person's beliefs and assumptions, though determined by his or her class and racial background, can be altered simply by raised consciousness. Studies that aim to resolve urban strife and ethnic warfare often reproduce these assumptions: They anticipate that people locked in conflict want an end to struggle in order to secure the material gains they can achieve only in times of peace. To this perspective, psychoanalysis adds a difficult truth: When people and groups are locked in conflict, they are -- beyond their immediate interest in securing sovereignty over another land or people -- already experiencing intangible gains … a group's "gain" might consist in depleting another's freedom … if we ignore these psychic issues, we promulgate fables about human nature, maintaining idealist assumptions while unexamined psychic factors fuel acrimony, resentment, and hatred.7

Trying to understand racism and other prejudices, along with certain kinds of seemingly inexplicable violence (September 11th), independently of a psychoanalytic approach is like trying to understand motion without physics or how a car runs with no mention of its engine. Trying to morally assess the horrific attacks of September 11th with recourse merely to just war theory, or any consequentialist or deontological normative theory -- focusing on that horror out of context (historical, political, psychological, personal), and by itself -- is hopelessly narrow. There is no vacuum quite like a philosophical vacuum.

III.
Some think that a cursory definition or account of racism is all one needs for an analysis of what makes it morally wrong. They assume that it is obvious what racism is. It is unlikely that what is morally wrong with racism pertains to racism alone -- that there is something morally wrong with racism that pertains to it alone. Nevertheless, suppose, for example, one wants to move away from a generalization such as "racism is morally wrong because racists fail to treat humans as ends in themselves" to something more specific. If one seeks to find the immorality as more specifically or intrinsically connected to racism, then it must be located in the nature of racism itself. It could be that even when one does understand the nature and causes of racism, the racist's moral reprehensibility may be no different than the kind stemming from less invidious and better-understood sources. This, however, is not the case. The immorality of racism and other prejudices is intrinsically and extrinsically tied to the specifics of an account like Young-Bruehl's in important ways.

How might the immorality of racism differ from the immorality of theft or murder? From a Kantian perspective, one thing that is wrong with theft and murder is that they involve a failure to treat human beings as ends in themselves. As such, the immorality of such practices is something they share with other kinds of actions or institutions -- including racism. Perhaps then it is a mistake to look for something intrinsic to racism that makes it immoral. What makes it immoral is the same kind(s) of things that make many other things immoral. But if this is the case, then perhaps philosophy's contribution in regard to racism is not so much moral, indicating how and why it is immoral, as it is understanding the nature and causes of racism, along with its social, political and personal implications. The philosophical task in regard to racism would then be (surprisingly?) not fundamentally moral but rather explanatory -- or epistemological.

However, if understanding racism involves, as it must, understanding racism's personal, social and political manifestations and implications, then moral philosophy's task in regards to racism should be seen as a central part of any philosophical effort to understand racism. Thus, a moral philosopher's account of the immorality of racism will, or should be, intrinsically connected to a particular account of racism. Most moral analyses are not so connected because they lack the requisite understanding. Given a fundamentally flawed account of racism, you can no more explain what is morally wrong with it than you can explain the significance of love given a wildly aberrant view of human nature.

Having discussed racism and its immorality in general terms let us return to Garcia's account. Garcia (1996: 6-7) conceives of racism as

[1] …fundamentally a vicious kind of racially based disregard for the welfare of certain people. In its central and most vicious form, it is a hatred, ill-will, directed against a person or persons on account of their assigned race. In a derivative form, one is a racist when one either does not care at all or does not care enough (i.e., as much as morality requires) or does not care in the right ways about people assigned to a certain racial group, where this regard is based on racial classification. [2] Racism, then, is something that essentially involves not our beliefs and their rationality or irrationality, but our wants, intentions, likes and dislikes and their distance from the moral virtues. Such a view helps explain racism's conceptual ties to various forms of hatred and contempt.

One confusing aspect of Garcia's account is how he gets from 1 (above) to 2 and the false dichotomy he sets up between them. What is the connection between racism being "fundamentally a vicious kind of racially based disregard for the welfare of certain people," to it involving "not our beliefs and their rationality or irrationality, but our wants, intentions, likes and dislikes?" Racially based disregard obviously involves beliefs as well as likes and dislikes. Elsewhere Garcia recognises this and correctly emphasises the primacy of affective over doxastic accounts.8

This however, is not the main problem with the account. Despite it seeming intuitively to capture what, at first glance, many would agree racism is; what it does is to conflate what he alleges to be the nature of racism with what he sees as immoral about it.

Garcia's account is first and foremost an account of what is morally wrong with racism -- not, as he claims, an account of what racism is. But except for the fact that he explicitly invokes the notion of race, his account of the moral wrongness of racism relies solely on what is morally wrong in treating or regarding people in a certain (immoral) manner. There is nothing distinctive about race in his account except that race is what evokes the moral wrongness. He says that his conception of racism "helps explain racism's conceptual ties to various forms of hatred and contempt," but it does not. Where is the explanation? Instead, it defines racially based hatred and contempt as essential to racism. What we have is a viciously circular definition rather than an explanation -- not an account of racism but a re-description of it. Garcia believes he has captured both the heart of racism and the essence of what is morally wrong with it. But in failing to distinguish between the two he misses crucial aspects of both.

Although Garcia and Blum give very little account of how and why racial hatred comes about, some such account is crucial to understanding racial hatred and its immorality. It is insufficient to note that it is a "vicious kind of racially based disregard for the welfare of certain people." A discussion of the immorality of racism must take into account racism's causes; what a person is responsible for; a person's character; the extent to which he can control aspects of his desires and other fundamental issues in moral philosophy. And it must do in relation to a specific theory of racism -- of what it is.

There is a tendency for moral philosophers to give a psychologically superficial causal account of racism and to claim, in varying degrees, that such causal accounts are either otiose or relatively neutral with regard to (i) an explanation of the immorality of racism or to (ii) grasping the nature of racism. This approach is mistaken. In depth causal accounts of racism are essential for both tasks. It is also necessary, and this seems obvious, for any strategy to curtail racism. It is perhaps less clear, but nonetheless the case, that any historical causal account of racism that gestures towards completeness must likewise include a complex psychological account as the key ingredient.

Garcia misunderstands the significance of causal account of prejudices. He says (1996: 39-40n15) "we should label haters of Jews or black people anti-Semites and racists even if we know their hatred had different causes" -- that is, causes other than the ones the prejudices are allegedly causally rooted in. That may be. But the point of giving a causal account is to explain the nature and source of the prejudice as it in fact is. It is not about labelling. If, in fact, anti-black racism does require a particular causal story (or closely related stories), then, in the absence of such a story, there may be good grounds, in certain circumstances -- like those in which we are trying to understand the nature of racism -- for claiming that an individual is mislabelled, that is misunderstood, as an anti-black racist.

Garcia's argument for the irrelevancy of the psychological causes of racism to an adequate account of racism, including its irrelevancy to his account, is unsound. He argues as follows (1996: 29).

Suppose that West and Young-Bruehl are right to think that most of the white racists around today (or in history) were driven to their racism though fear of black male sexuality. Even if this claim about the psychological causes of racism is true, it leaves unaffected our claim about what white racism consists in. It is implausible to think such insecurity essential to (a necessary condition for) racism, even for white racism, because if we came across someone who hated black people, thought us inherently inferior, worked to maintain structures of white domination over us, and so on, but came to all this for reasons other than sexual insecurity, we would and should still classify her attitude as racism. Nor is this hypothesis a near impossibility; we may come across such people quite often, especially, when we consider other forms of racism -- hostility against Asians for example. "Psychocultural explanation" is unlikely to reveal (logically) necessary truths about the nature of racism.

Young- Bruehl does not deny that racism against Asians, although having quite a different causal history than anti-Black racism is racism nevertheless. She affirms and explains this.10 Racism in its various forms has various sources according to Young-Bruehl -- not just one.

Garcia relies too heavily on intuition in claiming that "even if this claim about the psychological causes of racism is true, it leaves unaffected our claim about what white racism consists in." He is only able to draw the conclusion that he does (above) because he has peremptorily divorced the conceptual content of the term "racism" from any causal history, choosing to define it solely in behavioural terms. Garcia may be right in claiming "'Psychocultural explanation' is unlikely to reveal (logically) necessary truths about the nature of racism." But Young-Bruehl would not wish to press any such claim. Her claim, and presumably Cornel West's, is that there is an intrinsic connection between certain forms of racism and what causes it.

Coercion can suppress the manifestations of racism but no amount of external coercion is going to change the racist mind (much). On my view, coercion will not suppress racism because I equate racism proper with the racist mind and not with its manifestations. It may be convenient to call "racist behaviour" that is divorced from the racist mind "racist," but it actually is not racist unless rooted casually in the racist mind. Pataki (2004) sees racism, at an abstract level, as a relation or sets of relations (eg. hatred, derogation etc.), or a complex with a relation linking racist minds, and other things, to their targets. I see racism as psychological structures or mental states -- as identical to such structures -- where such structures will, sooner or later, lead to racist behaviour.

IV.
Some ailments can be treated successfully by addressing symptoms.11 However, given the truth of some deep psychological account, such as Young-Bruehl's (1996), of the prejudices, it is clear that attempting to seriously curtail racism by addressing symptoms such as racist behavior -- whether legally, socially, or otherwise -- is hopeless. Certain social and economic structures at specific historical periods do exacerbate and are conducive to certain forms of racism. But racism cannot be curtailed by simply seeking to alter those structures, since the structures are themselves the result of racism . The well-meaning moral exhortations one finds in so much of the philosophical and historical literature on racism is even more insubstantial as a basis for change in this (and most other) areas. This leaves one with the quite pressing and complex question as to just what is the basis of change. (It is a million dollar question.)

Policies and practices can be unjustly discriminatory without being racist in the primary sense of being rooted in one or more of the psychological ways Young-Bruehl describes. They can, of course, also be unjust or unsatisfactory in ways having little or nothing to do with prejudice. Nevertheless, where such discriminatory practices and policies persist there is bound to be a significant connection at some level -- not as far down as some would like to believe -- between such policies and genuine first-order racial hatred. Prejudicial and racially discriminatory policies, for example anti-affirmative action policies, are almost always grounded down the line by racial hatred or antipathy. They are not just policy mistakes rooted in ignorance. Policy makers and citizens who extol the virtues of equality and claim affirmative action to be unfair are often either "in denial," mistaken, or both -- most likely the former. Their belief in such pseudo-equality, like their being in denial in relation to their own racism, is itself a function of racial antipathy. As in so many cases, one believes what one wants to believe and what one needs to believe.

Garcia (1996: 33-34) does not discuss affirmative action in detail but links it to his broader discussion of institutional racism and his account of the heart of racism. He points out that not all instances of institutional racism are viciously or fundamentally racist -- connected to the heart of racism, even if they have the kinds of results that practices closer to the "heart of racism" also have. That may be, but it misses the more important point. I would emphasise, instead, just how much institutional racism -- and it is everywhere -- is tied to racism proper and how much "fair-play" arguments against affirmative action and "reverse discrimination" are more closely grounded in racial antipathy, not always conscious, than perhaps Garcia, and those with radically different perspectives like George Bush Jr., is willing to grant.

Similarly, "right-wing" policies that tend to favour the very well off as opposed to, or arguably at the expense of, less affluent racial minorities, while conceivably grounded in moral, social and economic policy theory or greed, are likely to have elements of racist bias in them as well. Policy theory and beliefs may result from rationalization.12 The quarrels that racial minorities have with right-wing and not so right-wing political parties (in the U.S. the Republican and Democratic parties) are not just about economic and social policy, but are often rightfully seen as engendered by underlying racist tendencies and practices. The immigration policy and various policies directed at Australian aboriginals of the current and past Australian governments are racist.

An account of racism should be able to guide one in answering practical questions in a way that indicates the connection between theory and practice. The kind of fundamentally psychological or psychoanalytic account discussed above can do this. Consider, for example, the person who wants to know if he or she is a racist. This is a question that many people ask themselves from time to time. The account that Young-Bruehl gives suggests that since few are utterly free from the psychologically motivating sources that result in various prejudices, including racism, most people will be prejudicial or racist in varying degrees over different periods of their lives. It turns out that racism, or being prejudicial in some other manner, is not an all or nothing thing and is not something one rids oneself of once and for all.

Furthermore, such a theory suggests that victims of racial and other prejudice will likewise be perpetrators of it as well. Indeed, there is no reason to suppose that victims will be any less inclined to prejudice or racism against others. There may even be grounds to suppose that they will be more prone to it. They are, after all, subject over time to the same kinds of prejudicially motivating psychological features as others. Can Jews and people of colour be racist (or sexist)? Can homosexuals and lesbians be sexist (or racist)? Of course. Why are some inclined to think they could not be, or be less so? Wishful thinking grounded in a need to believe in moral order and at least rough justice is part of the answer. Straightforward prejudice informing one's beliefs is another.

Consider one further practical question. When walking down a quiet street a person may sometimes feel afraid or uncomfortable when in the presence of, for example, black teenagers. And this is a feeling one might not have if the individuals were white. Does this make one a racist? The account of racism outlined is perhaps less clear on this point but helpful nevertheless. The person may well be a racist or have racist tendencies, but if so, crossing the street to avoid the figures perceived as threatening is not necessarily indicative of racism. It can also be indicative of justifiable fear -- though the two (fear and racism) are not incompatible. The fear might be generated by racism, but it might not be and, in fact, it seems unlikely that it would be. Racism is generated by fear and also generates it, but not in a way that makes one want to cross the street. A racist's crossing the street will likely have nothing to do with their racism.

While it is true that one must more or less understand the causes of racism in order to curtail it, such an understanding indicates why even then the prospects for quashing racism are not good. Why they are not good and why we have reason to be pessimistic, albeit not despairing, about it is evident once the causal factors constitutive of the many hearts of the many prejudices and varieties of racism are understood. Racism is not caused by racial hatred. It is racial hatred. Furthermore, such hatred or antipathy, in all its guises, has sources and explanations of both a general and specific nature. In general terms racism is a defensive reaction, related to denial, repression, guilt, self-hatred, narcissism, sexual frustration and rooted further still in problematic aspects associated with specific character types. As Young- Breuhl (1996: 200-252) argues, all character types have some predominant form of prejudice associated with them. This explains why paternalism and other attitudes and behaviour that may not appear overtly racist or that may even appear beneficial, may be racist nevertheless.

There is thus a sense in which racism is not fundamentally about race at all but about psychic defense. Race is, at it were, an excuse for racism. This accounts for the bizarre nature of racism. If you think that it is odd that one would hate other people because of their skin colour you are right. And as it turns out one is not really hating others because of their skin colour, sexual preference etc., but instead because of how those others are being psychically portrayed. All of the causal factors of prejudice may be exacerbated or quelled to a degree by the particularities of one's own personal, social, political, cultural and historical circumstances. Thus, James Baldwin (1967: 19) hits the nail on the head when he says "White people in this country [the U.S.] will have quite enough to do in learning how to accept and love themselves and each other, and when they have achieved this…the Negro problem will no longer exist, for it will no longer be needed."

There are two issues that follow on from these considerations. The first is one already touched upon: given this way of understanding racism is a different kind of explanation of racism's immorality in order? It seems that a different kind of explanation is in order from that offered by, say, Garcia, Blum or Dummett (this volume). It is an explanation that is rooted specifically in the nature of racism rather than with what racism or racist behavior has in common with other immoral behavior. Racism, like other prejudices, is grounded in character defects and a variety of psychological disorders and problems. Thus, an explanation of the immorality of racism would at least include reference to the moral reprehensibility of having such a character; and one's responsibility for that character along with associated traits. This is undoubtedly true of other forms of immorality as well. It would also, as previously noted, discuss the extent to which such features were under one's control and how the issue of control related to moral responsibility.13 Even if it is hard to change, this does not necessarily give the racist an excuse. But it does help us understand the entire phenomena of racism, morally and otherwise, better.

These considerations considerably complicate the role or significance of a person's motivation when assessing moral culpability because motivation itself becomes a complex and problematic category. One is motivated on various levels, conscious and unconscious, and in many, often-conflicting ways. Extensive self-deception involves considerable effort on the part of the one being self-deceived, and such deception is always motivated and intentional. It is also far more prevalent, vastly more prevalent, than most realise. These are complex moral issues, yet given an adequate explanation of racism they are also the ones that must be addressed if one is to explain just what it is that is morally wrong and problematic with racism.

Garcia says, (1996: 33) "Output-driven concepts [such as being dangerous or harmful] cannot suffice to ground assigning any moral status, because vice and virtue are by nature tied to the action's motivation." But morally assessing an action in relation to an agent's vice and virtue involves more than merely tying it to its motivation; and tying it to its motivation is a complex matter. There are often deep-underlying psychological motives and conflicting motives and issues of character to consider when one is assessing moral responsibility and a person's vice and virtue. The reason output-driven concepts are, as Garcia (1996: 33) says, often useful for moral judgment is because they "can help us to decide whether the action is negligent or malicious or otherwise vicious." Racisms and prejudices are grounded in our natures in so far as we are psychologically constituted as we are: beings who routinely and unavoidably make use of various defense mechanisms, who repress, project, maintain conflicting attitudes and beliefs and so on.

This leads us to the second issue. What are the prospects for white people sorting themselves out in the (unelaborated upon) way James Baldwin suggests necessary to overcome anti-black racism in the United States; for ridding themselves of those defensive, repressive, projective, narcissistic features that are the sources of racial hatreds? Or to generalise, what are the prospects of altering those features of our psychological selves that are the sources of the plethora of potent prejudices and racisms that continue to have such devastating consequences?

The prospects cannot be good since what appears to be called for is a reconstitution of our psychological selves. This in turn may depend on reconstituting ourselves in various other ways -- some known and some not -- as well: for example, economically and politically. That getting rid of racism calls for such fundamental, far reaching and wide ranging changes is no surprise and nothing new. After all, some feminists have noted that misogyny and other anti-women prejudices, likewise call for vast and fundamental alterations not only in our psychological but also in our social and political selves.

Given that certain historical, social and political, conditions help various prejudices to thrive while others help thwart them, it may be possible to curtail, albeit not eliminate, prejudices like racism, by legislating in ways that inhibit their growth. But this is problematic given that legislation and various forms of institutionalized racisms are themselves products of such prejudices. In other words, it is difficult, although not impossible, to see how meaningful, far-reaching legislation designed to curtail racisms and other prejudices can come from societies that are fundamentally and broadly racist.

Perhaps the prospects for substantial change are dismal in that it requires too much in too many ways -- ways that seem to mutually entail one another. It seems to require change in fundamental psychological features of ourselves that appear, if not impossible to alter, then damned near so. It is like trying to eliminate envy or jealousy. Indeed, in some cases eliminating racism requires eliminating envy and jealousy. Nevertheless, for one who has achieved a certain level of consciousness and self-awareness, such change appears possible -- just. Of all the difficulties one may have with oneself -- with one's character, personality, sexuality and psychological makeup, it seems that being a racist need not necessarily be one of them. Given a certain level of awareness, and some luck, one's desires, repressions, projections and denials need not take specifically racist forms. It is not just charity that begins at home, but also the kinds of self-knowledge required to extirpate racism.14 I think about Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream. It has all the qualities of a dream.15*

*My thanks to Damian Cox, Susan Datz, Marguerite La Caze, and Tamas Pataki.