Something Worse Than Racism
By DONALD DeMARCO
Racism is unquestionably an evil that all of us should endeavor to eliminate. And it is universally regarded as such. The great impediment to eradicating this evil is that many people do not understand the nature of racism. For example, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter in Toronto has stated that “White ppl [people] are recessive genetic defects. This is factual,” and that “white ppl [people] need white supremacy as a mechanism to protect their survival as a people because all they can do is produce themselves.”
Being white, or of any color, for that matter, does not exemplify racism. The fact that such a statement receives a great deal of publicity is most disheartening and does nothing to eliminate racism.
Racism is an injustice that unfairly categorizes a person by a factor (color) that is entirely irrelevant. Because it is a form of prejudice directed at an entire race of human beings, it has a much wider scope than prejudice inveighed against a particular person. Therefore, its evil is magnified. Woody Allen once quipped that he was banned from his high school’s chess club because he was too short. While prejudice of any kind is not a laughing matter, Allen does offer a good example of an irrelevant factor determining a person’s status.
Evil as racism is, there is something worse, something to which society, so it seems, is curiously indifferent. Color is a morally neutral category. One cannot judge another as good or bad simply because of color. The injustice here lies in the fact that something neutral is judged to be something defective. But suppose prejudice was directed at a person because he was doing something good. This would be worse than racism for it despises not something that is neutral but something that is good. Christ is the ultimate example of this kind of evil.
Recently, a small Catholic school in Canada, one that has been cited by the Newman Society as a reliable and orthodox Catholic center of learning, requested government funding for three of its students to do routine, but important, work around the college.
The request was denied because the school is pro-life and neither it nor its students can approve of a woman’s “right” to abortion, an approval which the liberal government of Canada requires. The school’s president informed the government that owing to its own integrity, it could not attest to something that it regarded as morally wrong. But the president also questioned how the government could violate Canada’s Charter of Rights by refusing to honor a legitimate difference of opinion:
“For all the talk of Charter rights in the attestation, this program is remarkably obtuse about the ways in which this process subverts the religious rights enshrined in the Charter.”
The government is not the property of the liberal party. Rather, it should be the servant of all its citizens without prejudice. The current government of Canada has divided its citizenry into those who approve abortion and those who do not, while punishing the latter for their legitimate moral convictions.
There are a number of serious problems here. First of all, a Canadian woman does not have a “right” to abortion, not even legally. In Canada, abortion is devoid of any legal regulation. Secondly, a particular political party should not impose its peculiar ideology on all Canadian citizens. Thirdly, such action blatantly contradicts Canada’s Charter of Rights.
Finally, being pro-life should not be regarded as something so wrongheaded that government grants to students who are pro-life should be withheld from them. Pro-life students are being victimized not because they are doing something wrong, but actually because they are doing something right, namely, supporting the lives of all their fellow citizens.
Although the government’s position in this matter amounts to something far worse than racism, there is little protest against it. Being in favor of abortion has become the unofficial law of the land, in violation of the laws supporting life that had been previously established by democratic processes.
There is another side of this problem, apart from students who are unfairly treated. It has to do with the governmental officials who enforce this clear example of discrimination. Where is their integrity? Without their realizing it, they are contributing, though perhaps unwittingly, to the moral erosion of society. Unlike St. Thomas More who refused to attest to immorality, today’s bureaucrats seem to be mindlessly carrying out whatever they are asked to do.
In the 1962 Author’s Preface to The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis offers his own vision of Hell where today’s greatest evil takes place. It does not transpire in concentration camps, he avers, “But is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the offices of a thoroughly nasty business concern.”
A pro-life student who is denied funding for a summer job by the government precisely because of his pro-life views is far better off than the bureaucrat who carries out the discriminatory orders of his superiors. The good name of men and women, as Shakespeare has stated, “Is the immediate jewel of their souls.”
“He who steals my purse steals trash. . . . But he that filches from me my good name robs me of that which not enriches him and makes me poor indeed” (Othello, Act 3, scene 3, 155-161).
Socrates, the Father of Moral Philosophy, held that it is better to suffer an injustice than to commit one (Gorgias). Pro-life people will continue to suffer injustices, even those that are worse than racism, but it can strengthen their character and help them to see even more clearly which side is on the side of the Angels.
- + + (Dr. Donald DeMarco is a senior fellow at Human Life International. His latest book posted on amazon.com is Why I Am Pro-Life and Not Politically Correct.)