Summary Garcia’s view on racism is one that is based on attitudes of hatred and lack of regard for members of certain races. Garcia states that “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.” (236) This stance opposes the thought of racism being belief-based. Garcia uses an interesting method to counter the thought of race being unreal. Garcia’s view doesn’t require there be races “But that people make distinctions in their hearts, whether consciously or not on the basis of their racial classifications” (236) Garcia goes on to explain how people may “falsely attribute …show more content…
Garcia’s way of viewing racism suggests that prejudice does not exactly mean racist. “Racism is not, on this view, primarily a cognitive matter, and so it is not in its essence a matter of how or when one makes one’s judgments.” (239) Garcia couples this by saying that race-based preference or favoritism is not necessarily racist. His reasoning for saying it is not racist is “Preferential treatment in affirmative action, while race-based, is not normally based on any racial disregard.” (240) Garcia notes that his view may fail to “meet the test of accommodating clear cases of racism from history.” (242) Garcia acknowledges that there is hatred in those who neglect a person’s welfare. (242) His conclusion on how their racism differed is that “They stand against the advancement of Black people.” (242) Meaning that the intent of those was to deter the Black race from any …show more content…
The first flaw in Garcia’s work is when he states “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. (236) The problem with this statement is how Garcia attempts to challenge the belief-based theory. Garcia attempts to disprove the counter of race being a social construction by saying that race need not be a thing for racism to still exist. His reasoning is that “People make distinctions in their hearts, whether consciously or not on the basis of their racial classifications.” (236) This reasoning is a weak way to justify the root of slavery. Racism is something that is more convoluted than a distinction in one’s heart. Ignorance is a word often brought up when discussing the topic of racism. In the early history of racism, there was a clear case of ignorance in those who believed people of color to be a lesser race. For Garcia to say that racism is strictly about our “wants, intentions, likes, and dislikes and their distance from the moral virtues.” (236) is to ignore a whole portion of history where people believed they were doing nothing wrong by enslaving people of