Jane Elliot’s Trick Collectivist Question, and My Individualist Response

Jane Elliot, Anti-Racism activist, diversity educator, crusader against “discrimination,” posed a question to an audience at one of her lectures. Here is a transcription: 

Jane Elliott: (00:01)

I want every white person in this room who would be happy to be treated as this society in general treats our citizens, our black citizens, if you, as a white person, would be happy to receive the same treatment that our black citizens do in this society, please stand.

Audience: (00:17)

(silence)

Jane Elliott: (00:18)

You didn’t understand the directions. If you white folks want to be treated the way blacks are in this society, stand.

Audience: (00:29)

(silence)

Jane Elliott: (00:29)

Nobody’s standing here. That says very plainly that you know what’s happening, you know you don’t want it for you. I want to know why you’re so willing to accept it or to allow it to happen for others.

Count me as standing. 

Society is made up of individuals. I, a “white” person, can only speak for the part of society I control, myself. I believe in the Golden Rule. I treat all of my fellow citizens, regardless of skin color, with respect for their individuality, integrity, and rights. I judge people based on their character, not skin color. I would have no problem being treated the same. I would be happy to receive the same treatment that our Black citizens receive from me. 

And neither am I “willing to accept or to allow” others to be subjected to racist treatment. And, I will presume, neither would most of Elliot’s audience, despite their not responding to her challenge. Does this mean they are willing to accept bigotry from others?

Apparently, Elliot’s audience didn’t know how to respond when the trap was sprung. And then she makes a truly despicable, evidence-free accusation: 

Nobody’s standing here. That says very plainly that you know what’s happening, you know you don’t want it for you. I want to know why you’re so willing to accept it or to allow it to happen for others.

Elliot uses her audience’s confusion to accuse them of knowingly being “willing to accept” bigotry, injustice, and racism, which she attributes to “society,” not her audience members personally or individually. This is a cheap shot. I wonder what response she would have gotten if her challenge was, “I want every white person in this room, as an independent member of society, who would be happy to be treated as he/she general treats our citizens, our black citizens, if you, as a white person, would be happy to receive the same treatment that our black citizens do from you, please stand.” 

It’s true that black Americans have been treated horribly by wide swaths of our society. This treatment was most egregious when racists were in control of the legal apparatus of the state, as under slavery and, later, under Jim Crow. And, yes, there were people who were not themselves racist but who shamefully looked the other way—who knew what’s happening, and were, through personal inaction, sanctioned the injustice that happened to others. 

But there was also a powerful counter-attack on the slavers and racists in this country. Fueled by the promise of equality and individual rights articulated in the Declaration of Independence, these genuine American heroes seized political power from the racists, which is why we no longer have slavery or Jim Crow. I wonder how these heroes against bigotry would have responded to Elliot’s trick question. Likely, they would have been stunned into silence, and then accused by Elliot of doing nothing about the treatment of black Americans! On Elliot’s collectivist premise, the white 19th Century Abolitionists probably would not have stood. Are they to be accused of “willing to accept or to allow slavery to happen for others?” On Elliot's collectivist premises, the white 20th Century Civil Rights supporters and activists who stood with Martin Luther King probably would not have stood. Are they to be accused of “willing to accept or to allow Jim Crow and racist exclusion to happen for others?”

I will not be trapped by collectivist premises. Nor will I be blamed for allowing whatever lingering racism still exists in America. Neither should anyone else. Elliot is part of the movement to tar America with the racist label for all posterity. But she and her ilk can be disarmed by understanding that the fundamental battle in America is individualism versus collectivism; that racism is a manifestation of collectivism; that individualism is the only antidote to racism; and that those who embrace collectivism have no claim to the anti-racism label. That noble label belongs to the individualists. 

What any one individual can do is limited. “Society in general” is a lot of people. But we can do something—embrace individualism in our personal lives and in any activism within our limited resources. Advocate individualism. Judge people by the content of their character, beliefs, and actions, not by the color of their skin. And then expose the absurdity and unfairness of the race-baiters. That is true anti-racism.

Related Reading:

The Racism of the ‘Anti-Racists’

Individualism vs. Collectivism: Our Future, Our Choice—Craig Biddle  

The Founding Fathers, Not ‘Diversity,’ is the Solution to ‘Our Racialized Society’

Fighting Racism With Collectivism is No Way to Exterminate Racism

Racism -- Ayn Rand

How to Overcome Bigotry in a Free Society

Jamaican, gay and Ayn Rand made it OK: My amazing "Atlas Shrugged" love story: “I was young, atheist and gay in a very homophobic country. I had no intellectual armor, until I discovered Ayn Rand” --Jason Hill, professor of philosophy at De Paul University in Chicago, author of We Have Overcome: An Immigrant's Letter to the American People, and a scholar with 1776unites.

Jason Hill Vindicates the American Dream against Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Delusional Race Rhetoric by Timothy Sandefur for The Objective Standard

Related Viewing:

 John McWhorter: America Has Never Been Less Racist -- Reason interview