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Motivated by a Manifold market on whether racism is bad [1], I thought it might be profitable to argue the opposite. Alas, having drafted my argument, I don't think it is appropriate to post in a place where my ID is tied to my real name. So here is an argument, advocatus diaboli:
Racism is just the expression of an ingroup bias for one's ethnic group, like an ingroup bias for one's own family. What I discovered living in a foreign culture is that people tend to have an ingroup bias to their own ethno-cultural group, and Westerners call this racism. It is easier to communicate with people of shared language, and people of the same cultural background will have shared interests. People of shared ethnic group are more likely to share values, and more likely to agree on topics political and personal. This isn't even a conscious thing: in my experience people of a shared ethnic group are even more likely to make strong eye contact with each other.
The bias is similar to how (most) people have an ingroup bias for their own family: I don't see my siblings often, but when we meet we connect strongly, and discover inadvertently that we face similar challenges and overcame them in similar ways. If my sibling confesses to me of a misdemeanor, I am not likely to hold it against them, and if they confessed to me a felony I'm not sure I would report them. If they are in need, I would help them with minimal complaint, and although we disagree vehemently in politics, we still love each other. My family is my ingroup. This is not a bad thing, it is just the way things are.
Now at the social level, that ingroup bias for family has its drawbacks: nepotism is common and harms society as a whole, and as I would be willing to help my sibiling get away with a crime, so does that closing of ranks around family horrific enable horrific acts, domestically, in the wider society, and even at the level of public policy and the economy. However, on balance the ingroup bias for family is a great thing (there is a reason why evolution has selected for it!). People take care of each other, they love each other, loneliness is diminished, and we trust each other more.
This is also what I see as an outsider in the foreign culture: people take care of each other, they love each other, they find companionship with each other, and they trust each other more because they share ethnic and cultural bonds. And while those bonds disadvantage me as a foreigner in their society, they have provided an evolutionary advantage, and I can't deny envying them life in the hamlet their forefathers made.
[1] https://manifold.markets/levifinkelstein/is-racism-bad
I think it’s a sort of dose-makes-the-poison thing for me. Being biased towards your own group, whatever that group might be is actually not only normal but healthy in normalish amounts. There’s nothing particularly wrong with preferring your own tribe or your own culture above others. In fact I think there’s something pathological about antipathy towards your own tribe, your own religion or culture.
I guess my gestalt image here would be either the Otaku or the Wigger— a white person with so much interest in another culture that it becomes a joke or a meme. They rejected everything white in favor of being something else. They spend time and energy and lots of effort to become a superficial version of a member of that culture without really understanding that those cultures will never truly accept you as one of them. At best they see it as cute, at worst they see it as a derogatory LARP.
The same could be said of the anti-racist penchant for declaring things to be the result of white supremacy and making huge grandiose public statements in apology and self-degradation. It’s not really as impressive as it’s made out to be, at best it’s cute, and at worst it comes off as a cringy LARP.
On the other hand being discriminatory in your behavior, or actually getting in the way of others getting a fair chance at living a decent life, that’s too far. Like Europe and North America are Christian civilizations there’s nothing wrong with promoting that heritage through art or music or literature or whatever else you want to use. Italy is Italian and I see little wrong with Italians embracing everything it means to be Italian. To me I find that to be much more respectable— even if I practiced a different religion or came from another culture, finding that the natives are not afraid to practice their religion or culture in public, that they actually like their people, country, and so on. Self-respect is something that other people will respond to with respect.
It is sad in some ways, but also admirable in others. It's what cultural diffusion looks like. One culture can definitely be better adapted to an environment than another. It's like the old saw about who would win a fight: a lion, or a shark?
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