Does it end at racism?

What do we define as racist?

racist (adj) — prejudiced against or antagonistic toward a person or people on the basis of their membership in a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized

The basic prejudice that forces someone to think or behave or treat someone differently based on their race. The inherent hierarchy embedded into the grassroots of the society solely on the grounds of someone’s race determining how he/she needs to live his/her way of life. The key thing that lead to the inception of this discrimination is the imaginary order called hierarchy.

Bees are kind of similar to human societies. They too have the concept of hierarchy. The queen bee is the top of the pyramid, while workers and drones are below the queen bee’s social stature. This hierarchy enables them to function efficiently and maintains the order in the hive, distribution of work is efficient and everything functions smoothly. But we don’t see riots happening in the hive or one set of bees killing other bees. Why? This is because for bees this hierarchy is naturally embedded in their dna. It’s not an imaginary reality for the hive to have a hierarchy to function. But how is it different to human societies then?

Human societies have the concept of imagined reality, a bunch of us believe in something together and viola it comes into existence. Money, religion, corporations and social hierarchy are some of the examples of imagined reality. In human society in particular there are various hierarchies based on money, religion, cast, race, color of skin, gender etc.

When someone discriminates based on the race of a person, he is deemed a racist and someone that understands the flawed nature of this concept, is deemed not a racist. But what about the inherent biases we carry based on other factors? What should a person be called if he condemns racism but is ok with a rich inheriting all the richness and having an easier path to success compared to a person born in a poor family? What about a person who agrees to have equal rights for people of all colors but is still not ok to marry his/her kids into a different caste or religion? How about a person who is ok to see a young talent struggle to fight his/her way up the social ladder because he/she was born in a family with lower stature in social hierarchy but is ok to spend his money on luxurious pleasures to quench his social validation thirst?

Does everyone believing in any kind of hierarchy, by default become a racist? Probably the word racist wont technically encompass all the discriminations. Equality was/is forever used in terms of people of the land governed by same laws — it never was meant to abolish the social hierarchies but to govern different people in different hierarchies with same laws. Even in a society where people of all colors are living peacefully, there will always be a richer community living in a posh urban part of the society while a lower income community will be living in a secluded underdeveloped part of the society.

So the question is — does it end at racism? Social hierarchies are definitely something which will remain a crucial part of any society, they enable us function as a large group and make the system work efficiently. The question is how do we stop the abuse of such hierarchies?

ps — the point of this article is to trigger the thoughts of the reader to view the problem from a different perspective and to question the ground reality of the basis of our society.