Racism, Nationalism and Religious Intolerance

[Michael Schneider]

Racism is considered by most people to be a bad human attribute. However, like nationalism and individual religions, it has its benefits as well as its drawbacks. Historically, I believe we have seen it to be, on balance, more hurtful than helpful. So when would racism, nationalism and religious intolerance of those holding to a different spiritual beliefs be beneficial? I think, for example, Hitler the Empire leaders of Victorian England and the American colonists, believed that they were intrinsically superior to those people they wished to subjugate and murder. Even, going so far as to believe that G-d wanted them to have their way with the "sub-humans" that actually were fellow members of what researchers agree to be the common family called "modern man". This feeling of being special energized and motivated these racists to fulfill what they believed they were capable of doing, due to their superiority, for their selfish interests. I abhor racism; that's one of the reasons that I enjoy watching sports like basketball. Most basketball fans, like myself, ignore the race, country of origin and of course the religious persuasion of the players. We just make judgements on the participants based on their ability to play the game. In a similar way, remember that Martin Luther King argued for judging people only by the content of their character.