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  Nicole Seymour Seymour is graduating next week and wants you to give her a job. E-mail her at saintblue@hotmail.com. Click Here for more articles by Nicole Seymour

Last month, my friend and her colleague, both of whom work for community advocacy groups in the Los Angeles area, participated in a hate crimes workshop as part of a “Violence in America”symposium at UCLA. The symposium was organized by the Plato Society, a UCLA Extension program group dedicated to debating and discussing various current events and topics.

One would hope that the Society’s members, who are overwhelmingly white and of a median age of 55, would defy assumptions and take a progressive approach to the subject. Sadly, my friend informed me that most did not; rather, these attendees seemed both intimidated and offended by someone challenging them to oppose hate crimes, and were antagonistic about being asked to re-evaluate their notions on race, prejudice and hate.

This unfortunately seems to be a major trend in American society that only increases as our laws, public opinion and general standards of acceptable behavior slowly progress. People are not only unwilling to take responsibility for historic or personal racism, they are often hostile about considering the fact that they might be racist when, in fact, they sometimes blatantly are.

  Illustration by RODERICK ROXAS/Daily Bruin One Plato society member at the symposium stated that he thought undocumented workers were responsible for the decline of our society, and that immigration should be halted – but not from affluent, white places such as Scandinavian countries or England. He then defensively demanded to know if that would make him a racist, adding that he could “guarantee” that if he wrote an op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times asking for an end to immigration, someone would indeed charge him as such.

Well, of course. Any time someone lumps people into one group, blaming them for social, political or economic problems, generalizing about their attributes, abilities or worthiness, as this man did, that is racism. Personal anecdotes or experiences that may support racist ideals or stereotypes do not change the fact that this is still racism. Yet, people somehow manage excuse themselves from committing this offense, becoming enraged when someone identifies a racist act they commit.

Simply stated, racism remains one of the last “isms” that people are reluctant to admit to or take responsibility for. As opposed to sexism and homophobia, which are actually badges of pride for some segments of society, namely patriarchal leaders and the Christian right, most people don’t want to be thought of as harboring or condoning racist ideals, no matter who they are.

For example, Eminem was awarded a Grammy whether or not he is truly misogynist or homophobic, but no one will ever nominate the racist skinhead band Skrewdriver for a Grammy, no matter how “talented” they may be. Most people like to keep racism under wraps, or try to convince themselves it’s not racism to begin with. They believe, unlike sexism and homophobia, racism pertains only to members of the Klu Klux Klan. They think that racism is never subtle, and that racism is only committed by means of extreme malice.

These assumptions are apparently the standard against which many people judge their behavior – if they’re not “really” racist, they can tell racist jokes. Since they themselves have never committed an act of racism, they think their countries don’t need to apologize for past atrocities. And if they don’t hate other races – just simply think they’re stupid, lazy or pathetic – then they must be miles away from people who lynch or burn crosses.

And don’t get me wrong; they are miles away, in a sense. There is a difference between someone who mentally uses racial slurs and someone who spray paints them on a building.

But the funny thing is that the first kind of person usually doesn’t want to be called a racist. They want to enjoy the privileges of being viewed as upright, good-natured and worthy citizens, while enjoying the privilege of living in an insulated, ignorant world.

And who can blame them? We’ve come a long way from the days when people were worried that they might be perceived as tolerant of other races, when those that were tolerant were ostracized for it. It’s a good sign that people fear that they might be perceived as racists.

Unfortunately, though, the fact that many people have this fear often translates into more hostility against people of color and non-racist whites, because they are thought of as having created this fear.

As evidenced by the rhetoric of right-wing thinkers such as Rush Limbaugh, some people act as if they can no longer air their own opinions about race without retaliation, feeling that political correctness is now practically being legislated by some monolithic liberal taskforce.

I agree somewhat. It’s no longer acceptable to depict racist caricatures in films or television (though they still occur). It’s no longer acceptable when public figures make racist comments, purposely or not – such as John Rocker bashing immigrants, or Cruz Bustamante accidentally saying “nigger” when addressing the NAACP (though those things still happen, too). The climate in this country has definitely changed.

But what that means is that if you don’t want to reform your prejudiced beliefs, you have to accept the consequences it brings – being labeled a racist, disapproved of by your fans or constituents, or criticized by friends or pundits.

The most prominent example of this type of behavior is illustrated by John Ashcroft, George Bush’s recent choice for U.S. Attorney General. He is, for all intents and purposes, a racist. He has received an honorary degree from Bob Jones University, the non-accredited Southern university that only last year began to permit interracial dating. As Missouri’s attorney general, he fought efforts to forge a resolution to the problem of segregation in St. Louis schools, filing appeal after appeal against forming a voluntary desegregation plan.

Yet when left-wingers call him a racist, his supporters call the label a vicious attack. As if we, as a society, are supposed to embrace the most outrageously prejudiced behavior in a top official – but not actually acknowledge that he is prejudiced!

It’s not only time that people take responsibility for their racism, but maybe it’s also time they actually take pride in it. If this man from the Plato Society, John Ashcroft and other people like them are willing to harbor or attempt to propose ideas to work against diversity in the favor of the white privileged class, they should believe in themselves enough to proclaim that their actions are indeed of a racist nature. Since they don’t, such people belie their true natures.

It’s painfully (but somewhat reassuringly) obvious that they know racism is wrong, or else they should not have so much trouble standing firmly behind its banner.