Enjoy the Spoils

“The genius of racism is that you don’t have to participate to enjoy the spoils.”

-         Mychal Denzel Smith

I saw the above lines in an article on racism. Now replace “racism” with pretty much any other form of discrimination: caste system, religious orthodoxy, sexism for instance, and it would be equally true.

That was a lightbulb moment for me. It explained why different forms of discrimination persist even in societies where a decent fraction of the population says (honestly), “But I myself don’t believe in X form of discrimination”. Making that statement allows that set to feel good about themselves, even morally superior to the rest, and, this is the key, yet continue to reap the benefits of that very form discrimination! Sure, they aren’t doing this consciously; but nevertheless, they do reap the benefits of that unjust system.

Thus the reserved class guy who doesn’t believe seats/jobs should be reserved based on the caste people are born into and should instead be based on economic standing (or perhaps he even opposes reservation altogether) still stands to benefit from reservations.

I guess discrimination is one of those cases where even if a change in attitudes happens one person at a time, nothing really changes with respect to the big picture…until that tipping point or critical mass is reached. And that could take ages.

Which is perhaps also why societal change only happens via reformers who take society by storm, like the Vidyasagars and the Martin Luthers, but not, say, by the condemnation of terrorism by individuals, one at a time, however sincere they may be.