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 ...