The following was written in response to a post on my https://www.facebook.com/groups/ConsciousCompassionateCreativeConversation group suggesting that Muslims were not a race but brainwashed members of a violent cult and therefore it is not racist to castigate them as a group whereas Jews are a race of people and therefore it would be racist to speak of them in a similar way.

Dear Paul,

With regard to your view that Jews are a ‘race’ whereas Muslims are not with its consequent implication that castigation of Muslims as Muslims (Islamophobia) is not racist while castigation of Jews as Jews (Antisemitism) is racist, I offer the following clarifications and observations.

I consider ‘race’ to be a construct—an abstraction based on appearance. Certain types have been abstracted based on colour and, largely, facial distinctions. I understand that these ‘types’ have been identified as ‘Negroid,’ ‘Caucasoid,’ ‘Mongoloid,’ and others. I also understand that these terms have fallen out of general use because it is now, rightly, considered distasteful to categorise people according to appearance. In any case, such categorisation has little biological significance since we are one species, as defined by our ability to successfully interbreed. Having done so, there is a spectrum or continuum between racial identifications abstracted from appearance. It is a choice—and, I believe, a disastrous one—to elevate these fluid abstractions to the status of naturally or divinely determined absolutes.

History and geography also play a part in what some people consider race, allowing Shakespeare to speak of an ‘English breed’ in his famed paean to nationalism and identity:

“This royal throne of kings, this scepter’d isle,

This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,

This other Eden, demi-paradise,

This fortress built by Nature for herself

Against infection and the hand of war,

This happy breed of men, this little world,

This precious stone set in the silver sea,

Which serves it in the office of a wall,

Or as a moat defensive to a house,

Against the envy of less happier lands,

This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,”

I quote this not only to name-drop but because of its unparalleled eloquence in evoking the attraction of racial and national identification—the belief that, because of appearance, history, or geography, one is somehow a member of a ‘happier breed of men’.

To return to the question of whether Jews are a ‘race,’ I do not consider them such. First (and foremost) because I regard the whole concept of race as confusing and unhelpful. Second, those who identify as Jews are highly diverse in appearance, with a majority seeming European, a minority of Middle Eastern appearance, and a smaller minority of African appearance. Whatever the claimed genetic evidence or mythos, it is appearance that counts. Finally, it is possible to stop being a Jew because one can stop identifying as a Jew and others can stop identifying one as a Jew. As a ‘Black’ man, I can stop identifying as ‘Black’ as much as I like, but it won’t prevent you or anyone else from seeing me as a Black man.

And that’s the crux of the matter, returning us to your characterisation of Muslims. You identify a Muslim as a Muslim, giving that identity more significance than the person’s identity as a human being and moral agent. This is why I believe you are truly Islamophobic. I do not identify anyone as a Jew unless they make a point of it; I see them as human beings and moral agents, capable of moral choice regardless of heritage. This is why, despite finding aspects of both Muslim and Jewish doctrine disagreeable, I do not consider myself either Islamophobic or antisemitic. To drive the point home, let me quote another great English poet, Kipling:

“Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,

Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgement Seat;

But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,

When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!”

Finally, Paul, I must say that although I find your views erroneous and often distasteful, I nevertheless thank you for expressing them. They serve me by allowing me to review and reaffirm my own values. This service is best expressed in the words of John Stuart Mill, with whom I entirely agree and on which I think we might both concur:

Mill gives four reasons why we should not deter the expression of divergent ideas:

“First, if any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility.

Secondly, though the silenced opinion be an error, it may, and very commonly does, contain a portion of truth; and since the general or prevailing opinion on any subject is rarely or never the whole truth, it is only by the collision of adverse opinions that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied.

Thirdly, even if the received opinion be not only true, but the whole truth; unless it is suffered to be, and actually is, vigorously and earnestly contested, it will, by most of those who receive it, be held in the manner of a prejudice, with little comprehension or feeling of its rational grounds.

And not only this, but, fourthly, the meaning of the doctrine itself will be in danger of being lost, or enfeebled, and deprived of its vital effect on character and conduct: the dogma becoming a mere formal profession, inefficacious for good, but cumbering the ground, and preventing the growth of any real and heartfelt conviction, from reason or personal experience.”