2. Discrimination or prejudice based on race.

The lady is racist. I can’t fathom why one would ever say such a comment wasn’t. Its classic racism. Now if it was a matter of a ballet being ruined because the only black dancers in the show added a different style of hip rolling, soulful movement (for example)to their steps, therefore standing out in that manner, I would understand where the lady, excuse me woman (she is in no way a lady for that defines a “well-mannered and considerate woman with high standards of proper behavior.” ) was coming from. In that case the event would have been an act of disrespect to long lived traditions of ballet. Sadly this was not the case for her at all. It was not the style of dance but the color of skin and/or “cultural backround” of the dancers. I say with quotations because the idea of backround in her view was most likely a stereotype. Nevertheless none of this could have been portrayed in the actual dancing. As a former dancer with training ranging from smaller to some of the most celebrated companies, my opinion is that in order for those dancers to have been chosen for such a prestigious ballet, they had to be good if not some of the best dancers in the show all together. I mean its not like the company doesn’t know of the so called “risks” of black dancers. They could never be mediocre, they would stick out like sore thumbs and encourage the very segregation that this woman would prefer. Too bad she can’t just travel back in time.

If you’re right in conveying what the Ethicist said, then he’s playing semantic games rather than answering her question. I would think that racism involves making unjustified negative generalizations. If the Ethicist defines racism the way he did, then he can call anyone he wants a racist. But then maybe his point was to try to make her feel guilty.

Also, he has no basis to draw the conclusions he did about her. She gave no indication of being affected by feelings toward race in any way other than the most obvious ones. There was no disparagement of Black people in her aesthetic preference. She merely referred to an obvious external characteristic. So as I see it, she hasn’t shown any signs of racism, conscious or unconscious.

I agree that this reader probably wanted someone to tell her that is was okay to have these feelings. It is also quite telling that she does not wish to intentionally discriminate against Black dancers and is questioning her aesthetic preferences. Maybe she should read some of the literature on unconcious racism.

Actually I have to wonder why someone would ask someone else (much less someone who works for the NY Times of all places) if her aesthetic preference makes her a racist. It seems to me she’s looking for external validation that she’s not a bad person.

“In Palmore, a dispute over custody of a child, the divorced mother and father were both white; the mother, who had initially been granted custody, remarried with an African American man. A local judge in Florida, citing the prejudice that a child would suffer from growing up in an interracial household, then awarded custody of the child to the father,

saying that that action was in the best interests of the child. The Supreme Court did not question

the trial court’s factual findings about the difficulties the child would face; indeed the Court explicitly acknowledged the “risk” that the child would be harmed.”

But “The Court declared that “the law cannot, directly or indirectly, give … effect” to the

“private biases” directed at the interracial couple, notwithstanding their “reality … and the injury they might inflict.”

from

http://www.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1041&context=ils

Moreover, I would think aesthetic responses would be far more malleable than the types of prejudice at issue in Palmore. IF a few tastemakers start valuing diverse performers, I would think the audience would follow. Indeed, there’s often only one ballet company in a city–to whom will they defect?