The New Racists

I strongly encourage you to read the excerpt from John McWhorter’s book on neoracism, posted at Persuasion or buy the book itself and read that. Here’s the opening:

One can divide antiracism into three waves. First Wave Antiracism battled slavery and segregation. Second Wave Antiracism, in the 1970s and 1980s, battled racist attitudes and taught America that being racist was a flaw. Third Wave Antiracism, becoming mainstream in the 2010s, teaches that racism is baked into the structure of society, so whites’ “complicity” in living within it constitutes racism itself, while for black people, grappling with the racism surrounding them is the totality of experience and must condition exquisite sensitivity toward them, including a suspension of standards of achievement and conduct.

Those “waves” can be associated with the ascendancy of three different views of the role of blacks in American society. The “First Wave” marks the ascendancy of the views of Booker T. Washington which are very similar to those held by Martin Luther King, Jr. Developments during the “Second Wave” more closely reflect the views of W. E. B. Du Bois: the “talented tenth” prosper while the fortunes of the remaining 90% of blacks languish.

The “Third Wave” is basically black supremacy and, unless squelched, will inevitably point in the direction of the realization of Marcus Garvey’s plans.

Don’t miss the following ten “oppositions” in the excerpt. They will explain for you a lot of what’s presently going on.

I had racism, much as it’s presently construed, explained to me by a black friend more than a half century ago. To make a long story short only whites can be racists because whites have power. As I’ve pointed out before that is a category error in more than one way. First, groups don’t have power. Individuals have power. Second, the overwhelming majority of whites have no power, either. Most importantly from my point of view in the U. S. whiteness has always been malleable. Nowadays the Irish, Italians, many Hispanics (a linguistic distinction not an ethnic one) and Jews are all white. Unless they themselves impede the evolution of whiteness in the American consciousness Arabs (another linguistic distinction) Hispanics, East Asians, and South Asians will all become white.

IMO Third Wave antiracism is just plain old racism and will not produce good results. I think it’s also heavily influenced by Marxism, replacing class consciousness with race consciousness. It’s a foreseeable consequence of having been radicalized with respect to race.