Anti-Racism: The Church of the Damned
Gregory Hood, American Renaissance, October 4, 2018
Anti-racism is a church with no salvation. To be white is to be counted among the damned, no matter what you do. To be “colorblind” was once the goal of anti-racism, but today colorblindness is just another form of racism. And any white who resents being accused of racism is displaying “white fragility;” a host of professors, bureaucrats, and diversity experts will explain to him why he is racist, no matter what. These people profit from the sinner’s torment, like a corrupt clergy. A Renaissance pope would at least sell an indulgence if the price were right, but white “racists” get no mercy, regardless of how much they grovel or pay. There is only one way out of the cult of anti-racism: a strong white identity.
“White fragility” — what happens when someone tells liberals they aren’t racist — is no longer a fringe concept. NBC News is hosting a short presentation by the concept’s discoverer Robin DiAngelo on the outlet’s official YouTube channel. As of this writing, the video has about 2,500 dislikes and fewer than 100 likes. Nonetheless, it’s ominous that one of the most powerful media companies in the world is promoting this dangerous concept. The whole point of “white fragility” is that white people are always guilty, always susceptible to further demands, and always in need of more rehabilitation from the likes of Dr. DiAngelo.
In the video, Dr. DiAngelo says that to be white is to be “functionally illiterate” on race. She says whites are not raised to see themselves as part of a race, and instead think they are “outside of race.” An identitarian would agree. The white sense of being “outside of race” is wrong because whites, just like everyone else, do have a racial identity. Indeed, the refusal of whites to “see race” or admit they have a race causes many of our problems. Just like Dr. DiAngelo — but for completely different reasons — white advocates want whites to stop being “outside of race.”
The video claims to debunk “myths about race,” and race realists would agree that Dr. DiAngelo’s targets are “myths.”
The first is the idea that we can be “colorblind.” Dr. DiAngelo claims that this is wrong because any white person who claims not to see race is refusing to see the source of intense pain for non-whites, and this means ignoring their “reality.” Whites who ignore the “reality” of race for non-whites cannot be part of the solution. She is right to criticize colorblindness. Race is an essential part of identity and it is silly to pretend that a black person is not shaped by race. The same is true for all people — including whites. Dr. DiAngelo is wrong, of course, to claim race is a social construct rather than a biological reality. She also calls whiteness “necessarily a construct of oppression,” whereas it is recognition of common ancestry, background, and achievements. She is right to say it is wrong to ignore a black person’s race, but she is wrong to think white identity is oppression.
The second myth Dr. DiAngelo attacks is the idea that having black friends proves you are not racist. She says this assumes racists can’t tolerate “proximity to people of color.” “Trust me,” she says, “even avowed racists can tolerate being around people of color.” This is part of Dr. DiAngelo’s campaign to explain that you don’t have to be a drooling boor to be a “racist.” You may think you are a wonderful progressive, but you’re still a racist.
In another NBC article, Dr. DiAngelo mocks the old definition of a “racist” as “an individual who consciously does not like people based on race and is intentionally hurtful to them.” This definition isn’t nearly broad enough for her, because it includes practically nobody, and she knows it. It lets far too many whites off the hook, and thus exempts them from the lifelong struggle she prescribes for all whites to fight the “racist status quo.” For “racism” to achieve the prodigies of oppression attributed to it, millions of whites must be practicing it, no matter what their intentions. By expanding the definition of racism to include even benevolent whites, she can use it to attack much larger targets, such as the economic or social system. Like whites, the system itself conspires to oppress blacks and Hispanics.
Even the most vocal “anti-racists” show by their preferences for neighborhoods and schools that they like being around whites. Parents in New York City oppose plans to “diversify” once-elite schools, but they object to being called “racist” (thus showing white fragility) because they haven’t yet achieved Dr. DiAngelo’s understanding that all whites are, by definition, racist. This is an approach white advocates could ironically support; if all whites are racist, the word loses all meaning.
The third myth is to believe that “race has nothing to do with it, it’s about class.” “You cannot talk about any other issue without talking about how race informs that issue,” Dr. DiAngelo explains. She argues that talking about class often gets race “off the table.”
Dr. DiAngelo has a professional bias here: As someone who profits from the current progressive celebration of identity politics, she has nothing to gain from a focus on class. But her core point is true. It is impossible to talk about class without talking about race. Frank discussion of racial realities is the only way to explain patterns of racial behavior.
However, Dr. DiAngelo’s belief that race is a “social construct” makes understanding impossible. Throughout the world there is the same race/class pattern, with blacks at the bottom. And even in societies allegedly steeped in “white privilege,” such as the United States, Asians have higher incomes than whites. If races are equal, these patterns can be explained only by ever more complicated and unfalsifiable theories. As more handouts, quotas, and programs for the “oppressed” fail to bring equality, these theories become more elaborate and arcane. Thus, within a generation, colorblindness was transformed from the very definition of anti-racism to proof of “white privilege.” Mainstream conservatives, who largely accept the myth of biological egalitarianism, may timidly say “culture” makes a difference, but they also insist there is no direct connection between culture and race. This means they can’t understand race either.
Race realists do understand. Socioeconomic patterns reflect group differences in intelligence and other traits. Thus, any attempt to achieve equal results for all racial groups will fail, and failure leads to cover ups, phony statistics, declining standards, and convoluted attempts to deny reality. Dr. DiAngelo’s entire career is part of this flight into fantasy.
The next myth Dr. DiAngelo mentions is that “focusing on race is what divides us.” “First of all, we’re already divided by race,” she says, “and focusing on races is not what did it. . . . [R]efusing to grapple with how race shapes virtually everything is what keeps us divided. . . . That is a very white narrative.”
This is also true. Whites don’t want to identify as white or talk about race. They want to get “race off the table,” as Dr. DiAngelo repeatedly puts it. But not talking about race honestly—pretending there are no group differences in ability — promotes racial hatred because it encourages blacks to think whites oppress them.
Dr. DiAngelo wants to talk more about race, but not the way identitarians do. She believes whites “exempting” themselves from racial conversations will “protect the racial hierarchy and the white position with it, which is an unequal hierarchy.” But the burden of proof is on Dr. DiAngelo to explain why the “racial hierarchy” should or could be equal. There has always been racial and ethnic hierarchy, even in supposedly post-racial societies such as Haiti, the Soviet Union, or Brazil.
And if there is a racial hierarchy, how did whites get to the top? Speaking even mildly in defense of white identity can mean censorship, professional ruin, and even physical attack. Who is enjoying institutional power under this system? Dr. DiAngelo is. She has a comfortable academic post and positive coverage in mainstream media. She claims to be opposing “privilege” but her attack on “white privilege” is what brings her status and wealth. Dr. DiAngelo is just like other deracinated whites who profit from attacking white identity.
Dr. DiAngelo ends her video by saying she wants to switch the question from “if I’m racist” (we know the answer to that) to “how have I been shaped by the forces of racism, how is racism manifesting in my life?” She explains that everyone, including her, has an “individual story” that grew out of racism.
Dr. DiAngelo is right to say that no one is unaffected by his upbringing, but there is a different way to ask the question: “How was I shaped by my ancestors, both by their genetics and by their accomplishments?” She is right to say whites are wrong to pretend they are “outside of race” or that they individually “earned” everything they own, but from there Dr. DiAngelo gets everything wrong.
Contra Jordan Peterson, taking pride in the accomplishments of one’s people does not mean simply being proud of something you didn’t do. It means recognizing that you are the culmination of a genetic line that stretches far into the past. To deny your people is to deny yourself. From the very beginning of time, everything had to happen exactly as it did for you to be who you are.
A white person’s “individual story” fits into a country created by pioneers, settlers, and conquers. They created a country “for ourselves and our posterity,” and whites have the duty to defend it. Great cities, amazing technological accomplishments, and venerable institutions should fill whites with pride, but also a sense of humility. The West is being eroded by diversity; we must defend what exists, resist dispossession, and create something even greater.
Dr. DiAngelo is right to say that no one is an atomized individual, but she thinks this means only that we all benefit from and perpetuate “white supremacy.” The United States was created by and for white people, but it certainly no longer operates that way, and this partly explains why so many white Americans are so alienated. Living in a society made by and for one’s own people is natural, healthy, and good, and every people should strive for it.
If we assume the races are equal, only “racism” can explain inequality, and this justifies every kind of social engineering. Once “racism” is the ultimate sin and its definition is constantly expanded, whites are in an eternal state of subjugation and disgrace. Status, power, funding, and moral authority then flow first to non-whites but also to whites like Dr. DiAngelo. She makes a career out of preaching an eternal white guilt that must be eternally expiated. The only way out of this death cult is to renounce white guilt altogether.
There is a racist structure ruling over America, alright. Dr. DiAngelo is part of it. She teaches self-hatred to white people for her own gain. This isn’t rebellion; it is orthodoxy. It’s well past time for whites to break free. It’s well past time to stop being “fragile,” and start being proud again.