Firing Back

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Ed Brodow, The War on Whites: How Hating White People Became the New National Sport, TousDroit Publishing,  2023, 193 pp, $15.99 soft cover, $7.99 Kindle.

Several recent books have challenged America’s racial orthodoxy. If this trend continues, 2023 could be remembered as the year that dissidents finally broke the Left’s taboo on truthfully discussing race. But while America’s Cultural Revolution by Christopher Rufo, When Race Trumps Merit by Heather Mac Donald, and The Origins of Woke by Richard Hanania focus on defeating leftist policies and civil rights laws, The War on Whites highlights the raw anti-white animus coming from every single US institution.

Written and self-published by Ed Brodow, a veteran conservative columnist, The War on Whites covers what the author calls “the anti-white racial inquisition against whites.” Mr. Brodow gives example after example of this anti-white racial enmity by reporters, black activists, politicians, and college professors. A political pundit, he holds Barack Obama and Joe Biden particularly responsible for the war on whites.

Open season on whites

Why did Mr. Brodow write this book? He explains: “Whites are being demonized and marginalized at every turn. Any attempt to say, ‘I am proud to be white,’ is met with scorn and ridicule. I have become an advocate for white people. Thirty years ago, this never would have occurred to me.”

The author gives numerous examples of anti-white hate speech throughout the book:

• Kamau Kambon, an African-American professor at North Carolina State University, told a panel at Howard University Law School, “We have to exterminate white people off the face of the planet.”
• Nikole Hannah-Jones, creator of the 1619 Project, claims that “The white race is the biggest murderer, rapist, pillager, and thief of the modern world.”
• Donald Moss, a psychoanalyst who teaches at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute, referred to whiteness as “a malignant parasitic-like condition to which white people have a particular susceptibility.”
• New York Times editorial board member Sarah Jeong made social media posts saying, “cancel white people,” “white men are bullshit,” and “dumbass f—ing white people.”
• As mayor of Chicago, Lori Lightfoot announced she would not grant interviews to white reporters.
• Psychiatrist Aruna Khilanani told an audience at Yale School of Medicine that she has fantasies about killing whites.
• President Joe Biden urged the graduating class at Howard University to “stand up against the poison of white supremacy . . . the most dangerous terrorist threat to our homeland.”
• Pentagon diversity chief Kelisa Wing wrote the following on social media: “I’m exhausted with these white folx. This lady actually had the CAUdacity to say that black people can be racist too . . . I had to stop the session and give Karen the BUSINESS . . . .”
• Texas A&M professor Tommy Curry believes blacks should openly talk about murdering whites so that whites believe that “death could come for them at any moment.”

Of course, there was no major outrage over these remarks, all of which came from powerful people in elite institutions.

It is not just individuals who detest whites. Entire companies, universities, and organizations have mandatory “diversity” training where they teach that whites are uniquely evil. The author quotes from one such program at Bank of America that claims white children “develop racial biases by ages 3–5.” Seattle city workers are told to examine their “complicity in the system of white supremacy.” Raytheon encourages white employees to “confront their privilege.” Coca-Cola is even more direct, telling employees, “Try to be less white.” One high school student gives a perhaps typical white response to diversity training:

After a year of the people in charge telling me that I’m a racist and I’m privileged and pointing out our irreversible differences, I’ve never noticed race more and it’s become the first thing I notice when I meet someone — which has never before been the case.

Mr. Brodow sees identity politics as encouraging this hatred of whites since it offers an easy excuse for the failings of other groups, particularly blacks. Of course, identity politics as currently practiced is a one-way street. He quotes popular Dissident Right podcaster Scott Greer: “Diversity in today’s America simply means having fewer whites around.”

The author believes that, taken to its logical conclusion, identity politics and diversity will destroy merit and put everyone at risk. He notes United Airlines recently announced that 50 percent of its new pilots will be women or non-whites. Most top medical schools also practice affirmative action and push critical race theory (CRT) and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) propaganda. Do we really want affirmative action hires flying our airplanes at 30,000 feet or performing heart surgery?

The War on Whites is filled with ridiculous cases showing where diversity leads. The average university now has 45 people dedicated to promoting diversity on campus. The University of Michigan has 163 diversity officers. Blacks are 12 percent of the population but appear in 89 percent of TV commercials. Disney announced that half of its characters will now be LGBT or non-white. Beginning in 2024, the Academy Awards will mandate diversity quotas that must be met before movies can be considered for a Best Picture Oscar.

Halle Bailey is #Ariel pic.twitter.com/H1yVRlrvTy

— Disney (@Disney) April 26, 2023

Black privilege

Mr. Brodow writes that it is popular to decry “white supremacy” even though no such thing exists. Yet he claims black supremacy does exist and gives multiple examples of blacks being allowed to express openly hatred of whites. Former CNN host Don Lemon has stated, “The biggest terror threat in this country is white men, and we have to start doing something about them.” MSNBC’s Joy Reid goes even further, stating things such as, “This country was built on the idea that white men have a particular kind of freedom that only they have.” The author marvels at the double standard:

If white reporters made similar attacks on black America, they would be convicted of white supremacy and fired immediately. How is Reid getting away with her attacks on white America without losing her job? . . . The acceptance of anti-white slurs made by Lemon and Reid serve as proof that black supremacy has more clout than white supremacy.

Mr. Brodow does not seem to differentiate between “black supremacy” and “black privilege,” but he lists the ways in which blacks are privileged in society:

• Affirmative action quotas benefiting blacks have become the norm in education and employment.
• College courses are specifically designed for black students.
• Black students benefit from the lower standards applied by college professors who practice affirmative grading.
• Political correctness supports anything related to African-Americans and condemns Caucasian-Americans.
• Many courts are reluctant to prosecute blacks for various criminal acts for fear of being called racist.
• Media bias caters to positive depictions of blacks and avoids negative ones.
• Blacks can get away with racial slurs against whites, but whites can’t use the N word.

The author ends the book by focusing on the case for reparations for slavery. While dismissing reparations as unwarranted nonsense, he notes that the movement is gaining steam. He wonders how blacks would feel if the tables were turned:

If reparations represent the new face of racial politics, we ought to consider reparations for whites paid for by blacks as compensation for decades of massive violence against the white population. . . . Whites are suffering from black criminality and anti-white hate in the here and now, not 50–100 years ago. The economic cost to whites and white businesses from black racial violence has amounted to billions. The cost of welfare and other government programs designed to help blacks has amounted to trillions, with very little to show for it.

Despite that last quote, The War on Whites is careful in describing anti-white animus. Mr. Brodow urges an end to all identity politics as a solution. While he occasionally quotes Scott Greer and Colin Flaherty, he mostly cites mainstream conservative figures such as Thomas Sowell, David Horowitz, Ben Shapiro, and Shelby Steele throughout the book. He steers clear of IQ or any genetic basis of race to explain the behavior of blacks. His approach reminds me of another book I first read more than 30 years ago. Paved With Good Intentions was my entry into the world of forbidden thoughts on race. Jared Taylor laid out a similar case to show how whites were being harmed by America’s racial orthodoxy without focusing on race and IQ or explicitly calling for white racial consciousness to fight back.

Regular readers of American Renaissance will have heard the ideas presented in The War On Whites before. But the book seems to be reaching normal whites who are getting fed up with anti-whiteness. As I write this review, the book is the number-one best seller in the category of General Sociology of Race Relations according to Amazon. It is number five in Cultural Policy. Not bad for a self-published paperback. Many readers are discovering that they are not alone in wanting to fight back against the war on white people. Here are a few quotes from Amazon reviews of the book:

• “Ed Brodow’s new book ‘The War on Whites’ says what we are all thinking. White people are sick and tired of being bashed and trashed all over the place.”
• “Finally an established commentator has detailed what most of us have realized but been afraid to discuss. The media, Hollywood, Washington (politicians, FBI, CIA, etc.), academia, and many other once revered institutions have brainwashed themselves that the white race is evil and that whites have established a self serving society at the expense of others.”
• “We live in a time where it is uncomfortable to be white. I am tired of hearing that I am an oppressor because I happen to have white skin.”
• “In his clear and articulate style he sheds light on race relations that one can’t find in the popular media.”

The War on Whites is not a perfect book. The author spends an unnecessary amount of time criticizing the Democratic Party, especially Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Maybe that is to be expected of a conservative columnist, but as his own examples in the book prove, anti-whiteness has spread way beyond the Democratic Party and into every single American institution. Identity politics, CRT, DEI, and other anti-white sentiments have gotten much worse over the last decade, and this has little to do with Barack Obama. The War on Whites is also a bit repetitive and could have used better organization. While filled with facts and statistics, it reads like a single 193-page essay on anti-whiteness.

These minor criticisms should not deter anyone from purchasing the book. The War on Whites will help open many eyes to the dispossession white people face. It is reasonably priced and would make a good gift for friends and family members who know something is wrong but think it would be “racist” to fight back. Mr. Brodow is a welcome advocate for white people, and his book is sure to inspire more whites to speak out and fight back.