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THE ELECT: NEORACISTS POSING AS ANTIRACISTS AND THEIR THREAT TO A PROGRESSIVE AMERICA

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SubscribeSign inShare this postTHE ELECT: THE THREAT TO A PROGRESSIVE AMERICA FROM ANTI-BLACK ANTIRACISTSjohnmcwhorter.substack.comCopy linkTwitterFacebookEmailJan 27, 2021Share this postTHE ELECT: THE THREAT TO A PROGRESSIVE AMERICA FROM ANTI-BLACK ANTIRACISTSjohnmcwhorter.substack.comCopy linkTwitterFacebookEmailTHE ELECT:NEORACISTS POSING AS ANTIRACISTSAND THEIR THREAT TO A PROGRESSIVE AMERICAPREFACEI’m not one for long introductions – I like to get to the point. However, before we begin I would like to give the reader a sense of the trajectory of these installments, and what kind of statement they are intended as making.This book is not a call for people of a certain ideology to open up to the value of an open market of ideas, to understand the value of robust discussion, and to see the folly of defenestrating people for disagreeing with them. My assumption is that the people in question are largely unreachable by arguments of that kind.Rather, I aim to illuminate where these people are coming from, how their ideology and behavior is quite coherent in itself, and what the rest of us can do to live with grace and honesty, as people concerned with the state of the world, who nevertheless must grapple with obstacles laid in our path by people who see their religion as an ultimate wisdom.My main aims will be:1. to argue that this new ideology is actually a religion in all but name;2. to argue that to understand it as a religion is to see coherence in what may seem like a welter of “crazy” or overblown behaviors;3. to explore why this religion is so attractive to so many people;4. to show that this religion is actively harmful to black people despite being intended as unprecedentedly “antiracist”;5. to show that a pragmatic, effective, liberal and even Democratic-friendly agenda for rescuing black America need not be founded on the tenets of this new religion;6. to suggest ways to lessen the grip of this new religion on our public culture.I hope my observations will serve as one of many contributions to our debate over what constitutes “social justice.” Thank you for your subscription. I will release this manuscript in ten segments, and I welcome your feedback.CHAPTER ONE: WHAT KIND OF PEOPLE?The New York TimesTeigen is half white and half Thai. Kondo is a Japanese citizen. Neither of them are what we typically think of as people “of color” in the sense of historically conditioned and structurally preserved disadvantage. However, in 2020, the mere fact of a white person criticizing not just one but two (apparently the plurality tipped the scales) non-white persons justified being shamed on social media and disallowed from doing her work. Roman, as a white person, was supposedly punching down – i.e. “down” at two people very wealthy, very successful, and vastly better known than her. Her whiteness trumped all, we were told.Roman, now typically of such cases, ate crow with an apologetic statement about how she had reflected and realized her error. Teigen even stated that she did not think Roman deserved to be sanctioned. But no matter – Third Wave Antiracist fury now has a supreme power in our public moral evaluations, and this meant that Roman be pilloried in the town square. Her Wikipedia entry will forever include a notice that she was deemed a racist, billboard style, despite that most Americans likely see that she did nothing that remotely deserved such treatment, and despite that she would not have been treated that way as recently as a few years before.What kind of people did this? Why did they get away with it? And are we going to let them continue to?* * *The same year, Leslie Neal-Boylan lasted only a few months as Dean of Nursing at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell. The problem was that in the wake of statements nationwide after the murder by police officers of George Floyd, Dean Neal-Boylan had the audacity to pen this blinkered, bigoted screed to her colleagues and staff:&nbsp;I despair for our future as a nation if we do not stand up against violence against anyone. BLACK LIVES MATTER, but also, EVERYONE’S LIFE MATTERS.&nbsp;moreHowever, because her composition included the three words “everyone’s lives matter,” she was reported to her superiors and quickly out of a job without even being allowed to defend herself. Why was Leslie Neal-Boylan’s email deemed as a missive from someone unfit to supervise people dedicated to healing and giving comfort? A child would wonder why – as would a time traveller from as recently as 2015. But Neal-Boylan’s detractors were deemed authoritative.What kind of people did this? Why did they get away with it? And are we going to let them continue to?* * *Also in the same year, 2020, a data analyst at a progressive consulting firm named David Shor lost his job. He had tweeted a study by a black Ivy League political science professor, Omar Wasow, showing that violent black protests during the long, hot summers of the late 1960s were more likely than nonviolent ones to make local voters vote Republican. Shor’s intent was not to praise this, but to disseminate the facts themselves as a glum announcement, which had been covered eagerly by liberal media shortly beforehand.Certain parties on Twitter, though, didn’t like a white man tweeting something that could be taken as criticizing black protest in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. The consulting firm took heed and expelled Shor.What kind of people did this? Why did they get away with it? And are we going to let them continue to?THE NEW PARISHIONERSAll of these cases occurred because of the influence of a frame of mind we term a viewpoint, but has actually become a religion. This is Third Wave Antiracism, more often termed “social justice warriors” or “the woke mob.” One can divide antiracism into three waves along the lines that feminism has been. First Wave Antiracism battled slavery and legalized 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 because racism is baked into the structure of society, 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 towards them, including a suspension of standards of achievement and conduct.Under this paradigm, all deemed insufficiently aware of this sense of Existing While White as eternal culpability require bitter condemnation and ostracization, to an obsessive, abstract degree that leaves most observers working to make real sense of it, makes people left of center wonder just when and why they started being classified as backwards, and leaves millions of innocent people scared to pieces of winding up in the sites of a zealous brand of inquisition that seems to hover over almost any statement, ambition, or achievement in modern society.So, one might ask why I seem to consider it such an issue that some food columnist, some unknown dean of nursing, some data analyst, have had their lives derailed by this movement. But I write not of something happening to a few unlucky people, but operating within the warp and woof of society. No one can know just when or how Third Wave Antiracist proselytizing may blindside them while they are going about their business.modus operandiWhat kind of people do these things?Why do they get away with it?Are we going to let them continue to?religionreligionFor example, one might ask what I mean by “certain beliefs beyond the reach of empirical experience.” After all, racism is hardly beyond the reach of empirical experience – not by a long shot. However, I refer to the way we are forced to discuss it these days, a manifestation of what is often cautiously termed “the race thing,” distanced as a “thing” because it entails discussions in which we adhere to a tacit social contract that requires pretending that contradictions are complex rather than nonsensical.The Third Wave Antiracist is deeply moved, for example, by a conglomeration of tenets which, stated clearly and placed in simple oppositions, translate into nothing whatsoever:1. When black people say you have &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; insulted them, apologize with&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; profound sincerity and guilt.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; BUT …Don’t put black people in a position whereyou expect them to forgive you. Theyhave dealt with too much to be expected to.2. Don’t assume that all, or even most, &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; black people like hiphop or are&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; good dancers and so on. Black&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; people are a conglomeration of disparate individuals. “Black&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; culture” is code for “path-ological, primitive ghetto people.”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; BUT …Don’t expect black people to assimilate to“white” social norms because black peoplehave a culture of their own.3. Silence about racism is violence. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; BUT …Elevate the voices of the oppressed overyour own.4. You must strive eternally to&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; understand the experiences of black&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; people.BUT …You can never understand what it is tobe black, and if you think you do you’re a racist.5. Show interest in multiculturalism.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; BUT …Do not culturally appropriate. What is not your culture is not for you, and you may not try it or do it. interestedyou are a racist.6. Support black people in creating&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; their own spaces and stay out of&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; them.BUT …Seek to have black friends. If youdon’t have any, you’re a racist. Andgoodfriends – in their private spaces you aren’tallowed in.7. When whites move away from&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; black neighborhoods it’s&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; white flight.BUT …When whites move into blackneighborhoods it’s gentrification, evenwhen they pay black residents generously for their houses.8. If you’re white and only date&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; white people you’re a racist.BUT …If you’re white and date a black personyou are, if only deep down, exotifying an“other.”9. Black people cannot be held&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; accountable for everything&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; every black person does.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; BUT …All whites must acknowledge theirpersonal complicitness in the perdifythroughout history of “whiteness.”10. Black students must be&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; admitted to schools via&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; adjusted grade and test score&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; standards to ensure a represen-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; tative number of them and foster&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; a diversity of views in classrooms.BUT …It is racist to assume a black studentwas admitted to a school via racialpreferences, and racist to expect themto represent the “diverse” view inclassroom discussions.(Much of the above table is inspired by someone who has contacted me about the issues in this book who, because of the prosecutorial nature of the movement I am referring to, preferred to stay anonymous but knows who they are.)I suspect that deep down, most know that none of this catechism makes any sense. Less obvious is that it was not even composed with logic in mind.The idea is to strike a happy medium between the poles? But there’s no way that the people promulgating this “race thing” litany would ever allow that anyone had. One way we know it is that over several decades they never have. Another way we know it is more straightforward: there is simply no “medium” logically possible between the alternates. One could not perform any pair of them simultaneously.The self-contradiction of these tenets is crucial, in revealing that Third Wave Antiracism is not a philosophy but a religion. We start with a simple question: why do so many wise people elevate them as wisdom? The reason simply cannot be logic, because there is none to be had. The reason is because these tenets serve a purpose other than what they are proposed as serving.Namely, each component by itself serves to condemn whites as racist. To apologize shows your racism; to be refused the apology, too, shows your racism. To not be interested in black culture shows your racism; to get into black culture and decide that you too want to wear dreadlocks or rap also shows your racism. The revelation of racism is, itself and alone, the point, the intention, of this curriculum. As such, the fact that if you think a little, the tenets cancel one another out is considered trivial. That they serve their true purpose of revealing people as bigots is paramount – sacrosanct, as it were.ispar excellenceBattling power relations and their discriminatory effects must be the central focus of all human endeavor, be it intellectual, moral, civic, or artistic. Those who resist this focus, or even evidence insufficient adherence to it, must be sharply condemned, deprived of influence, and ostracized.Thus the issue here is not faith in Jesus, love, or a sense of unity with the universe, but the specific issue of power relations and the injustice they can create.center all possible endeavor in what we call lifeMy Fair LadyMy Fair LadyBut back then, this kind of analysis was a minority view. Alarmist journalism depicted college campuses as being overrun by “tenured radicals,” but this was a cartoon. At the time, that kind of ideology was one of many dishes one sampled at the university buffet. The problem is that today, this reductive, prosecutorial and ultimately joyless kind of thinking actually is taking over not just university culture but American culture at large.In any case, one of the main power differentials in our society is the one conditioned by racism. It is this Salem-style religious commitment to “battling” it that made the excommuncations of Alison Roman, Leslie Neal-Boylan, and David Shor make sense to so many perfectly sane people.regardless of logicBetween the World and MeWhite FragilityHow to Be an AntiracistsuccessfulYou may wonder what it's like to be a devout Christian. Work like that of anthropologist T.M. Luhrmann takes us a long way to some sense of an answer. But we also need look no further than the kind of doubletalk we pretend to accept as wisdom on race to know what it's like to be religious. One does not have to explicitly title oneself religious to merit the description.Until the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Europeans who believed fervently in God, Jesus and his resurrection, angels, Satan, and miracles did not think of themselves as “religious” but as ordinary. Only with scientific progress, encounters with other peoples of the world with radically different beliefs, and the demystifying aspects of the Reformation did there emerge a sense that adherence to a certain set of Christian tenets was “religious” as opposed to empirical. Third-Wave Antiracism forces us to think like people of the Dark and Middle Ages without knowing it. It’s scary, it’s unfair, and regressive, and it’s just plain wrong.IN TWO WEEKS …How these people wield so much influence and why we must not tolerate it (preview: it’s racism in a new guise).Like this postShare this postTHE ELECT: THE THREAT TO A PROGRESSIVE AMERICA FROM ANTI-BLACK ANTIRACISTSjohnmcwhorter.substack.comCopy linkTwitterFacebookEmail167 CommentsFor your security, we need to re-authenticate you.Click the link we sent to , or .Expand full commentExpand full commentNo posts© 2022 John McWhorter ∙ ∙ &nbsp;is the home for great writingThis site requires JavaScript to run correctly. 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SubscribeSign inShare this postTHE ELECT: THE THREAT TO A PROGRESSIVE AMERICA FROM ANTI-BLACK ANTIRACISTSjohnmcwhorter.substack.comCopy linkTwitterFacebookEmailJan 27, 2021Share this postTHE ELECT: THE THREAT TO A PROGRESSIVE AMERICA FROM ANTI-BLACK ANTIRACISTSjohnmcwhorter.substack.comCopy linkTwitterFacebookEmailTHE ELECT:NEORACISTS POSING AS ANTIRACISTSAND THEIR THREAT TO A PROGRESSIVE AMERICAPREFACEI’m not one for long introductions – I like to get to the point. However, before we begin I would like to give the reader a sense of the trajectory of these installments, and what kind of...

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John McWhorter teaches linguistics and music history at Columbia University, hosts Slate’s Lexicon Valley podcast, and is Contributing Editor at the Atlantic.

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