The Neoracists - by John McWhorter - Persuasion - 0 views
-
Third Wave Antiracism exploits modern Americans’ fear of being thought racist, using this to promulgate an obsessive, self-involved, totalitarian and unnecessary kind of cultural reprogramming.
-
The problem is that on matters of societal procedure and priorities, the adherents of this religion—true to the very nature of religion—cannot be reasoned with. They are, in this, medievals with lattes.
- ...14 more annotations...
-
We need not wonder what the basic objections will be: Third Wave Antiracism isn’t really a religion; I am oversimplifying; I shouldn’t write this without being a theologian; it is a religion but it’s a good one; and so on
-
Our current conversations waste massive amounts of energy in missing the futility of “dialogue” with them. Of a hundred fundamentalist Christians, how many do you suppose could be convinced via argument to become atheists? There is no reason that the number of people who can be talked out of the Third Wave Antiracism religion is any higher.
-
our concern must be how to continue with genuine progress in spite of this ideology. How do we work around it?
-
My interest is not “How do we get through to these people?” We cannot, at least not enough of them to matte
-
We seek change in the world, but for the duration will have to do so while encountering bearers of a gospel, itching to smoke out heretics, and ready on a moment’s notice to tar us as moral perverts.
-
We will term these people The Elect. They do think of themselves as bearers of a wisdom, granted them for any number of reasons—a gift for empathy, life experience, maybe even intelligence.
-
they see themselves as having been chosen, as it were, by one or some of these factors, as understanding something most do not.
-
But most importantly, terming these people The Elect implies a certain air of the past, à la Da Vinci Code. This is apt, in that the view they think of as sacrosanct is directly equivalent to views people centuries before us were as fervently devoted to as today’s Elect are
-
Following the religion means to pillory people for what, as recently as 10 years ago, would have been thought of as petty torts or even as nothing at all; to espouse policies that hurt black people as long as supporting them makes you seem aware that racism exists;
-
o pretend that America never makes any real progress on racism; and to almost hope that it doesn’t because this would deprive you of a sense of purpose.