People tell me I sort of have to be a racist, it’s really not my choice. Today if you’re old, white, from the midwest, a bit conservative? Racist. Maybe you don’t say racist things specifically, and maybe you never did anything to disadvantage a black person yourself, but you’re by original sin part of “systematic racism.“
Now maybe your immigrant parents arrived in the U.S. 75 years after slavery, or you as a white racist have trouble finding a privileged job that pays a living wage. No matter, you’re still privileging from a system going back 400 years whether you like it or not. You can’t change what you are and people hate you for that. That’s the systematic part, defined as “not something that a few people choose to practice. Instead it has been a feature of the social, economic, and political systems in which we all exist.” Dang, ya’ caught me.
I’d like to say most of that was from the news, but in the past days I heard most of that from a close relative, and the rest from a friend of many years, neither of whom want to interact with me anymore. I sent one checks since her birthdays were in single digits. I grew up alongside the other in our education. They have both taken themselves from my life because the Internet told them I am a racist and we all are more alone.
Crowd-sourced (what old timers call a mob) leftist fundamentalism has given us a country where everyone can be called a Nazi, er, racist, and dismissed. Once the red line was only those damn Nazis, so no “Thank you, Elie Wiesel for that moving account. Now in rebuttal, Hitler’s deputy, Martin Bormann…” But you had to be an actual Nazi to hold an opinion outside the boundary of legitimacy.
Not any more. Racism scholar Ibram Kendi says one is either racist or anti-racist, there is no room for such thing as a “non-racist.” The NYT said white allies should “Text your relatives and loved ones telling them you will not be visiting them or answering phone calls until they take significant action in supporting black lives.” Another article described my own situation, claiming “BLM protesters are breaking up with their racist, Facebook-addled relatives.” A Twitter thread about one such family dissolution had over 800,000 likes. HuffPo ran an article from a biracial woman eviscerating her white mother for being too white.
High school debate clubs used to propose a topic in advance but not assign a “side” until just before the match. The idea was you would vigorously support or attack a position you may not personally agree with. You were supposed to learn something intellectual from all this along with the ability to see things from another point of view. It is a vision of the world a long way from calling someone a witch, er, racist, and dismissing them whole.
We don’t understand debate, or its cousin compromise, anymore. There is no longer any tolerance for others’ views because the current fascism of the left does not see views and opinions as such; they are not acquired thoughts as much as they are innate to who we are, the inside and the outside fixed by color and class. You can’t change, only apologize, before being ignored at family gatherings, unfriended, and canceled. From the NYT firing an editor for running an op-ed by a Senator to me wondering about the practicality of defunding the police and losing a friend over it, there is no legitimate other side. So I can’t speak, I can only whitesplain (used to be mansplain.) People arbitrate my intent before I open my slack jaw. It’s even a job title — a writer at a black news site calls himself a “wypipologist.”
I am unsure where all these woke white people came from. The world around me, since George Floyd’s death, is flooded with overzealous sympathy, the media a waste can for guilt, and people who never heard of the idea a week ago pronouncing themselves deeply committed to defunding the police.
Companies are stumbling over each other like those who only just found Jesus at an AA meeting to add Black Lives Matter to their web site just above the Sale banner. WaPo reports African Americans have said they’ve been overwhelmed by the number of white friends checking in, with some sending cash because guilt is an expensive hobby. White celebs are swarming to confess their past ignorance on race. In what may be the ultimate expression of shallowness, someone who calls themselves an influencer and life coach posted an Instagram guide on “how to check in on your black friends.” Which corner was everyone standing in solidarity on last week?
The Slack for a hospitality company I worked for pre-Covid exploded last week when a benign HR data request went out on #BlackOutTuesday. The almost all white staff went insane with accusations of racism. Of course the blind-sided (and now racist) HR drone didn’t think about Tuesday being some private racial Ramadan when we all fasted from reality; she doesn’t follow the right people on Twitter. The mob, in words which sounded like they’d drunk a human growth hormone and Adderall smoothie, barked until the company to issue a sort-of apology. They celebrated as if they’d brought George Floyd back to life.
It shouldn’t have caught HR so off guard. The unemployees live in a world where “journalism is a profession of agitation.” They were taught nothing matters more than starting a sentence “As a… (woman, harassment survivor, deep sea diver)” because no argument, and certainly no assembled historical fact could be more important than a single lived experience. They were brought up on TV shows that juxtaposed white and black characters like someone was stringing magic diversity beads. They made the boss apologize even though nothing really was different except that made-up racial “holidays” are now on the list of things where there is only one allowable opinion. Soon enough we’ll all be asked over the P.A. to take a knee for the national anthem at sporting events.
The harsh self-righteousness oozed. It sounded very much like people wanted to imagine they were on the cutting edge of revolution, the long-awaited (well, for four years) Reichstag fire. So what makes this moment into a turning point and that $25 donation to a bail fund them into a freedom fighter?
Not much. Less like taking a stand, it feels more like radical chic from people who have been cooped up for months, cut off from bars and the gym. They don’t seem to know we’ve had this week before. The deaths of Rodney King in 1992, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, Michael Brown under Obama. The protests like the last round of BLM, Occupy, Pink Hats, March for Our Lives, even Live Aid in 1986 when Queen sang for everyone’s racist parents to end hunger forever. Remember in 1970 when Leonard Bernstein threw a cocktail party for the Black Panthers Defense Fund and Tom Wolfe wrote about it? That changed everything; I mean, people used to say “Negro” back then. But I’m pretty sure a year from now there will still be funded police departments.
It took some rough nights to work out the rules and root out the looters, but even as the protests fade the whole thing became a set piece: the protesters arrive with water bottles to stay properly hydrated and healthy snacks as the route is established with the police a long way from “by any means necessary” boulevard. As long as everyone enjoys their revolutionary cosplay inside the white lines the cops don’t have to spank anyone with pepper spray. The AP describes the once violent protests outside the White House now as having a “street fair vibe.” See, it got complicated explaining how looting beer from a convenience run by Yemeni refugees was connected to racial justice.
It all reveals itself as hollow because this fight isn’t between racism and anti-racism. It’s Black Rage versus White Guilt. The cops quickly quiet down the former and the media slowly wears out the latter. That means little of the action will have much to do with the real issues but everyone will feel righteously better. Until next time.
Along the way, however, the collateral damage of wokeness is producing the totalitarianism it purports to challenge by denying any view that challenges it. Ideas are redefined by one side as the bad -isms of racism, sexism, fascism and pulled out of the marketplace along with the people who want to talk about them. No invite to the barbecue, no seat at the Thanksgiving table. In a political system built on compromise I’m not sure how we can get things done in a world like that.
For me, I’m a good enough man. I am not a racist. I’ll get over my problem with lost friends. America, I’m not so sure.
Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity.
John Poole said...
1BLM person coming up to me. “Are you sure you’re not a racist?”. My reply: “I’m certain but you might want to examine your own racial stereotype assumptions for asking me.
06/27/20 9:25 PM | Comment Link
Joe said...
2@John Poole (And PVB too!): Now, now guys didn’t you get the memo?
For John: There are now two sets of rules. One applies to the Social Justice Warriors, while the other applies to their targets. This is not “hypocrisy” it is “Justice!” Just keep telling yourself that and/or jumping through semantic hoops and everything will be okay. You must start thinking the way they want you to think, otherwise you will be “re-educated.”
For PVB: “… a political system built on compromise …” – what planet are you from? Murica is “winner take all” now. I bet you gobbled up that “civil society” crap when you were with State, but now that it’s come home to roost how’s it feel? Not so great by the sounds of it. But who planted those seeds? Shitheads like Hillary and the State Department that enabled her and her ilk. Enjoy your tequila on Independence Day.
07/1/20 9:15 PM | Comment Link
John Poole said...
3Joe- How did you know I was looking forward to a shot of tequila on the 4th? My daughter Lyrica bought me a bottle of Casamigo Blanca for Father’s Day. And! How did you know PVB and I were convinced he were both headed for the Susan McDougal work camp once Hillary became POTUS?
I may not escape the BLM Inquisition with semantic high wire antics as you warned. If Biden chooses Hillary for his VP will she be forced to serve in blackface? Would Tupac have played Coachella in white face?
07/2/20 11:21 AM | Comment Link
Saad Ibrahim Rasheed said...
4Peter, I’ve been following your blog for quite a while. I was interested in the way you openly and honestly described your experiences in Iraq and your perspectives on what went wrong with the US approach there. I found your whistle blowing and your discussions on other whistleblowers to be inspiring.
I’m saying all this because I checked in recently and was shocked to see the direction that you have taken. You seem to have bought into the deep alt-right worldview wholesale. The left is ‘Fascist’ and ‘Totalitarian’ for opposing racism and unjust institutions? The Coronavirus, which has killed over a 130k Americans is an agenda being pushed by mainstream media? Trump is being undermined by the opposition but is basically handling the situation correctly? You even seem to be taking pride in the fact that your extreme views are pushing away your friends and family members. Your writing is overflowing with frustration, fear of the ‘other’ and is projecting the sense that the whole world is turning against you.
I realize that you are not likely to welcome anything I am saying, but I felt compelled to say something out of respect for the Peter whose journey and thoughts I have followed in the past. I really think that you need to break out of the bubble you are currently operating in and reexamine where you are and where you are going.
If any of this hits home at all, I would recommend that you try listening to writers or content producers who think differently and giving them a chance – for example try taking a look at some of Shaun’s content on Youtube – he takes a very measured, steady and rational approach to challenging the ideas of the far right, and he has helped may people out of the dead end that you have found yourself in.
Anyway, that is all I wanted to say. I wish you well regardless and I hope that you will eventually be able to break out of the spiral that you are in.
07/2/20 3:19 PM | Comment Link