In my Monday column, “Notes from a cluttered mind,” I observed in passing that the question Matt Walsh uses as the title for his new film Am I Racist?, opening in theaters nationwide tomorrow, is one that contemporary culture all but insists we each answer — and yet is a question that in nearly every circumstance need never be asked. The reason for this is simple: racists know they’re racist. They therefore already know the answer to the question. Yes, they’d agree. Racists are in fact racist. And that’s because to be racist is to believe in the innate inferiority of certain races, which — inasmuch as that belief is a prism through which one sees the world — it is both evident to, and acknowledged by, the person harboring that belief. Their racism isn’t a surprise to them. It is in truth a foundational part of the way they view reality.
It follows, then, that for the person who does not hold the belief that certain races are innately inferior to other races, that person is not and cannot be racist, and so would have no reason to question whether they are. A person who does not hold racist views cannot commit racist acts, because essential to the idea of committing a racist act is the precondition that one must first be racist. Racists can potentially commit racist acts, certainly — though most never will; but non-racists will never commit racist acts, precisely because they lack the foundation — being racist — to do so. This is how racism has been traditionally understood.
Of course, I’m well aware that current academic and cultural dissertation on racism and how it comes to be defined tries to overcome this rather basic ontological truism by problematizing racism per se. Racism, current fashion holds, is — like every branch of cultural Marxist theory — a product not of some reaction to an immutable trait, but rather one of power dynamics, though one that somehow maintains “whiteness” as a permanent reservoir of power, regardless of who is receiving the job offers, the financial aid benefits, the government set asides, et al. The idea goes that because the systems embedded in a racist society have been designed and implemented by whites, those systems are of necessity constructed both to insulate and to advantage white people. All white people. But not just white people, because the thing that makes someone white — in addition to skin color — is “whiteness,” which is the collection of “customs, culture, and beliefs” that “operate as the standard by which all other groups are compared.” More,
This white-dominant culture also operates as a social mechanism that grants advantages to white people, since they can navigate society both by feeling normal and being viewed as normal. Persons who identify as white rarely have to think about their racial identity because they live within a culture where whiteness has been normalized.
Thinking about race is very different for nonwhite persons living in America. People of color must always consider their racial identity, whatever the situation, due to the systemic and interpersonal racism that still exists.
Thus, “systemic racism.”
The internal logic of such an idea suggests that anyone who adopts and adheres to the “customs, culture, and beliefs” that make up “whiteness” — none of which are transferred through the blood — are themselves guilty of promoting whiteness, regardless of their skin color. Which, eg., is how it’s argued that some blacks whose minds remain “colonized by whiteness” are themselves guilty of racism; while other blacks are not and cannot be, because they lack the institutional power whiteness bestows upon them.
I’m not going to get too deep into the Marxian ideas of Critical Race Theory in this essay, because I’ve done so many times before, and frankly, the incoherence it leads to bores me to tears. Instead, I want to touch on something I believe is far more crucial: the roles that language and hermeneutics play in racialism, racism, and racial demagoguery.
If, as I argued in opening this discussion, only racists can be racist, then it follows that those who rely on finding and exploiting racism to achieve their cultural and political ends, need a large and nearly bottomless reservoir of racists against whom to struggle and “resist”. But since most people in a pluralist society like ours here in the States don’t, in fact, believe in the inherent inferiority of any particular race, the number of actual racists is proportionally small and limited, leaving those doing battle with racists at risk of completely finishing the project and wiping out racism once and for all! Because once you’ve corrected the few remaining racists — or at least, named and identified them — your mission is, in theory, complete. After which you’d have to find a new gig, with “warrior against racism, 1619-Larry Elder” the lone item on your Social Justice CV.
Because of the relative dearth of acknowledged racists extant in the US, race hustlers, race grifters, and the “theorists” who supply them with their intellectual grounding, are forced to invent ever new “racists,” using tendentious ideas about “whiteness” to move onto corollary arguments positing “implicit racial bias,” the idea that one is racist regardless of whether or not they believe themselves to be, because racism is something imprinted on them by the “whiteness” that surrounds them, and by their social position relative to that whiteness. In other words, racism just is, and whitey has it, irrespective of whether or not they know it. And the only way to navigate such a world is to prompt whitey to admit to such original sin, then “do the work” to discover all the ways it informs their every thought and action — while also reminding them that it something that they can never rid themselves of. Like Eve’s stain, or the blood on Lady Macbeth’s hands. Whiteness is racism, and both things just are.
To convince people of this — to convince people who do not believe in the inferiority of other races that they are, in fact, not only racist, but inevitably and forever so!— requires the mechanisms of “proof” that will make concrete the indictment. That is, for non-racists to come to believe that they are racist and that there’s nothing they can do about it, save do the work of being forever racists who are publicly and vocally disgusted by their own racism and on a Sisyphusian mission to abolish whiteness, they must be made to see how the racism they weren’t aware had inscribed them — via “whiteness” as a systemic origin story — comes to harm those against who it is deployed, in instances large and small. As the race theorists remind us:
Whiteness (and its accepted normality) […] exist as everyday microaggressions toward people of color. Acts of microaggressions include verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs or insults toward nonwhites. Whether intentional or not, these attitudes communicate hostile, derogatory, or harmful messages
In this last description is the key to the success or failure of the whole leftist race project being issued against us as a means to power — to why and how we as a society react to the indictments made by racial demagogues, and how we then answer their charges.
Can you locate it? Because it’s right there staring you in the face. And it means everything.
In part two of this essay, we’re going to identify and pressure this crucial point. Once we do, you’ll be prepared — forever going forward, I pray — to answer the question “Am I Racist?” in a way that depends entirely upon one thing: whether or not you actually are.
For now, though, allow me to set a scene:
A city park. Daytime. On a wooden bench sits an elderly black man, no newspaper, no radio, no external distractions. Just sitting. Looking at the remaining ducks Haitian migrants have not yet pilfered and made into Joumou and sandwiches. He’s pensive. A little sad, maybe. Lost in reverie.
Cut to:
A young white kid, about 13-years-old, walking briskly through the park, yelling something. He’s hurried, but not frantic. His face shows no real expression. We can’t immediately hear what he’s yelling because we’re focusing on the elderly black man on the bench.
When the boy finally gets within ear shot of us, we finally do hear what he’s screaming: “Hey, boy! Hey, boy! Here, boy!”
The elderly black man suddenly fixes his gaze upon the white kid. The white kid, seeing the elderly black man staring at him, gazes back. The two lock eyes.
And then.
****
Buy me a cup of coffee? Lunch? A sports car? Or do me the honor of becoming a paid subscriber to support my work. Thank you!
The "whiteness" arguments are very much reminiscent of the Christian theological concept of "original sin," with the stain of such darkening (ahem) the intellect and inclining one to sin.
But in woke/CRT there is no baptism that can wash it away, nor any ascetic practices that can raise its bearers to beatitude. In short, it's Christianity gutted of grace, redemption or heaven--but with plenty of heretics, demons and grueling penance. Not to mention being led a fattened class of inquisitorial clerics declaiming from on high.
So, yeah--Marxism.