The "Humanitarian Racism" of the Progressive-Left

Karam

Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld, chairman of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, has published an article on Y-Net entitled "Beware the humanitarian racist."

Gerstenfeld's thesis is one that we've spilled considerable pixels about in these parts. The fundamental idea is that "humanitarian racism," i.e., progressive-left racism, is of a different type than classical racism, which Gerstenfeld labels "ugly" racism. The ugly racist is the kind of mid-twentieth century racist who would have, for example, opposed the repeal of Jim Crow laws in the American south. The "humanitarian racist," however, operates differently. Like the "ugly racist" the "humanitarian racist" thinks that people of color are inferior to white people, but assigns responsibility for that inferiority to the behavior of white people, themselves.

Gerstenfeld writes:

The humanitarian racist’s conclusion differs, however, from that of the ugly racist. He or she considers that as the non-white or weak cannot be held responsible for their acts, one should look away as often as possible even if they commit major crimes. Ugly racists fortunately can no longer get articles published in mainstream media, but humanitarian racists unfortunately are welcomed by them.

The reason that progressives either perpetually ignore, or make excuses for, the genocidal anti-Semitism that gushes daily from the Islamic world is because the progressive movement is the most racist political movement in the west today. Progressive-left racism, or "humanitarian racism," is far more virulent on the left than is ugly racism on the right. Progressives like to think of themselves as morally superior to their right-wing contemporaries, but the truth of the matter is that the progressive movement is far more racist than is the conservative movement, but it is racism of a type that is considered acceptable within what we used to call "polite society."

When it comes to the world's lone Jewish state, Gerstenfeld writes:

Exposing humanitarian racists is neglected in the battle against the de-legitimization of Israel, although crucial. The success of the Palestinian narrative and its many lies in the Western world is, to a large extent, due to its continuous promotion by humanitarian racists. They present the Palestinians as victims only, referring as little as possible to the major crimes they perpetrate or support. In this way, the humanitarian racists have become supporters or allies of Palestinian terrorists, murder and genocide-promoters.

The reason that the "Palestinian narrative" is so pervasive on the left is because the left is absolutely crawling with "humanitarian racists." These people mean well, but they honestly believe that the Muslim world, 1.5 billion people, is so inferior to white people and so helpless in the face of white aggression that they can never be held responsible for even the most heinous crimes, such as strapping a suicide belt onto a youngster and sending him off to murder.

If a Palestinian cleric quotes the famous hadith about the necessity of Muslims killing Jews hiding behind trees, this is because "white people," in the form of the Israeli government, are oppressing the innocent "indigenous population" who must be supported even when they teach their children to hate and to kill.

The humanitarian racist worldview embodies many other distortions. If Arabs, for instance, cannot be held responsible for their criminal acts, others must be. The humanitarian racist thus has to look for scapegoats. That is why Israel is sometimes accused of the crimes the Palestinians committed.

The worst humanitarian racists on the progressive-left are undoubtedly the kind of anti-Semitic anti-Zionists that one finds crawling around places like Daily Kos. They think of themselves as morally superior to others and so superior to people of color, particularly Muslim and Arab people of color, that they hold them to no standards of human decency whatsoever.

Because the conservative right holds so closely to ideals of personal responsibility they avoided falling into this racist trap. The progressive-left, however, has embraced humanitarian racism to such an extent that it has become a defining feature of their worldview and politics.

There is a certain delicious irony, though, in the fact that the "anti-racist" left is considerably more racist than almost anyone else... even as they fling around unsubstantiated charges of racism in all directions like self-righteous confetti.

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