Thursday, December 19, 2019

Jews and anti-White Racism

Michael Lumish

{Also published at Jews Down Under and the Elder of Ziyon.}

I recently published a Facebook tidbit titled, "The Grounding of Democratic Party Racism is the Progressive Left." There I suggest that the progressive-left is racist in three primary ways. These are anti-white racism, antisemitic anti-Zionism, and an imperial condescension toward those of non-European descent.

In response, Corinne Blackmer, a Professor of Biblical and American literature and gender studies at Southern Connecticut State University, pointed me to a 2019 article by Keith Payne published in Scientific American titled, "The Truth about Anti-White Discrimination."

The thesis is that anti-white racism is, itself, a racist delusion on the part of "white" people. Payne's conclusions are grounded in a piece published in Perspectives on Psychological Science by Michael Norton and Sam Sommers, titled "Whites See Racism as a Zero-Sum Game That They Are Now Losing."

Payne writes:
...a national survey reported that both blacks and whites believed that discrimination against blacks had declined over the past few decades, but whites believed that discrimination against whites was now more common than discrimination against blacks...

Whites tend to view increasing diversity as anti-white bias.
The implication is clear. The only reason that "whites" detect anti-white racism is out of their own sense of unearned privilege. It is not that there is any incessant cultural or academic tendency to berate "whites," but merely an irrational sense of weakness and vulnerability in the face of rising diversity and social justice in the United States.

The premise of Payne's argument rests on the undeniable fact of disparity of income between "white" people in the United States versus "black" people here. He claims that "the average black family earns about half as much as the average white family" and "that the unemployment rate for blacks is twice that for whites..."

Of course, none of this takes into account the fact that East-Asian Americans, Asian-Indian Americans, and American Jews, out-earn Americans of European descent. It seems hard to argue for "white privilege" in a society wherein those at the top of the economic hierarchy are not "white." Nonetheless, the disparagement of "white" people as essentially racist is obviously itself a racist notion and Jews are swept up in it.

Recently there has been considerable conversation around the notion of the "white Jew." The basic idea is that since Ashkenazim are "white" we enjoy "white privilege" and are, in fact, among the primary oppressors of "people of color." Democratic Party devotees of Louis Farrakhan even believe that Jews were the driving force behind the Atlantic Slave Trade and remain so to this day... as if that makes the slightest bit of sense.

The question then becomes, so what is the evidence for this political and cultural anti-white racism? I am not a sociologist and have not done independent research on the question. So we will have to make do with a few pieces of anecdotal evidence, and one scholarly study, that represents a tiny drop in the bucket if you decide to look into the matter further.

My favorite example is MTV's 2017 New Years Resolutions for White Guys. This one is fun because it is just so transparent in its contempt toward "white guys." Another interesting piece from the New York Times, written by Ekow N. Yankah, is titled, "Can My Children Be Friends With White People?" Can you begin to imagine a New York Times piece titled in all seriousness, "Can My Children Be Friends With Black People"? Yankah is not sure that his children can be friends with "white" people and this was published in The Times. Thankfully, Yankah tells us, "I have not given up on being friends with all white people."

And I have no doubt that "white" people -- whoever they may be, exactly -- appreciate that very much.

This one captured my attention shortly after the election of Donald Trump. This is a case wherein some young black kids tortured a mentally-handicapped white kid because Donald Trump won the 2016 election. The torturers made a point of calling the kid "white" as they stripped him naked into a bathtub and taped his mouth. The point, of course, is that he was tortured for being "white." I feel reasonably certain that the people doing the torturing were not Republicans.

Finally, I want to point you to a piece written by Muneeb Hafiz, a PhD Candidate and Associate Lecturer at Lancaster University, UK, published in Critical Ethnic Studies by the University of Minnesota Press, titled "On Whiteness" (2018). Hafiz writes:
Whiteness “is on a toggle switch between ‘bland nothingness’ and ‘racist hatred,’” Professor Nell Painter tells us. It is a “metaphor for power” in James Baldwin’s vocabulary. According to Kehinde Andrews, Whiteness is “a process rooted in the social structure, one that induces a form of psychosis.” Whiteness, Achille Mbembe explains, “became the mark of a certain mode of Western presence in the world, a certain figure of brutality and cruelty, a singular form of predation with an unequaled capacity for the subjection and exploitation of foreign peoples.” A fantasy — no more real than Blackness, we should add — later transformed into a kind of common (non)sense, Whiteness “involves a constellation of objects of desire and public signs of privilege that relate to body and image, language and wealth.”
It is frankly astonishing that we can reify "whiteness" as a negative toxic epistemology in human history and not recognize this notion for the racism that it is. This does not only effect those of European descent. It represents racism towards Jews, as well.

11 comments:

  1. A nice piece of writing, Mike.

    "It represents racism towards Jews, as well."

    That's not surprising, because most of it resembles the antisemitic drivel expounded and exploited historically by Jew haters of the intellectual camp.

    One of the problems today, of course, is the commissioning of "studies" by partisan political types and hard ideologues, to be later used to justify their own bigotry and awful policy preferences. This is obvious a real and growing phenomenon. You have examples of it right in your piece.
    Keith Payne's "The Truth About anti-White Discrimination" should be seen in this regard. It is said you can't judge a book by its cover, but just look at that title and let it sink in. "The Truth About"? That's a scholarly endeavor? No. Of course not. It sounds like an invocation of a religious belief. That's the "woke" Left in a nutshell.

    Here's the truth about people. They are incredibly stupid and easily fooled and manipulated into bad behavior. The Bible says so.

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    1. Heya Jeff, I just find it astonishing that our friends in the "progressive" movement cannot find it within themselves to see their own bigotry and racism.

      Why the Algemeiner's editorial staff does not want me to write about this in their pages is guesswork.

      I have been out for quite awhile, and I thank you guys for holding this place together, but what I want to do going forward, after the New Year, is try to pressure the significant pro-Israel / pro-Jewish journals -- like the Algemeiner -- into stop erasing Jewish history by using the term "West Bank" to refer to Judea and Samaria.

      The editor-in-chief of the Algemeiner is Dovid Efune.

      His email is editor@algemeiner.com

      Delete
    2. Hi Mike,
      Good to hear from you. You'da man.
      re: Allgemeiner
      You pose a good question. Is it the subject matter? I know there is this school of thought that says, "Oh, let them have that one, it's not important." But, as you know, I think language is key, and we must take it back. Those who control the language, control the message. Duh.

      As to your first point, yes, the "progressive" identity is based on the purported total absence of their bigotry. Is it blind, mindless obedience? A kind of fundamentalist, "Jonestown" kind of faith? You betcha!

      I always enclose "West Bank" in quotes, and never use a definite article. You know, I was unfriended on FB by a left wing Jew, not because I wrote Judea & Samaria, but because he said he would bet the I use those terms. It was when I asked him why I shouldn't, all contact was lost.
      CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT SHIT?
      It's not that I care so much about a FB relationship with the guy - I don't. It's just the idea that a self described leftist and supposedly Zionist Jew is too much of a candy ass to even have a discussion about a subject which HE brought up.

      Still, I'd love to know what about your piece Algemeiner finds unacceptable.

      Delete
  2. You are right as usual on those three things.

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  3. Nevertheless it does seem astonishing.

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  4. One wonders just how much real support there is among whites for this stuff. I suspect many say they do because they are scared of censure while actually not really believing it. The true believers are grifters like the 3 categories I mentioned PLUS POC who see a free lunch somewhere in there.

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  5. I'd like to congratulate everyone on the Great Impeachment. Orange antisemite is out. Will Hillary moving to the White House before Christmas, or after?

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    Replies
    1. Nail down the furniture before she sells it. Forget about the silverware. Consider that gone.

      Delete
  6. I'm actually a bit pissed-off about this piece. I offered it to the Algemeiner and they turned it down. I understand that editors often turn down pieces for publication, but they were just rude about it.

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  7. Off topic. A real can of worms:

    https://www.icc-cpi.int/Pages/item.aspx?name=20191220-otp-statement-palestine

    https://www.icc-cpi.int/CourtRecords/CR2019_07637.PDF

    Since actual war crimes were/are committed by the Palestinians, and never prosecuted, and Israel exceeds the standards for complementarity, this should be more worry for the Palestinians. Aside from intentionally directing attacks against civilians and civilian objects; using protected persons as shields; wilfully depriving protected persons of the rights of fair and regular trial; and wilful killing and torture or inhuman treatment and/or outrages upon personal dignity, there is a warning that Palestinian stipends to the families of those killed or imprisoned as a result of the Israel-Palestine conflict could constitute a war crime.

    https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/12/narrative-icc-war-crimes-report-angers-palestinians-191206080024365.html

    That said, knowing the political nature of all this, it would not be surprising if the ICC wrongfully interprets Article 49(6) of the Fourth Geneva Convention and finds a violation. Apparently, a decision was made by Israel in March, 2014, that was a trigger.

    So many legal issues arise, over jurisdiction and scope. The Pre-Trial Chamber might punt.

    It shows why Israel and the US rejected the treaty, knowing it would be abused. Palestinians, however, acceded and their clear violations should rightly be in the cross hairs no matter what.

    Just something happening while theoretical arguments rage on.

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  8. Mike,
    I went to your FB page and read the comments from your friend, Trumbo. I didn't like what he said about the Gaza bunny rabbits and his blood libel about Jewish soldiers.
    Nor did I like the way he patronized you acting as if he needs to point out "right wing talking points" to you, as if you're an imbecile, so I did a little dance on his head of the how do you like variety. I hope you don't mind. All "progressives" need to have this done to them.
    Go check it out.
    Okay. I went back and made a few more responses. Maybe I shouldn't have, but I did.
    I think the reason this dude pisses me off so much is that he is doing the very thing he accused you of, i.e., mindlessly repeating talking points.
    Excuses me, but I'm going to have to watch 10 episodes of the SAAD Truth plus a couple of hours of the Rubin Report, and then 3 hot showers to get "it" off me.

    ReplyDelete