Blog 119: Racism and Antiracism

David Rand

2020-06-23

I often criticize the modern antiracist movement, the 21^st century antiracist movement, because I consider it to be 95% false and ideologically corrupt. It displays three types of behaviour which I do not accept:

1. The movement blithely conflates race and religion. It thus becomes an opponent of secularism.
2. The movement has abandoned universalism and is now obsessed with each person’s racial identity (or other identities). This problem is so serious that the movement itself has become racist, although I consider the term “racialist” to be more appropriate.
3. The movement sees racism everywhere, even where it does not exist, or where it is much less important that the movement claims. And yet, that same movement neglects to denounce certain blatant examples of racism or ethnic bigotry: in particular the movement never criticizes either the strong anti-black racism which is common among Arabo-Muslims in North Africa, or the anti-Québécois prejudice which Canadian opponents of Bill 21 weaponize for their political purposes.

These three toxic behaviours can be explained by the current popularity of several dubious, even reactionary, ideologies such as intersectionality, postmodernist philosophy, cultural relativism (closely related to multiculturalism) and certain degenerated variants of post-Marxism.

I stated at the start of this blog that the antiracist movement is 95% false and ideologically corrupt in my opinion. I did not say 100%. The movement has, or at least had, a valid and necessary core. In the past, the antiracist struggle was a noble undertaking which promoted universalism and focused on what we humans all have in common, a movement which refused to see different human beings through the lens of their particular identities. This movement had a great deal of success, but its work is not complete. There are now several official declarations of human rights—at various levels: international, national and provincial—which ban racial discrimination. Anti-black racism in the United States, so extreme because of the overwhelming legacy of slavery in the history of that country, has been greatly reduced, but not totally eliminated. Canadians are today much more aware of the problem of racism directed against indigenous peoples.

It is possible that the current wave of antiracist demonstrations in the wake of George Floyd’s murder may lead to some positive results. A reform of police forces in the United States—where police currently enjoy a great deal of impunity—may be one result of this wave of antiracist activism. I have even heard that this wave has re-actived calls for the elimination of the kafala system in the Arab world. (Anti-kafala activists join global protests against racial injustice)

However, I fear that such positive examples will be exceptions rather than the rule. Racism, real racism, continues to exist, but the so-called antiracist movement is doing a very poor job of fighting it. In fact, the movement is enflaming racist sentiment more than weakening it.

A Few Objective Examples of Racism:

• Declarations that one “race” is superior or inferior to another.
• Promotion or acceptance of racial discrimination in housing or employment.
• Unjustified denigration of a racial group, for example, statements such as “All Xs are unclean.”
• Development or promotion of racialist theories.

A Few Examples of False Accusations of Racism:

• Conflation of race with religious affiliation, because the two are completely distinct from each other.
• Assertions that bans on religious symbols in some jobs are “racist” or “discriminatory.” Such bans are necessary for secularism. They have nothing to do with race and are in fact ANTI-discriminatory.
• Vague accusations of “systemic racism” made without clearly defining either word.
• Censorship or hindering of scientific research under the pretext that the results might be considered “racist.” Examples of this type of research: attempts to measure the genetic component of a human attribute, or studies which try to explain police violence which impacts different racial (or other) groups differentially. The fear of results does not justify such censorship.

What we must do is make the distinction between real racism and false racism. And we must perform this task with the greatest accuracy and intellectual rigour possible. One very useful tool to help us make such necessary distinctions is the truth test. This is a test used by Canadian Hate Propaganda legislation—a law which I criticize greatly because of its religious exception 319(3)(b), but which is not all bad. According to that law, if an assertion is true, then it is not hate propaganda, as stipulated in line 319(3)(a). Thus, we can apply this principle to say that, if an assertion is clearly true, then it is not racist.

The effect of the numerous false accusations of racism thrown out so often by “antiracist” activists is to blur the line between the true and the false. Because of their total lack of rigour, it has become increasingly difficult to recognize real racism. Nevertheless, that is no reason to allow true racism to pass with impunity. We must always do our best to put things in perspective and denounce those actions and declarations which really are racist.

The recklessness of the antiracist movement has become extreme, especially since the murder of George Floyd. The expression “systemic racism” is now very fashionable, even though very few people—including those who throw it around freely—are able to give a reasonable definition of it. It is like some random insult which gets launched anywhere and everywhere, regardless of the target.

With its obsession for “white privilege” and “white supremacism” and for everything white, its claim that anti-white racism is not only non-existent but not even possible, the antiracist movement has gone seriously off the rails. It thus tends to alienate any so-called “white” person who refuses to be masochistic. In reality, categories such as “whites” or “blacks” or other colours are 19^th century racial categories—that is to say, racist categories—which, given the continuous intermixing of human ethnicities, should have disappeared from our vocabulary by now. But so-called “antiracist” activists continue to maintain and repeat these categories ad nauseam, thus reinforcing racial identities and inflaming racism, thus assuring a great future for all anti-any-colour-except-white racist, with lots of votes.

The “antiracist” movement is a motor which generates racism and helps to get people like Trump elected.

But here in Quebec, the situation is even worse. Here the “antiracist” movement has thrown its support behind the Islamist far-right. It accuses Bill 21—a law which partially implements secularism in Quebec—of being………racist!!! In reality, Bill 21 has absolutely nothing to do with race or racism. Bill 21 discriminates against no-one because it applies to everyone, to all religions and to all persons, to men as well as to women. Furthermore, such activists are not satisfied with just accusations of racism: they even accuse Bill 21 of “systemic racism.”

The current “antiracist” movement has lost almost all its credibility and all its relevance.

Reading Suggestions:

• Le racisme « systémique » québécois, une fabrication, André Lamoureux et Michèle Sirois, La Presse, 2020-06-18.
• Racisme systémique: soyons contre la racialisation de notre société, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, Journal de Montréal, 2020-06-14.

A Few Examples of the Ravings of the “Antiracist” Movement:

• Le fanatisme de la vertu, Joseph Facal, Journal de Montréal, 2020-06-18.
• La loi 21 «renforce le racisme systémique», disent des militants, Guillaume Lepage, Le Devoir, 2020-06-15.
• Bill 21 is a case of systemic racism, Concertation Table against systemic racism, Ricochet, 2020-06-13.