Can Whites Say "No" to the Politics of "Whiteness?"
Chris Rufo performed a valuable service by drawing attention to the scourge of "critical race theory." But then he snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.
Chris Rufo is the conservative activist who brought the nation’s attention to “critical race theory” (CRT), the dogma that sees “whiteness” as a social problem and has third-graders ranking each other according to their racial privilege instead of learning their multiplication tables. Rufo, now a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, ably exploited the absurdities and outrages of CRT revolutionaries to ignite a national backlash against them, but he misses with a recent article for the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal, “No to the Politics of ‘Whiteness’—The case against right-wing racialism.”
Rufo understands that “whiteness” in the CRT sense is a “metaphysical essence” synonymous with evil, and he recognizes how the practical application of CRT harms white children and demonizes their people. Fortunately, there has been “pushback” from “conservatives,” he says, who have “exposed the poisonous politics of left-wing racialism, shutting down some of the bureaucracies that push it and proposing a reaffirmation of the ideal of colorblind equality.” This conservative “victory” is put in jeopardy, Rufo argues, by those on the right who believe “that the answer to left-wing identity politics is right-wing identity politics.”
One problem, a familiar one, with Rufo’s argument is that, while he recognizes that the CRT attack is explicitly an attack on whites, he describes the defensive pushback as a response mounted by conservatives. One is left with the impression that whites, themselves, haven’t responded even to direct attacks on their own children, pitifully needing to rely on conservatives to defend them. Not only is this not a winning narrative, it isn’t even factually true, as it’s a sure bet that among the overwhelmingly white parents who showed up at school board meetings to protest the racial abuse of their children, a fair number of them would not describe themselves as conservatives. Conversely, Rufo fails to identify the actual source of the CRT attack, ascribing it to a faceless, amorphous “left.”
White gentiles today can be divided generally into four political groups according to their responses to the anti-white political currents so evident in their own countries:
The Deniers—the “race doesn’t exist” true believers, the willfully blind, the world-is-a-marketplace libertarians, the shining-city-on-a-hill nationalists, they either deny the racial attacks are occurring at all, or they treat the phenomenon like they would the negative outcome of some wrong-headed tax policy: it just needs some legislative tinkering. This group, probably still the largest, is shrinking and will continue inexorably to shrink as the anti-white currents grow stronger.
The Disconnected—the strung out, the atomized, the other-worldly, the artificially disconnected through institutionalization or incarceration, they mostly recognize the hostility to whites, but are indifferent to it or, if sufficiently deracinated and history-ignorant, even supportive of it.
The Deserters—the woke teachers and professors, the front men and women, the paid shills, these are analogous to the members of the pre-revolutionary Russian intelligentsia for whom Solzhenitsyn had such disdain and who, because they were held in the same contempt by their own allies, ultimately paid the severest price for their infidelity.
The Dissenters—the remainder of whites, the sober, the clear-eyed, the pattern-noticers, the intellectually independent, the history-literate, they recognize and are alarmed by the racial threat. Many are in active opposition. This group is growing and will continue to grow.
Those who describe themselves as politically left as well as those who describe themselves as politically right will be found in all four groups listed above. For that reason alone, to the extent the political battle against this surging anti-white hatred is characterized by the Deniers as a battle between the left-wing and the right-wing, the racial hatred will meet no real opposition and will only grow stronger.
The Dissenters point out that the obvious reason the attacks on whiteness are growing in both frequency and severity is the plain fact that the percentage of whites in the country is shrinking. Unless that demographic change is stopped or reversed, all other efforts to diminish the threat to whites are futile.
Rufo characterizes this argument as “rightwing identity politics” derived from a misguided view that “colorblind equality is unattainable.” To him, the Dissenters’ position is that “[l]eft-wing racialism has been embedded in our institutions, laws, and policies to such an extent that it cannot be rolled back using conventional means.” While he is correct that Dissenters generally believe the growing menace to whites cannot be “rolled back” by conventional means—i.e., at the voting booth—he is wrong that we believe the menace is a consequence of “left-wing racialism” having embedded itself anywhere. We take a more clear-eyed view of human nature, a view informed by all of human history. A racial threat isn’t ideological. It’s racial.
If racial hatred were a matter of leftist ideology, which purports to champion the powerless against the powerful, CRT wouldn’t be focused exclusively on whites. Indeed, as Jews are easily the most powerful race in the United States, even without adjusting for their tiny share of the population, a true left-wing racialism would be attacking “Jewness” instead of “whiteness.” A clear-eyed Dissenter understands that racial ideology isn’t the enemy, the problem is racial enemies have taken control of our ideology. They have taken control of “our institutions, laws, and policies.”
These enemies were responsible for the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, which is the legislation that has transformed the demographics of the nation. It was passed with the assistance of a massive disinformation campaign mounted by Jewish media promising the law would not alter the demographic make-up of the United States. President Lyndon Johnson traveled to New York City to sign the legislation into law on October 3, 1965, and, that evening, with the racial transformation of the United States underway, Jews celebrated their great victory over the gentiles.
Now, more than a half century later, the demographic fruits of that law are everywhere apparent. As whites shrink to a minority in the country they created, the completely predictable consequence of a growing racial menace to whites is becoming impossible to ignore. Chris Rufo recognized that menace and, to his great credit, had the courage and leadership qualities to mount a defense. But, he undermines his own cure, unfortunately, by misdiagnosing the disease.1
The Deniers, by failing to recognize the attacks on whiteness as racially motivated rather than ideologically motivated, simply do not have the language available to make a case against demographic change itself, nor do they have the ability to formulate a coherent strategy to protect whites in the likely event the demographic change is a fait accompli. Proposals to reaffirm the ideals of colorblind equality are not, in fact, the victories Rufo claims they are.
Rufo gives no indication he’s ever considered the possibility that the goal of CRT, at least among its most zealous advocates, might be the straight up genocide of white people. All of human history, however, and, in particular, the horrors endured by the Russian people during the 20th century, demand that this possibility be considered, and considered unflinchingly, however frightening or distasteful that task may be. This is especially the case given the widespread Jewish denial of the central part played by Khazarian Jews in the Bolshevik holocaust of 66 million Russian Christians. That denial, by itself, would indicate that, for some percentage of Jews, anyway, another genocide of white Christians is the goal.
Granted, it’s not likely Rufo would be published in Paul Singer’s City Journal if he gave even the briefest consideration to the possibility of white genocide being the goal of CRT zealots. Moreover, since the ADL claims the opponents of CRT are “using this debate as an opportunity to promote well-known antisemitic conspiracy theories,” which include a Jewish program for white genocide, the personal cost of publicly linking CRT and white genocide is high, indeed. Nevertheless, whites do not have the luxury of saying “no” to the politics of “whiteness;” somebody needs to consider the possibility white genocide is on the table.
The degree to which someone is willing to let their participation in the political realm impact their personal life varies according to everyone’s unique circumstances and is a personal decision only they can make. But those who are willing to undertake this unpleasant task should not be undermined by those on whose behalf the task is undertaken.
Just to be clear, CRT is an analysis of race relations using the tools of structuralism. Structuralism is “an anthropological theory that there are unobservable social structures that generate observable social phenomena.” [WordNet 3.0] The structuralist can point to an effect and assert the cause without needing to bother with whether the cause is observable—in other words, without needing to show that the cause actually exists. For a structuralist, the cause of a phenomenon is like the antisemitism that so animates New York Rabbi Diana Fersko, “it’s meteorological, it’s atmospheric, it’s just out there.”
This is precisely the case concerning whiteness for the CRT activist: whiteness is an evil that simply exists out there in the world. Do more young black men than young white men wind up incarcerated as a percentage of their population? If so, then whiteness is to blame—no need to point to any actual act of discrimination by any white person. The assertion of the effect is the proof of the cause. Whiteness is antisemitism for non-whites.
The most clear-sighted commentary I've read on the CRT issue. Thank you.
Before CRT entered public discourse, I was lectured about the oppressiveness of whiteness by the world's premier Jungian at the time (early 90's) the Jewish scholar James Hillman. The topic came out of nowhere in terms of previous talks on psychology rooted in mythology, his ongoing post-Jungian approach. But in retrospect I see now this intro to white bashing was encouraging us to get more political, standing up for your beliefs, being strident if you have to. He was advocating social activism/wokeness before its time. He must have gotten an early draft of the CRT meme from the Elders of Zion.
Among my personal and FB friends, there are 5 who don't easily fit into your current categories. These women seem to slip between the cracks. 3 are lapsed liberals and 2 are newly awakening conservatives. None are Deserters as they all believe in the White race. It's just that they don't think race is a very important consideration. Race is an accident of birth say the libs and we're all children of God say the Christian cons. They would all accept the prevalent idea that the races are equal or better yet, there's only one race, the human. All would also be loathe to link intelligence w/ race or any other behavioral traits either.
These are not woke activists or Qbie extremists yet all have growing concern that govt and media lie constantly and, more specifically, that co-vid was/is a sham. Perhaps the key to their racial myopia is that none of them will talk about the JQ. The cons will talk about Blacks as a social problem, while the libs are more comfortable condemning institutions. None seem to notice how Jews stir up Blacks against Whites or that Jews control those detestable institutions.