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What Mrs. Applewhite Said
When I was twelve or thirteen, a woman who had taught in Mississippi public schools for forty years became a Christian. She left her career in the public schools and came to teach history, English, and consumer math in the tiny church basement “school” that was being operated by our church. Prior to her arrival it was more of a homeschooling co-op than a proper school, but she improved the quality of our education, massively and overnight. Old-fashioned and strict, she did her best to challenge each of us to reach our fullest potential.
In my case, her inclination to challenge me was more about my personal dysfunction than academics. She kept me after class one day to go over an exam. I had gotten a good grade, a ninety-seven if memory serves, but I hadn’t answered the bonus question. She asked me why I left it blank.
I hesitated, searching for language I didn’t have.
She waited an uncomfortably long time before she said, gently, “I think I know.”
“Ma’am?”
“You know the answer to that question. I know you know the answer. But if you had gotten those bonus points your grade would be tainted in your mind. You wanted a pure hundred.”
It was startling to hear my own thoughts articulated, especially since they were thoughts of which I wasn’t fully aware. I felt the beginning of tears.
She went on: “You have done something really unkind to yourself. You’ve set yourself up so you feel bad if you don’t get a hundred. But when you do get a hundred, you dismiss it because the test must’ve been too easy. You have no way to ever feel good about yourself. I want you to pray about that. I don’t think that’s what the Lord wants for you.”
What does this story have to do with “anti-racist” activism? Rather a lot, as I hope to demonstrate.
An Exercise in Theory of Mind
For awhile now, I’ve been subscribed to an anti-racist newsletter, reading each issue and studying the thoughts of its contributors carefully. (Not linking to it because I don’t want to get blocked.)
In this post, I’m going to do my best to describe important aspects of the world as seen through the eyes of people for whom “anti-racist” is a fundamental identity. These are not blue-haired college kids who reflexively spout any and all Woke talking points with equal fervor. Rather, I’ve been studying the writing of people for whom “anti-racist” activism is a lifestyle; something they regard as a sacred obligation.
Woke people (and their writing) are exceptionally easy to mock, satirize, dunk on, or otherwise use as an exercise in flexing snark muscles. Today I’m trying not to do those things, because I learned a lot from this exercise. I want to do more than provide an entertaining recap of stupidity—I want to communicate what I learned, and what I think it means.
Dunking—of the sort that I used to spend hours a day doing on Twitter—is fun, but it’s also very easy. It requires cleverness, not intelligence. The emotional thrust of dunking is a kind of a sneering, smug contempt; stemming, almost always (and certainly in my case) from insecurity.
Contempt is sometimes appropriate in culture war commentary, but I don’t want to go to a place of contempt, this time. Contempt hasn’t at all been my experience in studying this material.
Rather, this experience has been just one thing, emotionally: a journey into profound sadness, tinged with pity.
These people are the moral and characterological equivalents of quadriplegics, but no fall from a ladder, drunk driver, or genetic curse did this to them.
They did it to themselves.
“The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”
—How to be an Anti-Racist, by Ibram X. Kendi
Why “Anti-Racist” Deserves Scare Quotes
Almost everyone has the basic level of morality it takes to oppose actual racism: discriminating against or otherwise mistreating people on the basis of their skin color. Even very young children understand that judging people for something they didn’t choose is unfair. Tell a 3-year-old that they can’t play with a favorite toy because they misbehaved. They won’t love it, but they’ll understand. Tell a (blue-eyed) 3-year-old they can’t play with a favorite toy because there’s a new rule: “Nobody with blue eyes is allowed to play with this toy,” and the first words you’ll hear will be “No fair!”
The moral imperative of judging people only for the things over which they have control—not over their immutable characteristics—is something humans understand years before we develop the cognitive capacity to articulate why one is just and the other is unjust.
In recent years, especially since the events of 2020, people who want to promote a new type of racism have started using “anti-racist” to describe themselves. That’s not a caricature or strawman on my part. It’s a paraphrase. As “anti-racist” author, speaker, and leader Ibram X. Kendi wrote:
“The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.” —from How to be an Anti-Racist
I put the quotes around “anti-racist” because I’m quoting their term, and to communicate that “anti-racist” here means “thing that they call themselves.” It does not mean that they oppose racism—quite the opposite.
Contradictions and Cognitive Dissonance
The most important thing I learned is this: the “anti-racist” worldview is one of contradictions and cognitive dissonance. There is a reason why this worldview seems to bring out the worst in so many of its advocates; it both causes and requires psychological fragmentation. Adherents must believe contradictory ideas, simultaneously and with equal fervor. Humans are capable of this, of course. We’ve all had moments where we were furious with, and even wanted to hurt, someone we also loved very much. But the key word there is moments. Continuing to maintain contradictory extremes at all times is by necessity damaging and deranging, as the “anti-racist” movement itself shows so readily.
Wherein I Supply A “Not All”
Please note that I am fully aware that not all black people subscribe to this worldview. In fact, I often fantasize about precisely what some of the self-reliant, utterly badass elderly black women who lived on my street growing up would say if they were brought into a university classroom and heard what passes for opposing racism these days. When I say “black people” in the below, I’m referring to black people as the “anti-racist” activists regard black people. I am not expressing my own views or relating my own experiences, which run heavily towards the kind of no-nonsense Southern black matriarch types who would thoroughly kick these activists’s whining asses without breaking a sweat—or even pausing to set down the Bible and handbag—and would still be on time to teach Sunday school.
The Five Contradictions of “Anti-Racism”
Here are the five major contradictions I observed while trying to see through the eyes of the “anti-racist” activists whose work I’ve been studying.
One: Perpetually Oppressed People, Who Cannot Fail
The narrative of “marginalized identities”, immutable characteristics which are said to cause people to be marginalized, erased, and oppressed—a narrative I went into at great length in one of my previous essays, The Truth About Being Marginalized—sets black people up in a scenario that prevents self-knowledge.
Humans require challenge and failure to achieve our full potential. The experience of adversity and the resilience that develops from facing and overcoming it is a crucial part of developing character. “Anti-racism” sets black people up to be perfectly protected from ever being given the gift of self-knowledge.
In the “anti-racist” worldview, a black person who achieves something has done far grander than simply achieve that thing. What does that mean? A black woman earned a math degree in the same semester that I earned mine. In their telling of this comparison, because I am white, my accomplishment was nothing noteworthy. I had white skin opening doors and protecting me from obstacles. But my black classmate? She was a superhero. She walked into “an institution that wasn’t made for people like (her)” and faced “structural forces” that were “allied against (her)”, but found a way to overcome “white supremacy” in order to force a structurally racist institution to “acknowledge her existence.”
Black people who succeed are heroes, paragons of virtue who run marathons at the same speed as their white counterparts despite carrying massive, invisible weights on their backs.
Black people who fail, however, don’t really fail. Racism stepped in and stopped them. Their institutions failed to defend, shield, and protect them. They are victims of centuries-old systems specifically set up to cause them to fail, so there’s no need for self-reflection or trying again. It wasn’t their fault. By definition, it cannot be.
Two: A Nothingburger, For Which We Should Destroy Ourselves
“Anti-racist” activists absolutely love to mock white people who react badly to being called racists. They find it hilarious that accusations of racism cause white people to grow defensive, and write elaborate instructions for how white people should react when called racist.
Indeed, there’s even a business model around having white women pay for the privilege of being called racist in their own homes—a lengthy verbal berating at the hands of two women of color, a kind of non-sexual BDSM session—something that they’re supposed to do without showing any visible signs of being upset. One of the business owners, Saira Rao, who sees herself as profoundly victimized yet gets paid to go to white women’s houses and play the verbal dominatrix, is so deluded that she thinks Taylor Swift could end the war in Gaza with a single instagram post.
Over and over, “anti-racist” activists propagate the idea that white people who don’t immediately—or even pre-emptively—admit to their obvious and overwhelming racism are fragile at best, liars at worst.
Simultaneously—existing directly alongside this characterization of racism as something nobody should balk at being accused, tried, and convicted of—they also believe and assert that racism is such a heinous evil, so morally tainting and overwhelmingly influential, that all of Western civilization can, should, and must be overthrown to purify ourselves of its stain.
Three: Permanent Victims, Who Don’t Need Saviors
In the story I told to begin this essay, Mrs. Applewhite correctly identified the no-win situation I created for myself around my grades. “Anti-racist” activists have done something directly analogous for their white “allies” and “accomplices” — created a situation where there is no way to feel good about themselves. No way to ever achieve an earned and deserved sense of accomplishment and virtue.
White silence is violence, they insist. White people who do not speak up and immediately and forcefully “disrupt” racism, regardless of the personal cost, are committing violence.
White people must, to be moral, make an active and consistent practice of neglecting their own needs and those of their children. Rather, the needs of black people must take center stage at all times.
“Our working definition of allyship is an active and consistent practice of using power and privilege to achieve equity, inclusion, and justice while holding ourselves accountable to marginalized people’s needs.”
—The Wake Up, by Michelle MiJung Kim
Simultaneously—existing directly alongside this expectation of constant attention to the needs, experiences, and desires of black people—is the demonization of “white saviorism.” White people must recognize that black people are permanently oppressed victims to whom white people owe unpayable debts, but they must never regard a life spent trying in vain to repay that debt as something that makes them, the white person, good or moral in any way. If they expect any appreciation for this self-denial and effort, they are “white saviors” who “want a cookie.”
As if this masochistic ritual weren’t absurd enough, the status of “ally” is something that only black people can bestow and any black person can immediately withdraw. Thus white people who want to be good and virtuous have a permanent dependence on black people for assessment and approval of how well they are “doing the work.”
Four: Demigods, Saddled with Learned Helplessness
In “anti-racist” minds, black people are not just elevated beings, they are in fact a type of lesser god. When you offend a black person—especially if you are an ally who is actively working to earn their favor and thus your offense was utterly unintentional, perhaps even a microaggression you didn’t realize was a microaggression—you must go through a purification ritual. Immediately accept your guilt, unreservedly apologize, and understand that gods are not always forgiving. You may in fact be banished from heaven forever.
Whether you are deemed permanently unworthy of forgiveness or not, you have no right to expect a second chance. Grace and forgiveness are only part of the bargain when it pleases the god to grant such, and you must never expect it, no matter how longstanding the relationship or how much you’ve previously invested into it.
Further, if you need to have a conversation to process what happened in the rupture of this relationship, you must not expect to have it with the black person in the relationship. You must seek such processing everywhere—and be prepared to pay for it. Unlike the gods, who engage in relationships out of virtues like love and friendship, morally inferior white people must pay for the right to work things out, learn, and grow from mistakes.
Simultaneously—existing directly alongside this dynamic wherein black people are owed reverence from all white people—exists a kind of learned helplessness. Black people are never at fault for anything, particularly not anything that upsets or harms other black people. I read a story of an offensive advertisement used for a gym, one that compared the struggle of achieving physical fitness with the difficulties of being a slave:
The sin of a black man designing, creating, and displaying an offensive advertisement that “harmed” other black people is not his sin. He is a demigod, by definition incapable of such.
The sin—the original sin—belongs to white people.
Five: Parasocial Personas, Oppressed by Being Othered
I’ve written before about how “anti-racism” turns all relationships between black people and non-black people into a type of parasocial relationship. It prohibits authentic relationships by requiring that white people adopt a deferential, serving position—expiating their original sin—and constantly prioritizing the black person’s needs above their own.
Simultaneously—existing directly alongside this dynamic of creating a parasocial relationship in real life—“anti-racism” finds a great deal of racism in black people being “othered,” regarded as a separate and distinct type of person, whose experiences and thoughts are largely or even entirely unknowable to white people.
A Confusing, Contradictory Mess
If this sounds like a confusing, fucked-up ball of contradictions wherein the rules change so often that you wonder how anyone could keep up, congratulations. You get it.
There is absolutely no way for a black person to enter this arena of thought without becoming a permanent victim, deranged to the point where literally any experience can be read as racist a dozen different ways.
How can any human being experience happiness or contentment when they have programmed themselves to find misery no matter the situation—to be able to take literally anything and turn it into racism with barely a moment’s thought?
This is all so completely unnecessary. So much wasted energy and effort, and all for the purpose of justifying self-righteousness, self-pity, and creating excuses for failure.
They are turning themselves into moral and characterological quadriplegics—people whose ability to be fully functioning agents has been decimated, by their own hands.
And, of course, there is no way for a white person to enter this arena of thought without becoming a permanent neurotic, dependent on black people for validation, affirmation, and approval, but never likely to receive such since allyship is “the bare minimum for any decent person.”
Not even a white person’s assessment of their own thoughts are trustworthy, given the deeply entrenched belief in “implicit bias.” By the way, the Implicit Association Test is complete horseshit, and it’s ridiculously easy to game it and make it show whatever results you want. I explain that process here.
The Heartbreaking Reality of This Situation
It is tragic that adults are choosing to immerse themselves in “anti-racism” and devote their lives to it. Volunteering to fully locate their locus of control outside themselves is volunteering for a life of misery, frustration, and regret.
But it is absolutely gut-wrenching that children are growing up being steeped in it. White children, especially those in blue areas who aren’t homeschooled, are growing up with “anti-racism” as both a foundational philosophy in their schools and the culture around them, positioning them as original sinners bearing a burden of guilt for sins they never committed.
Black children are growing up with the idea that white people despise them and wish them ill, and they can only succeed if white people are willing to devote their lives to the service of black needs. It is an especially brutal form of child abuse to teach kids that they cannot meet their own needs, that they must wait on people who hate them to do so.
It’s profoundly sad, and although part of me is angered by all this, for the most part I just feel pity.
What a miserable, empty existence it is waiting on someone else to rescue you—and to believe that for it count, they must rescue you out of guilt and shame while wanting no thanks. They must save you without regarding themselves as a savior, or you weren’t even really saved at all.
What Are Your Experiences?
Do you have to sit through “anti-racist” training at your job? Do you have family, coworkers, friends, fellow congregants at church, neighbors, etc., who consider themselves “anti-racist” and prioritize this kind of activism in their daily lives?
Do you feel that you understand them? How do you deal with such people? When it comes to a person committed to this pursuit—are you able to set aside this unfortunate aspect of their being and be friends otherwise? Does it prohibit a deep friendship? Why or why not?
What are your experiences with this kind of thing, and this type of person? Please comment if you’re willing to share (but see the note below before you do).
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About My Substack: I’m a data scientist who would rather be a math teacher but, being unwilling to brainwash kids into Woke nonsense, am presently unqualified to teach in the US. So I bring my “math is fun and anyone can learn it” approach to mathematics here to Substack in my series, “How to Not Suck at Math,” (first five entries not paywalled, links at the top of part 5, here).
My other posts are mostly cultural takes from a broadly anti-Woke perspective—yes, I’m one of those annoying classical liberals who would’ve been considered on the left until ten seconds ago. Lately I’ve regained a childhood love of reading and started publishing book reviews, including of the Wokest novel I’ve ever read and a memoir by Rob Henderson. My most widely useful essay may be this one, about how to resist the demon of self-termination.
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I agree with you 100%. Who is the real oppressor? Unreal. Well said. It's a cult complete with rituals. Very sad indeed.
From the outside looking in, it is pitiable. From the inside, I suspect that most white wokes receive affirmation and validation not from "marginalized" folks but from other white wokes. Its a cult of penitents, celebrating in the glory of their self flagellation.