The lie of race-blindness

Our official ideology tells us that race doesn’t matter and that decent people never notice race. But, as we’ve seen over the last half-century, the real-world result of saying that race doesn’t matter is that the society begins to admit tens of millions of people of different races while also removing all traditional social barriers between the races. As a result of these dramatic changes, the society naturally begins to celebrate the way that it has changed, i.e., it celebrates the fact that it is becoming nonwhite. The celebration of nonwhiteness implicitly downgrades the historical white majority character of the country, about which, of course, nothing positive can ever be said. All of which grossly contradicts the idea that race doesn’t matter. When a historically all-white country (such as Britain) or majority-white country (such as the U.S.) embraces the ideology of race-blindness, the race-blindness immediately turns into anti-whiteness.

We must distinguish between situations where the liberal neutrality of race-blindness is possible, and situations where it is not possible. The liberal neutrality of race-blindness is possible in relation to the ordinary interactions between the state and its citizens in a settled society with an agreed-upon majority culture that is not being threatened. The liberal neutrality of race-blindness is not possible when the entire character and identity of a society are up for grabs. In the latter case, race-blindness is merely a weapon to discriminate against and dispossess the majority race. Therefore the only way to keep a historically white society from becoming anti-white is to defend and preserve its historic whiteness.

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Dan M. writes:

This short piece is an extremely powerful argument—and very useful and valuable because of its shortness. In dealing with leftists we are often dealing with an unnaturallly curtailed or diminished rational faculty. They have neither the patience nor good will necessary to listen to long-winded and rambling disquisitions into the whole truth. We and they both need short, powerful and indefeasible arguments that proceed from simple premises. If I am understanding you correctly, you are saying there is a logical entailment here that follows ineluctably from the acceptance of the need for or celebration of diversity/multicultrualism, namely, anti-white prejudice. I think it has to be so; if we really “need” this social/cultural fix, then we evidently “need” to overcome whiteness, or European man. I think the entailment holds, and the argument demonstrates that the diversitybags are necessarily anti-white. Now this is something I can really use in the trenches!

LA replies:

Thanks. Yes, it is necessary to reduce the whole dynamic to its essential points that anyone can understand and no one can deny. This is why we need to focus on the precise point where there is a contradiction or injustice and not go into side issues.

Here’s an example that comes to mind. Back in the Sixties or Seventies, the first moment that there was any public celebration of blackness, white people should have said:

“Wait a second. The whole deal is that we are a color-blind society. Whites had to give up any racial consciousness and just be individuals. But here you are, celebrating blacks as blacks. That’s not acceptable. You can’t do this, period.”

Of course, talk show hosts and neocon columnists did frequently make the anti-double standard argument, but it was always so weak. They never drove it home. It was always in the form of a rhetorical question addressed to other whites (“Gosh, what happened to color-blindness?”), not in the form of an imperative statement directed at the celebrators (both white and black) of blackness.

Here’s another example, that could be used with a nonwhite who is arguing for more immigration:

“You say that my opposition to open borders and diversity is bad. But tell me, what is YOUR agenda, what do YOU want America to become?”

This puts him on the spot. At this point he will inevitably reveal that he wants America to become something totally other than what it is. And this shows (as I say in the Introduction of The Path to National Suicide) that this is not a debate between “equality” and “racism.” It’s a debate between people who want to transform America into a totally different country, and people who don’t. Once we’ve redefined the debate in REAL terms instead of the unreal liberal terms, then we stand on ground where we can fight back.

So then you could say something like:

“Why is it morally ok for you to seek to turn America into a nonwhite country, while it’s morally wicked of me to oppose that?

“Why is YOUR racial agenda, to transform America into something it has never been, morally good, but MY racial agenda, which is simply to maintain America as a recognizable country, morally evil?”

Also, if you haven’t read it, read the article based on my speech at the 1994 AR conference, where I develop the idea in the blog entry at length.

Ben W. writes:

The short note you have posted, “The lie of race-blindness,” is the single best passage written that I’ve ever seen on the race issue.

It really is a zero-sum game. If X increases, Y decreases; there is no neutrality.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 26, 2007 12:25 PM | Send