It was just a little booklet in my little free neighborhood library box but the title intrigued me: “Working Together to End Racism.”
I’ve been trying to read as much as I can by and about these anti-racism groups, to learn (if there’s really anything to be learned) what makes them tick. Du Bois, Mounk, McHarris, Kendi, Wing Sue, and others form the modern canon. It is they who have introduced us to notions such as White supremacy, structural racism, unconscious bias, microagressions, internalized racism, equality of outcomes, and dozens of other quasi-concepts that anti-racists tell us must be understood and made part of any serious effort to end racism.
The little booklet was first published in 2002, but is as relevant today as it was back then. In fact, it may be the most intriguing of all the genre that has come along since then. There are essays in it that make for stimulating reading, and to realize its very antiquity—2002 was a generation ago—makes it all the more impressive. It’s kind of the ur-document of the anti-racism movement. So I was shocked when I realized its true source. Read on.
The book is more or less a standard presentation of the notions set forth by progressive activists of the Black Lives Matter sort. It presents “demands”—policies “must change,” racist behavior “must change,” people “must recover from the damage done to them by racism.” We’re used, by now, to hearing these demands, but in 2002 they must have sounded pretty radical.
The book often refers to Black peoples’ “feelings resulting from racism.” We hear this frequently nowadays (this is where “internalized racism” is relevant), but does not address the question, “If racism will continue to exist as long as [some] people feel victimized, then by definition racism will always exist,” because some people will always claim to “feel” discriminated against (cf. “microagressions”). The authors maintain that people on the receiving end of “racism” (Black people) are “coerced and pressured” by racism to perform unnatural acts, such as “to physically attack each other,” as in gang warfare; to “make us vulnerable to [among other diseases] HIV/AIDS and heart disease”; “to beat our children”; “to fight with each other in gangs”; and “to make us feel hopeless, despairing, and angry.” No mention is made of the fact that all these behaviors are matters of choice and free will. They require making conscious decisions (to go to war against a rival gang, or to pummel their own children). Exactly how this bullying quality of “racism” squares with the concept of individual freedom would certainly seem worth examining, but in this book it is overlooked—deliberately? And then, in summing up these aberrant behaviors, the authors lay down a modern postulate of anti-racist ideology: “We [i.e. Black people] are not to blame for any of these attitudes or behaviors.”
Therein lies the central flaw of anti-racism: it never assigns blame to anyone, except “White people, all of whom are conditioned to behave as agents of racism.” In other words, if you’re White, you’re proven guilty of the crime of racism due solely to the color of your skin. Paging Dr. King!
This is the standard stuff we always hear from racialists such as Carroll Fife, Pamela Price, Angela Davis and others. Because, in their view, White people have discriminated against Black people for centuries, it’s only fair that the tables now be turned. Now it’s Black peoples’ turn to run things, and if you want to know how that political ideology has worked out, look at Oakland.
I spoke earlier of the source of this 2002 booklet. There’s a chapter in it on something called “Re-evaluation Counseling.” Now, that’s a term I never heard before, so I did a little digging. “Re-evaluation counseling,” the book advises us, “is a process for freeing humans and society as a whole from the damage done by racism.” It’s a form of group therapy/peer counseling, and sounds a bit like est, for those of you senior enough to recall that. Wikipedia describes a typical Re-evaluation counseling session as one wherein the subject “relates painful memories to a peer counsel or group and release[es] strong feelings by crying, shaking, or laughing as the best salve for psychological wounds.” These sessions can quickly turn confrontational; one Black teenager in a Re-evaluation session was forced down by the group to “a gym mat” by the others (his “peers”) to “wrestle out his emotions.” When the panicked boy “fled to his room,” in trauma, “the other retreat participants chased after him.” The boy “hid under the covers [of his bed] screaming ‘Please leave me alone.’”
This is the stuff of nightmares. Is it any wonder that the Re-evaluation counseling headquarters seems to be connected with the Church of Scientology? Re-evaluation counseling’s founder was a student of L. Ron Hubbard (the founder of Scientology or “Dianetics” as it later became), and although the two eventually broke, Re-evaluation counseling retain the same cult-like, ego-shattering practices. The standard criticism of Re-evaluation counseling is that it’s “tainted by moralising from above and, reciprocally, by timid and deferential attitudes from below,” which sounds like the classic definition of a cult.
I mention this only because we see this cult-like behavior and similar attitudes in the modern movement for “racial equity,” especially in Oakland. Everybody is supposed to fall into line according to the dictats of our “leaders,” Carroll Fife, Rebecca Kaplan, Nikki Bas, Pamela Price, Cat Brooks and so on. We’re told that, if we don’t agree, then we are racists. It’s very hard to defend oneself from a charge of racism—it’s the equivalent of “When did you stop beating your wife?” There is no defense: you’re guilty because someone said you’re a racist. This is why I say the Fife-Kaplan-Bas-etc. crowd are fascists: they hurl that accusation around all the time, knowing full well that, in a town as credulous as Oakland, a lot of people will believe them. Well, it’s unAmerican, anti-democracy, irrational, vile and downright dirty to play the race card like that. And it’s frightening to comprehend how deeply this sick philosophy has embedded itself into Oakland’s culture and politics for decades, and how difficult it will be to try to rid ourselves of it. But we must try.
Steve Heimoff