The New Religion of Anti-Racism Can Turn Disagreement into Heresy

The New Religion of Anti-Racism Can Turn Disagreement into Heresy | HeterodoxAcademy.org
John McWhorter recently noted the resemblance between religious fervor and anti-racist activism:

An anthropology article from 1956 used to get around more than it does now, “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema.” Because my mother gave it to me to read when I was 13, of course what I remember most from it is that among the Nacirema, women with especially large breasts get paid to travel and display them. Nacirema was “American” spelled backwards—get it?—and the idea was to show how revealing, and even peculiar, our society is if described from a clinical distance.

These days, there is something else about the Nacirema—they have developed a new religion. That religion is antiracism. Of course, most consider antiracism a position, or evidence of morality. However, in 2015, among educated Americans especially, Antiracism—it seriously merits capitalization at this point—is now what any naïve, unbiased anthropologist would describe as a new and increasingly dominant religion. It is what we worship, as sincerely and fervently as many worship God and Jesus and, among most Blue State Americans, more so.

To someone today making sense of the Nacirema, the category of person who, roughly, reads The New York Times and The New Yorker and listens to NPR, would be a deeply religious person indeed, but as an Antiracist. This is good in some ways—better than most are in a position to realize. This is also bad in other ways—worse than most are in a position to realize.

One of the rituals of this quasi-religion is the acknowledgment of white privilege. It was demanded of the University of Missouri president. As McWhorter explains:

The Antiracism religion, then, has clergy, creed, and also even a conception of Original Sin. Note the current idea that the enlightened white person is to, I assume regularly (ritually?), “acknowledge” that they possess White Privilege. Classes, seminars, teach-ins are devoted to making whites understand the need for this.

McWhorter notes that several private schools in New York are now offering courses in White Privilege. There are also college courses and a conferences on White Privilege and people far to the left of McWhorter, like Corey Robin, have written about the emptiness of some of these conferences. If you look at anti-racism as a religion, however, this collective ritual makes sense as a symbolic religious gesture..."
Read on!