PART 2: PRAXIS MAKES PERFECT
If You’re Not “Antiracist”, You Must be Racist
Since it’s plain that we’ve begun to reshape society according to “antiracist” principles and objectives, we should be aiming toward a more authentic popular understanding of those principles and objectives. Information produced and disseminated within the industries of education and mass media is primarily designed to bolster today’s racial justice movement rather than provide a broad exploration or deep analysis of it. Widespread media, government, and corporate acquiescence to the movement suggests western institutions have agreed to restructure as the movement prescribes, and yet these same entities frequently deflect or even “cancel” people attempting to provoke debate about contentious aspects of the movement, or educate the masses about the far-left revolutionary foundation of the movement and what this might imply for our future. This is because the majority of people working within mass media and education systems have already embraced the praxis principle of critical social justice theory.
“Antiracist” leaders push the praxis principle on the populace to drive the advancement of their racial justice agenda. This strategy works by offering a false binary “choice” to students of the theory via coursework, professional development workshops, and books/handouts: “do this work in this way toward this goal, OR accept that you are irredeemably racist and an upholder of white supremacy, despite any claims you offer to the contrary”.
“Antiracist” leaders exhort “authentic praxis” by all supporters of the movement, meaning that every individual or group expressing verbal support for the movement is also expected to actively contribute to/participate in the desired socio-political change. Western societies are, as a result, now awash with legions of newly minted quasi-revolutionary activists trying to be "authentically antiracist", and yet it’s likely that the vast majority of earnestly “antiracist” people have only cursory knowledge of the ideological foundations and long-term restructuring goals of the movement’s leadership. The superficial nature of public knowledge about the movement appears to be by design… a feature, rather than a bug.
The Praxis of Protest
One of the core strategies of the new activists is to “shout down” and “de-platform” ideological opponents. Conversation and debate, along with expository and persuasive writing, are the norms of discourse traditionally used to settle ideological differences in western cultures. The “antiracists” constantly undermine western intellectual traditions, and they’ve erected a moral framework to justify this behaviour. “Shouting down” and “de-platforming” an opponent can be a protracted and even violent affair. For example, Professor Charles Murray was prevented from giving a lecture, and he and a colleague were assaulted by “antiracist” protestors at Middlebury University in 2017.
Murray is most often maligned as a racist for suggesting that public policy is doomed to failure as long as it does not take into account group genetic differences. His research data and findings are completely abhorrent to people who believe race is a social construct with no meaningful basis in biology. But in the spirit of intersectionality (a core dimension of their belief system) protestors chanted the following to drown out Murray: “RACIST, SEXIST, ANTI-GAY! CHARLES MURRAY GO AWAY!” The youth of today have been taught to silence rather than challenge intellectually those whose ideas they don’t like; they’ve been taught that the common good depends on narrowing the bounds of socially acceptable speech to reflect their own beliefs.
Deplatforming and cancelling others who think differently is now a primary form of praxis that “antiracists” believe supports increased diversity and inclusion. The hypocrisy of such a position is lost on them, because they’ve been taught to see their ideological enemies as truly evil oppressors, and so not worthy of being afforded space in our society to speak, or research, or publish. Murray, being old, white, male, and attached to the belief that certain racial genetic differences matter a great deal, at least socio-politically, has zero credence with identitarians and is widely despised and disparaged. It will be interesting to watch the career trajectory of rising behaviour geneticist Kathryn Paige-Harden, who similarly argues that “building a commitment to egalitarianism on our genetic uniformity is building a house on sand,” but has progressive/leftist and feminist bona fides to differentiate her from Murray. Even though she is careful to emphasize that “DNA is not destiny” and genetics can be used to design effective interventions and aid social improvement, her research proposals and publications often receive an icy response from peers who believe that when it come to studying the intersection of race, social disparities, and genetics, “enough is enough. Advances in genetics are facilitating a world of interesting and useful discoveries, but leftist administrators are striving to ensure that research in the area is limited to projects that won’t challenge their preferred narratives.
Many reputable and accomplished thinkers whose work challenges the “anti-racist” movement have been forced to cancel speaking engagements, and even sometimes entire speaking tours, due to threats of violence. People endeavouring to engage in robust and informed debate — the kind of public discourse we’ve come to expect, that that doesn't merely indoctrinate but informs people with multiple perspectives on a topic, in an attempt to help members of the public better understand and accurately assess that topic— are finding themselves unwelcome in most social contexts today. That people challenging social justice orthodoxy are now widely considered security risks further entrenches the fallacy that such people and their ideas are “radical” and “extremist” — we now regularly see thinkers who would’ve only 10 or 20 years ago been described as centrists or moderate leftists denounced as bigots, fascists, racists, etc., and not only on social media platforms but in western mainstream and legacy media, as well.
Shaming, Stigmatizing, Separating
The public shaming and hounding can be extreme, and those who pursue open public debate about the new racial justice movement often risk losing employment along with reputation. They also commonly lose relationships with left-leaning family members and friends. Most (perhaps all) bloody revolutions in history have featured similar brainwashing of the citizenry to achieve a critical mass of allegiance to the ideology that is strong enough to override even the closest personal and familial ties. Revolutionaries always target their society’s youth, in particular, for indoctrination with revolutionary ideology. Typically, the first order of business in a revolution is to take over education systems, to groom idealistic, energetic, and able-bodied young people, to convince them of the righteousness even of turning against their elders and neighbours. Young people are taught there is no higher duty than service to the new socio-political agenda that is certain to advance equality and reduce suffering. And they are taught to believe that this agenda can only be implemented if all the “good” people who support the new ideology work to cleanse/purge society of lingering reactionary elements. Yet another sad irony of “antiracism” is that freedom of conscience, freedom of expression, and diversity of opinion are anathema to this movement that claims to stand for diversity and inclusion. Diversity and inclusion, as it turns out, are just buzzwords that make the real agenda seem more palatable: the real agenda is legislated, enforced EQUITY.
Along with the behavioural strategy of encouraging followers to “shout down” dissent in the public square, racial justice ideology features certain “built-in” mechanisms that enable its proponents to deflect challengers and refuse to engage with opposing ideas. Contesting the “antiracist” movement is deemed, de facto, to be a self-evidently “racist” position. Critical social justice ideologues have proven masterful at using language that is conceptually binary. Contesting “Black Lives Matter” (or even just neglecting to include BLM as an aspect of one’s self-presentation) is deemed, de facto, to be a self-evidently racist declaration that “Black Lives DON’T Matter”. The far left, with full support of mainstream media, continuously feeds the public propaganda that reinforces these false dichotomies and artificial moral dilemmas, depicting all members of the ideological opposition as greedy, self-serving, racist, xenophobic, and violent — this cultural climate has facilitated some unsettling weaponizing of authority against regular citizens exercising their right to political protest.
For example, the National School Board Association in America, in an effort to support their members who have been under duress due to a wave of parent protests against the incursion of CRT/DEI and other forms of far-left indoctrination in K-12 schools, recently sent a letter to the federal government formally requesting it activate federal law enforcement agencies against protesting parents — the letter argues that some of these parents should be categorized as “domestic terrorists”, and suggests that local law enforcement would not be adequate to address this threat. Unfortunately, the Biden administration complied — according to news reports the White House may even have helped draft the request — further escalating the conflict and heavily stigmatizing citizens who dissent from critical social justice orthodoxy.
Even calm and measured individuals objecting to critical social justice ideology often find their voices deflected by a complex system of leftist newspeak, false binaries, and public shaming. People considered “white” who aren’t merely agreeing and complying with the new ideology, no matter how politely they present their opposition, are commonly accused of racism and a form of harmful passive aggressive obstinacy that Professor Robin DiAngelo named “white fragility” (a concept which she wrote a book about and tours extensively to promote). Even more condescendingly, people with light complexion who complain about the new orthodoxy are regularly mocked as crybabies shedding “white tears”. This is an ideology that teaches followers to weight ideas differently depending on the skin colour of the speaker. It also teaches young people that a person’s right to use their voice, to be heard, is determined by the alignment of that person’s beliefs and thoughts with critical social justice dogma… increasingly, we are expected to accept that for the sake of the “common good”, when it comes to socio-political issues, we are only permitted to express ideas and claim beliefs that are contained within a single radically left-wing belief system. To challenge critical social justice orthodoxy is now widely considered a form of hate speech, punishable by social and economic exile (but not imprisonment, not yet, although there have been calls for “re-education” programs that bring to mind prison camps/gulags).
Punishments for “secular” blasphemy against social justice dogma are most commonly meted out to those whose skin colour places them in the “whites” category, but non-white ideological opponents of BLM/CRT are also punished for transgressing and rendered voiceless. Despite the call to “elevate black voices”, black thinkers who dissent from BLM are penalized and slandered for crossing ideological lines. Non-white dissenters from social justice orthodoxy are maligned slightly differently than white ones — they are described as being tainted with “whiteness” and suffering from “internalized white supremacy” and/or “white adjacency”. They are depicted as either unenlightened dupes or race traitors who’ve sold out their own side because they personally benefit from proximity to the dominant racial group. Their success is presented not as their own achievement to be admired and celebrated, but as some sort of tainted payment they’ve taken for making a deal with the white supremacist devil.
“Antiracists” often go even further to suggest that opposition to their ideology — especially by white people but by virtually anyone — is not merely conceptually wrong and a symptom of bigotry or treason, it’s literally abusive and violent, because it’s re-traumatizing to people of colour due to the existence of white supremacist racism, both historical and contemporary. A great deal of the movement’s current power is derived from claiming that everything and anything that they are opposed to in society — including ideas, policies, curricular materials, statues, “microagressions” during mundane interactions, western holiday traditions, etc — is potentially a form of racist harm and can constitute white supremacist violence against minorities just as surely as a racially motivated physical assault.
The authentic praxis dimension of critical race theory has resulted in a generation of “antiracist” activists who believe it is an urgent moral/ethical duty to silence great swaths of the population. Nuanced discussion and analysis is now rejected in favour of simplistic fallacious reasoning: “if you’re not with us, you’re against us”. The CRT version of that false dichotomy is phrased as follows: “it’s not enough to be passively nonracist, you must be actively antiracist”. This currently popular command to racial activism is not new, it is a tribute/allusion to the work of Angela Davis, a militant communist racial justice activist who rose to prominence during the civil rights era. Davis was charged with (and later acquitted for) domestic terrorism related to her role in the Marin County Civic Centre attacks that killed three men (including a kidnapped judge) and one child. Davis later became a scholar and enjoyed a successful career promoting communism from the ivory tower. In late 2020, a reporter sought her out to hear her views on today’s activist culture. She had this to say about BLM: “I’ve come to the conclusion that our work as activists is always to prepare the next generation . . . to create new terrains so that those who come after us will have a better opportunity to get up and engage in even more radical struggles. And I think we’re seeing this now.”
A Movement of Teacher-Activists
Elder communist agitators like Davis are of course very pleased to see their life’s work bearing revolutionary fruit today. After emerging from prison in 1972, Angela Davis embarked on a mission to inspire subsequent generations of young minds to embrace far-left revolutionary beliefs. Education is an industry that has long been welcoming to those espousing Marxist/communist ideology, and Marxist intellectuals have used their teaching posts to construct and disseminate an ideology designed to produce significant “trickle-down” effects in popular and institutional culture. Trickle-down Marxism has led to a worrisome degree of extreme far-left bias in institutions today. The near exclusion and frequent persecution of conservative viewpoints in institutions of higher learning has been well documented in recent years. The rise of leftism has resulted in constriction of academic freedom for non-leftists within our universities, and a horribly impoverished academic landscape that supports publication/promotion of reams of verifiably bad scholarship/scholars — look up “The Grievance Studies Hoax” to read about an entertaining exposé of this problem. The curtailing of individual freedom of conscience and speech for students and professors is alarming enough in itself, but the leftist intelligentsia’s creation of such a prominent activist dimension in all the various branches of critical social justice theory has ensured the spread of this intellectual aridity, and now we are finding that the terrain throughout our entire civilization is similarly impoverished.
Revisionism and Ethnocentricity
CRT scholarship is frequently exposed as ahistorical, revisionist, and ethnocentric. For example, we witness today a high degree of misrepresentation regarding the history of slavery. “Antiracists” seem to believe that slavery and inter-tribal abductions were primarily practiced by colonizing Europeans, which is simply false. Europeans are often not given credit for their contributions toward progressing human rights and advancing equality as an ideal, but are depicted as ongoing oppressors, inherent exploiters, even the “inventors” of slavery. Such a biased and myopic approach to teaching about a brutal topic like slavery amounts to both lies and “lies of omission” in support of an anti-whiteness agenda. They give no credence to the fact that slavery is a universal human problem that has at various times through history been perpetrated by all races, or the fact that slavery is still practiced and condoned in many nonwestern contexts.
Global indexes measuring the incidence of slavery worldwide and national efforts to eradicate it show that western nations have the least tolerance in the world for indentured servitude and human trafficking, and yet educators are much more likely to present white people as the origin and fount of all oppression than to highlight western civilization’s progress in this regard. Recently, on the British television show Who Do You Think You Are, a historian informed a young bi-racial woman that her Black Jamaican ancestor was a slave owner, and she became shaken and teary, saying: "I really did believe I’d be learning about my family as slaves, not the other side, as the slave owners . . . I don’t think that stories are told a lot about black people owning slaves.” The blatant ethnocentricity that results from critical social justice theory is quite ironic, but it is clearly strategic — here is a movement, a pedagogy, an ideology that claims a core focus of diversity and inclusion, but regarding topics of central import to their anti-white arsenal of ideas (slavery, patriarchy, imperialism, casteism, tribalism) critical pedagogy’s adherents could hardly be more narrowly focused, teaching students almost exclusively about the past and present ills of European culture/social organization, providing no useful global context, no “bigger picture”.
Many “antiracists” claim that white people invented racism and the very concept of racial categories purely in order to justify ongoing slavery/exploitation/colonialism and build a bulwark of social structures to facilitate domination of non-white peoples. A cursory study of ancient cultures with an eye to locating ethnic and racial tribalism outside of European contexts will expose this theory as a nefarious fallacy, but blatantly anti-white framing of subject matter is now considered “progressive” in western schools, and educators are encouraged to “protect” minority students from opposing viewpoints and facts, particularly if expressed by white peers whom the teacher perceives to be “centering themselves”. In this manner, by ignoring victims of slavery that aren’t/weren’t victimized by Europeans and maintaining a myopic politicized perspective, social justice activists have not only been vilifying the majority ethnic groups of western nations, they’ve also been erasing the suffering of millions and failing to properly educate youth about global realities both past and present.
Grooming Students into Praxis
Social justice ideology is teaching people to be critical of whiteness, and to believe that racism exists everywhere in western civilization, and always will until we collectively evolve to reach a state of “race consciousness”. The ideology demands constant consideration of race, while simultaneously demanding that people understand race isn’t real, merely a social construct. A person’s moral duty is to locate the racism (white supremacism) everywhere, because this contributes to moving humanity toward the collective race/class consciousness that is required to create a truly just society. This is the foundation of neoMarxist praxis (activism), and it’s a requirement for anyone wishing to retain full “antiracist” and “progressive” membership — transcending racism requires an obsessive, constant focus on race and ability to see racism everywhere.
Since racism requires not just the existence of prejudice/bigotry/discrimination but also the presence of power/privilege/dominant racial group membership, the imperative to find the racism in every situation results in social justice teachers seeking every opportunity to denounce and deconstruct “white supremacist systems” and “interrogate whiteness”, a practice which they’ve been led to believe is beneficial to their students, but is creating a toxic, divisive, racially charged learning environment. Most of these teachers don’t think of themselves as politically grooming students, but from outside of their social justice framework, people can see clearly that social justice pedagogy is leading to widespread indoctrination into a new type of racial essentialism that is not about biology, but politics. While critical social justice ideology denies any form of racial determinism based in biology, the identitarian nature of this belief system suggests that western citizens are subject to a rigid racial determinism based in social systems, like a racial caste system. Students are encouraged to look at themselves and their class mates not as unique individuals, but as sums of intersecting identities: kids are being taught that everyone’s social status can be mapped on a privilege chart.
Many people are deeply upset that politically indoctrinated teachers are forcing students to adopt critical social justice beliefs and rituals. Some ideologically driven left-wing teachers will even risk their jobs, defying court or administrative orders, in order to carry out praxis as commanded by CRT doctrine. The tenet of praxis is absolutely central to all branches of critical social justice ideology, because only through praxis will a society move toward the envisioned and strongly desired “just society” (utopia) of collective critical consciousness. CRT and other critical social justice “theories” are not merely theoretical frameworks, but belief systems designed to achieve massive systemic dismantling and socio-economic restructuring. A western citizenry that had become largely complacent and trusting about public education is now waking up to the grim discovery that both their tax money and their children’s minds are being co-opted by left-wing ideologues intent on implementing a revolutionary agenda.
Several writers lately have noted that today’s social justice movement has cultish overtones. Social justice activists frequently exhibit a worrying degree of fanatical commitment and absolutism, indicating that they believe the only positive change possible for western society is revolution and complete restructuring. The alternative is worsening violent conflict, and they are prepared to either condone or personally contribute to this violent conflict, because anything less than revolution and restructuring represents to them the continuance of an abhorrent “system of white supremacy”. Popular slogans of the movement such as “No Justice, No Peace!” and “White Silence is VIOLENCE!” and “If you’re not anti-racist, you’re racist!” indicate that “antiracists” see the current movement as a war in which they are unequivocally on the side of good and their ideological and political opponents aligned with oppression, inhumanity, and evil.
This saviour complex and demonization/dehumanization of the political and ideological opposition is a regular feature of revolutions — and, taken together, Marxist revolutionary movements have caused more bloodshed and economic devastation in the modern era than the destruction caused by any other types of political upheaval. Today’s social justice movement doesn’t advertise itself as a Marxist uprising, but it bears all the hallmarks of one, with the modern twist that intersectional identity categories (race, gender, religion, etc) are standing in for (the traditional Marxist concept of) economic classes.
Despite the ardent focus on racial equity (which was not a feature in earlier Marxist movements), the social justice movement’s ideology is very clearly located within Marxist tradition. “Raising critical consciousness” or “conscientization” is a core Marxist concept, and in education faculties it has in recent decades become extremely prominent, in large part due to the popularity of the work of Paulo Friere, a communist activist and ardent Maoist who became a leading advocate of critical pedagogy, and an author of works (such as Pedagogy of the Oppressed) that are now considered seminal by academics working in teacher-training programs. “Raising critical consciousness” appears to be passing for “teaching critical thinking” in today’s heavily leftist academic environments. Aspiring teachers who are not leftists upon entry are severely challenged by the Marxist gauntlet that teacher training has become.
Student teachers who do not hold far left beliefs often avoid detection during teacher training by insincerely parroting the orthodoxy, while others simply endeavour to remain as quiet as possible to “fly below the radar”. One newly graduated teacher recently confessed that during her Bachelor of Education program she “never said anything in class” because she was "completely terrified of saying the wrong thing.” The social justice movement is very noticeably constricting freedom of conscience and academic freedom in both university and K-12 education environments. White students are especially affected (since under advisement to “decanter themselves” and “elevate voices of colour”) but all students and teachers are adversely affected when a learning environment becomes so heavily political and censorious.
The Racial Proxy Hypothesis
To advance conformity to critical social justice ideology, critical race theorists have some “built-in defence mechanisms” that function like secular blasphemy prohibitions. An “antiracist” is trained to subordinate traditional methods of fact-gathering and objective analysis to the moral imperative to avoid possible emotional harm to minorities as identity collectives, but not necessarily to avoid possible harm to minorities as individuals. White “antiracists” see nothing wrong with calling Black conservatives “white supremacists”, for example. This seems a bit absurd to the uninitiated, but it makes sense to people who’ve been taught to believe that people of colour who lack “race consciousness” as described by CRT are “white by proxy.” The concept of “race as a purely social construct” is central in this ideology, and it allows the “antiracists” a great deal of theoretical flexibility and adaptability; they are apt to assign “privilege by racial proxy” to any non-white people whose ideas (or any other facts of their existence, such as their career, or social circles) contradict the precepts of CRT.
The strange juxtaposition of many CRT proponents stridently denying race essentialism, while simultaneously being hyper-focused on race and racism (in order to attain an evolved race consciousness) also allows “antiracists” to disingenuously deflect critics, because they can accuse critics of ignorance when those critics mistake their hyper-focus on race and racism proof for belief in race essentialism and thereby brand them as old-fashioned “racists”. Publicly accusing “antiracists” of being race essentialists is obviously tempting, especially considering their teachings about “whiteness” and their race-based “oppressors vs victims” narratives, but many have been taught that race doesn’t exist in any real or natural or biological sense, and is merely a concept, a social construct, that was conceived and spread by white people as an excuse to enslave and exploit non-white people. So, even though it’s confusing to the uninitiated, they happily use misconceptions about their obsession with race to “prove” that opponents of CRT are ignorant power-hoarding luddites without credence.
Rewarding Revolutionary Revisionism
“Antiracists” have a heightened awareness that teaching is a political act that can potentially disrupt/undermine the status quo by changing collective consciousness. The 1619 Project is a prime example of the current “antiracist” preference for politically-driven revisionism and praxis over truthfulness. The project is an ambitious endeavour by editors and writers for The New York Times to reframe America’s origin story, making the arrival of African slaves on the continent and the consequences of slavery the central focus, so that America’s story becomes a story primarily about racism and white supremacy. Several competent academics have published books and articles that expose its many flaws. A group of historians banded together and presented a letter to outline their concerns about the falsehoods in the project, but the editors of the NY Times did not make changes or retractions. An excerpt from their letter is below:
These errors, which concern major events, cannot be described as interpretation or “framing.” They are matters of verifiable fact, which are the foundation of both honest scholarship and honest journalism. They suggest a displacement of historical understanding by ideology. Dismissal of objections on racial grounds — that they are the objections of only “white historians” — has affirmed that displacement.
Despite the widely acknowledged fact that The 1619 Project is rife with inaccuracies and bias, the enthusiasm of its proponents has ensured its continuance and popular success: it’s widely embraced by K-12 schools and educators, and the cultural elite have heaped rewards upon its lead author, Nikole Hannah-Jones, who received a Pulitzer Prize for the project in 2020. When Hannah-Jones was recently denied tenure in the Journalism Department of her alma-mater UNC and offered a 5-year contract instead, she and her followers treated the offer as a racist affront. The dedication to racial justice praxis on the left is such that nearly any act or artifact will be supported that serves to further the far-left narrative and disrupt the dominant power structure.
We regularly witness people in positions of power and influence pandering to social justice ideologues and their beliefs. Obviously, those ideologues have manufactured a moral framework to encourage such pandering, but many people have been surprised to see such widespread and institutional uptake of such a biased, illiberal moral framework. Many are questioning why so many players in elite realms of media, politics, business, and governance — many of whom are extremely successful capitalists — are encouraging a far left revolutionary movement and widespread moral panic over systemic racism in western societies, which are by all measures among the most pluralistic and prosperous in the world, and the most desirable migration destinations for people of all races.
A very important topic for further study is the high-level support for the racial justice movement — we need to understand how neoMarxist revolution in western contexts is seen to confer benefit to the elite and/or how it fits within a globalist vision for the future of humanity. BLM as a movement has successfully maximized the praxis principle to bring to the forefront of popular discourse the left wing imperative to engage in system dismantlement to end structural inequities. But what are the likely to be the long-term effects of such a strong leftward lurch and rejection of traditional western social systems? And how many BLM/CRT/DEI supporters are even aware (or, if aware, understand the implications of the fact) that the leading lights of this movement demand a new socio-political structure that is unequivocally, unapologetically Marxist?