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Civil Rights, Anti-Racism, and the Duty to Rescue
“Anti-Racism” imposes a duty to rescue.
There is a feeling in the air, so to speak, that anti-racism has “gone too far.” “Woke” is becoming a dirty word, and “Critical Race Theory” — whatever that is, and whether or not it is being taught in our schools — has become a rallying cry for White voters. Those voters want their origin story and they want their heroes. Every modern society succeeded to a harsher one that took what their descendants now occupy. That is the way of the world. We strive to get better, but evolution prefers that we paper over our ancestors’ sins rather than beat ourselves up over them. Rearing kids to carry the guilt of their forebears is simply not a winning strategy.
Today’s anti-racism cannot help but undermine the self-esteem of White “beneficiaries” of racism. As I wrote in my very first Medium article three years ago, self-esteem is a powerful motivator. We don’t want to feel bad about ourselves, and we certainly don’t want our kids to feel bad about themselves, especially when the shame arises from a sin that is really just an accident of birth. The open-endedness of atonement for that sin makes the whole anti-racist project unsustainable.
Anti-racism has become totalitarian. The “old” anti-racism accepted…