The Racist, Self Flagellation-Rife "Cult Of Atonement"
John McWhorter writes at The American Interest that the current consciousness-raising on race is less about helping black people than it is about white people seeking grace:
Over the past several years, for instance, whites across the country have been taught that it isn't enough to understand that racism exists. Rather, the good white person views themselves as the bearer of an unearned "privilege" because of their color....This brand of self-flagellation has become the new form of enlightenment on race issues. It qualifies as a kind of worship; the parallels with Christianity are almost uncannily rich. White privilege is the secular white person's Original Sin, present at birth and ultimately ineradicable. One does one's penance by endlessly attesting to this privilege in hope of some kind of forgiveness.
...It would seem that for some, bemoaning that reparations aren't happening is as active, vital, and self-affirming as making them happen, or, better, moving on and considering realistic strategies for forging change.
The self-affirming part is the rub. This new cult of atonement is less about black people than white people. Fifty years ago, a white person learning about the race problem came away asking "How can I help?" Today the same person too often comes away asking, "How can I show that I'm a moral person?" That isn't what the Civil Rights revolution was about; it is the product of decades of mission creep aided by the emergence of social media.
What gets lost is that all of this awareness was supposed to be about helping black people, especially poor ones. We are too often distracted from this by a race awareness that has come to be largely about white people seeking grace. For example, one reads often of studies showing that black boys are punished and suspended in school more often than other kids. But then one reads equally often that poverty makes boys, in particular, more likely to be aggressive and have a harder time concentrating. We are taught to assume that the punishments and suspensions are due to racism, and to somehow ignore the data showing that the conditions too many black boys grow up in unfortunately makes them indeed more likely to act up in school. Might the poverty be the key problem to address? But, try this purely logical reasoning in polite company only at the risk of being treated as a moral reprobate. Our conversation is to be solely about racism, not solutions--other than looking to a vaguely defined future time when racism somehow disappears, America having "come to terms" with it: i.e. Judgment Day. As to what exactly this coming to terms would consist of, I suppose only our Pastor of White Privilege knows.
We have gone from most whites being unaware that racism was a problem for black people at all to whites being chilled to their bones at the possibility of harboring racism in their souls, terrified at the prospect of being singled out as a heretic, and forgetting that the indulgences they purchase and the praying they do for their souls has more to do with them than with anyone black and their problems. This is a white America in which the message has become garbled. Among too many, the activist impulse has stuttered, faded, and jelled into a therapeutic one somewhere between "I Have a Dream" and Between the World and Me.
Whites today are in a hard place on this, I know. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. You're taught that on race issues you are morally obliged to suspend your usual standards of logic. Faced with a choice between some benign mendacity and being mauled, few human beings choose the latter.
via @jflier
There is something self-loathing in human beings. Medieval Catholics used to wear hair shirts and whip themselves to atone for sinful thoughts. As the Catholics moved toward action counting more than thought, the Colonial Puritans took over; begging God for forgiveness of smallest immoral or impure impulse, believing that the thought itself was the sin.
The difference then was that original sin belonged to all of us, was part of the human condition. Now, in the new "woke" religion, the original sin is on select people only, white people for now.
I've never really been a big believer in the literal "don't eat from that tree" story, preferring to see it as a metaphor for lost innocence in growing up, so the idea of being born with the stain of someone else's sin on our souls is not something into which I readily buy.
However, human behavior over the years stands ready to confirm the inheritance of vicarious guilt with people feeling deep guilt for sins they never committed. And, like the Puritans, the smallest impure thought can be a sin: not liking a specific black person who sits near you at work, failing to capitalize Black when referring to African Americans, not liking rap, etc.
The Communists capitalized on that with their substitution of loyalty to the state (as representative of the people) for the old religions. A disloyal thought was a sin worthy of grievous punishment. That the power brokers of this new religion were just as corrupt as the Medieval papacy never occurred them, since they were preaching a new and purer religion.
"Wokeness" is the newest religion. Its original sin is whiteness. And its adherents are as fanatical as the Medieval Catholics and the Colonial Puritans, and power brokers just as corrupt.
Conan the Grammarian at August 9, 2020 7:31 AM
Conan is absolutely right. Humans want meaning in their lives. When most people went to church, it provided structure and meaning even if you weren't that strong a believer. It made you feel that your life was worthwhile. Big and strong families reinforced this feeling. Men working in a factory came home feeling good that they were supporting their family. But young single (especially) people today are rootless. They do not have church, family, tribe, community to belong to and all the old moral codes that you could say you were obeying and thus being a good person have been tossed overboard. They are angry about it and want an enemy to attack--at least anger makes you feel alive. Never mind that these white antifa are deluded about oppression and authoritarian government. They latch onto BLM without knowing anything about real black people or their problems. They are calling out "racism" in the least racist moment of our history. They have to work really hard to get the authorities to push back and prove that authoritarianism exists. If they weren't rioting there would be no evidence of oppression. They think any response at all to burning buildings proves their case, which of course is nuts. They demand in their protests that we end racism, but how could this be delivered by any government? "ok, no more racism" --how?
cc at August 9, 2020 10:51 AM
I would say that combating racism is about self-righteous whites coddling non-whites. Grifter Robin Wright has made a killing convincing non-whites that they need her. That they cannot overcome the obstacles placed in their path unless she helps them.
It is ironic, but completely unsurprising, that those who purport to combat racism are the most racist of all. But she sells a winning formula. Non-whites are responsible for exactly nothing wrong in their lives and that any hardship they face is the fault of white people. Who wouldn't buy into that? Nothing's my fault. I'm a victim. And I'm owed.
Patrick at August 9, 2020 2:10 PM
Patrick, all that needs is a it's the Jews fault and we can party like it's 1999 again.
I R A Darth Aggie at August 9, 2020 3:12 PM
Another damaging aspect of the penitential orientation that McWhorter describes is that Progressives have become very selective in which Black 'voices' they recognize as authoritative.
They really only want to hear from Blacks who portray their image of a damaged and subjugated 'black body'. And the persona must be expressed in that unctuous mystico-therapeutic language they like to use. So people like Ibram Kendi and Ta-Nehisi Coates become 'leaders of the Black community' though they enjoy very little support, much less recognition among Black Americans. And neither has any constructive advice for improving social conditions. As McWhorter recognizes, the objective appears to be that pragmatic considerations should be avoided entirely.
In the end, the whole think look more like a exercise in masochistic moral vanity where Blacks are simply playing the role of lesser beings who have been crushed under the awesome power of the White gods.
Kendi at August 9, 2020 3:34 PM
My response should I be accused of "whiteness"?
F*ck off and die, asshole!
Does that make me a bad person? What if I don't give sh*t?
Eventually, most whites just won't give a sh*t. That's when things will get interesting ...
Jay R at August 9, 2020 3:43 PM
Again, this boils down to appearing good rather than doing good.
lsomber at August 12, 2020 8:28 AM
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