Racism in ‘Harper’s Magazine’
29th November 2018
There’s a certain type of black public intellectual who is becoming increasingly common. A leftist identitarian, as it were, his constant subject is racism—namely, what he believes to be the ongoing systemic white oppression of blacks.
His justification for this belief, however, is quite facile. He references group differences (or inequalities) and the past slavery and other past mistreatments of blacks, as if these things by themselves suffice to prove his case. They don’t—not even close.
What is more, for all his indignation and high-toned words, in many instances, it’s plainly he himself who is the racist. What really bothers this hypocrite, his reasoning reveals, is not racial injustice, but lack of black dominance. He is motivated by envy, not righteousness. He wants power, not equality.