The critique of identity politics has now become a genre of its own.

John McWhorter's book adds nothing to his arguments.

An ideology that divides the world back into black and white, good and evil, and persuades everyone that they will never be able to escape the fate of their skin color, of all things, in the name of the fight against racism, is easy to disenchant.

But there is probably no other author who has so disarmingly disrespected this position.

Thomas Thiel

Editor in the Feuilleton.

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The American journalist and university lecturer regards anti-racism in its ideological or woken form as a religion and finds it pointless to try to convince the members of this church, whom he calls the elect, with arguments.

That sounds exaggerated, but it's only logical: what's the point of rationally communicating with people for whom hurt feelings and skin color outweigh any argument?

In the role of the passive victim

In the religious analogy, which is certainly not exhaustive, McWhorter can invoke motives such as original sin.

According to the high priests of the new clergy like Ibram X. Kendi or Robin DiAngelo, regardless of individual actions, being white is a flaw that can never be repaired and probably never should be repaired, after all the movement capitalizes on it, others constantly to hold guilt.

A kind of indulgence is granted only to those who display their willingness to repent.

If the religious analogy is taken seriously, this transcendent religion is not particularly attractive.

The real attraction is the social distinction.

For the author, ideological anti-racism is the opposite of real anti-racism.

His followers are not interested in solidarity with outsiders, but rather in displaying their own morality.

McWhorter even calls it a form of racism that does more harm than good to black people.

He forces them into the role of passive victims of a racist society and talks them out of any initiative and willingness to assume responsibility.

He teaches them not to see themselves as individuals, but as a member of a group that is doomed to failure by their environment.

All that's left for black people is to write books about their identity and the ubiquitous racism they face.

McWhorter writes that the display of one's victim status is often exaggerated.

Even though he is dark-skinned, he draws on his own experience.

For him, however, there is another important reason for rejecting this ideology: it blocks the view of reality if everything is reduced to the motive of race.

Social progress cannot be expected from this.

The lust for submission

A moment that the author pays too little attention to is the importance of "anti-racist" morality for the societal struggle for positions.

In Germany, too, it has become popular to publicly complain about one's own invisibility on podiums and in books or to get rid of opponents in professional competition by accusing them of racism.

It is surprising that this counter-enlightenment thinking is so well received beyond esoteric circles and is well on the way to conquering Europe as well.

The author owes a deeper explanation for this.

He confines himself to pointing out that a secular humanity, disillusioned with the great ideologies of the twentieth century, needs new saviors.

According to the author, ideological “anti-racism” is not a harmless movement.

She wants to destroy her opponents or at least contest their jobs.

McWhorter measures their influence, for example, in the lines that Ta-Nehisi Coates, one of their most well-known representatives, wrote after September 11, 2001: He has no sympathy for the white police officers and firefighters who died in the salvage work, the writer wrote mutatis mutandis, all those people who would have constantly threatened him before.

firefighters?

This is where the movement's ideological moment came into play: the refusal to see others as individuals deserving of empathy.

Even then, Coates was not criticized for his words, but celebrated.

In fact, there is a great willingness

to accept such aggression or to ignore it with a smile.

John McWhorter thinks that's a mistake.

One should not accept the premises of the anti-racist ideology.

She relies on the fear of public exposure, the willingness to make oneself small and the desire to submit.

Entire faculties of renowned universities have already followed suit.

You can learn from McWhorter how to do it better.

John McWhorter: "The Chosen Ones".

How the new anti-racism is dividing society.

Translated from the English by Kirsten Riesselmann.

Hoffmann & Campe Verlag, Hamburg 2022. 256 pages, hardcover, €23.