“Anti-racism” intentionally perpetuates discrimination–against the white “race,” in favor of the black “race”–even though doing so brings back judging people on racial grounds and keeps alive discrimination on that basis.
Most people agree that hating, mistreating, or discriminating against people because of their race is morally wrong. But some progressives are trying to co-opt the moral consensus against racism to serve their own ideology, and, in doing so, are distorting it beyond recognition.
So says Ryan Bangert in a piece he has written for RealClearReligion entitled Racism is Wrong, But ‘Anti-Racism’ Does Not Belong in Schools.
Schools disingenuously deny that they teach “Critical Race Theory,” insisting that what they are really teaching is “anti-racism.” “The problem is that ‘anti-racism’ is a linguistic trick,” says Bangert. “Instead of condemning all forms of racism, it seeks to combat one form of racism with another. By doing so, it only perpetuates racial division and strife, harming everyone.” He then cites two different understandings:
In 2007, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts authored an opinion in a case that addressed the legality of plans used by two public school districts to assign students to specific schools. Both schools employed racial quotas to make the assignments. In striking down the quotas, Roberts memorably stated, “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”
Contrast that to another memorable line, this time from author Ibram X. Kendi. In his 2019 book “How to Be an Antiracist,” Kendi, a well-known scholar and proponent of anti-racism ideology, opined, “The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”
