Racial annulment
Article by David Harris in "The American Thinker":
Condemning a person because of race is the height of racism… indeed its very definition. Annulling a race or group – annihilating its culture – is one step further.
Through
history, annulling a despised group – making them dispossessed – has
been a central task of totalitarians and authoritarians in their push to
consolidate and maintain power. During China’s “Cultural Revolution”
of the ‘60s, Maoists blamed capitalists for their oppression and hoped
to elevate the state by substituting Mao’s “Little Red Book” for
traditional ways of thinking, such as a reverence for elders and
ancestors. Nazis made sure to acquire the property and possessions of
Jews in a display of their omnipotence and as a further form of
humiliation: those possessions are still being discovered today.
Slave-owners in the South often separated the families of slaves, which
had the effects of reinforcing their power, unsettling the slaves and
fracturing alliances that could lead to an uprising. Pol Pot and Jim
Jones worked to nullify the beliefs and culture of the groups that they
controlled.
No
race or group should be annulled: it’s inhumane. Annulling a race or
group has generally been advanced by totalitarians but, perhaps for the
first time in known history, we’re observing people willingly nullifying
themselves, voluntarily genuflecting to those invalidating their race
or group, and accepting idiosyncratic and power-consolidating speech
rules and interpretations of historical and current events.
Of
course the lives of black people matter, but the (often voluntary)
prohibition of phrases like “all lives matter” is reprehensible… and the
meaning is never lost on the subconscious mind: that non-black lives
don’t matter as much as black lives. The howling of self-appointed
arbiters of speech that their idiosyncratic interpretation of “black
lives matter” precludes the use of “all lives matter” or its ilk does
nothing to shift the underlying meaning that, if you’re not black, you
must self-annul: your life doesn’t matter as much as a black life.
There
are many other power-consolidating phrases with idiosyncratic,
ahistorical, even bizarre meanings that people willingly accept: “white
privilege”; “institutional racism”; “curb your privilege”; “Uncle Tom”;
“Oreo”; etc. All of these phrases evoke ideas worthy of critical
thought and discussion, but it’s the absolutist, power-reinforcing
element on one side, coupled with obeisance and culture-annulling
behavior on the other that is damaging to society. It’s reminiscent of
the stance of the Maoists during the Cultural Revolution: the question
of capitalism’s effects on China was worthy of discussion… but the
Maoists insisted that “Capitalist Roaders” – including the relatives and
friends of proper Maoist believers – be eliminated or “reeducated”.
Black Lives Matter is the Maoist “Red Guard” of today, but while
indignant Chinese college professors were dragged out of their
classrooms for browbeating and torture, we willingly submit.
The
acceptance of self-annulment is a sad and, in the end,
culture-annihilating spectacle. One wonders about its genesis. I
suppose the leading cause would be the nearly ubiquitous “white guilt”
that has been vigorously advanced and almost universally, if
subconsciously, accepted.
Some
obvious problems with racial/cultural annulment – whether forced by the
powerful on the powerless or, in this case, willingly accepted –
include: general loss of contribution to the culture; a unification and
eventual congruence of speech and thought patterns in the culture,
aggressively modulated by the dominant; generation of ancillary rules
and related consequences by the predominant group that are separate from
written law; quiet rage of the annulled at being suppressed (even when
that person is voluntarily suppressing himself); and the loss of a
functional complement or foil to the dominant group, with consequent
loss of the dialogues that might advance us all.
I heard a black person succinctly summarize the issue: “Your white guilt is going to kill my race!”
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