White Supremacy: “All Whites Are Racist”

or How to Become an Anti-Racist for the Modest Price of $2500-5000 (see attached video)

“White supremacy has done such a good job of teaching us white people that racism is bad.” These are the words of an “anti-racist,” as she is trying to prove the existence of “systemic racism” in the United States, and in order to do so, she goes through such a contorted logic that she ends up making the outlandish statement above. What she, actually, means is that it is not enough to not be racist, you need to believe in the existence of “systemic racism.” “But I know that the system is bad,” she says. As insane as the sentence at the beginning of this chapter sounds (White supremacy teaches us that racism is bad), this is, in effect, the belief of the new “anti-racists”: if you simply believe that racism is bad but refuse to accept the mantra of “the system is bad,” you are a “white supremacist.” Indirectly, this person has stated something essential to the paradoxical situation of the current anti-racist movement: true racists, that is, people who believe that one is inherently superior or inferior because of one’s skin color, have become so rare that in order to keep having a cause to fight for, the “anti-racists” had to redefine racism. The irony is that in order to keep their cause alive, the “anti-racists” are indirectly claiming that the society in which slavery existed (a society in which white supremacy was legalized, not simply proclaimed) was a society in which people believed that “racism is bad.”

The “anti-racist” from the scene above is called Lisa Bond, an esthetically challenged blob of a woman, oozing resentment and meanness through every pore, and the statement was made on Jon Stewart’s new show[1]. We find out from her own mouth that Lisa leads a humble lifestyle: to fight racism, every week she invites over a few women for dinner as part of a program called “Race2Dinner.” For the modest price of 2500 dollars[2] a plate, these women are given the opportunity to confess their most recent racist act. “If we don’t talk about it, we see no movement.” Dear reader, “we” have been constantly talking about it since 2016. Look at race relations in America: spectacular, aren’t they?

I dare say that this scene—a salon in New York where, in exchange for an amount greater than your monthly income, a group of millionaire white girlfriends meet to masochistically revel in the sin of racism and to be publicly humiliated—is the ground zero of the current American insanity. One cannot see this scene without observing how much it resembles a session of public puritan confession and exorcism through self-flagellation. Whiteness is a sin that can only be redeemed through public confession.

Andrew Sullivan, the other guest on Jon Stewart’s show, disagrees. “America is not a white supremacist country,” he says. JS: “How can you say that racism doesn’t exist”? AS: “I didn’t say that.” Indeed, the “anti-racists” don’t seem able to tell the difference between occasional instances of racism and white supremacy. To claim that there is no difference between a society that has slaves and a society that may have punctual instances of racism is to render language meaningless—aside from trivializing the condition of a slave, to begin with. The rape of language has been normalized in the US to such a degree that even people like JS can’t remember the real meaning of words.

LB: When I talk about “white supremacy” I talk about power and privilege. The power and privilege that we white people hold in this society. (Her millionaire friend and host, JS, nods approvingly.)

May I suggest that if you inhabit a world in which you and your white friends can afford to fork $2500 per dinner, and you believe that all white people hold the same power and privilege as you, you might as well live on Mars? Ironically, JS tells AS: “You are not living on the same planet we are.” Indeed. But what AS is saying is simply that, as an immigrant (he is British), he can also see some good things in America’s history. Now, if someone who comes from a country that lost a war to America can say that, you’d think that he is a rather generous person—but instead of applauding his generosity, the host and LB proceed to insult him. The woman who believes that “white supremacy teaches us that racism is bad” calls AS a “Racist dog-whistle” (frenetic applause of the audience). “If white men were going to do anything about racism, they had 400 years,” she goes on. Gleeful laughter from JS—you’d think he is under the impression that he is a black woman. If he laughs so heartily when he hears this, doesn’t this mean that he excludes himself from “All whites are racist”? Doesn’t this mean that when he says “All whites are racist” what he, actually, means, is “All whites are racist, except, of course, me.” Because, otherwise, he wouldn’t laugh like that. And if LB truly believes that “All whites are racist” (which, presumably, would include her), why does she change her tune to “all white men”? “This is why I don’t talk to white men,” LB says on a white man's show who lends her his platform, as she is addressing other white men who frantically applaud her. The white man (with whom she isn’t talking) applauds her. Doesn’t this mean that she too excludes herself from “all (racist) whites”? AS: “I am 58-years old. I am not responsible for anyone before me.” At this, LB gazes at him as if he were a piece of shit and waves him off.

“All whites are racist”—the mantra so dear to white anti-racists—always follows this pattern: one starts with “All whites” but immediately we are down to “All white men” and eventually to “all whites except me, of course” (frenetic applause). Hosts and audience congratulating themselves on their extraordinary virtue by pointing the finger to the “white supremacist” who refuses to join in. When AS calls JS out for finger snapping when he was called a racist by his cohost, JS doubles down by saying that he AS has been doing a pretty good job himself. JS calls his guest a racist and humiliates him in public.

This kind of spectacle in which one man is publicly mocked and humiliated because he doesn’t swallow the latest official language propaganda in which the very notions of racism and white supremacy are redefined, this kind of spectacle of denunciation is eerily similar to the Stalinist public sessions in which one was shamed for the sin of being an enemy of the people, and the person had to apologize (In fact, the woke expression “to do the work” is the English equivalent of the expression used in Russian). You may not know this because they never taught the history of Communism in America’s schools. But the structure is the same. And the interesting thing is that this structure is the same as the ritual of the public confession in puritan Protestantism, which starts with “Oh, God, I am such a sinner!” and ends with “Look at this sinner over there!”

“All whites are racist”: what is the ultimate goal of this mantra? If these (white) people were logical, as the self-declared racists they are, shouldn’t they lose the right to point the finger and call “racist” anyone else? Doesn’t a racist lose the right to lecture anyone else on racism? But it is clear that the whole point of this spectacle is to unmask someone else, and through this unmaking to show everybody else what great moral people the speakers are, by contrast: they, the “real” Americans, the JSs and LBs who live in the “real” America where good people spend your monthly income per dinner plate. After JS says “All whites are racist,” which means that he is a racist himself, on what moral ground does he stand to insult and mock AS by calling him a racist? Doesn’t this clearly mean that what JS actually means is “All whites are racist except, of course, me?” Isn’t this, ultimately, the goal of this morbid spectacle? Oh, the perverse, self-congratulatory bonding between the “antiracist” audience and their Comedian-turned-Preacher!

Poor AS—in his earnest, naïve way, he put himself on a plate for the performative ritual of these two puritans who were thirsty for blood. I, for one, would have proceeded very differently because I believe that you should give people what they are asking for. Do these “anti-racist” Americans truly believe that their country is so horrible that, when an immigrant tells them that while there is some racism in America, this doesn’t mean that this is a white supremacist country, and that, in spite of everything, he still loves this country, this immigrant deserves to be mocked and publicly humiliated? Fine, in that case, let’s give it to them: Yes, JS, you are right, America is a horrible country, a country in which two obscenely rich people such as yourself and LB can parade themselves as “real Americans” while mocking an immigrant and humiliating him publicly, a country in which an ignorant individual like yourself, who doesn’t know the meaning of “white supremacy,” has the luxury and privilege of being paid millions in order to lecture other people, yes, America is a horrible country, because only in such a country, a privileged prick like yourself can ask someone to be a guest on his show and then insult him publicly for the sin of saying that as an immigrant, he values his adoptive country. Yes, America is a horrible, sick country because only in a very sick country someone who holds weekly sessions in which she denounces herself as a racist, can later appear on TV to denounce other people as racist. And the fact that America is a horrible, racist country, in which privilege and ignorance are intertwined, couldn’t be proven in a more spectacular way than by elevating individuals such as yourself to stardom!

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[1] “The Problem with Jon Stewart.” You may read a more detailed description of this encounter and watch the video here: https://www.salon.com/2022/03/29/jon-stewarts-all-panel-goes-off-the-rails--and-gets-interesting/

[2] In fact, by now it is much more. It appears that “Race2Dinner” is a program going on all over the US, and that it is led by different leaders in each city. Please listen to the video below in which the founder of this program, Regina Jackson, says in 2022 that she charges $5,000 per white guest to explain to them how racist they are and to teach them to “unlearn their internal white supremacy.” Mocking the white women who complain that it’s too expensive, she asks, “Why do they complain? They don’t mind spending this much money on their Louis Vuitton bags.” She does have a point. If I were her, I would ask 10,000. RJ is the author of a book with the enlightening title White Women: Everything You Already Know About Your Own Racism and How to do Better (Penguin Random House), which was no. 1 on Amazon. Clearly, a lot of white women want to do better!

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