What’s in it for me? Challenge your assumptions about racial justice.
Amid heightened racial tensions and polarizing debates, it’s time for a critical new viewpoint on one of the most pressing issues of our time.
Drawing upon personal experiences, philosophical insights, and incisive analysis, this Blink argues that the current fixation on race is leading us astray from the ideals of the civil rights movement. It highlights the importance of treating individuals as unique human beings rather than mere representatives of their skin color and advocates for a return to the vision of a “colorblind” America.
If you’re ready to challenge your views on race and consider a different path forward for building a more just and harmonious society, this Blink is for you.
Racism versus neoracism
Ready to get uncomfortable? Then let’s talk about racism. But before we get into the thorny debate of how to best solve the problem, we must first define it.
So, what is race? Race is a social construct inspired by natural phenomena – the visible correlates of genetically similar clusters stemming from human migration patterns. However, the social construct of race has become untethered from the natural phenomena that inspired it. All humans have common ancestors, so it’s impossible to draw clear genetic lines between ethnic groups. So the racial categories society uses today are arbitrary and not based on science or reason.
Now, what is racism? Civil rights leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. defined racism as “a doctrine of the congenital inferiority and worthlessness of a people” – in plain terms, the idea that certain groups of people are lesser because they are part of a particular ethnic group. On this view, racism can be held by and targeted at people of any race.
The civil rights movement argued for an ethical principle of colorblindness to combat racism. They believed we should treat people without regard to race, both in public policy and private life. The principle of colorblindness recognizes our common humanity and that human well-being has nothing essential to do with skin color or ancestry. Advocates of colorblindness see racism as a problem but believe the solution is to consciously disregard race rather than promote racial discrimination and stereotyping.
Once upon a time, colorblindness was considered antiracist. But contemporary anti-racism has come to mean something very different. Many who call themselves "anti-racist" today are actually promoting a new form of racism that could be called neoracism.
Neoracists engage in stereotyping white people as morally inferior, endorsing discrimination against whites, and redefining racism in a way that gives a pass to anti-white bias. In doing so, they betray the core colorblind principles that motivated the civil rights movement.
For instance, popular “anti-racist” author Robin DiAngelo writes in her book White Fragility that she "strive[s] to be ‘less white’”, stating that to be less white means to be more empathetic and less arrogant. Her statement operates using a racial stereotype, implying that being white is tantamount to being ignorant about race, closed-minded, and lacking compassion toward the experiences of people of color. DiAngelo applies these negative traits to the general racial category of whiteness, rather than particular individuals.
How has neoracism become our best attempt at anti-racism? The real test of anti-racism should be consistently opposing racial stereotyping, discrimination, and prejudice no matter who is targeted. This means upholding civil rights principles like judging others by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. It means rejecting all attempts to justify racial prejudice or notions of racial superiority.
True anti-racists embrace the conviction that we all share a common humanity and equality. They focus on supporting concrete policies that actually work to eliminate racism and improve people's lives, not abstract ideologies. Fulfilling that vision remains the urgent, unfinished work of the civil rights movement in our time.
The historical vision of a colorblind America
Have you ever wondered where the idea of a “colorblind” society originated? Many progressive scholars today claim colorblindness is a myth created by white conservatives to perpetuate racism. But the real history tells a very different story.
The notion that the government should make no distinctions between citizens based on race was in fact the motivating principle behind both the abolition of slavery and the civil rights movement. In the 1860s, the abolitionist Wendell Phillips proposed a constitutional amendment prohibiting all race-based laws, aiming to create what he called a “colorblind government.” Though this stronger language was not included in the final Fourteenth Amendment, the concept of colorblindness lived on.
In the 20th century, it became the rallying cry of civil rights activists fighting to end Jim Crow segregation. Leaders like A. Philip Randolph and Thurgood Marshall invoked colorblindness in their legal arguments, culminating in the landmark Brown v. Board decision that struck down racial discrimination that treated black people as “separate but equal”.
The 1964 Civil Rights Act finally enshrined the ideal of colorblindness into law, banning racial discrimination in all walks of life. Remarkably, within a few short years, colorblindness was abandoned in favor of race-conscious policies like affirmative action. In the author’s eyes, this was a betrayal of what heroes like Martin Luther King Jr. and Bayard Rustin had fought for.
King, Rustin, and others emphasized our common humanity over racial divisions. They argued race should not be central to our identities or values. As Frederick Douglass put it, he opposed racism “not because I am a negro, but because I am a man”.
Today, many progressives dismiss colorblindness and claim there is no such thing as racism against whites. But the leaders they claim to admire, from Douglass to Mandela, explicitly rejected anti-white racism too. Their goal was to transcend race altogether.
So the next time you hear that colorblindness is a right-wing myth, remember the real history. The heroes who fought against slavery and segregation did so in the name of a colorblind America – one where, in King's words, people would be judged by "the quality of [their] soul", not "the texture of [their] hair or the color of [their] skin".
Institutionalized neoracism
Have you noticed a troubling trend of racial double standards creeping into major American institutions like government, media, and education? The spread of neoracist ideology in these elite spheres is increasingly hard to ignore.
In government, we see openly discriminatory laws and policies, like COVID relief bills that distribute aid based on skin color rather than need. During the pandemic, both the CDC and New York State considered prioritizing vaccines and treatments for non-whites, even if it meant more deaths overall. The end result? Individuals facing life-altering discrimination due to their race.
In education, overt racism is making an alarming comeback. Universities host speakers who express violent fantasies toward whites. Over 40 percent of surveyed colleges offer racially segregated dorms, orientations, and graduations – a clear rejection of civil rights ideals. School districts are laying off teachers based on race and promoting regressive ideas that “objectivity” and “perfectionism” are white supremacist values that harm students of color.
Media institutions engage in egregious double standards and historical revisionism. Police killings of unarmed whites, which exceed those of blacks, go largely unreported. Initiatives like the New York Times “1619 Project”, which aimed to reframe American history by placing slavery at the center of the country's founding narrative, sacrificed historical accuracy for neoracist ideology. For instance, one of the articles claimed that the Revolutionary War was fought primarily to preserve slavery, despite evidence to the contrary provided by historians consulted by the newspaper. Similarly, “woke-washed” films like Hidden Figures, depict racial segregation at NASA in the 1960s that the real-life characters vow they did not experience.
This neoracist ideology originated in fringe academic circles. But it has now entered the mainstream, infecting the influential institutions that shape our culture. These institutions have a responsibility to uphold equality under the law, objective reporting, and the vision of a common humanity that transcends race. Instead, they have come to justify anti-white discrimination as a remedy for historical injustices. But they’re only creating more injustice, resentment, and bigotry.
Which begs the question: how did this movement grow so popular?
Understanding the popularity of neoracism
Just a decade ago in 2013, most black and white Americans agreed that race relations were in a good place. But today, only about half as many people feel positive about where things stand. What happened?
To understand this dramatic shift, we need to look at some major technological changes that began right around 2013 – the rise of social media and smartphones. Suddenly, the speed limit on the information highway increased by orders of magnitude. But not all ideas could take equal advantage of this change.
Emotionally provocative content tapping into tribalism and grievance started spreading like wildfire, while more nuanced discussions appealing to reason and our common humanity got left in the dust. Neoracism is the perfect ideology to thrive in this environment. It thrives on emotional reasoning and casting events in terms of dramatic racial conflict. By keeping race and racism constantly top-of-mind, it gained tremendous traction.
Here's the problem though – elevating racial differences this way doesn’t actually reduce racist attitudes. If anything, it risks making things worse. Throughout history, emphasizing racial divides has reliably sparked hostility, not understanding.
The author holds that the civil rights movement understood this. Its message was strongly rooted in the unifying moral vision of Christianity. But as traditional religion has declined in recent years, neoracism has rushed to fill the vacuum, and it's a poor substitute for imparting values of our shared dignity.
So what's the solution? This may be controversial, but improving race relations in America will require us to talk about race less, not more. The goal should be addressing discrete, provable instances of discrimination, which are real issues, while consciously shifting the emphasis to our far greater common humanity.
Morgan Freeman put it well: “How are we going to get rid of racism? Stop talking about it. I'm going to stop calling you a white man. And I'm going to ask you to stop calling me a black man.”
The central myths of neoracism
Have you noticed that certain claims about racism in America have become seductively popular, even as they depart from reality? The neoracist narrative rests on several fallacies and myths that end up doing a lot of harm, especially to people of color.
One central fallacy is the disparity fallacy, which assumes that all racial disparities are caused by racism. In reality, disparities can be “benign” – arising naturally from cultural, demographic, and geographic differences between groups. For instance, the fact that a disproportionate amount of elite piano players are Chinese while Uzbek players dominate the chess world has nothing to do with bigotry. Neoracists ignore such benign disparities and falsely equate all unequal outcomes with unfair processes.
Another myth, the myth of undoing the past, is the idea that reverse discrimination against white people can undo the effects of past discrimination.
The myth of no progress wants us to believe racism is as bad as ever, ignoring how much attitudes, policies, and outcomes for minorities have improved since the 1960s. Leaders from Frederick Douglass to Nelson Mandela would be astonished by claims that there's been no real change.
The myth of inherited trauma teaches blacks to embrace victimhood by pretending the generational pain of slavery is an immutable aspect of their being. This myth ignores that almost everyone had traumatized ancestors who went through great hardship. Dwelling on supposedly inherited trauma breeds helplessness, not resilience.
The myth of superior knowledge claims blacks have incorrigible insight into racism that can't be questioned. But everyone's experience is incomplete – we all sometimes need correction.
The myth of black weakness stereotypes blacks as powerless and fragile. In truth, power is complex – blacks have political and cultural clout that whites often lack.
Puncturing the fallacies of neoracism is not about minimizing real racism, but resisting a counterproductive worldview. The path to progress lies in transcending race, not hardening divides with neoracist distortions. Honesty, not ideology, is what's needed now.
The future of anti-racism
For decades, America has grappled with the persistent problem of racism. But in recent years, something has gone terribly wrong in our approach. Neoracism perpetuates racial division in the name of fighting racism, and has taken hold with disastrous consequences.
The uncomfortable truth is that many efforts to combat racism have backfired. Policies like affirmative action, rather than addressing root causes, provide only the illusion of progress. By lowering standards for certain racial groups, these policies foster resentment and cast doubt on the true qualifications of minorities who reach high levels of success.
America faces a choice between two roads. One path, neoracism, leads to a dark future: an endless cycle of recrimination and retribution between aggrieved racial groups, with no higher ideals or common good. The other path returns to the guiding principles that have brought us this far – colorblindness, equal treatment under the law, and an unyielding belief that what unites us is far greater than what divides us.
To make progress in this direction, we must shift focus away from the industry of racial division towards education. High-quality educational programs in early childhood, with an emphasis on building skills, habits, and a culture of high expectations, will do far more to close racial gaps than superficial diversity quotas in higher education and business.
The dream that animated civil rights leaders was of a nation where every child has the education, opportunity, and freedom to pursue happiness; where we resolve differences through open and honest dialogue, not intimidation; where innovation drives shared progress and people of all backgrounds work together to wisely navigate challenges. That vision of justice and harmony is still within reach if we choose the right road forward.
By learning from the missteps of the past and recommitting to our highest ideals, we can still build a society of mutual understanding and human flourishing. The stakes could not be higher – but the power to shape that future is in our hands.
Final summary
Contemporary “anti-racism” has betrayed the ideals of the civil rights movement by embracing a new form of race-based discrimination. Neoracism rejects the vision of a colorblind society and promotes anti-white bias and racial division under the guise of progress.
Neoracism has become widely popular, even infecting major institutions. The attendant myths about racial disparities, inherited trauma, and moral superiority end up doing more harm than good – especially to people of color. Transcending racial divides, not hardening them, is the path to real progress. Achieving a just, harmonious multiracial society means recommitting to our common humanity.