Anti-Racism, Anti-Communism

To understand the “anti-racist” phenomenon today, we might profitably compare it to the “anti-communist” phenomenon of the 1950s. In both cases, the threats were bad and real. There were communist spies in the U.S. in the 1950s and there are white supremacists today. Both communism and racism are deplorable and decent people are “anti” both of them. Both communism and racism had their nationally publicized trial in which the bad thing was on display (Alger Hiss, Derek Chauvin). The problem today as in the 50s, is that opportunists (McCarthy, Kendi) have taken a legitimate cause to an extreme. They define their “anti” in narrow terms, link it to a political ideology, and then tarnish those who doesn’t share the ideology as somehow guilty of the bad thing in question. McCarthy couldn’t accept honest disagreement about the extent of communism in America or how best to defeat it and that seems true of too many “anti-racists” today. Just as McCarthy took a legitimate anti-communist cause and turned it into an ugly witch hunt with loyalty oaths and anti-communist training programs, so a legitimate anti-racist cause has turned into an ugly witch hunt with loyalty oaths and anti-racist training programs. The establishment seems more on board with anti-racism today than they were with anti-communism in the fifties, but in each case, there was widespread acquiescence as cowardice prevailed over courage and everyone went to extreme lengths to prove that they were not associated with the bad thing. I’m just waiting for a turning point when someone asks, “Have you no decency” to break the fever of a legitimate cause turned into hysteria.