The Problem of 'Anti-Racism'

Ben Shapiro Posted: Jul 01, 2020

Today, the nostrum goes, it is not enough for Americans to be not racist. They must be "anti-racist." This woke terminology has infused our lexicon. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), recently declared from the well of the Senate: "Being race-conscious is not enough. It never was. We must be anti-racists." What, pray tell, is the difference between being against racism and being anti-racist? Ibram X. Kendi, author of "How to Be An Antiracist," provides an answer: Racism is no longer to be defined as the belief that someone is inferior based on race. Instead, racism is to be defined as the belief that any group differences can be attributed to anything other than racism. Thus, any system that ends with different outcomes must be racist. Indeed, Kendi contends, "Racism itself is institutional, structural, and systemic."............

Now the woke army has targeted corporations. Corporations are, by nature, risk-averse; they seek merely profit and lack of controversy. The hard left has targeted them as the weakest link in the chain of free speech: If corporations can be bullied into pulling their money from social media networks, those social media networks can be bullied into restricting their free-speech cultures. Remove advertising bucks from Instagram and watch as Instagram censors those the woke want censored.

Indeed, such a campaign is now front and center in the culture wars: Major corporations from Coca-Cola to Target have stopped advertising on social media networks, citing the need for more "hate speech" regulation on those platforms.

Obviously, those who target corporations will not be satisfied until all non-woke speech is limited or banned; corporations will be unpleasantly surprised when those they have been seeking to appease turn on them as remnants of the evil system. But corporations have neither the principle nor the will to deny the demands of the loudest and the most militant.........To Read More...