A plain-spoken correction: How can a victim of reverse racism be an anti-racist?

In the recent film about him, black American writer James Baldwin is quoted as saying that white people hate black people out of terror, and black people hate white people out of rage.

He does not say that the black racists are right in this and the white racists wrong. But every liberal believes that.

Unfortunately, this is a bad set-up. If the director, Raul Peck, wanted to de-escalate rather than escalate racial tensions with his film, he might have added some speculation to the effect that maybe neither of these hatreds make all that much sense.

On the other, suppose you were the victim of attempted gang rape and the perpetrators were black? This happened to me once, and I never forgot it. I think I know what hate looks like, and recognizing it does not in fact mean that I am to blame. But that is what most liberals believe.

These men had poorer life opportunities than I did, and they almost cancelled me because of that, gaining them nothing except satisfaction of a resentment. They surely believed that as a white person I was responsible for their suffering. Most liberals seem to think that; I have certainly met few who did not direct all their ire at me for feeling the way I did about this. It is chapter and verse, everyone knows the story: these men wanted to hurt me, but the deeper truth is that they were oppressed, and all of their people are.

Some of them will say that there are too many of them too readily imprisoned or mistreated by the police, and on that score, I am with them entirely. I agree 100%. I don't like the police myself, an admittedly, that is part of the reason I feel and think as I do, but even if I did not fear being a victim of them myself, I could not stand idly by while other people bleed because cops hate them even more than someone like me, just because of our appearance and the racism of cops and the system and society. If they protest against police violence used against them, I'm on their side. If they say, you're not a victim but responsible for our victimhood because you are white, then I am not on their side. I'm against anyone who says that.

And this position is entirely consistent and it is not racist but anti-racist. In fact, my position is the only honest one that is anti-racist. Other positions exist among liberals and left-liberals, and I dismiss them as dishonest and deeply immoral.

I also recall decades of nasty treatment by black men and women. Should I discount that? Well, there is nothing I can do about it. I know that most, maybe all, of these people knew that they are oppressed, and did not like me for some reason that has something to do with that, though obviously it is badly thought out. Do I resent these experiences of being and treated nastily? Yes, in part. Certainly, my own life opportunities were weakened by this. There were real injustices. It's not easy to speak of it. Most liberals will not allow that it could be possible. They know that a person like me could not be a victim of an injustice that doesn't fit one of their templates. They typically do this: they tell me either my experiences are not real or my interpretations of them are false, because they are not politically correct.

It is perhaps less because than in spite of this, I will admit, that I will always stand with people who are victims of state or casual violence, or injustice. This is a religious principle for me.

If I had my way, people would be more honest in how they approach social problems. The Talmud says, Do not favor (in judgment-- and Jews are expected to always judge, others and themselves, by moral standards, and not automatically forgive or defer to the other) -- do not favor the rich man because he is rich, and do not favor the poor man because he is poor. Do not favor, then, the one who is more privileged because he is, but also and equally, do not favor the one who is oppressed because he is.

No one is vindicated by the mere fact of being the victim of oppression. Maybe that is the greatest left-liberal lie. Notice that it is also taken up by people associated with the right. Does being Jewish and having relatives who were Holocaust victims grant you moral impunity so that you can favor oppression of others? Who thinks that has not read the Jewish Torah and Prophets, who say the opposite. Or does being poor and taken advantage of by a ruthless moneylender justify.... ? You see where this goes: it goes nowhere we want to go. Oppression does not vindicate anyone, but if it is not so extreme that you are crushed permanently and merely by the burden, and that is admittedly a big if, then it may be enabling. Being oppressed, or having been, and being aware that you could be or even that others might, this is enabling, or it can be. It can enable, quite simply, greater justice, even just the greater justice of an absence of the greatest injustice.

Those of you who are oppressed and who don't fantasize oppressing your oppressors or hating your haters in your turn, you I admire. I would be like you, to the extent that you are like this. Most oppressed people are not. Most are deformed, and morally, by the wrongs done to them. But for some curious grace of God or strength of clear reasoning and moral courage, the history of humanity has been mostly been about continuing cruelties.

This is the basis of my own position on race and related matters. I oppose all oppression, but not in the simple-minded and irresponsible way that I think many people do. I loath those who encourage such irresponsibility, and suspect some of them of doing so because it benefits them personally. As I see it, the different position that I advocate is the true conservatism, that recognizes that the will to change things is by itself not enough, and the true liberalism, that champions liberty and tolerance, and the true radicalism, that goes to the root in opposing injustice, though it is conservative enough to be cautious about efforts to do so, which can backfire or make things worse. Those who still want to consider me an oppressive hater will probably not consider my words, because they don't read or listen to understand but only to pursue their own pre-determined agenda. But I think anyone who judges carefully will see that these words vindicate my motives to the extent that I am true to them, as, God help me, I try to be.

So won't you join me in being against racisms and all the forms of oppression based on some identity or social group, and in the only way that makes any sense? The world has seen death camps built supposedly to fight oppression. If all you are is the victim of evil, you probably are not going to be free of it in your experience any more than your actions.