Throughout my childhood, my mother had nightmares that the Nazis were coming for her. In Europe my co-ethnics lived that nightmare. From the time that the Romans invaded and colonized the holy land, finally defeated the Jewish resistance, and expelled most remaining Jews, many Jews have lived as minorities in alien lands. Eighteen hundred years of marginalization, oppression, abuse, assault, expulsion, and murder in both Christian and Muslim lands, the repeated pogroms were topped only by genocide at the hands of the German National Socialists and their collaborators. In spite of their small numbers — 1.9% in the US, 1% in Canada, 0.5% in the UK, 0.7% in France — Jews are the religious group most targeted by hate crimes in America: 60.2% of all hate crimes directed at religious groups in 2019 were directed at Jews.
American manifestations of antisemitism during the first half of the twentieth century included churches blaming Jews for killing Jesus, signs at recreational facilities saying “Restricted to Christians,” clauses in house sale contracts committing the new owner to not reselling to Jews (exposed in the 1947 film “Gentlemen’s Agreement,” which won the Oscar for Best Picture), industries such as banking not hiring Jews, famous Americans such as Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh denouncing Jews, universities such as Harvard and McGill instituting limiting quotas for Jews, and, graver still, American and Canadian governments blocking Jewish immigration from Europe during the Holocaust. These restrictions of Jews eased in the second half of the twentieth century, at least partly in response to public awareness of the half million Jews who fought for America in WWII, and awareness of the Holocaust perpetrated on European Jews. But it is important to notice what is missing in this list: U.S. Government restrictions on Jewish citizens. There was never an official, law-based restriction on American Jews. For this American Jews are immensely grateful and extremely proud to be American.
Jews are one of many minorities in America. Among other religious minorities are Roman Catholics, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Shintoists, and Buddhists. Among other ethnic-national minorities are Chinese, Japanese, Italian, Irish, Hispanics, South Asians, Pacific Islanders, Poles, Hungarians, Russians, Ukrainians, African-Caribbeans, Nigerians, Kenyans, Iranians, Moroccans, Egyptians, and many others. Racial minorities include East Asians, South Asians, Pacific Islanders, African Americans, and Native Americans. These many minorities, while having faced prejudice and discrimination in earlier periods, have civil rights guaranteed by the Constitution which have been increasingly enforced, and, during the second half of the twentieth century, targeted legislation has reinforced the civil rights of African Americans and others. American Government has not only provided guarantees of civil rights, but has been proactive in enforcing them. This is one of the reasons that multitudes from all over the world strive, sometimes at great cost and great risk, to come to America to live.
But America is not only about minorities, although some seem to think it is. The United States is a constitutional democratic republic in which the legal rights of citizens are protected, including the rights of members of minorities. As a democracy, its most basic electoral principle is rule by the majority, whether by the majority of voters or by the majority of elected representatives. An electoral majority is likely to be multiracial and multiethnic. It is through this principle that most citizens have their say, and thus the people are fairly represented, assuming fair elections. In a democratic system, the electoral majority must be respected. In their choices and decisions, majorities are not always correct or wise, but it is their democratic right, within the bounds of the Constitution, to make those decisions and choices. Electoral minorities must be respected, also within the bounds of the Constitution, but electoral minorities may not rule. The rule of electoral minorities would be dictatorship and despotism.
So too with citizens of different categories: members of both majority and minority categories should be treated equally and with respect. Yet the most remarkable thing has happened in America: it is majority categories against which bigotry, prejudice, and discrimination have now been instituted. Let us begin with two near majority categories: males and Trump supporters.
Feminist activists have been vilifying men, who make up half of the population, as a way of gaining status and benefits for females. Masculinity has been widely characterized as “toxic,” i.e. poisonous, and males have been deemed outmoded and superseded by females, as in the popular slogan, widely seen on t-shirts, “the future is female.” Feminists have advanced arguments to show that men are systemically violent toward women, claiming that American culture is a “rape culture,” a gross falsity. Females are systematically advantaged under the “affirmative action” pretext that they are today disadvantaged and marginalized, while any factual review shows that females are favored and have benefitted from special consideration, as females are in the majority in the workforce, the super majority in higher education, the majority in government employ, and do safe and comfortable work compared to men, who do the dirty and dangerous jobs and suffer ten times the workplace injuries and deaths.
The 2021 political purge by President Biden and the Democrats classes seventy-four million Trump voters, almost half of all American voters, or perhaps a majority of all legitimate voters, as “white supremacists” and “domestic terrorists” who will have to be “reprogramed” or face a new “war against (domestic) terror.” Democrat officials, elected and appointed, military and civilian, current and retired, have likened Trump voters to al Qaeda and ISIS terrorists. The flimsy excuse for this fascist victimizing of half of all American voters is the forcible entry into the Capitol of a small number of Trump supporters bolstered by outside agitators. Denounced by Democrats in Congress and in the Democrat media as an “insurrection” meant to destroy the American Government, and no less than a second 9/11, this minor unruliness was worlds milder than the BLM and Antifa riots that destroyed large parts of many American cities and many of their businesses during the summer and fall of 2020. Democrats either had no comment or actively encouraged the riots, apparently thinking that the extensive looting, arson, assaults and murder of police and civilians were just fine and should be continued to advance far leftist causes such as defunding the police and border agencies; releasing all prisoners including violent criminals; and allowing assault, rape, arson, and murder rates to skyrocket in Democrat cities across the country. Democrat hypocrisy could not be more blatant.
This is a stunning assault on half of all American voters, and on anyone who believes in free and fair elections and the two-party system. President Biden and the Democrats now aim at establishing a one-party system, emulating the more efficient Chinese Communist political tyranny. Already major American institutions, such as the press, schools and universities, and big tech are on side, censoring and suppressing any news or opinion that deviates from Democrat far-left propaganda. In order to establish this one-party state, half of American citizens must be censored, silenced, marginalized, and suppressed. Despotisms and totalitarian states controlled by small elites follow exactly this path, and are famous for their secret police suppression of dissidence and silencing of opposition opinion.
An even more impressive statistical case is the control of the 0.0001 percent of the population that is trans female who have imposed their will on the 99.9999 of the population. Everyone is now forced to believe that biological males who identify as female, call themselves by female names, and may dress as females, are in fact females and must be treated as females. Any resistance is denounced as “transphobic.” This is not exactly “following the science,” a phrase used sententiously by the self-identified enlightened, but ignored by them when the science is inconvenient. The female fifty percent of the population must now suffer biological males, whether in dresses or not, entry into their private spaces, and allow them to destroy female sports. And our “enlightened” lawmakers have now embedded in law the sacred right of transsexuals to tell everyone else what they must think, what words they must use, and who they must allow into their spaces and activities. Children are now being socialized to consider transition, and parents who object risk their children being removed by social services. Soviet East Germany would have been proud.
Racism is today not only approved, but mandatory. Not racism against people of color and other “marginalized minorities,” which is forbidden and subject to severe penalties, from being blocked on social media, to being fired from your job, to being arrested and fined and/or incarcerated. Today’s approved racism is against whites. In other words, the approved racism is against the large majority of Americans. According to statistica.com,
Currently, the white population makes up the vast majority of the United States’ population, accounting for some 250.52 million people [out of a total of 328,239,523] in 2019. This ethnicity group contributes to the highest share of the population in every region, but is especially noticeable in the Midwestern region. The Black or African American resident population totaled 44.1 million people in the same year. [emphasis and bracket added]
The U.S. Census for 2019 has whites as 72% of all Americans, Black or African Americans at 12.8%, Asians at 5.7%, American Indians at 0.9%, Pacific Islanders at 0.2%. In short, anti-white racism is attacking a supermajority of Americans.
What is the justification of anti-white racism? There are a range of false claims against white people. One is that they are all racist, consciously or unconsciously, passively or actively. If some admit that they are racist, that proves the point. If others deny that they are racist, that proves that they are racist. This line of reasoning is similar to the witch trials in which the weighted or bound accused would be thrown into deep water; if the accused sunk, they were innocent, but if they floated, they were guilty, and then burned at the stake.
Another claim is that whites are too fragile to recognise the truth about their own racism, and must be re-educated to accept this “truth.” Third, whites are “privileged,” regardless of their own financial, health, and family circumstances, and thus benefitting from the oppressed people of color. It is not important, they allege, that many white are poor and even homeless, while many people of color are middle class and quite advantaged, and that people of color have for fifty years received special consideration and benefits under “affirmative action,” which are denied to white people. Fourth, “whiteness” is deemed to be a corrupting influence that has led whites to offensive behavior, such as being polite, prompt, and rule following, and, worse, to speaking standard English. Whiteness also leads to voting for the wrong people and the wrong policies. African Americans, Asians, and Hispanics who vote the wrong way suffer from “interracial whiteness.” There are some things that only professors are stupid enough to believe.
Finally, anti-white racists claim that whites support our “systemically racist” society. Whites do support American society, and, fortunately, it is not systemically racist. The blatant lie asserting systemic racism in America is a leftist undermining of America with the intent to replace it with a socialist dictatorship. Any of these big lies, when repeated frequently enough with feigned sincerity would be accepted as truth even by those who should know better. Every empirical index of racial tolerance and harmony — elections of minority candidates to the highest offices, public opinion surveys showing acceptance across race lines, increasing intermarriage between races—shows that America has rejected racism against minorities.
The only “evidence” that is presented by the advocates of “systemic racism” is that there are disparities among different racial categories, such as disparities in education, income, and positions. The activists claim that disparities could only exist as a result of racial bigotry, prejudice, and discrimination. Unfortunately for this theory, the evidence does not support it. What does explain the disparities of achievement are other disparities, such as the large number of single parent families in some groups, and the large number of two parent families in other groups; the community culture that stresses education in some groups, and the absence of that in others; and the high crime rate, both for perpetrators and victims, in some groups, while the crime rate is low in others
Furthermore, all American racial groups are outstripped by Asian Americans in education, employment, and income. How did this happen if America is systemically racist? Other marginal minorities, such as Jews, are highly overrepresented in prestigious professions and in scientific achievement. Was this because this “different” group, other race, was given special privileges? (Under the new anti-white ideology, requiring the denunciation of whites as bad, Jews have finally been recognized as white, so they can be berated for being the same rather than for being different.) Did the vast numerical dominance of African Americans in professional football and basketball result from discrimination against whites and Asians? Disparities do not prove discrimination, and claims of systemic racism based on them are jejune if not outright lies.
The rule of the majority is dead in America. No one cares about the preferences or rights of the bulk of the American population. Instead, America is run by an oligarchy of colluding organizations: the two-party national elected elite, the deep state of unelected bureaucrats, big business, big tech, big pharma and medicine, and the partisan mainstream media, all working for their own benefits and against the benefit of the American public. The campaigns about systemic racism, white supremacy, non-binary sexuality, transsexuality, and domestic terrorism are all aimed at dividing and conquering the American people. And these campaigns have worked. The rule of the majority is dead in America.
Philip Carl Salzman is Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at McGill University, where he taught from 1968 to 2018; Senior Fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, Fellow at the Middle East Forum, and President of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East. He is the author of Culture and Conflict in the Middle East; the founding chair of the Commission on Nomadic Peoples of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences; the founding editor of Nomadic Peoples; and the author of Black Tents of Baluchistan; Pastoralism: Equality, Hierarchy, and the State; Thinking Anthropologically, Culture and Conflict in the Middle East; and Understanding Culture.