{"id":71427,"date":"2024-01-10T06:00:10","date_gmt":"2024-01-10T11:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=71427"},"modified":"2024-01-08T16:40:45","modified_gmt":"2024-01-08T21:40:45","slug":"how-anti-racism-morphed-into-anti-semitism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2024\/01\/how-anti-racism-morphed-into-anti-semitism\/","title":{"rendered":"How “Anti-Racism” Morphed into “Anti-Semitism”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The spectacle of so many progressive protesters on our campuses and city streets calling for the genocide of the Jews is disorienting.\u00a0 Surely assaulting Jewish students and vandalizing Jewish businesses go against progressive values, which, up until now, have been hyper-sensitive to the mistreatment of all minority groups.<\/p>\n

So how did \u201canti-racism\u201d morph into \u201canti-semitism\u201d?<\/p>\n

Barton Swaim takes up that question in his Wall Street Journal<\/em> piece (behind a paywall) entitled How \u2018Antiracism\u2019 Becomes Antisemitism<\/a> with the deck, \u201cDemonizing people in racial terms because they\u2019re successful turns out to have consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cPast eruptions of antisemitism,\u201d he writes, \u201cusually arose from the need to blame someone\u2014anyone\u2014for the cataclysmic failures of a ruling political class.\u201d\u00a0 He argues that liberals\u2019 failure to solve the problem of racial equality with Great Society-style social programs has led to old-fashioned scapegoating.\u00a0 First of Whites and then to Jews.<\/p>\n

He gives a great quote on both the irrationality of anti-semitism and why it keeps coming back:<\/p>\n

\n

As\u00a0Liel Leibovitz\u00a0writes in a 2021 essay for Commentary magazine: \u201cThe creative genius of Jew-hatred has always been its ability to imagine the Jew as the embodiment of whatever it is that polite society finds repulsive. That\u2019s why Jews were condemned as both nefarious bankers controlling all the world\u2019s money and shifty revolutionaries imperiling all capital; as both sexless creeps and oversexed lechers coming for the women and the girls; as both pathetically powerless and occultly powerful. .\u00a0.\u00a0. And if you decide that there\u2019s such a thing as \u2018whites\u2019 and that they are uniquely responsible for all evils perpetrated on the innocent and downtrodden, well, the Jews must be not only of them but nestled comfortably at the top of the white-supremacist pyramid.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Let me explain the steps by which \u201ccritical theory\u201d becomes \u201cJew-hatred,\u201d including some factors that Swaim skims over rather quickly and taking into account the sympathy for the Palestinians, which Swaim doesn\u2019t do too much with.<\/p>\n

Critical theory, particularly critical race theory, teaches that justice requires \u201cequity,\u201d which is equality of outcome.\u00a0 If groups have different outcomes, this is because of injustice.\u00a0 A group that is less successful is \u201coppressed.\u201d\u00a0 A group that is more successful is \u201cprivileged.\u201d\u00a0 And the \u201cprivileged\u201d are the ones doing the \u201coppression.\u201d<\/p>\n

In this country, white people are privileged.\u00a0 Black people are oppressed.\u00a0 Many white people, of course, are progressive, so in their social and political circles they go through a ritual of \u201cowning their privilege\u201d; that is, acknowledging their guilt in a sort of secularized version of repentance and confession, allowing them to be absolved through penitential activism.<\/p>\n

This creates a heightened kind of race consciousness.\u00a0 The oppressed are blameless, by definition, and the oppressors are demonized, with all kinds of faults ascribed to the privileged race.\u00a0 White people, for example, are stereotyped as cold and analytical.\u00a0 Such qualities, therefore, should be expelled from schools and businesses in order to be inclusive of races that are emotional and intuitive.<\/p>\n

Jews, typically (and stereotypically), are successful in both the economic and the academic worlds.\u00a0 Therefore they are privileged.\u00a0 Therefore they are oppressors.<\/p>\n

In another context, Israel is a successful state in the Middle East, with a strong democracy, a prosperous economy, and a formidable military.\u00a0 Therefore, Israel is privileged. The surrounding Islamic states, in contrast, are much less successful.\u00a0 (The oil-rich Arab nations like Saudi Arabia and Qatar are not factored into this paradigm.)\u00a0 Therefore, they are oppressed.\u00a0 And privileged Israel is their oppressor.<\/p>\n

To be sure, colonialism has always been opposed by the left, even before the reductionism of critical theory took hold.\u00a0 So some on the left can claim to oppose Israel without being anti-semitic.\u00a0 According to their narrative, Israel is a European colony that has occupied Palestinian land.\u00a0 Now this reading of history is contested\u2013see this<\/a> and this<\/a>\u2013on the grounds that Jews were the indigenous inhabitants, that Palestinians never had sovereignty over this land, and that the founding of Israel by subdividing a British protectorate was legal according to international law.<\/p>\n

This can be debated, but the anti-semitism comes in when the brutal murders of Israelis\u2013including infants and children\u2013and other atrocities by Hamas terrorists are applauded.\u00a0 And, even more to the point, when non-Israeli Jews are blamed and assaulted because of what is happening in Israel.<\/p>\n

Why are pro-Hamas mobs on university campuses targeting classmates simply because they are Jewish?\u00a0 This brings us to another aspect of the left\u2019s current \u201csocial imaginary<\/a>\u201d (a new word for worldview).\u00a0 The left, both before and after critical theory, is strongly collectivist<\/em>.\u00a0 Instead of seeing identity in terms of what defines an individual<\/em>, the left sees identity in terms of what groups people belong to.\u00a0 So a Jew in America, even one who disagrees with Israel, is the same as a Jew in Israel.\u00a0 Both are legitimate targets.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Photo by Andrew Ratto, CC BY 2.0 <https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The spectacle of so many progressives calling for the genocide of the Jews is disorienting.\u00a0 Surely assaulting Jewish students and vandalizing Jewish businesses go against progressive values. So how did “anti-racism” morph into “anti-semitism”?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":71550,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,36,37],"tags":[14253,187,523,10139,4037,1813],"class_list":["post-71427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-philosophy-2","category-politics","category-psychology","tag-anti-racism","tag-anti-semitism","tag-collectivism","tag-critical-race-theory","tag-critical-theory","tag-progressivism"],"yoast_head":"\nHow "Anti-Racism" Morphed into "Anti-Semitism"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The spectacle of so many progressives calling for the genocide of the Jews is disorienting.\u00a0 Surely assaulting Jewish students and vandalizing Jewish businesses go against progressive values. So how did "anti-racism" morph into "anti-semitism"?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2024\/01\/how-anti-racism-morphed-into-anti-semitism\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How "Anti-Racism" Morphed into "Anti-Semitism"\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The spectacle of so many progressives calling for the genocide of the Jews is disorienting.\u00a0 Surely assaulting Jewish students and vandalizing Jewish businesses go against progressive values. So how did "anti-racism" morph into "anti-semitism"?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2024\/01\/how-anti-racism-morphed-into-anti-semitism\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Cranach\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/cranachblog\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-01-10T11:00:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-01-08T21:40:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/305\/2024\/01\/Palestine_March_NYC_-_51176261460-scaled.jpeg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"576\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"768\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Gene Veith\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Gene Veith\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2024\/01\/how-anti-racism-morphed-into-anti-semitism\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2024\/01\/how-anti-racism-morphed-into-anti-semitism\/\",\"name\":\"How \\\"Anti-Racism\\\" Morphed into \\\"Anti-Semitism\\\"\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2024-01-10T11:00:10+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-01-08T21:40:45+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/f9ca8670bcc51908a78994c0484dbfa1\"},\"description\":\"The spectacle of so many progressives calling for the genocide of the Jews is disorienting.\u00a0 Surely assaulting Jewish students and vandalizing Jewish businesses go against progressive values. So how did \\\"anti-racism\\\" morph into \\\"anti-semitism\\\"?\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2024\/01\/how-anti-racism-morphed-into-anti-semitism\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2024\/01\/how-anti-racism-morphed-into-anti-semitism\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2024\/01\/how-anti-racism-morphed-into-anti-semitism\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"How “Anti-Racism” Morphed into “Anti-Semitism”\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/\",\"name\":\"Cranach\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/f9ca8670bcc51908a78994c0484dbfa1\",\"name\":\"Gene Veith\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/054d79faea5d476edd8f99e5f14fb17f?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/054d79faea5d476edd8f99e5f14fb17f?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Gene Veith\"},\"description\":\"Gene Edward Veith, Jr. is a writer and retired literature professor, serving as Provost Emeritus at Patrick Henry College. He has authored over 25 books on Christianity and culture, literature, classical education, and theology. Dr. Veith previously held academic and editorial roles at Concordia University Wisconsin and WORLD Magazine. A respected voice in Lutheran and classical education circles, he holds a Ph.D. in English and several honorary doctorates. He and his wife, Jackquelyn, live in St. Louis and have three children and twelve grandchildren.\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/cranachblog\/\",\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Gene_Edward_Veith\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/author\/geneveith\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"How \"Anti-Racism\" Morphed into \"Anti-Semitism\"","description":"The spectacle of so many progressives calling for the genocide of the Jews is disorienting.\u00a0 Surely assaulting Jewish students and vandalizing Jewish businesses go against progressive values. So how did \"anti-racism\" morph into \"anti-semitism\"?","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2024\/01\/how-anti-racism-morphed-into-anti-semitism\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"How \"Anti-Racism\" Morphed into \"Anti-Semitism\"","og_description":"The spectacle of so many progressives calling for the genocide of the Jews is disorienting.\u00a0 Surely assaulting Jewish students and vandalizing Jewish businesses go against progressive values. So how did \"anti-racism\" morph into \"anti-semitism\"?","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2024\/01\/how-anti-racism-morphed-into-anti-semitism\/","og_site_name":"Cranach","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/cranachblog\/","article_published_time":"2024-01-10T11:00:10+00:00","article_modified_time":"2024-01-08T21:40:45+00:00","og_image":[{"width":576,"height":768,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/305\/2024\/01\/Palestine_March_NYC_-_51176261460-scaled.jpeg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Gene Veith","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Gene Veith","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2024\/01\/how-anti-racism-morphed-into-anti-semitism\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2024\/01\/how-anti-racism-morphed-into-anti-semitism\/","name":"How \"Anti-Racism\" Morphed into \"Anti-Semitism\"","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#website"},"datePublished":"2024-01-10T11:00:10+00:00","dateModified":"2024-01-08T21:40:45+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/f9ca8670bcc51908a78994c0484dbfa1"},"description":"The spectacle of so many progressives calling for the genocide of the Jews is disorienting.\u00a0 Surely assaulting Jewish students and vandalizing Jewish businesses go against progressive values. So how did \"anti-racism\" morph into \"anti-semitism\"?","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2024\/01\/how-anti-racism-morphed-into-anti-semitism\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2024\/01\/how-anti-racism-morphed-into-anti-semitism\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2024\/01\/how-anti-racism-morphed-into-anti-semitism\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"How “Anti-Racism” Morphed into “Anti-Semitism”"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/","name":"Cranach","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/f9ca8670bcc51908a78994c0484dbfa1","name":"Gene Veith","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/054d79faea5d476edd8f99e5f14fb17f?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/054d79faea5d476edd8f99e5f14fb17f?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Gene Veith"},"description":"Gene Edward Veith, Jr. is a writer and retired literature professor, serving as Provost Emeritus at Patrick Henry College. He has authored over 25 books on Christianity and culture, literature, classical education, and theology. Dr. Veith previously held academic and editorial roles at Concordia University Wisconsin and WORLD Magazine. A respected voice in Lutheran and classical education circles, he holds a Ph.D. in English and several honorary doctorates. He and his wife, Jackquelyn, live in St. Louis and have three children and twelve grandchildren.","sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/cranachblog\/","https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Gene_Edward_Veith"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/author\/geneveith\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1281"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}