The Great Andrew Sullivan On Sarah Jeong: "When Racism Is Fit To Print"

God bless Andrew Sullivan. I don't absolutely always agree with him, and sometimes I think he's a kinda bonkers, but a whole damn lotta the time he's the voice of sweet reason.
Justa coupla bits:

...I don’t think the New York Times should fire her — in part because they largely share her views on race, gender, and oppression. Their entire hiring and editorial process is based on them. In their mind, Jeong was merely caught defending herself. As Vox writer Zack Beauchamp put it: “A lot of people on the internet today [are] confusing the expressive way antiracists and minorities talk about ‘white people’ with actual race-based hatred, for some unfathomable reason.” I have to say that word “expressive” made me chuckle out loud. (But would Beauchamp, I wonder, feel the same way if anti-racists talked about Jews in the same manner Jeong talks about whites? Aren’t Jews included in the category of whites?)

That Zack Beauchamp line is just beautiful. That's like a bumper sticker for the contemporary left. That guy ought to be reminded of that line once a year for the rest of his life. Let's pull it out and meditate on it for a second:

“A lot of people on the internet today [are] confusing the expressive way antiracists and minorities talk about ‘white people’ with actual race-based hatred, for some unfathomable reason.”

Sully's right, of course, that that 'expressive' is gold, baby...gold! But just as revelatory is "for some unfathomable reason." The jig is up; he knows it. It's equivalent to: "Some people say Jeong's tweets saying 'I hate all white people' are racist. But I simply can't understand why that would be." Of course he can understand...because it's the natural interpretation. In fact it's the only interpretation. Unless there's some reason to think the tweets are satirical or somesuch thing. Which there isn't.
   But the important idea in the first passage is, of course, this one:

I don’t think the New York Times should fire her — in part because they largely share her views on race, gender, and oppression. Their entire hiring and editorial process is based on them.

   I didn't think of that, but it links up with one of my broken records, so here goes:
It's time for the remaining liberals to admit to themselves that this is what the vanguard of the contemporary left believes. It's definitionally impossible for a nonwhite person to be racist (at least against a white person, at least in places like the USA). A handy, though sloppy, way to put the more general point is: progressivism is anti-liberal leftism. Liberals, used to training all their guns rightward, must understand that there is an anti-liberal left. An anti-liberal left which is, according to me, more illiberal than your average, relatively centrist, conservative.
   Hey, maybe this is good for liberals, such as remain. It's very instructive to see what it's like to have the cultural superstructure turn against you... See what conservatives have been complaining about all this time?
   And how 'bout this:

The editors of the Verge, where Jeong still works, described any assertion of racism in Jeong’s tweets as “dishonest and outrageous,” a function of bad faith and an attack on journalism itself. Scroll through left-Twitter and you find utter incredulity that demonizing white people could in any way be offensive. That’s the extent to which loathing of and contempt for “white people” is now background noise on the left. What many don’t seem to understand is that their view of racism isn’t shared by the public at large, and that the defense of it by institutions like the New York Times will only serve to deepen the kind of resentment that gave us Trump. Last night, for instance, Fox News made the most of the Times’ excuses for race-baiting.

See...Jeong saying (in effect) I hate all white people because they are white is not only not racist...it's not only (per Beauchamp) inexplicable how anyone could think that it is...it's "dishonest and outrageous" to even suggest it... 

   Stop and meditate on this. (contemplate this on the tree of woe...?)
   If this isn't analogous to stepping through the looking-glass, then nothing is.
   (Ha ha! How on Earth could anyone honestly think that, when Smith said 'dogs are mammals,' he meant that dogs are mammals??? Stupid! Dishonest! Outrrrraaaaaageous!!!)
   And Sully's got this bit right: "loathing of and contempt for 'white people' is now background noise on the left." This is exactly right. And it's largely why I wrote in a different post that this isn't about Jeong, really. The Jeong incident is just an occasion for discussing the larger phenomenon. The point is not Jeong's individual motives, nor getting her fired, nor anything about her, really.
   Again, liberals (such as remain) need to be clear on this: anti-male sexism and anti-white racism are central features of the contemporary progressive left--i.e. the PC or "social justice" left. I almost wrote that they are "rampant"...but that suggests they are alien or contingent features. But they're not not bugs; they're features. They're integral to the view. They're matters of principle. Racism in the rest of the political spectrum, all the way through the very conservative right, all the way through until you get to, oh, the Klan and Hitler...racism is a bug. That's a big difference.
   Finally, the anti-counterproductivity rant: I'd not include the final sentence of the final big quote from Sullivan (above). Yes, the crazy left helped give us Trump. But, bad as that is, it's way down on the list of why the crazy left is bad. The left has to learn that there are sound arguments against the left that don't have the form: This helps the right. Sullivan knows this. But many on the left don't. And failure to recognize the point helped get us the crazy left we have today.
   Blah, blah blah.
   Same rant, different day. (That is, speaking of myself, not of Sully, peace be upon him.)