James Livingston is a professor of history at Rutgers University. If you were asked to look at him and guess his racial background, you would probably say “white.” If so, you’d be wrong: last year, Livingston announced his resignation from the white race.
Seriously.
The decision came after dining at a restaurant “overrun with little Caucasian assholes,” leading him to declare, “Ok, officially, I now hate white people,” and “Fuck these people.” As you might expect, the response to this has been less than positive. In addition to being criticized for condemning an entire race, the restaurant in question (New York’s Harlem Shake) told Livingston his “racist rants” weren’t welcome.
Far from being apologetic, the professor stuck to his guns. Having previously written for such publications as Socialist Revolution and Marxist Perspectives, Livingston defended himself in an op-ed entitled, “Confessions of a Race Traitor.” In it he insisted that whites couldn’t be victims of racism because it’s “the exclusive property of white, mostly European people in this part of the world.” His claim that whites only perpetrate and are never victimized by racism isn’t unique, as you’ll hear other leftists making similar statements. Naturally, they aren’t helping white people by pushing this view. What they probably don’t realize? They’re hurting minorities too.
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The fact that whites can be victims of racism isn’t hard to prove: In 2013, a Florida woman was beaten and burned alive; one of her killers said part of his motive was that he “hates white people.” A California man gave the same reason for murdering 3 whites in 2017. An Indiana suspect was charged in 2016 with killing an 82 year-old white victim; he had previously made anti-white social media posts. Earlier that year, five cops were shot to death in Dallas by an individual wishing “to kill white people, especially white officers.” In Missouri, a man is suspected of killing as many as 5 white men between 2016 and 2017; he made comments online about wanting to “kill all white people.” Still others have been raped, slashed, and beaten for having white skin.
And obviously, minorities also face racism–just not always from whites. A 2016 federal indict described how Latino gang members used arson and murder to drive blacks from their LA neighborhood. Meanwhile, rapper YG put out a song advocating violence against Asians. When the leftist narrative holds that racism is “exclusive” to whites, then examples like these become inconvenient to discuss.
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Further, convincing whites that racism can’t affect them is dangerous, because it removes an important incentive to care about the issue. After all, if anyone can be a victim of racism, then all of us have an interest in condemning it. But if you say that one group is immune, then what you’re effectively telling them is, “Don’t worry–this isn’t your problem.”
Of course, this is far from the only way race hustlers like Livingston are hurting minorities; the Ferguson Effect is another. That’s a reference to how across the country, law enforcement pulled back after the shooting of Michael Brown by Ferguson police officer Daryl Wilson. Although eye witness accounts and a federal investigation backed up Wilson’s version of events, he still lost his job and was forced into hiding. So it's easy to see why a Pew Research Center poll found 72% of law enforcement officers believed their colleagues have become less likely to stop and question suspicious individuals.
And when police are less likely to act on things like parole and probation violations, people die as a result: figures from Baltimore showed that 36 percent of those arrested for homicide in 2017 were either on probation or parole. Baltimore’s Rev. Kinji Scott noted, “We had five homicides in that neighborhood while we were protesting.” In other words, Black Lives Matter is good at getting black people killed.
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If I were choosing a college, I’d probably cross Rutgers off my list (you can let them know if you agree). Because the truth is, racism threatens all of us. Arguing otherwise doesn’t help anyone–regardless of their color.
This article was originally published by Western Free Press.