The End of Race Politics: A Review
Coleman Hughes dismantles the new anti-racism and makes a positive case for colorblindness
Back in 2019, late night television host Stephen Colbert made fun of Bernie Sanders for suggesting people should choose candidates “not by the color of their skin,” but by “their abilities” and “what they stand for”. How simple and exactly true is that? Why on earth would a prime time television host quip that “Yes, like Dr. King, I have a dream — a dream where this diverse nation can come together and be led by an old white guy.”
This is the norm today. Holding up the idea of colorblindness, the same idea that our Civil Rights leaders marched for, is pointed to as naive and sometime racist.
By accident, I came upon this book in audio form. I was getting ready to do some work on my deck and needed something to listen to while I work. My Spotify recommended this book, which I was aware of but hadn’t read, and I thought, “What the hell? Instead of 90’s Hip Hop today, I’ll chill out with Coleman Hughes.”
The title and subtitle, The End of Race Politics, Arguments for a Colorblind America, in itself is controversial for the proponents of the new anti-racism. He said he Googled ‘colorblindness’ and the first 9 links were articles about how the concept is wrong-headed and even racist.
Coleman provides numerous examples of popular authors and public figures misrepresenting the concept of colorblindness. But why would they do that?
Because new anti-racism, Neo-racism, requires race as a lever for cultural, political, and economic power.
In fact, Coleman correctly points out that colorblindness is essential for identifying racism. Without colorblindness — equal treatment regardless of race — you cannot identify racism — unequal treatment because of race. Colorblindness is the benchmark for what should be, and racism, by definition, is the opposite of that. Once we reject the concept of colorblindness, we have nothing against which to measure racism.
By default, if you reject that we should treat all people of all races equally, you have to treat some races as superior to others. Neoracism, or simply the rejection of colorblindness, requires a hierarchy of race. Neoracism is a type of racial supremacy.
The Color Blind Principle
But what does it specifically mean to be colorblind? Coleman provides this definition:
“We should treat people without regard to race, both in our public policy and in our private lives.”
Often people baulk at this by stating that, “We all see color! You can’t NOT see race!”
Very soberly, again, he explains that colorblind is an expression much like being warm-hearted. Nobody thinks warm-hearted people have an average heart temperature higher than anyone else. They believe them to be especially kind. Similarly, colorblindness is not to be literally blind to color or race, but to act as if it is not consequential to a person’s character.
I love this explanation.
Now imagine the opposite of that. “We must treat people as if their color is essential to their character.” That presupposes that color is a relevant determining factor in a person’s character. You would then have to state what exactly that relationship is. Is black good for character? Is white good for character? Or are they both bad for character? Is it a spectrum based on melanin or exactly what is the relationship between color and character? It quickly becomes stupid, just like dismissing colorblindness.
You will very quickly now hear how complicated this social construct is and how ingrained in our societies and psyches. But like Thomas Sowell said:
“People who pride themselves on their ‘complexity’ and deride others for being ‘simplistic’ should realize that the truth is often not very complicated. What gets complex is evading the truth”
They don’t actually believe what they’re saying anyways. If anti-racists actually believed that race was a social construct, they would be less likely to police the behavior of people based on their race. Believing race is a social construct should lead people to dismiss it as something to reduce in importance, not concretize.
Now to be fair and nice, it is most likely that people who adopted the ideas of Ibram Kendi and Robin DiAngelo are not realizing what they are really adopting. And when I say “adopt”, I mean that literally. The vast majority of ideas lumbering around in our heads are ideas that we have adopted or absorbed.
Almost nobody who has quoted these people or posted a black square on their Instagram actually has put much thought into these ideas. Almost nobody who proudly proclaimed themselves to be one of these new versions of anti-racists even read their books.
I dare say this of anyone who did or now does read their writings, and then reads Coleman Hughes: they will be embarrassed for ever putting themselves in that camp and for anyone who holds anti-racist ideas. What Coleman does is take the new anti-racist ideas seriously and interrogate them based on their own words. Doing that, they very quickly devolve into simplistic stupidity that he rightly refers to as Neo-racism.
His book uses sound logic reviewing the words of our civil rights leaders, the court cases and proposed amendments for political and legal equality, and shows us exactly what they thought.
I read Ibram Kendi and he did nothing of the sort. Ibram did little more than tell one story of possible racism he experienced and then form an entire world view. Ibram provides no history, no legal references, no discussions of the words of our civil rights leaders or any sharp discussion of the evolution of that movement and its ideas. The stark difference between Ibram and Coleman is obvious for anyone with eyes to see.
Coleman then goes through the history of the original anti-racist movements and it is easy to see how much they differ in content from anything the new anti-racists, Neo-racists, say. New anti-racism is simply Neo-racism that relies on incredibly shallow, anti-human thinking, racial stereotypes, and racial supremacy, with no path towards racial equality.
I couldn’t recommend this book more. The audio version, read by the author, is smooth and incredibly easy to listen too. It’ll provide you with a firm footing upon which to stand on the original principles of racial equality that got us here in the first place. That’s how I felt after reading it. There will be no way that I ever question or feel embarrassed holding these original and empirically effective ideas of colorblindness and racial equality as opposed to racial equity.
Well done Coleman.