Anti-Blackness on The Left

Nearly 40 years ago, a study found that half of all racists were left-wing. In other words, being liberal, progressive or a leftist does not make you any less likely to have racist thoughts and feelings or engage in racist behaviors. As disconcerting as these findings may be to some, they are consistent with decades of commentary regarding the behavior of liberals by civil rights leaders and intellectuals (e.g., Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, James Baldwin, bell hooks, Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, Robin DiAngelo). Moreover, there are an abundance of contemporary examples which support the study’s conclusions, including my own experiences.

A Personal Experience

I have had to navigate “liberal racism” on many occasions, primarily in academic settings. In fact, my experiences in UK academia were so traumatic that I decided to look for employment in other countries after completing my PhD. For the sake of brevity, I will provide just one example of subtle racism relating to obtaining a job reference — a process notorious for perpetuating racial inequities in employment.

Early in my career as an academic researcher in the UK, a former employer (a white liberal who had previously given me references) refused to provide me with an updated letter of recommendation after I had obtained my PhD. He claimed that it was too long ago since I had worked with him (I was employed by him seven years prior to the request). However, I suspect that his sudden change in attitude towards me may have been due to an edgy article which I wrote regarding racial discrimination in the UK (originally published in 2004). The article would have been considered more controversial at that time, especially among the “colorblind” liberals I had worked with.

Of course, it could simply have been that this former employer was being judgmental about my requesting a reference from him at that point. The implication was that surely, I should have been able to secure three references from my PhD awarding institution without needing one from him. Well, no, actually; it was not particularly easy for me to obtain three recommendations from the deeply racist academic institution that I had attended. But I digress.

All things considered, I believe that had I been a fellow white in a comparable situation, this former employer would have treated me as another human being, rather than quibbling about the number of years since he last worked with me. That said, had I been white, the situation would not have arisen since I would have had a whole network of recommenders, eager to write glowing letters for me. Be that as it may, this person added to the stressful barriers that I faced in a system already stacked against me — despite his progressive ideals.

The Case of Joe Biden

As the current Democrat President of the United States, Joe Biden is the most famous liberal in the world. Some may therefore find it surprising that Biden has engaged in consistently anti-Black behaviors throughout his long political career. Indeed, after Biden announced his candidacy for the presidency of the United States in 2007, he made a horrendously distasteful comment about Barack Obama (his rival at the time) drawing on centuries-old racist tropes:

“I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”

Furthermore, despite the lip service that Joe Biden now pays to racial justice issues, historically he has played a significant role in promoting anti-Black racial injustice. For example, Biden was a key figure in the passing of the notorious 1994 Crime Bill which has had a devastating impact on the Black population by contributing to the mass incarceration of Black Americans. Additionally, in the 1970s, Biden famously opposed desegregation busing. As reported by The Business Insider, he declared:

“Unless we do something about this, my children are going to grow up in a jungle, the jungle being a racial jungle with tensions having built so high that it is going to explode at some point.”

Moreover, incredibly, Biden still continues to proudly recall his friendships and working relationships with virulently racist and segregationist politicians, including Strom Thurmond, James O Eastland and Herman Talmage.

The Anti-Woke Leftists

Over the last few years, a new breed of anti-Black liberals, progressives and leftists has emerged who are being more direct about their real feelings than has historically been the case with the anti-Black Left. These individuals — known as the “Dirtbag Left” — are openly describing themselves as “anti-woke.” Furthermore, their statements indicate that this is a movement that has already veered towards far-right talking points.

To give a couple of examples, Anna Khachiyan, a key figure in the anti-woke leftist movement, told Spiked that “you should be able to hate and hatred should be protected.” Moreover, the Daily Beast reports that Khachiyan and her podcast co-host went so far as to ask notorious racist Steve Bannon about collaborating with them:

“It seems like we agree on a lot of things… [can] the anti-establishment left and right work together in any meaningful way…?”

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At the end of the day, the left in the West has always been, and continues to be, primarily a movement for the white working and middle classes; many on the left exhibit significant levels of anti-Blackness. While Black and other marginalized minorities can certainly benefit from a more socialist political system, it is important to be aware that the very real oppression of visible minorities does not just go away when the services are run by the state, as illustrated by the well-documented racism problem in the UK National Health Service.

Ultimately, anti-Black racism is endemic in Western societies, regardless of party politics.