WALSH: White People Have Been Made Into Our Society‘s Villains And Scapegoats. We Know How This Sort Of Thing Ends.

One of the most consequential — and, as we’ll see, most dangerous — innovations of America’s race hustler constituency is the invention of the term “whiteness.” We used to hear constant condemnations of alleged “white supremacy,” even though white supremacy as a belief system is nearly non-existent in this country, and as a legal principle is entirely non-existent. White supremacists — Klan members, neo-Nazis, and the like — are small, scattered, and insignificant. As for the law, there are no laws on the books today, anywhere, in any state or jurisdiction, that enshrine or codify white supremacy (despite what you may have heard). 

Of course, we still hear about this supposed problem of white supremacy, but many of those who once focused on fighting that make-believe scourge have moved on and are these days intent on slaying the dragon known as whiteness. Increasingly, advocates for so-called “racial justice” have widened their lens beyond white supremacy to now include this much broader category which would seem to encompass all white people. White supremacy is a belief system — a fringe belief system, but a belief system all the same. Whiteness, on the other hand, in its most literal sense simply means “the state or quality of being white.” This sheds disturbing light on all of the college courses with titles like “The Problem of Whiteness,” and the calls from academics and activists to “abolish whiteness.” It’s not simply white supremacy they’re after anymore, but whiteness itself.