Ethnic Hatred Comes From The Heart
The Narrative of ‘Oppressor and Oppressed’ Directly Causes Pogroms
“I was shocked by these ‘students for justice’ organizations, who immediately were, they didn’t even offer a single word of condolence for these attacks, who immediately were like ‘It’s all Israel’ … I genuinely was flabbergasted as to where it came from”
Saagar Enjeti, Moment of Truth podcast
Ethnic hatred comes from the heart. The reason why these people feel an innate desire to sympathize with Jew-killers is precisely because of the success and civilization of the Jews. This seems more of a conservative blind spot than a liberal one. Liberals, at least non-white liberals, can spot this kind of envious racism from a mile away. They feel the dynamic of social inequality and understand the deep evil it brings.
I’m surprised that Saagar by admission and Saurabh by omission doesn’t see it that way. India is a country with a history of ethnic pogroms, in which the ‘down-trodded’ ethnicities riot and murder the more successful ethnic groups. You all can probably tell that I’m ethnically Chinese. The Chinese diaspora in other Asian countries have a history of being targeted in this way. Chinese who are told the history of our persecution and the blood libel - type conspiracy theories which motivate them can recognize this pattern. I would suspect a truthful telling of Jewish history comes to the same conclusion.
When leftist organizations blame the economic failure of blacks on “systemic oppression” or “racism”, they are establishing and fanning the flames of the desire for ethnic persecution. That is the story of all anti-Chinese pogroms and if we are being honest, all famous anti-Semitic pogroms, including the current one perpetrated by Hamas. Pogroms are a tool of the uncivilized against the civilized. They are motivated by the delusional belief that an ethnic group’s failure is due to the miasmatic conspiracy of another.
For sure there are forms of this on the fringes of the right. There are self-identified right wingers who believe in Jewish conspiracies to control the world. But this type of historically abundant conspiracy theory is the bread and butter of mainstream Democratic party politics about race.
In the past few weeks, people have asked why Black Lives Matter groups support ethnic tribalism up to and including Hamas terrorists. The answer is because the pogroms are precisely the result of emotional, system-one thinking on inequality. Remember that German Jews were scientists, financiers, and scholars. Hitler’s narrative was always a contradiction — trying to paint the Jews as inferior while also claiming they controlled everything. In reality, the Jews were not just equal but superior, on a statistical, economic level. And on a social level, the Nazis understood that. Hamas is no different.
At this moment in time, a kind of pathological ethnic hatred is well-understood. In reality, this is the pathology which underlies all of racial leftism at all levels. The desire to attribute blame to the successful is the root of ethnic persecution. This is true of Asia, it is true of prewar Europe and it is true of the present day.
This is the reason why egalitarianism is the greatest existential risk. The only way it can be accomplished is the persecution of the successful, whether they be Jews, Chinese, Whites, or any other ethnicity.
Which is why envy is one of the 7 deadly sins and why there are 2 commandments against coveting.
Excellent essay. Growing up in USSR Kiev, I remember a whispered anecdote - ‘my neighbor would wake up an hour earlier and worked an hour later, each day. His harvests were bigger than mine. Eventually, he bought an extra cow. I killed it, and now, we are, again, equal’