From Ronald Kim's, "The Wretched of the Earth," Fall '00 From Ronald Kim's, "The Wretched of the Earth," Fall '00According to conventional wisdom, the United States' left wing -- i.e., the Democrats or "liberals" -- consists of people who believe in social justice and services and wish for peace and understanding in world politics. As oversimplified as this view might be, it held mostly true through the 1980s, when President Reagan eliminated social programs for the poor and minorities and embarked on a "big stick" foreign policy, all against largely ineffective Democratic opposition. Consider the case of South Africa, a topic of hot debate and student protest in the late 1970s. Many conservatives backed the U.S. government's support for the South African regime and its avowed "anti-Communism." Meanwhile, liberal opponents of that country's racist policies demonized the ruling Afrikaner minority as some sort of genetically fascist aberration, white supremacists who had to be deposed, dominated and, if need be, eliminated. Today we see this same blind hatred against the Serbs, who have been plastered with every label from "pariah race" to "Nazis of the Balkans." When a friend of mine in Belgrade was rejected from several U.S. graduate programs despite an outstanding record, I reminded her that not since the late '70s had liberal academics felt such a need to pin the evils of the world on one group. Far from being a new phenomenon, this sort of liberal racist response to racial hatred has been with us for a long time. During and after World War II, as Americans began to fathom the enormity of Hitler's crimes, a popular theory held that the Germans were by nature given to conquest and genocide, themselves a race of Hitlers. Though perhaps understandable, one wonders if there were any less hypocritical lessons of the war against racial supremacy other than that "Germans are racially bad." At home, this sort of blanket condemnation falls on "Southern white trash" for their supposedly merciless persecution of their African-American neighbors. While no one can deny the levels of racial prejudice in the South, perhaps it's time for some of these armchair elite critics in New York and Washington to take a look at their own prejudices. The same applies to strident denunciations of the allegedly most reactionary sector of our society, rich white heterosexual males -- some of whom hold opinions far more nuanced and progressive than those of their accusers. Why this liberal scapegoating for all humanity's evils? On one level, it may be a simple case of overreaction to a certain group's role in perpetrating injustice. As the saying goes, in war there are no shades of gray, and perhaps those who wish to see the American way prevail around the globe get a bit carried away in speaking out against The Man -- or the Rednecks, Afrikaners, Serbs, Arabs and now the menacing, unfriendly (Red) Chinese. Maybe. But I see this as further proof that hatred and fear are essential components -- if not the essential components -- of American political culture, just as in most other cultures. Prejudice, even from "liberal" motives, can easily cross over into true racial or cultural hatred. And that hatred is just as bad as the kind that enlightened liberals claim to oppose -- or even worse, because by hating they reveal their hypocrisy. If I'm right, this tragedy has made it virtually impossible to draw any meaningful distinction between right and left in the U.S. At the end of the Clinton era, believers in sympathy for all peoples under the sun have apparently been consigned to the progressive or "socialist" fringe of the left. Today, one has only two choices. On one hand is the old-fashioned conservative prejudice that opposes civil rights and supports unabashed imperialism. On the other is the "enlightened," holier-than-thou liberalism that knows what's best for the unfortunate and uses human rights as a rationale for war. None of this may surprise older, wiser or more cynical citizens who are used to the inevitable hypocrisy and doublespeak of politics. Nevertheless, thinly disguised hatred of any sort cannot be allowed to masquerade as liberal idealism and humanitarian concern. As one intellectual lamented at the close of the Yugoslav war -- that exercise in killing innocent civilians to (not) save other innocent civilians -- we in the liberal West have reached a new low of "moral bankruptcy." Meanwhile, the few stubborn believers in world peace and social justice have been left in the cold, isolated outside mainstream politics, wondering how much worse things will have to get before the world wakes up and listens.
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