On Privilege, White Supremacy and Accountability

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On Privilege, White Supremacy and Accountability

It is no news that there are individual racists. That many people are deeply prejudiced and generally awful. And while I keep highlighting individual acts of racism, there is a kind of behavior that worries me even more than the act of individuals: the kind that is institutional and never accountable.

Because Satoshi Kanazawa’s article on Psychology Today is (was as it has been removed now) a disgusting piece of drivel reminiscent of times we thought gone. But we can easily point fingers at him and disarm each and every argument he makes. Sure that doesn’t remedy the pain he has caused and it certainly doesn’t do anything to heal the people he hurt but his article and the contents are something tangible to attack.

However, I am incensed by the chain of command that allowed the publication. Editor in Chief Kaja Perina, Senior Web Producer Aaron Deutsch, Deputy Editor Lybi Ma, Features Editor Carlin Flora, even the company’s CEO Jo Colman, all of them have a degree of responsibility in the publication. I would venture that, with the exception of the CEO, all of them read the article prior to publication and thought it was OK to post it!

When an individual acts in reprehensible ways, we can say “There, that’s an ass”. Now, when an entire corporate institution sees fit to publish an article that reeks of racism, we should point and say “That is White Supremacy at work”. Because certainly I cannot think of any other way to describe it.