WTH Do Antisemitism and Critical Race Theory Have in Common? Professor David Bernstein Explains

What the Hell Is Going On

AEI Podcasts

News, Government, History, Politics

4.4 • 633 Ratings

🗓️ 16 November 2023

⏱️ 68 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What do Critical Race Theory and antisemitism have in common? A lot, actually, from the roots of each movement, to the ideology, to the way they are weaponized by the left today. The overarching philosophy linking these movements together is a Manichean ordering of peoples into groups of oppressed or oppressor – usually, but not always, based on the color of one’s skin. Indeed, it is no mistake that in the aftermath of WWII, Jews sought to categorize themselves as white, a move that has now fed the bizarre oppressor/colonizer trope so popular on the left. First Jews weren’t white enough for the white supremacists, but now are too white for the CRT crowd. Not to mention the shifting ideological assaults on Jewish groups, once accused of being communists now accused of being capitalists. Yes, donors are pulling out of universities that harbor pro-terrorist groups; yes, the support of Hamas the past few weeks has been a PR disaster for wokeism. But it will take a lot more than that to root out the antisemitic and real race-based discrimination that has gripped America.

David E. Bernstein holds a University Professorship chair at the Antonin Scalia Law School, where he has been teaching since 1995. He has also been a visiting professor at the University of Michigan, Georgetown University, William & Mary, Brooklyn Law School, the University of Turin, and Hebrew University. Professor Bernstein teaches Constitutional Law, Evidence, and Products Liability. His most recent book is Classified, The Untold Story of Racial Classification in America.

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0:00.0	This podcast is brought to you by the American Enterprise Institute.
0:03.1	If you like what you hear, please subscribe, rate, review, and share. Thanks for listening. Here's our show. What the hell's going on? What the hell is going on? What the hell is going on? I don't know what the hell he's talking about. You don't have to know what the hell is on it. What hell's the matter with these guys? We don't know what's going on. What hell's gone on?
0:01.0	Who in God's name knows what it's all about.
0:29.0	I am Danielle Pletka.
0:30.6	And I'm Mark Tiesin.
0:31.8	Welcome to our podcast.
0:33.2	What the hell is going on?
0:35.0	Mark, what the hell is going on now?
0:37.0	What we're talking about today, Danny, is the connection between the anti-Semitism we see on college campuses all across the country and in major cities and all these marches and critical race theory.
0:48.8	And people might say, what did those two have in common?
0:51.8	Well, actually, they have a lot in common.
0:53.9	Critical race theory and the sort of anti-racism, anti-colonialist ideology are all driven
1:00.8	by a thought process that divides the world into two classes.
1:05.8	Oppressors and the oppressed.
1:07.6	And the oppressors have no rights.
1:10.1	The oppressors can do nothing to defend themselves.
1:12.7	They can do nothing to speak out in defense of themselves. They're inherently guilty.
1:17.2	And the oppressed, on the other hand, can do anything they want because they are the oppressed.
1:22.4	And so they can do anything they want to the oppressors in order to liberate themselves.
1:26.9	And this is how you can see otherwise, you know, normal-looking college students marching in
1:35.1	defense of Hamas, which just committed one of the greatest atrocities against Jews since
1:40.6	the Holocaust.
	...

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