Written By “A Classical Liberal”

 

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Rooted in America’s ugly history of white supremacy, indigenous dispossession and anti-blackness, multiracial whiteness is an ideology invested in the unequal distribution of land, wealth, power and privilege — a form of hierarchy in which the standing of one section of the population is premised on the debasement of others.

(Cristina Beltran)

As the above quotation demonstrates, ‘multiracial whiteness’ is the latest exercise in intellectually incoherent cultural Marxist doublethink. In a recent op-ed piece in The Washington Post – ‘Opinion: To understand Trump’s support, we must think in terms of multiracial Whiteness’, 15 January 2021 – Cristina Beltran popularised the term ‘multiracial whiteness’ to describe why many non-whites voted for Donald Trump in the recent US Presidential election.

Beltran is a professor of social and cultural analysis at New York University. The title of her most recent book – Cruelty as Citizenship: How Migrant Suffering Sustains White Democracy – tells us that she is a fully paid up member of the PC Brigade!

The vast majority of Latinos and an overwhelming majority of African American voters supported Biden in the election, as cultural Marxism predicts. However, exit-polls show that a quarter to a third of Latino voters voted to re-elect Trump, which is clearly a cause of concern to cultural Marxists; as it challenges their presumption that ethnic minorities belong to them.

This led Beltran to ask, what are we to make of Latino voters ‘inspired by Trump’? Her answer is a phenomenon that she calls ‘multiracial whiteness’ – the promise that non-whites can also ‘lay claim’ to the Republican values held by the majority of white Americans. Thereby, according to Beltran, whiteness is no longer simply a ‘racial identity’; it is also a ‘political colour’.

Quite clearly, the concept of ‘multiracial whiteness’ makes absolutely no sense at all. Surely, a political movement either embraces one race or multiple races, but cannot do both. It’s like claiming that polar opposites, such as inclusivity and segregation, can exist together. ‘Multiracial whiteness’ is actually diversity – and the PC Brigade is always berating us that we need more diversity. It also tells us what we’ve known all along, namely that politics is not just about race. We are all individuals – therefore both whites and non-whites can choose to vote for Trump or against him.

While trying to convince us that ‘multiracial whiteness’ is a bad thing, Beltran actually offers the best possible argument in its favour:

Multiracial whiteness promises Latino Trump supporters freedom from the politics of diversity and recognition. For voters who see the very act of acknowledging one’s racial identity as itself racist, the politics of multiracial whiteness reinforces their desired approach to colorblind individualism. In the politics of multiracial whiteness, anyone can join the MAGA [Make America Great Again] movement ….

A movement that believes in ‘colour-blind individualism’ and welcomes ‘anyone’ to join sounds great to me. Beltran continues to promote the benefits of ‘multiracial whiteness’ by emphasising that the politics of ‘multiracial whiteness’ are ‘available to all’:

If you want to speak Spanish and celebrate a quinceañera in your family, go ahead. If you want to be a Proud Boy, be a Proud Boy. Trump doesn’t care. As long as you love him, he’ll love you.

This also sounds very inclusive indeed – and isn’t ‘inclusivity’ one of the PC lexicon’s most hallowed buzzwords.

Beltran notes approvingly that before Trump, Republicans seeking to appeal to Latino voters usually espoused ‘conservative multiculturalism’: emphasising conservative approaches to faith, patriotism and the traditional family in order to connect Latino culture to Republican values. Whereas, she criticises Trump for not finding ‘value in Latinos’ distinct identities’; instead offering them ‘multiracial whiteness’. I would argue that Beltran has completely missed the point here. Before Trump, Republicans tended to patronise Latino voters and pigeonhole them because of their ethnicity. Whereas, Trump gained more Latino votes precisely because he showed them the respect of treating them like Americans and didn’t make them feel like outsiders. After all, many Latinos fled Communist Cuba and came to America precisely because they wanted to embrace capitalism and the fabled ‘American dream’.

Beltran concludes her unhinged rant by opining that the ‘challenge’ of the post-Trump era will be ‘to prevent the politics of whiteness from becoming an increasingly multiracial affair’. I actually took heart from Beltran’s conclusion. It tells me that a leading cultural Marxist is worried that the coalition of victim groups that they have so painstakingly assembled is actually starting to unravel. Economic Marxism failed because the working-class saw through it. Perhaps cultural Marxism will also shrivel and die on the vine, because politics is not determined solely by race – or gender, or sexuality – and more and more members of so-called ‘oppressed’ groups refuse to be held back by the politics of victimhood.