The New Puritans: How the Religion of Social Justice Captured the Western World

by Andrew Doyle

Any progress towards racial equality that has been made is not understood as evidence of the triumph of the liberal approach, but rather is explained away as ‘interest convergence’. Critical race theorists concede that black people have enjoyed remarkable success – the election of a black president of the United States being the most obvious example – but maintain that any such achievements have only taken place because they have been in the interests of whites. Those of us who value evidence-led epistemology are left in a bind. Black people in poverty can be taken as proof of racial inequality, but black millionaires can be taken as proof of white supremacist ‘interest convergence’. This is how Robin DiAngelo is able to dismiss the institutional and political power of the likes of Colin Powell, Clarence Thomas, Marco Rubio and Barack Obama: ‘They support the status quo and do not challenge racism in any way significant enough to be threatening’. When perceived in this way, no outcome can conceivably exist that would cause the proponents of Critical Race Theory to doubt their own precepts. The rules of the game have been rigged so that its critics will always lose.