White Supremacy Blamed for Every Inequity and Unjust Act

Back in the olden times, on the long-forgotten show Saturday Night Live, which I presume was canceled decades ago — no, I won’t check — comedian Dana Carvey had a recurring character, the Church Lady. The character, an uptight talk-show host and moral busybody, was hilarious, in part because she projected her consuming and lascivious obsessions with sin and lust on her guests. “Some of us do our thinking below the Bible Belt,” Church Lady sighed. And then she would land on the same monocausal explanation for every wicked thing: “Could it beeeee . . . Satan?!”

But the derangement of one obsession is not just for pitiable televangelists. Freudianism, economics, Marxist theories of history’s inevitable turns, all have become the single-cause explanation of every wicked deed or act. But lately another obsession is taking over our intellectual class. It explains every inequity in our society, and every unjust act. It’s white supremacy.

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Michael Brendan Dougherty

Michael Brendan Dougherty is a senior writer at National Review Online.

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Back in the olden times, on the long-forgotten show Saturday Night Live, which I presume was canceled decades ago — no, I won’t check — comedian Dana Carvey had a recurring character, the Church Lady. The character, an uptight talk-show host and moral busybody, was hilarious, in part because she projected her consuming and lascivious obsessions with sin and lust on her guests. “Some of us do our thinking below the Bible Belt,” Church Lady sighed. And then she would land on the same monocausal explanation for every wicked thing: “Could it beeeee . . . Satan?!”

But the derangement of one obsession is not just for pitiable televangelists. Freudianism, economics, Marxist theories of history’s inevitable turns, all have become the single-cause explanation of every wicked deed or act. But lately another obsession is taking over our intellectual class. It explains every inequity in our society, and every unjust act. It’s white supremacy.