Saturday, July 23, 2011

"I’m an individualist, not a racialist"


Once in a while, I check up on ex-Canadian immigrant, ex-South African, libertarian, non-practicing Jew, columnist and author Ilana Mercer, who, in my humble opinion, has a mediocre writing style, which is full of jarring alliterations, although that is less so now. But she couldn't help a "by bombs and boycotts" in her latest blog post.

She is a writer at WorldNet Daily, although a while ago I noted that she was off their roster until she returned with somewhat subdued pieces. She was also part of that Alternative Right group, which ended up being an anti-Semitic site, and she hasn't written for them in over a year.

She writes on a recent post at her blog:

"I’m an individualist, not a racialist."

Then she proceeds to advertise her book, Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa, which is about how black-run South Africa is not working. Why conjure up the inflammatory image of a cannibal's pot? Why not find a clear-cut way of saying that black leaders are failing, and even destroying, South Africa, and are in danger of doing the same in America?

And even the book design, with black hand prints (it could be mud prints) soiling the white body of a naked woman, is not the neutral individualist's perspective she is trying to convey in her blog statement. It is aggressive and confrontational.

I'm not suggesting that Mercer tone-down the truth, but upping the ante with incendiary imagery, and race-loaded phrases, while talking the smooth talk of neutrality, is hypocritical.

I'm not sure why she needs to adamantly emphasize her individualism, since it is clear by now that her libertarian position informs many of her opinions.

But, of course, it is to contrast it with grouping people into racial categories, which to her is racialist, i.e. racist, which is the most evil thing a modern person can be. So she has antagonistically divided the world into racial groups, but she won't get her hands dirty and will remain the sacrosanct individual.

What we aspire most from writers, truth and discernment, becomes contradictions and in effect lies, when in the hands of writers like Mercer.