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The poison of ersatz victimhood

In an interview about his excellent book Black Rednecks and White Liberals, the eminent scholar Thomas Sowell underlined several peoples that have been racially persecuted throughout history but who nevertheless tend to succeed whenever they transplant themselves.

For example, the number of Chinese killed in various regions of Southeast Asia in recent history far exceeds the total number of black people who had ever been lynched in America. The number of Armenians that fell victim to the attempt at genocide by the Ottoman Empire during the first world war is unknown, but could be as high as 1.5 million. The Jews, even before the Holocaust, were the victims of horrendous violence. For example, 900 Jews were burnt alive in Strasbourg during the Black Death when they were accused of poisoning the wells.

Yet these peoples, and one may add Nigerians, Vietnamese, Koreans, and others, have the tendency to overcome often violent racism wherever they find themselves. A Jewish, Chinese, or Nigerian immigrant to America may start off with no money, no status, not knowing English, no support network, and do only menial jobs, but after a decade they may own a small business, and in another decade or so it won’t be a surprise if their children were attending Ivy League schools on a scholarship.

Read the article by Xin Du in The Spectator.