The global hysteria following the death of George Floyd has probably done more than anything else to demonstrate that roughly half the country has acute, chronic, Antifablindness.
The Minneapolis-Based Terrorist Network Formerly Known as Anti Racist Action and their headwounds and intimidation tactics have been pretty much invisible since they were founded in the Uptown area in the 1980’s.
Back then, teachers, principals, and even police acted as if this group didn’t exist. Their clever name renders their bad actions invisible in people afraid of being accused of “racism,” “fascism,” or having their homes burned down.
Before Portland or Jerry Nadler, you probably thought Antifablindness was simply your liberal friends playing team sports. The referee only calls fouls against our team, but never calls out your team.
I’ve been testing this hypothesis for years, and your friends are not just playing political team sports – I believe they really can’t see it.
The 2020 protests were peaceful, George Floyd wasn’t on drugs, Kyle Rittenhouse killed Black people, and Antifa is an ideology, not a group.
If living in a world with a worldview completely incompatible with reality scares you, rest assured, it’s been scaring me for decades.
Adherents to this ideology completely reject contradictory ideas and are easily spooked whenever confronted with a counternarrative.
Following Ronald Reagan’s 1980 election, Minnesota became the epicenter of a stream of moral panics and ground zero of anti racist terrorism. The same thing happened following the election of Donald Trump.
This blindness and resulting hysteria is worth understanding. $2 Billion in damage resulted from this histrionic ingroup response and half the country simply pretends it didn’t happen.
Derek Chauvin’s colleagues are currently on trial for violating George Floyd’s civil rights and will face trial as accessories to his murder later this year. Kim Potter will be sentenced for the killing of Daunte Wright by the end of next month.
Once these potential catalysts for civil unrest end and the pandemic is finally coming to an end, It may be worth reevaluating what just happened.
How did we get to this “new normal” and what willful blindness might mean for our society if we continue to entertain these radical departures from reality?
Dr. Jonathan Haight, a moral researcher, suggests belief systems bind and they blind. This might explain it.
In these two cases, the belief that racism is the worst thing in the world converts anti racism into a sacred group value. In part because we all agree racism is bad for society, this blind spot is easy to exploit by bad actors.
A group called Anti Racist Action burning down a Black neighborhood might not be perceived as out of bounds if they’re doing it in the name of being anti racist.
Of course, the same could be true of Anti Fascists.
Bonus!
Recipe for a Groupthink Disaster
1) Gather around a sacred idea
2) Create a cone of willful ignorance
3) Reject contrary ideas
4) Filter reality with your own B elief S ystems
5) Pretend everyone who thinks differently are idiots
6) Act like they don’t exist
7) Mix
