Mao Tse-Tung Disagrees That "All White People Are Racist"

As I was reading Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung (aka The Little Red Book), I came across a particularly stunning quote in Chapter 2: Classes and Class Struggle:

 

In the final analysis, national struggle is a matter of class struggle. Among the whites in the United States, it is only the reactionary ruling circles that oppress the black people. They can in no way represent the workers, farmers, revolutionary intellectuals and other enlightened persons who comprise the overwhelming majority of the white people.

"Statement Supporting the American Negroes in Their Just Struggle Against Racial Discrimination by U.S. Imperialism" (August 8, 1963), People of the World, Unite and Defeat the U.S. Aggressors and All Their Lackeys, 2nd ed., pp. 3-4.

 

Wow. So the "overwhelming majority of white people" are not racist? And that's according to Chairman Mao!

Yet his statement contradicts what today is a familiar accusation from the Left. Search the phrase "all whites are racist" on the internet. You'll come up with much. For instance, an article by Elena Guthrie on Huff Post, "Are All White People Racist?" [February 10, 2017], in which she concludes:

 

"All white people are racist, because all white people exist in a racist power structure that we aren't actively fighting to dismantle. Racists don't just wear white pointy hats and say the 'n' word, by doing nothing, any and every white person is still taking advantage of a power structure that favours us. Don't be more upset with being called racist than actual racism."

It seems today's Left has moved so far to the Left that the late Communist dictator of Red China now stands on "the wrong side of history."

Yet back in his heyday, Mao was as radical as you could get. He was an icon for Leftists who thought the Soviet Union under Khrushchev and Brezhnev had turned soft and compromised. Mao was unlike the "tired, old white men" of the USSR. Mao was cool. He was authentic. His face adorned the walls of college dorms. Women wanted to sleep with him and guys wanted to be him.

But how does The Great Helmsman measure up to the woke standards of today's intersectional Left?

Well, in his Little Red Book, Mao talks a lot about economic class struggle. He denounces imperialism and advocates for "national liberation movements." But he never makes it about race. And although it's not a term he uses, he might justifiably be described as "color blind." That makes him old-fashioned. A dinosaur among today's Left. Perhaps even a running dog reactionary!

I'm no Maoist. The man was a monster, as were and are all Communist dictators. More innocent people died under Mao's regime than even under Stalin or Hitler. Which is why Mao's above quote should give libertarians pause for thought.

When even a man of Mao's Communist street cred is guilty of such a cancel-worthy statement, it shows just how far leftward our own culture has moved.