The "social proof fallacy" holds that a belief or behaviour appears more correct if it is held by more people. Examples thereof include the notion that a product is better if the company has more customers, or that a political opinion is more acceptable if it is believed in high numbers. The "argument from authority fallacy" holds that a belief or behaviour appears more acceptable if it is propagated by people who have achieved a certain degree of status in society. Examples include celebrity endorsements and the interpretations of journalists.

Now, what comes to mind when you combine these two fallacies in today’s political discourse?

Jeremy Carl’s excellent book, The Unprotected Class, reminds the reader that something is not true merely because it is held by a lot of people, nor that the endorsement of an opinion by some so-called “thought leader” implies that you have to be persuaded by it.

The Unprotected Class is about the extent to which America has become under siege by anti-white racism. In today’s political climate, however, writing a book that is sympathetic towards white people is a daring exercise. Unsurprisingly, Carl has come under fire for doing exactly that.

Yet, it is not possible to present Carl, a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, a former research fellow at the Hoover Institution and Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Interior during the Trump Administration, as some marginal figure on the fringe whose opinions are of no concern. The book has also received widespread acclaim from a list of intellectual leaders in the mainstream international conservative movement.

The central thesis of The Unprotected Class is first that racism is not consistently rejected by the mainstream, but second, and more explicitly, that anti-white ideas and policies have become so interwoven in the fabric of American life that we take them for granted and often fail to see them for what they are.

Unsurprisingly, Carl starts the book with a caveat – that he is largely in agreement with those who warn that a “politics of whiteness” is both tactically and morally inferior to a focus on the unalienable rights in the Declaration of Independence that all Americans should enjoy, and also that authoring this book should not be interpreted as a denial of racism in America’s past or that other forms of racism also exist in contemporary America.

These statements should be obvious, and it should not even be necessary to start a book on racism with such caveats. Yet, in the political zeitgeist of our time, criticising anti-white racism is sure to get the author under siege with false accusations.

Ironically, such criticism only serves to underscore the core argument of the book – that anti-white racism has become so entrenched that merely cautioning against anti-white racism is enough to trigger the mob.

Carl speaks of the strange tendency of modern America to describe itself as a nation of immigrants, and one in which diversity can only be regarded as a strength. In other words, a nation that is not able to define itself in any other terms as that basically everyone is or can be an American. And so, the erosion of American identity, and the contamination of contemporary American thought by leftist ideology has reached the point where every single thing that is wrong with America today is in some way blamed on white people, and every single solution for America’s problems is in some way framed as something that ought to be done against white people.

The basis of this belief is that whiteness, as it has become known, is fundamentally evil, because it provides an advantage that non-white Americans do not, and evidently cannot have. This prompts Carl to ask the question: If whiteness truly constitutes the advantage that they claim it to do, why is it that so many white Americans have been clamouring to obtain a non-white identity?

Reading The Unprotected Class as an Afrikaner living in South Africa, it is both staggering and tragic to see the parallels between contemporary South Africa and contemporary America – not just parallels in the narrative and the way in which some influential people present their arguments. I am talking about parallels in trajectories that have been proven to lead only to failure and hardship.

By now, it is no longer a secret that South Africa is failing. The country once heralded as a miracle story and a beacon of light for the future of non-racialism and reconciliation, quickly degenerated into being the country with the most race laws in the history of the world. Today in South Africa, there are more than 140 race laws, of which 116 were passed by the so-called non-racial ANC government. Even though these laws proclaim their intention to “empower” and “uplift” black people, it is clear from the discriminatory measures put forth in them that the real goal is to target and discriminate against the white minority while doing nothing to uplift the designated group.

The drafters of such laws are able to get away with this, because they have succeeded in convincing much of the world that in order to be truly non-racial, you have to embark on aggressive anti-white racial discrimination. This is because the quest for non-racialism (we are told) goes only one way. And so, for example, quotas have to be enforced to reduce the number of white players in the South African rugby team in order to make it “more representative”.

Meanwhile, when the South African soccer team is 100% black this is celebrated as a victory for non-racialism. No-one would dare to suggest that a white quota has to be introduced to make the team more representative, because in our contemporary narrative, that would obviously be racist.

It becomes clear then that Martin Luther King’s call for Americans to be judged by the content of their character as opposed to the colour of their skin, and the former African National Congress (ANC) president, Albert Luthuli’s call for South Africa to become a country in which people are judged by their values instead of race have fallen by the wayside. I am convinced that King and Luthuli – both of whom have passed away long ago – meant what they said, but it remains staggering to witness just how quickly their ideas were abandoned by their supporters, who now argue for a shift from colour-blindness to colour-consciousness.

In South African political literature, the rejection of Luthuli’s call for a society structured on values instead of race becomes illuminated if you read the ANC’s internal strategy and tactics documents. When the South African Constitution of 1996 was adopted, proclaiming that the country would strive to be non-racial, the ANC publicly celebrated this as a major victory for democracy and non-racialism.

Yet, in its internal policy documents the ANC maintained that it remained a liberation movement (as opposed to a governing party) based on the ideological combination of race nationalism and socialism. It went on to state that the adoption of the South African Constitution should be understood as a temporary victory – a “beachhead” – in the movement’s march to implement its policies combining race nationalism and socialism in South Africa.

It seems that the Left in the United States also regards the successes of the civil rights movement as a beachhead victory that merely paves the way to more aggressive anti-white policies.

Obviously, anti-white policies are easier to justify in the face of a scourge of white racism. The problem, however, is that – with the exception of marginal voices on the fringes – racism in general is almost universally rejected by white people. And so, as Carl points out, the “demand for white racists” to justify anti-white racism as a retaliatory effort have not been met.

As a result, rewards are given to those who will invent some white racists where none exist. As a case in point, Carl references the resignation of a highly regarded African American criminology professor at Florida State University after being credibly accused of faking data to exaggerate structural racism against African Americans.

We saw the same phenomenon in South Africa when Penny Sparrow, a random, unknown estate agent with zero political influence was propelled into becoming one of the most famous people in the country after she posted a racist comment on Facebook. If white racism was in such high supply, surely the mob would’ve gone for more influential racists than Sparrow.

The Unprotected Class goes on to argue that the issue of racism is merely the surface of a deeper-rooted struggle. At its core is not just hatred for white people, but a protest against Western civilisation and an attempt to reject, deny and reverse the achievements of the West. This is pursued, either by denying that the achievements of the West exist, or by arguing that such achievements were immoral … or attempting to hold both these mutually exclusive opinions at the same time.

And so, making a statement such as that “it is okay to be white” has become highly controversial. In as far as it could be said, it is only okay for people who are not white to say this, prompting Tucker Carlson to ask if we should conclude from this that it is actually not okay to be white.

The Unprotected Class is not merely an evaluation of the problem, as it concludes with a comprehensive list of practical steps that could be taken in response to the emerging scourge of anti-white racism. The list of steps is too long to reference here, but it includes speaking out courageously, boycotting anti-white racism and engaging in civil disobedience when necessary. Carl also concludes with some policy suggestions, including the elimination of diversity equity and inclusion (DEI) bureaucracies and the strengthening of law enforcement.

Such measures underline the importance of responding to a tangible problem with tangible action. It is certainly the case that in the battle of ideas, anti-white racism has become mainstream, but more than that, that these ideas manifest in destructive policy ideas that do not only fail in what they proclaim to seek to achieve, but also actively enforce destructive ideas, not merely for the targeted group, but for society at large.

We cannot afford to be bystanders in an issue like this. This is why Jeremy Carl’s The Unprotected Class is such an important book.

Ernst Roets is Executive Director of the Afrikaner Foundation and Head of Policy of the Solidarity Movement in South Africa