By David Carlin

More than a hundred years ago, Communist revolutionaries, clever Marxist-Leninists in particular, explained their theory of history and morality in a few easy-to-understand propositions.

Number 1. The world is divided into two great parties, capitalists and workers. (There are some third parties as well, but these aren't really important.)

Number 2. Capitalists are bad in that they are oppressors and exploiters. Workers are good in that they are victims of oppression and exploitation.

Number 3. Since workers vastly outnumber capitalists, a disparity that is growing every day, it is inevitable that a Great Revolution made by workers will eventually overthrow the capitalists.

Number 4. Because capitalism is the root of all evil, this Revolution, by destroying capitalism, will lead to a worldwide regime of peace, prosperity, freedom, and equality.

Well, we witnessed a great Communist experiment in Russia and some other parts of the world, and things didn't work out the way they were supposed to. So many people, especially Americans, came to the conclusion, "Communism doesn't work; democratic capitalism does; and so there will never be a Great Revolution; instead, there will be indefinite Gradual Improvement."

And some added, "History is now at an end: not a glorious ending, like the one the Communists promised, but a basically positive ending."

If Communism was dead, however, or at least semi-dead, the theoretical framework provided by the Marxist-Leninists was not. It was dormant for a while, a short while, but now has risen again. It wears new clothing and uses a new vocabulary, but once again it offers an easy-to-understand theory of history and morality in four propositions.

Number 1. The world is divided into two great parties, white people and persons of color (POC). This latter group includes vast numbers of light-skinned people - Arabs, many Muslims, and almost anybody having a Spanish surname (except for Penelope Cruz and the King of Spain) - who count as honorary POCs.

Number 2. Whites, most of whom are capitalists or capitalist sympathizers or enablers, are bad in that they are oppressors and exploiters. POCs (including honorary POCs) are good in that they are victims of oppression and exploitation.

Number 3. Since POCs vastly outnumber whites, a disparity that is growing every day, it is inevitable that a Great Revolution made by POCs will eventually overthrow the whites.

Number 4. Since whiteness is the root of all evil, this Revolution, by destroying white-capitalist domination of the world, will lead to a worldwide regime of peace, prosperity, freedom, and equality.

This theory has been simmering among many Americans, especially young and "progressive" Americans, for many years now. It accounts for the curious fact that tens of millions of Americans, both white and black, believe, or at least seem to believe, that America is a profoundly or "systemically" racist society.

Ever since the glory days of MLK and LBJ in the middle 1960s, American political, social, and economic elites - leaders of business, the armed forces, government bureaucracies, universities, public schools, the judiciary, police forces, religion, Hollywood, great newspapers and TV networks, professional sports - have taken step after step, and enacted program after program, to advance black opportunity and equality.

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No matter. The belief that the United States is a profoundly racist country persists; if anything, it's grown stronger than ever. This is understandable, if tens of millions of Americans, especially young Americans, subscribe to the modernized version of the 4-point Marxist-Leninist theory described above.

I say this theory has been "simmering" in America for many years now. Every so often, something happens that causes it to boil over. One of these happenings was the killing in Minneapolis of George Floyd in late May 2020. His death was widely believed to be an event emblematic of America. It revealed the truth abo...