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'Public apologies or confessions are usually not apologies at all. They are political statements: they employ powers of rhetoric to rally one’s crowd, to gain public support. And in Hanania’s case it’s apparently having the desired effect. His goal is not to express regret or contrition, but to burnish his reputation and advance his career, which was at risk of being damaged by this affair. Through the employment of a few mawkish clichés, he’s able to wring victory out of defeat: he turns it into a story of personal redemption and growth. The fact that this sorry and meager attempt garners such applause does not recommend either the moral or literary condition of our society.'

'the “statistical” and “scientific” turn of his racism does not make better: it makes it far worse. This is what makes it go from mere prejudice, which can be unlearned through experience, to the basis of an entire ideology. This is truly pernicious. By taking on the air of scientific authority, racism goes from being hot blooded to cold blooded, a matter of premeditation. It thereby becomes an engineered device for the systematic denigration of the dignity and worth of other human beings. Through this trick, it sneaks from the back alley into the parlor and becomes the subject of polite and “educated” dinner conversation. It makes it an appealing ideology not just for the mob but for the bourgeoisie. And, most disturbingly, it is how it becomes becomes policy.'

https://johnganz.substack.com/p/creeping-ever-upward