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The Invention of Whiteness (Revisited)
In the fall of 2017, I spoke with the James Carroll, renowned author of dozens of books including Constantine’s Sword, the definitive history of anti-Semitism in the Catholic Church; House of War, which won the first PEN-John Kenneth Galbraith Award; and Jerusalem, Jerusalem: How the Ancient City Ignited Our Modern World.
We spoke about racism, anti-Semitism, and their interconnections in the age of Trump, which was relatively young at the time. That two-part interview, “The Invention of Whiteness” (October 27, 2017) and “The Disadvantages of Decency” (November 1, 2017), is well worth revisiting in the here and now. A condensed version follows.
NO ONE EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION
JIM CARROLL: It’s important to have some fuller sense of the history of anti-Semitism and its relationship to white racism, colonialism, and European imperialism, because all of those things are quite related.
There’s no surprise to me in the shocking revelation that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia six weeks ago when white supremacists just instinctively began to chant anti-Semitic assaults against Jewish people, because white supremacy and anti-Semitism are in a way what you might call twins. They come from the same place, and that’s the late medieval perversion that took place in Europe — in Spain, but not only…
