Race pessimism in reverse?

Tobias Hübinette is a Swedish (or perhaps Swedish-Korean) writer on a wide variety of topics related to race and "Whiteness". He is extremely controversial, due to his involvement with AFA (Antifa) in his sadly misspent youth, and for other reasons. Situated somewhere to the left of Robespierre politically, Hübinette´s anti-racist identity politics sometimes sound so "essentialist" that he almost comes across as a kind of "reverse racist". Being an adoptee from South Korea, Hübinette has conducted a one-man campaign against international adoptions on "anti-racist" grounds, and finally gotten some traction, due to recent revelations about large scale corruption in the adoption industry in the Netherlands and elsewhere. I recently read his book "Adopterad: En bok om Sveriges sista rasdebatt", published earlier this year. 

The work isn´t about corruption in the international and/or Swedish adoption businesses (although there seems to be plenty), but rather deals with the debate about adoption conducted in Sweden during the 1960´s, a debate that preceded the sharp increase in international adoptions in this country during the 1970´s. The book is to a large extent "empirical", simply describing the debate and quoting extensively from various contributions, although the author´s perspective shines through at various points in the narrative. Hübinette calls the debate "Sweden´s last racial debate" and calls the two sides "the race pessimists" and "the race optimists". The race pessimists opposed adoptions of children from Third World nations, ostensibly because the kids would be bullied in school, being obviously different from the Swedish (and White) majority population. (It´s actually quite shocking to read how systematic bullying among children and teenagers was simply taken for granted during this period by many adults, a bit like bad weather in fall time.) The race optimists supported Third World adoptions. As already noted, Hübinette - despite being a leftist anti-racist - actually *opposes* adoption of colored children by White families in the Western world. At the same time, he attacks the race optimists for not being anti-racist enough! This is connected to Hübinette´s analysis that around 1968, the period of "White purity" was replaced by "White solidarity", really a kind of White man´s (and woman´s) burden, which the author doesn´t see as really anti-racist, but rather as a kind of peculiar colorblind nationalism, according to which Sweden was the best nation in the world precisely because it was the most non-racialist, tolerant, and equal society which simply didn´t see any "race" (and which supposedly never had any colonies, thereby white-washing it´s colorful past - pun intended). 

Maybe I´m awfully naïve, but I was frankly shocked by the statements made by the race optimists. They quite explicitly promoted Swedish couples adopting Third World children as a grand social experiment, the purpose of which was to make Swedes used to the idea of having colored people around, and thereby making it easier for them to accept mass immigration and/or racial mixing on a large scale. The adoptees were to be the antidote to Swedish racism (Hübinette´s "White purity"), and a kind of vanguard of future progress and societal transformation. Indeed, progress was seen as racial mixing on a large scale, perhaps a kind of global "melting pot". Even more disturbing, the left-liberals said that Swedes shouldn´t have children of their own, while adopting poor kids from the Third World, thereby easing their overpopulation problem! Or, in another version, couples who already had biological children should nevertheless adopt Third World children in addition. I honestly didn´t know that the suicidal impulse existed among the liberal Swedish elites already during the 1960´s, I assumed it was a syndrome more typical of the late 2010´s, but there you go. 

That being said, Hübinette isn´t too impressed by the liberal do-gooders. Sure, you can never be "woke" enough in some circles, but I think the author does have a certian point here (at least judging from his selection of hopefully representative quotes). For instance, one common argument for adopting small kids was precisely that they would become assimilated Swedes, whereas this was more difficult to accomplish in the case of adult immigrants. Indeed, some proponents of adoption *opposed* normal immigration, viewing adoption of children as an alternative (and an easier path to assimilation). Indeed, the assimilationist argument only works if you tacitly (or sometimes explicitly) assume that Swedes will remain a solid majority for the foreseeable future. Hübinette also points out that while the early pro-adoptionists weren´t color blind - they deliberately *wanted* adoptees of many different hues - the discourse developed in such a direction overtime. But if you "don´t see color", isn´t that because the adoptees have really been completely culturally assimilated, the culture being one of "Whiteness"? Hübinette has also discovered that many adoptive parents quite explicitly preferred pale-skinned children. The Middle East was better than Korea, Korea better than sub-Saharan Africa (which was lowest on the list). Even when adopting Koreans, lighter skin was preferred. There was also a class aspect to the adoptions, most adoptees being placed in privileged families, which was sometimes also used as an argument in favor of international adoption by the race optimists. 

Another example of the color blind attitudes was that White middle class families who adopted non-White children were often in denial about racist bullying in school. That racial slurs were used against their adoptees was explained away as "no stranger than being bullied for talking the wrong dialect, being shorter or having red hair" (!). Some families even "trained" their adopted kids to accept racist epithets, by using them in an affectionate manner at home ("my little Negro", and so on). (Yes, the book actually says this.) Hübinette admits, however, that it´s sometimes difficult to know what exactly constitutes a racist slur in a Swedish 1960´s context, since a term such as "neger" (Negro) was the standard neutral term for "Black person", while also having a potentially pejorative connotation. Sometimes, it was used for dark-skinned people in general, as when a Korean child of slightly darker complexion than the Korean average was referred to as "neger".

The picture of international adoptions emerging from "Adopterad" is almost uniformly a negative one. The adoptees were unwittingly part of a grand experiment in social engineering, organized by privileged White liberals for reasons perhaps best known to themselves. Adopting colored children almost became a fashion of sorts. Judging by Hübinette´s blog, the Swedish adoption industry probably made life easier for traffickers from South Korea, Sri Lanka or Chile. Nor does Hübinette believe that the adoptees in general fared very well in Swedish society, although he may perhaps be a bit subjective here - he is an adoptee himself, and *does* seem to have a life long obsession with the topic. (The author´s constant attacks on adoptions and adoptive parents is one of the things that has made him intensely disliked in some circles. That, and his apparent opposition to mixed marriage!) My main problem with this man is that there doesn´t seem to be anything Whites can do to redeem themselves in his eyes. After all, the race optimists won the battle: 50 years later, Sweden has "super-diversity" (Hübinette´s term), and all the good liberals promote mass immigration, which is still ongoing, plus an entire apparatus of multi-culturalist "experts" (of which Hübinette is one himself), not to mention all the dark faces in high places, so what on earth seems to be the problem? Note also that the adoptees are now seen as "Swedish" and even accepted by the Sweden Democrats! But to the author, this succesful assimilation is really a White conspiracy to recruit praetorians to police the borders of Whiteness...

That´s "reverse race pessimism" for you.

The nicest explanation is that the author (perhaps rightly) fears that super-diversity is just a temporary phase, and will be replaced in the near future either by neo-apartheid or a return to "White purity". I get the impression that he even fears that the Social Democrats, just as much as the Conservatives, may opt for a de facto neo-apartheid position, in which a mass of mostly Third World immigrants are lorded over by a privileged White upper and upper middle class segment. (The Sweden Democrats presumably long for a return to White-only pure and simple.) Having no faith in a classical class struggle or workers´ unity scenario, the only "solution" then becomes even more Third World immigration and a demographic shift which finally destroys Whiteness. But if this is the author´s actual perspective, he is in for a rough ride, since it´s not clear how the *immigrant workers* will unite across *their* racial, ethnic, religious and clan divides to defeat the White neo-apartheid bourgeoisie, or how they could cooperate after replacing the native population by some kind of population bomb. 

At bottom, Tobias Hübinette simply wants nihilistic destruction.