The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has again changed its definition of racism amidst public backlash, after the organization’s CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, criticized then accepted the apology of television personality Whoopi Goldberg for making racially insensitive and inaccurate remarks on “The View.”
On Feb. 2, the organization Californians for Equal Rights Foundation (CFER) and 20 other civil rights groups sent a letter to the ADL raising alarm over its definition of racism.
In July 2020, the ADL redefined racism as the “marginalization and/or oppression of people of color based on a socially constructed racial hierarchy that privileges white people.”
In a press release, CFER called that definition of racism “absurd and narrow-minded” with roots in critical race theory.
“The far left is waging a culture war by redefining and engineering fundamental concepts that we use daily, including racism, along political and ideological lines,” said Frank Xu, president of CFER. “As a society, we must be on high alert and push back.”
The ADL’s redefinition of racism came into the media spotlight when Goldberg said on the television show “The View” on Jan. 31 that the Holocaust was “not about race.” Greenblatt quickly condemned her remarks on Twitter and appeared in a segment on the show the next day.
ABC has suspended Goldberg from the show for two weeks.
In the Feb. 2 letter, CFER and the co-signing partner groups claim ADL’s attempt to redefine what constitutes racism is a “deeply offensive, illiberal, and un-American ploy to ascribe guilt and innocence to individuals on the basis of their race.”
The groups represented in the letter suggested ADL adopt a definition similar to its former definition of racism: “the belief that a particular race is superior or inferior to another, that a person’s social and moral traits are predetermined by his or her inborn biological characteristics.”
By Brad Jones
