Hannah Arendt Rant

So, lately I've been perusing Hannah Arendt again. Several months ago I was re-reading parts of Totalitarianism, but these days it's been Eichmann in Jerusalem and some of her essays on Jewish and African-American matters. I find it difficult to dismiss her as a 'self-hating Jew' or racist, although she certainly bought into the 'Heart of Darkness' narrative for Africa. And as noted by others, her approach to Zionism, European Jewish history, and the idea of the conscious pariah are provocative and, in some cases, prophetic (about the violence in the Middle East through a Jewish state instead of a binational federation). Even her problematic reading of European Jewish history and the role of Jewish leaders and Zionists during the 1930s and 1940s is interesting, even if she does come dangerously close to blaming the victims.

However, her "Reflections on Little Rock" seems to exemplify the limitations of Arendt's political theory and faith in the US. She claims to be sympathetic to African Americans but suggests that fighting bans on mixed marriages is more important and fundamental a right to battle for than desegregated schools. She even defends the right of social discrimination against Jews and African Americans by certain types of private businesses, like resorts or hotels because social discriminatory practices are, at least to her, inevitable, but as long as the state doesn't legally enforce those social discriminations, it's not a problem? However, she seems to think segregated schools just naturally came about, as if legal enforcement didn't make them so in the first place? Her argument is full of other contradictions about social, private, and political realms. Furthermore, if social discrimination was institutionalized through legal enforcement, why shouldn't political realm seek to end social discrimination?

Basically, if you read her piece, you'll get the feeling that socially discriminatory practices are inevitable, but the only role of the government is to make sure these social discriminatory practices don't become legally enforced, so fighting against bans on interracial marriage or discrimination in public services (private and public) is her priority for the state. She also seems to think children should be seen primarily as in the private realm of their parents (and thus the social realm of their parents), but if they're going to public school, aren't they by nature entering the realm of the political and social? There are many ideological assumptions in Arendt's essay, as well as a whitewashed reading of the US's contributions to imperialism and racism abroad. That said, I do not think it is necessarily fair to dismiss Arendt as a racist, particularly since her view of the law and intergroup discrimination is not rooted in a belief in the superiority of any group in the US.