What we are witnessing in the Netherlands, and across Europe, is the exploitation of the productive indeterminacy of culture and race “for the monopolisation of virtue and a defence mechanism against the loss of self,” both in an economic, and political sense—what Sherene Razack names “a way of purifying and regenerating one’s own race.”
“I Didn’t Mean To!” Tracing the Roots of ‘Dutch Innocence’ | Processed Life
Being a white, reasonably well-off Dutchman, this makes for some uncomfortable reading, not in the least because much of it rings true—there appears to be a lot of unexamined racism behind Dutch propriety.