ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 20, 2013
Race and Religion in American Buddhism: White Supremacy and Immigrant Adaptation. By Joseph Cheah. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2011, 192 pages, ISBN 978-0199756285 (Hardcover), $65.00.
Reviewed by Brooke Schedneck
In this excellent review Brooke Schedneck makes the strong statement that “Cheah clearly illustrates the pernicious undercurrent of white supremacy that marks the experiences of Buddhists in America,” and suggests “racial rearticulation” as a principal cause. This seems to be supported by recent evidence put forward by Brian Victoria in 2012 with translations of articles written by D.T. Suzuki during his visit to Germany in 1936, which clearly show his support for the Nazi government, the expulsion of the Jews from Germany, and his racist attitudes towards Jews, whom he describes as “a parasitic people” who were experiencing karmic retribution (J. gōhō; link below). Victoria has also uncovered other links between Nazis guilty of war crimes, Suzuki and the post-war expansion of Zen in the USA which caused him to ask the rhetorical question “A war criminal, a Nazi (?) launched Zen into the postwar American mainstream?!” (link to Victoria’s lecture notes attached). These discoveries, if followed up, might help shed further light on Cheah’s “white supremacy” and “racial rearticulation” theses.
http://www.buddhismuskunde.uni-hamburg.de/fileadmin/pdf/Vortragsreihen/Suzuki_s_View_of_the_Nazis.docx and http://www.buddhismuskunde.uni-hamburg.de/SoSe-2012.133.0.html