WHY CHRIS BENNETT IS A RACIST: How Cannabis Culture’s so-called “exposé” reproduces colonial stereotypes, erases Iranian intellectual agency, and deploys racialised pathologisation as a rhetorical weapon

 

 

Chris Bennett’s recent articles about me in Cannabis Culture presents itself as journalism. What it actually reproduces is a long, tired lineage of white settler orientalist discourse, filtered through amateur pseudo-scholarship and supported by a racialised caricature of the Iranian subject. It is not merely a bad article—it is structurally racist.

This is not about disagreement over theology, history, or the authenticity of a document. This is about the way Bennett racialises, infantilises, pathologises, and culturally essentialises an Iranian scholar in order to delegitimise him. It is about how a self-appointed Canadian “expert” wields the authority of whiteness to authorise who is or is not a legitimate voice on Iranian religious history.

This is the anatomy of racism — not in slurs, but in epistemic violence.

 

The Racialised Framing of the “Mad Oriental”

From the very opening, Bennett positions the Iranian subject within a familiar colonial trope: the volatile, deranged, exoticised Eastern man whose intellect is suspect and whose motives are pathological.

His entire framing relies on:

• psychological othering: casting Iranian religiosity as inherently unstable
• racialised pathologisation: using rumours, gossip, and hearsay to construct “madness”
• mental-health insinuation: the classic colonial move of reducing non-Western spirituality to delusion
• essentialising anecdotes: Iranian families, “huge egos,” “threats,” “anger,” all presented through a racial lens

This trope has a name in critical race studies: The ‘Irrational Oriental’ Construct—a stock figure used since the 19th century to diminish the intellectual and spiritual credibility of non-Western thinkers. Bennett uses it shamelessly as the foundation of his piece.

 

Whiteness as Epistemic Gatekeeper

A Canadian white man with no relevant academic expertise appoints himself judge of:

• who counts as a legitimate Iranian scholar
• what constitutes authentic Iranian religiosity
• how 19th-century Persian movements should be interpreted
• who has the right to speak authoritatively on the Bayān, the Bábí corpus, or Shīʿi metaphysics

This is not neutrality—it is the assertion of colonial epistemic authority, in which Western whiteness sees itself as entitled to adjudicate non-Western traditions. Bennett treats Iranian history as a toy sandbox for Western hobbyists while treating Iranian scholars as exotic obstacles to his own self-importance.

Orientalist Reductionism: Turning a Scholar into a Spectacle

Instead of engaging with ideas, arguments, or texts, Bennett reduces the entire subject to:

• personal rumours
• internet gossip
• second-hand anecdotes
• racist character tropes
• innuendo
• and unverifiable claims

This transforms a real person with an intellectual history into an orientalist spectacle—an object of amusement for a white audience. This is exactly how 19th-century Orientalist travelogues functioned: turning living Eastern thinkers into case studies in exotic dysfunction.

The Racialised Infantilisation of Iranian Intellectual Agency

At every turn Bennett implies that:

• Iranians cannot be mature custodians of their own religious heritage
• Iranians cannot responsibly interpret their own manuscripts
• Iranians cannot be trusted narrators of their own history
• Iranians are inherently prone to delusion, fanaticism, and fraud

This is the foundational grammar of racism: cultural infantilisation.

Bennett substitutes serious engagement with:

• belittling tone
• paternalistic scolding
• playground “gotchas”
• psychological caricatures
• pathologising language

The message is unmistakable: “The brown man cannot possibly know what he is talking about — let the white Canadian explain Iran to him.”

White Pseudoscience Masquerading as Authority

The article attempts the aesthetics of scholarship while relying entirely on:

• no peer-reviewed sources
• no primary manuscripts
• no archival work
• no linguistic expertise
• no historical methodology
• no familiarity with Persian or Arabic sources
• no engagement with any contemporary Iranian scholarship

The structure is pure colonial amateurism: the white commentator narrates the Orient not through evidence but through self-appointed confidence. This is the National Geographic mindset dressed up as investigative journalism.

The Racialised Double Standard

If Bennett had written a hit-piece using the same tactics against:

• a Jewish scholar
• a Black academic
• an Indigenous spiritual leader

the structural racism would be universally obvious. But against an Iranian? Against a Middle Eastern subject? Against someone tied to Islam, Bābism, or post-Shiʿi esotericism? Suddenly all methods become permissible. This selective permissibility is itself racism.

The Colonial “White Saviour” Fantasy

Throughout the article, Bennett performs the role of the benevolent Western rescuer:

• warning Western audiences about the “strange Eastern mystic”
• safeguarding “reasonable” people from the “exotic menace”
• educating readers about a culture he has never actually studied

This is Kipling in cannabis clothing—the old colonial saviour complex wearing a hemp bracelet. The underlying message is colonial to the marrow: “I, a white Canadian, will tell you what is true about Iranians.”

 Conclusion: This Is Racism, Not Journalism

Bennett’s article is not neutral. It is not investigative.
It is not scholarly. It is a racialised character assassination relying on:

• Orientalist stereotypes
• ethnic pathologisation
• colonial condescension
• epistemic arrogance
• and a deeply racist narrative structure

His entire method is the reproduction of the same old pattern: the white voice speaks with authority, the Iranian voice is reduced to pathology. This is why the articles are racist. Not because of slurs—but because it enacts the entire architecture of racism as defined by contemporary critical race theory, postcolonial scholarship, and the discourse analysis of Orientalism. Bennett didn’t write an exposé. He wrote a colonial fantasy dressed up as journalism. And that—put simply and accurately—is racism.