Rutger Bregman apologizes for racist essay about Rihanna. Then lashes out
The Dutch writer unleashes an unhinged personal attack on his critics, as he tries to explain his repeated use of the word "niggabitch" in a 2011 essay
A note to readers: this appears to be a fast-moving narrative, supported by a very robust social media conversation. If relevant updates come in, I will add them to the story.
A day after I published a story profiling Dutch writer Rutger Bregman—and a 2011 essay he penned, which deployed racist and sexist language and arguments—Bregman issued an apology.
Here it is:
“In 2011, when I was 23 and still a student, I wrote a deeply ignorant and offensive opinion piece for de Volkskrant about racism in the Netherlands. I’m now 37, and I remain ashamed of it….It was a terrible article, one of the first I ever wrote. There are no excuses. Just an apology, and a committment to doing better.”
Bregman issued this apology in the comment section of my Substack story about his racist essay at some point yesterday. I had to delete his comment—-actually a 1500-word commentary—because the vast majority of it wasn’t about his reckoning with his racist essay. Most of it was a personal attack on others, written through misinformation and mistruths.
Much of this was directed at me. The gist of his very long commentary was along the lines of ‘You’re unprofessional and unethical—-because you didn’t cite information that we refused to give you.’ (If you want the details, they are published at the very end of this article.)
What’s really happening, of course, is that Bregman is deflecting. Instead of meaningfully, thoughtfully engaging with the growing body of criticism surrounding the contradictions and conflicts of interest in his work, he’s trying to kill the messengers—-to turn a story about his own outrageous behavior into a mind-boggling victim narrative.
This doesn’t appear to be a new story.
In 2020, Payal Arora, Professor of Inclusive AI Cultures at Utrecht University, published a critique of something Bregman had written for The Guardian. Arora describes how Bregman deployed a “white savior narrative” to push an “alarming myopic worldview of race relations, decontextualized from the colonial past.”
Arora also recounts that Bregman went after her on social media. That led Arora to publish another essay, titled, “Twitter War with Rutger Bregman.”
In the piece, Arora describes Bregman as a man “obsessed” with trying to undermine her, challenging her research chops and her fidelity to facts.
I know the feeling.
After I deleted Bregman’s smear comment from my Substack platform, he posted it across social media, summoning his hundreds of thousands of followers to pile on me.
Arora’s essay adds another example that appears to confirm a pattern—Bregman’s 2011 racist essay on Rihanna, his white savior narrative in The Guardian in 2020, and, most recently, allegations that a non-profit group he founded has serious problems with institutional racism. That last criticism came from a former insider, Anita Naidu, who published her account in CounterPunch on Sunday.
Bregman also attacked Naidu on social media, again trying to make himself the victim. (More on that later.) That shows a second pattern of behavior. Instead of dealing with the substance of the critiques he faces, Bregman turns his critics into adversaries, leaning into his minor celebrity on social media to issue punishing attacks.
Arora’s essay makes a salient point that appears more relevant today than when she wrote it in 2020:
What really provoked me to write this article was that Bregman touts himself as the architect for a more humane, more kind and more compassionate future for society…This comes at a time where the world is experiencing global protests on institutionalized racism. So the stakes are high as leaders are looking to be guided on how to reform these systems. With Bregman at the helm, this worries me tremendously as he continues to demonstrate a complete inability to comprehend the colonial underpinnings of such systems of control, and this coming from a historian unable to process history written not by the victors.
Since Arora wrote that, Bregman has only expanded his political profile, taking up more and more space as a supposedly left-leaning progressive. He recently launched a new political project organized around a vaguely defined concept of “moral ambition,” the name of his new book. He also founded a multi-million-dollar non-profit, the School for Moral Ambition, the primary function of which appears to be elevating Bregman as a leading, progressive political thinker, writer and influencer. And it’s gotten some traction, generating coverage in major media outlets this year, including The Guardian and the New York Times.
As the Dutch influencer seeks to plant his flag around the globe, colonizing (or watering down) political debates about wealth and power and social progress, the question Arora raises is the right one. Does Bregman’s body of work demonstrate a guy born to lead, or someone who should be listening? Bregman insists that he has learned from his mistakes and is commited to doing better on racism, but has he done the work? Has he done anything to demonstrate that he has changed, that he actually gets it?
I do want readers to read the full text of Rutger’s recent apology, which he’s now posted on social media:
In 2011, when I was 23 and still a student, I wrote a deeply ignorant and offensive opinion piece for de Volkskrant about racism in the Netherlands. I’m now 37, and I remain ashamed of it. This is not a new revelation. The piece was publicly criticized at the time in Dutch media, and in the months and years that followed, I apologized multiple times of social media and in other articles (see here for example: https://decorrespondent.nl/5903/luisteren-een-ongemakkelijk-gesprek-over-racisme-of-waarom-kleurenblindheid-geen-optie-is/25e41f11-5bb7-0586-0f8f-96b8ed701f1b and here: https://decorrespondent.nl/227/vrijheid-van-meningsverandering/589dfdb9-bdd5-03c8-2a43-9741fff56ea7 and here: https://decorrespondent.nl/3774/wie-de-wereld-wil-veranderen-moet-onredelijk-onrealistisch-en-onuitstaanbaar-zijn/7abd9d78-982e-03ab-3fca-7ec98c7a59db). I am happy to do so again here—publicly and unequivocally. It was a terrible article, one of the first I ever wrote. There are no excuses. Just an apology, and a commitment to doing better.
If you look at Bregman’s apology, he doesn’t explain if or how he learned from the experience—or what steps, if any, he took to try to understand racism. There is no indication that Bregman really understands the subversive effects of racism and colonial attitudes, which are like the air we breath, the water we swim in. They hide in open—and they torment us like invisible thorns until we expose and treat them.
Bregman also doesn’t thoughtfully address the substance of Naidu’s recent insider account, which connects his 2011 essay to the institutional racism she encountered as an advisor to Bregman’s School for Moral Ambition. In his recent comment, Bregman’s response was: “We strongly disagree with her recent characterization of my work and the School, which we believe misrepresents both our mission and our team.”
Bregman then went into victim mode, attacking Naidu for reaching out to “partners behind our backs, sharing hostile claims and misinformation. We think this is unethical behaviour, reminiscent of the worst excesses of ‘cancel culture’.”
Here’s Naidu’s response from LinkedIn—-read it in its entirety:
As far as I can tell, the story is not complicated. Naidu tried to work with Bregman’s non-profit as an advisor, in private, pushing the group to understand, and to work through, their racial biases. When the group repeatedly resisted, Naidu walked away. It is troubling and puzzling to read Bregman’s argument—that it is “unethical” for Naidu to have or voice critical information or opinions about his work, or to share them freely.
I followed up by email with Naidu, to ask what she thought about Bregman’s new apology, in which he says he feels “ashamed” of his 2011 essay. Here’s Naidu, in her words:
Public shame is not public accountability. Expressing regret does not undo the harm of a piece that mocked Black grief, belittled anti-racist outrage, and fortified a narrative of European innocence in the face of colonial legacy.
Bregman’s words may sound contrite, but they have unfolded within a system that consistently rewards contrition more than correction. He rose, uninterrupted, through platforms and praise—never required to confront the full cost of what he wrote, or what it revealed. The system made no demands of him, only of those harmed.
A real reckoning requires more than stating that you were wrong. It demands repair. It demands grappling with the worldview that allowed such writing to feel reasonable in the first place. It means listening to those you dismissed. It means confronting not just the piece, but the power it helped protect.
When public harm is followed by uninterrupted ascent, we are not witnessing justice. We are witnessing insulation.
Shame is a beginning. But without action—without redistribution, without the centering of the people harmed—it risks becoming just another form of reputation management. And in a world that forgives so easily when power wears a clean shirt, we must ask: who pays when someone else’s learning curve is slow?
A funny, or sad, coda to this story, is that Bregman realized at one point that in order to “comment” on my Substack article—that is, in order to smear me, on my own platform— he had to be a paid subscriber. So Rutger Bregman actually donated $5 to my Substack.
If I can’t figure out how to easily stop the payment, I’d like to donate this $5 (minus Substack service fees and taxes I have to pay) to an organization that is challenging abuses of power. I have my own ideas, but I’m sure my readers do, too. Put them in the comments, or email me at timschwab2020@gmail.com
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If you want the tedious details about Bregman’s bogus attack on me, which range from misleading to outright false, here’s the story:
In his attack, he, oddly, tries to smear me by asserting that the New York Times challenged the integrity of my book, “The Bill Gates Problem.” He doesn’t mention that my book generated a “New York Times Editor’s Choice” recommendation——a distinction that, if I’m not mistaken, none of Bregman’s books have received. If the Times seriously doubted my reporting, I don’t think that recommendation would have been forthcoming. I also don’t think I would be giving invited book talks at Yale and Harvard, if my book was not credible. Nor would I get a glowing review in the academic journal, Nature. (If you want to read about other accolades and awards my investigative reporting has generated, look here.) Because my reporting has gotten a huge following in Bregman’s homeland, The Netherlands, here’s a link to the Dutch translation of my book.
Needs to be emphasized: when Bregman publicly attacks my book—-a critical reappraisal of the Gates Foundation—he could be fairly seen as currying favor with the Gates Foundation, which funds his non-profit. I’m not saying this is his primary motivation, but it’s more than fair to see it as a side benefit.
Bregman alleges that I “ignored” SMA’s “existing disclosures about funders like the Gates Foundation—even after being shown where to find them….in fact, you were pointed to publicly available information, thanked for your input, and kept in the loop throughout.” This is false.
Here’s the real story. In April, I asked Bregman’s non-profit, the School for Moral Ambition (SMA), for a list of its funders. The funders were not clearly posted on the group’s website, and I wanted to understand if or how SMA’s political work might align with the interests of its donors, rather than serving the public interest, as non-profits are supposed to.
SMA sent me a list of funders. I later realized the list they sent was actually not a complete list of funders. Missing from the list were the Gates Foundation and other billionaire philanthropies. That’s a big deal because these donors present a stunning financial conflict of interest for Bregman, who had been playing public expert on billionaires and Bill Gates’s philanthropic work—-without disclosing these financial ties. This became the basis for my first story on Bregman.
SMA’s omissions in its press response was a clear, early indication of transparency and accountability issues at the group.
In the days ahead, my story got a big response, and I became aware that Bregman has a great many detractors. New sources contacted me. New information came my way. I followed up with SMA, asking again that they provide me with a full list of funders. I sent five emails to Bregman’s non-profit group asking for basic information about its funders and board members. The first two emails got non responses. The next three got no responses.
One of the non-responses was to tell me that SMA was too “focused on the launch of The School for Moral Ambition in the US” to respond to me. Another non-response was that SMA was working on posting a list of its funders on its website—and “you'll be the first to know once it's live.” No link ever arrived. And in order to be absolutely sure I hadn’t missed something, I followed up with Bregman last night, shortly after he posted his attack, asking him to substantiate his claim, to show me when and where he had previously directed me to a full list of his funders. No response.
So, contrary to what Bregman states, I was never “shown where to find” a complete list of its funders——until Bregman posted it in his hit piece on me yesterday.
That’s where Bregman really twists things. In his attack he points out that some (not all) the information I requested is now suddenly available online, and he links to it. That’s great that my investigative reporting has compelled Bregman’s group to be more transparent. I think this signals the power and effectiveness of my reporting. Yet Bregman says it shows how unethical I am, arguing that I failed to cite information—that his organization refused to give me when asked directly.
Bregman also seems to say that because his non-profit is new and young, it deserves the benefit of the doubt——and shouldn’t be scrutinized too closely by journalists. My view is that if Bregman’s group put as much time and money into transparency and accountability, and responding to press inquiries, as it does into promoting Bregman and his book, they would have fewer problems. It’s not a question of capacity. It’s a question of priorities.
Bregman says I’m unfair and unethical because I didn’t describe his group’s pioneering work on taxing the rich, which he sees as a counterpoint to my critique about his financial ties to billionaires. Specifically, he dings me for not citing a web page about his group’s work on taxation——a web page that didn't exist at the time I published my story. He points to a May 6 post SMA published about its work on taxation. My story about SMA (that looked at billionaires and taxes) was published May 2.
Moreover, in my May 2 piece, I had directly and specifically addressed SMA’s *supposed* *eventual* work on taxes and billionaires. At the time I published my piece, SMA’s website had very little information about this work. What I found described it as being focused on tax evasion, not tax avoidance, an important distinction that I reported. Without getting too far off the track, 1) there are a lot of ways to approach tax policy that look/feel tough on billionaires, but that don’t actually go after them and 2) SMA’s plans to maybe, eventually campaign to tax the wealthy is different from actually, aggressively doing the work, and confronting extreme wealth.
Finally, Bregman takes exception to me putting a short deadline on asking him for a comment about the racism allegations, essentially saying my press inquiry was too long and I didn’t give him enough time to respond. Among other questions: why didn’t Bregman put that in an email to me when I asked for his response?
Here’s what actually happened. News of Bregman’s racist essay began circulating on Sunday of this week—with Anita Naidu’s post on CounterPunch, followed by some social media discussion. It is very, very difficult to believe that Bregman and his professional PR operation were not following these developments, given how explosive they were, and given that they focused on the founder of SMA.
The next day, Monday morning around 830, I asked Bregman by email for a response to the CounterPunch piece. I CCed numerous of his colleagues at his non-profit. The subject line stated this was an “URGENT” press inquiry, related to racism allegations, with a listed deadline of 11am.
This kind of short deadline is not abnormal in journalism. When a public figure, which Bregman absolutely is, faces explosive allegations—that have already been published—journalists don’t give the targets of these stories days to respond. And, again, the story and the allegations had already been circulating for a day.
Also worth noting, I actually didn’t publish my story until 4pm. At any point during the day, Bregman could have offered a response. Or, if he truly thought the deadline was unfair, he could have told me and asked for an extension. He did neither.
The email was sent to five different people at SMA, including Bregman. And I had an existing relationship with his PR team. And this was an explosive story. Bregman and his team pretty clearly made a decision to not respond, just as they had made the decision to not respond to two previous previous press inquiries I had sent.
My guess is Bregman thought the racism story would not circulate widely. As the story grew, and Bregman realized he needed to respond, he invented a sour-grapes victim narrative, alleging that I’m an unethical journalist—and he’s the victim.
This covers most of Bregman’s commentary. But I’d also recommend that people consider what independent sources are saying about Bregman’s own ethics. Read Anita Naidu’s work. Read the work of Professor Payal Arora. Read my work. Read the growing body of critical commentary on social media.
And read Rihanna’s response to the horrendous racism she experienced in 2011 from a Dutch fashion magazine, which Rutger Bregman defended at the time: “Well with all respect, on behalf of my race, here are my two words for you…F— YOU!!!”