Rod Dreher

How To Fix The Irish Church?

Conservatism And Black Folks

By Rod Dreher • November 26, 2012, 10:55 AM

TAC’s Michael Brendan Dougherty, from an interview with The University Bookman:

Your point about African-Americans is an interesting one. During the recent election, Republicans were often accused of making subtle (or not so subtle) racial innuendo, yet since at least Reagan conservatives have in fact opposed a lot of ways liberalism seeks to divide and organize along racial lines. Are the accusations fair, and how can Republicans revivify their color-blind conservative message?

This is a complicated question. At the abstract level, I think intellectual conservatives should understand that in a mass democracy, the conservative appeal may always have a tinge of fear and hatred for those “below” or “outside.” At the same time, liberals have to accept that their policies, however justly conceived, may be sold with resentment and envy. That’s a problem of mass democracy, not conservatism or liberalism. It is a problem that has to be carefully managed.

Granting the above, I don’t think liberals are wrong to point out the jagged racial edge to some conservative politicking. Look at some of the commentary by conservatives about black voters during the era of Obama: “Oh, they just want handouts.” This is a disgusting sentiment and one that makes anything that might appeal to black voters about conservatism toxic by association.

Most conservatives like to think that they have principles that are color-blind: the eternal verities and such. I think this is a kind of self-flattery that excuses historical ignorance on our part. Enslavement stripped Africans of their ethnicities, their languages, and their religion. That means more than any one other group in this country African-Americans are a people created by the history of our nation and its politics: commerce, slavery, the Civil War, emancipation, the civil rights movement. It is a naïveté bordering on psychosis to suggest that black politics should conform to some imagined color-blind set of principles. Just junk that and start reaching out into the black community. I sense a real hunger on their part for political competition for their vote and support.

There is an absolutely electrifying intellectual tradition of black self-sufficiency and independence that is a good fit within a big-tent conservatism. And it is larger than Booker T. Washington. Zora Neal Hurston endorsed Robert Taft in the 1950s. Malcolm X was in many ways both more radical than King and more conservative too. This tradition is not at all color-blind, but it is localist, communitarian, religious (Muslim and Christian), and entrepreneurial. I also think conservatives should start political discussions on our drug war, on prison reform, and on policing that can and should help us re-connect with African Americans.

Posted in Conservatism, Race, Republicans. Tagged African-Americans, black, conservatism, GOP, Michael Brendan Dougherty, race, Republicans.

142 Responses to Conservatism And Black Folks

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Rod Dreher says:

November 27, 2012 at 9:35 am

What you appear to be saying is, “We will agree to dismantle affirmative action if you just come out with a highly effective proposal to address poverty, fix the educational system, address the crime rate, etc.”

Well… I can’t. And nobody else can, either. If there are some policies that you think would work in the stead of affirmative action, what are they? You and Rebecca are asserting that these policies exist. Or could exist. All we need to do is support “real reform.”

I’m with Sam here. If affirmative action were the answer to the real problems of many in black America, I could see myself yielding to it — though it’s an injustice — for the sake of the greater good. But I think there are other reasons for the continuing poverty and inequality among African-Americans, and quotas under any name (e.g., “diversity”) are a sham solution. I’m being asked to support a policy or way of doing business that actively discriminates against people of my skin color for … what measurable gain? When does it end? How will we know that it’s no longer necessary?

If all you require of me is to recognize that racial discrimination of the sort Rebecca’s talking about still exists and is an awful thing, ok, I recognize that. I think it’s wrong, and we should fight it when we see it. I don’t believe that you can fight racial discrimination by practicing racial discrimination. One thing that makes this discussion so impossible is that any skepticism of proposed policy or program to deal with the problem that most people agree exists, or principled disagreement with same, is treated as evidence of bad faith, immorality, “you don’t care,” etc. It becomes not a political question, but one of moral shaming.
Glaivester says:

November 27, 2012 at 9:46 am

The problem here is the claim that the GOP “hates blacks” or is “full of people” who hate blacks.

The fact of the matter is, unless the GOP explicitly excuses all of the current dysfunction within the black community, and blames every problem on white racism, this is going to be used as evidence that they hate blacks.

Like Naturalmom, I too am married to a Haitian (in this instance a woman) who is personally conservative- Church going, appalled at the laxity of American culture and childraising, etc. She and the rest of her family work like mules and are horrified at the thought that anyone would accept money for nothing. Her dad literally drove a cab until he ended up in a wheelchair. And yet, in her bones, she believes that conservatives either HATE black people or have made their peace with people who hate black people.

I do not think that this is the fault of Republicans. This is because ultimately, she is only willing to accept criticism of culture if it comes from blacks.

I mean, we see this every day. Look at the way that the Willie Horton ad is now remembered. A white person talking about being “tough on crime” is supposedly racist and a worse sin than a black person committing a crime.

Look at the willingness of the civil rights establishment to defend black kids who beat up a white kid in the Jena incident. And I am not talking about someone pleading the issue in court; there were protests at the thought that beating a kid so bad he had to go to the hospital might justify trying the teenagers as adults.

The fact of the matter is, racism is not the biggest problem facing the black community today. But the Democratic Party still pushes the “blame whitey” card, and the GOP is told that if it wants the black vote, it has to become as anti-white as the Democrats.
Floridan says:

November 27, 2012 at 10:04 am

M_Young: ” . . . there are obviously still a lot of whites that hate their co-ethnics in the South and proper Midwest so much they irrationally vote against their own interests, but that is changing.”

I’ve been white all my life and I’m not sure what specific interests I share with all my so-called “co-ethnics.”
M_Young says:

November 27, 2012 at 10:37 am

“He posts as if there’s something sinister or immoral about it. But it’s just how the game is played.”

No, actually I believe that as a matter of social science, that is the way the game is played. The problem is that whites are not playing it. While some of that is indeed due to whites still being a majority population, quite a bit of it is due to campaigns of vilification (and worse) of those whites who do assert our rights as a group.
M_Young says:

November 27, 2012 at 10:48 am

“I’ve been white all my life and I’m not sure what specific interests I share with all my so-called “co-ethnics.”

For most human beings, not being made into a minority, and then a small minority, and then a vanishing minority, in the country your ancestors built would be an interest. Seems like a pretty darn universal trait, from Tibet to Singapore to India (no immigration into India except for brown people), to the AmerInds. Today, after all, we admire Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull — those who fought their dispossession — not those anonymous individuals who wanted to make a deal with the dispossessors.

But theres are plenty of more mundane things. Like not having your schools wrecked by a huge influx of non-English speaking kids, not seeing subdivisions being built to house an exploding population, being able to have your smart kids get into the University that you and your parents and grandparent paid to build without spending every Saturday in a SAT cram course. Not seeing the wages of your working-class relatives crushed and their once fairly steady, unionized trade become intermittent. Things like that.
philosopher says:

November 27, 2012 at 11:43 am

SamM & Rod – The conversation seems to have taken an odd turn here, in that y’all seem to be lumping the problems of poverty & the black underclass etc. together with the issues of ongoing racial discrimination in education and hiring. But AA is not a program for poverty eradication, “fixing the schools”, etc. in the underclass. It’s a program for mitigating racial injustice for the black working class & middle class. (It does seem to me it would help at least somewhat with problems for the underclass, at least for those poor souls stuck there who are trying to climb out of it. But that’s not really the focal point of such programs.)

Also, the question at hand wasn’t, “when can conservatives legitimately register my objections to AA?” I would take it that the answer to that is, “whenever they want”. But the question at hand was — at least, I thought it was! — something more like, “what can conservatives do to start to appeal more to African American voters, and for that matter, to the portion of the white electorate that puts a premium on issues of racial injustice?” And I continue to think that a big part of the answer to _that_ question is going to have to involve acknowledging those injustices in a way that actually sounds to those voters like a real acknowledgement — so, e.g., avoiding talking about AA as if its only rationales could be payback for _past_ injustices and/or Democratic vote-buying. (And, even better: calling out those on ‘your side’ who talk in those terms.)

And I continue to think that a big part of that answer is going to have to involve coming up with some sort of pitch to these voters about how such-and-such programs you want to enact, that you’re willing to work hard to enact, will really have some positive impact on these issues. Conservatives have not been particularly successful at selling their ideas even to less well-off white voters (outside the South), let alone to African American voters. I grant that those ideas may be believed sincerely by many of the people putting them forward. But almost no one outside of those people are persuaded by any of this! And, to return to my first point in this comment, none of it really seems to have much to do with the problems of racial inequality. Rebecca’s husband, e.g., doesn’t need his boat lifted by the tide — he needs the glass ceiling taken away from over his head.

Here’s another way of putting it. On conservative blogs, including this one, the overwhelming majority of the time that AA comes up, the discourse from the right is pretty much _entirely_ about objecting to the injustices perpetrated by AA on white people. If you can’t see how to change that discourse in a way that at least _includes_, and in a substantive way, a recognition of the very awful injustices faced by black people that AA is at least trying to address, and some concrete positive ideas about how to address those injustices that you can at least begin to sell to African Americans… then how on earth can you expect more than a tiny number of African Americans to trust you on these issues, and to ever consider voting for you?

(Again, please note that the second half of that sentence was NOT “…then how can you legitimately raise concerns about AA?”)

There was a thread not too long ago about hatred vs. unconscious bias. Take that as a jumping off point, for example. What positive measures can conservatives come up with to offer, that would recognize the burden that those biases place on African Americans, and that would seek either or both to reduce those biases in the population, and/or to help reduce those burdens? It doesn’t have to be AA. It really doesn’t! But, good Lord, if you want to attract any group of voters, you’ve got to offer them something that addresses their real, experienced needs.
Dennis Sanders says:

November 27, 2012 at 12:46 pm

I’ve been thinking about why this debate is so tiring to me and I think the reason is that it tends to be a tit-for-tat arguement that never seems to go anywhere. Blacks (and white liberals) share their grievances and then white conservatives fire back with their own grievances and it goes round and round.

The debate has me thinking about a blog post by Ross Douthat from the summer. The link is below, but I want to share one of the main points of the post:

Claims of Republican race-baiting have a way of descending into self-parody (especially at this point in the campaign season), but there is obviously a thread of what I’ve previously described as white identity politics woven into contemporary conservatism — not a politics of white supremacy or traditional racial animus, but a politics of racial/ethnic/native-born grievance, which regards contemporary liberalism as fundamentally hostile to the interests of middle class and working class whites. (David Frum’s attempt to channel the mood of G.O.P. convention delegates captures what I’m talking about pretty well.)

This sense of white grievance can be noxious, divisive, and deeply problematic for Republican politicians trying to broaden their party’s appeal. It can help harden divisions and increase tensions between otherwise like-minded Americans. But it isn’t likely to diminish so long as the Democratic Party continues to be a vessel for the much more explicit identity politics that Klein’s column deplores, and to support policies that often resemble a kind of racial/ethnic spoils system for non-whites: Permanent racial preferences in education and government, a “disparate impact” regime that can blur into a de facto quota system, immigration gambits that don’t even pretend to be anything other than plays for the Hispanic vote, and so on.

This kind of ethnic/racial patronage is hardly a new thing in our politics, and it doesn’t make today’s liberals the “real” racists, or prove that President Obama is actually some kind of post-colonial score-settler, as the Michael Moores of right-wing identity politics are wont to claim. But it does means that when it comes to exploiting America’s ethnic divisions to mobilize key constituencies, today’s Democratic Party sins as much as it is sinned against.

http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/04/the-democrats-identity-politics-problem/#more-17750

The fact of the matter is, Rod is correct that white conservatives aren’t going to give up that which makes them conservative, such as their opposition to affirmative action. It’s not because they are racist and want to preserve the white race as much as it is reverse sense of unfairness in a time when jobs are not as plentiful.

But Rod and other conservatives have to understand that dismantling things like affirmative action and then offering nothing in its place except nostrums about opportunity gives blacks the impression that white conservatives don’t care about blacks and don’t understand the minefield we walk through in trying to go to college, find employment or advance in the workplace.

Here’s an example. Back in the 50s, my Dad and some relatives drove up from their native Louisiana to look for jobs at Catapillar in Illinois. Dad said they came to plant asking for work and some white official said there were no jobs to be had even though white men were finding work at the plant. Dad later went to Michigan to find work in GM.

It’s a safe bet that blacks my age and younger hear these stories from their parents and grandparents. It’s seered into our brains that the world is unfair and will look us over for a white person with less experience. So, when the average black guy hears a white conservative talking about ending affirmative action, they go back to the stories their elders told them and interpret this as “the white man wants to keep us black folk down.”

This is a long way of saying that there needs to be a real discussion on race between African Americans and conservatives. But it has to be a real discussion where we are open to listening to each other’s fears and hurts without immediately judging the other person. We can’t do what John McWhorter has long talked about, have a “conversation on race” which is little more than the black person yelling about how unfair life is and the white person just taking it in. We have to have a real discussion, a willingness to really listen to one another and then find ways to bring African Americans into the Republican tent. But that means setting aside our pain just a little so that we can hear each other.
Siarlys Jenkins says:

November 27, 2012 at 1:28 pm

M_Young, I hope Scott in PA is reassured by your statistics. He certainly seemed to believe otherwise.

But what is apparent is that there is no overwhelming “white” consensus on how to vote. That’s a good thing. The problem for the Republican Party is how to achieve a condition where there is no overwhelming consensus on how “black” people vote, or, somewhat easier perhaps, Hispanic people.

You obviously have a sincere belief in tribalism, but I really have no interest in a world where, e.g., Rebecca has to divorce her husband, as Aryan Germans had to divorce Jewish spouses, and go live on opposite sides of town. I’m pretty sure my ancestry is tri-ethnic, and if yours isn’t, you probably didn’t have any ancestors on this continent before 1870 or so.
EliteCommInc. says:

November 27, 2012 at 2:00 pm

I am not sure that anyone here is even aware that blacks have not been the big winners of the AA policy. It is and always has been white women. Ignoring that in most cases white women actually meet the parameters, the policy so many conservatives are complaining about have benefitted whites. Furthermore, even it was implemented as designed it was applied to government and quasi-governmental agencies and would only encompass a small portion of the population as being impacted.

Here’s the argument as I understand it and it makes sense: For more than two hundred years the United States was designed by one segment of the country to benefit them – period. Not only did they design socially, but legally implemented slavery and behaviors subsequent to slavery that denied that population access to all that is entitled to every citizen and they did so legally and if they had to ignoring the law. The United States, for a large part of its history, a social club, in which certain members could be waiters, janitors, cooks, maids, mechanics, save for rare exceptions – service personnell. Those decsendents of that social club have inherited all of the benefits of that discrimination.

The policy of AA when viewed through the lens of individual fairness — ‘reverse discrimination’ — appears to be a valid argument that runs agains the grain of who we are as Americans. An argument designed to cater to the less astute, educated, and historically knowledgeable. Because the only manner in which one can rest on an argument of unfairness is to ignore the historical record and it’s consequences.

But when seen through the lens as a redress of grievance — paints a completely different hue. And it is really not that complicated. It took me awhile to get it. But get it I did.

It’s almost too destructive for the American mind that an entire group of people could be universally denied access to: education — a precursor understand and participating upperward mobility, to safer neighborhoods outside of the city (what is known as white flight was real), political participation. The only reason we have segregation as defined as it is – is because of whites. Miss Coulter’s book, “Mugged,” is a classic tale of half truths to create an argument that sounds true, but underneath has so many variations that in the end is tantamount to a huge ‘straw man.” Now these arguments about fairness are exactly the arguments used to abandon black freedom turning reconstruction solely into the hands of former slave owners – destroying most if not all the gains of freedom. The southerners bemoaned unfairness and turned that into a cause such that ‘cheap black labor’ was more important to the Morgans and Vanderbilts as opposed to equal access for the same. Those same slave freeing republicans had no stomach for ensuring the protection of the freed and worse created or supported laws and practices denying blacks the ability to protect themselves.

Why that matters today, every time a white person opens their mouth about how they benefitted from the hard work and sacrifices do it themselves attitude of their grandparents who in turn benefitted from their great grand parent, any black person, so I have been told, just laughs. Because whatever gains they obtained came at the privilege of not having to compete with millions of other citizens. Life is not fair, but if you create an arbitrary state of unfairness – that there will consequences.

The other big whine: but all immigrant populations had a hard time. Sigh, while that is true, by the civil war blacks were not immigrants, but citizens denied the rights of citizens. If one reads the volumes of communication about blacks they were thought of as a lower species of man incapable of understanding much of anything save menial labor. Never mind that the eloquent design and architecture of the plantation was built by slaves who apparently had the remarkable technical expertise of building major structures in a matter of days. And for more than three hundred years of slavery in the colonies and subsequently the United States the communication about blacks were as beasts of burden and inferior. Codified of course, by the Biblical notion that the black man embodied the mark of Cain and therefore destined by God to be slaves of whites. Now scripture does not say that. The Bible’s mark of Cain, could just as easily have been brown or white skin. But we have no clue, because scripture does not say. Coupled with science which is still around today – if one considers the Bell Curve science, that by nature blacks were/are intellectual inferior. To be treated thus as was their place on the evolutionary ladder. Many peoples have had to struggle in their place in these United States, but no people was less able to escape their biological skin color. And those blacks that somehow managed to slip through the cracks of those artificial structural constructs were seen as anomalies, who most likely should have been born white. Hence the misguided, but widely accepted teaching, that once free blacks wondered aimlessly across the land – I was in school nearly twenty years before I read, they were searching for their husbands, wives, and children sold off or lost during the civil war, a conflict to maintain the union as opposed to freeing anyone. How many banks are going to fund the endeavors of a people they by default believe incapable of making good. Check those employment stats. Preceding blacks in every job application: ‘lazy, shiftless, dumb, dimwitted, slow, more likely to be a criminal, violent, etc . . .’ what employer is likely to hire some group thought to inherently embody those traits. Here are the descendents of a people who worked 10 to 15 hours a day and what has been modeled is laziness? Make sense to you? I could continue these scenarios up to Vietnam. Oddly enough it has been the black soldier in battle that did more to shatter the once held universal truths about black people. That and the practice of christianity. Christianity, the ultimate litmus test for being a safe black male. But a mechanism part and parcel to the state of the black community.

When the conservative makes the distinction between what they want to be true about black people and actual truth embraces it as opposed to denying it – I think a lot of unnecessary ground can be covered in regaining the black middle class. If conservatives were shrewd they would embrace it, cese fighting matters to redress it, steal the thunder and in very short order they could all but end the discussion. But conservatives ceded the movement for work and oportunity to homosexuals, leftists, feminists, socialists, who will at leastacknowledge that something is amiss, but water it down a a plight of all. Straight honest talk, about opportunity, employment, etc., even if one must embrace some issues of redress is worth it.

The issue is not was there or is there still barriers, I think far far fewer today — absolutely — but it’s the wrong battle line, and not one conservatives can win.

But until the rhetoric changes –
“Fo’ get a boud it.”
EliteCommInc. says:

November 27, 2012 at 2:19 pm

I would have included sports,but few if any actually the talent of black athletes is anything but natural inherited talent and strongly resident still in lowere species.

Nevermind that their skill is actually the result of persist, almost addictive hard work — ask any black superstar his history and they will regaile with story, after story . . .

While black administrators, educators and scientists certainly smashed the mold — their accomplishments as to impact on the social landscape were by and large a secret. I once asked, some blacks about what they thought of the movie, “Something the Lord Made.” Response, a picture on a wall and a movie, near his end – seemslike small reward, for thrity years of innovation and expertise that saved miliions or more.”
M_Young says:

November 27, 2012 at 2:43 pm

Siarlys, outside of my own family, I really couldn’t care less about who is married to whom, though I certainly understand the white (or black, or Asian) father that wants his daughter (or son) to marry someone that looks like him. I am not for state enforced segregation (though more and more I understand why it was in place). I believe that left to their own devices, people will in general self-segregate. Those who don’t wish to do so, that’s fine too.

But for those of us who are of European descent (entirely or almost entirely) and want to identify as white — an identifier that goes back as far as the founding of this polity — we have that right, and the right to pursue our group interests. It’s not as if the present tack of ignoring white interests and identity prevent discrimination against us (and that discrimination benefits not only the ‘descendants of slaves, but people who got off the boat yesterday). It’s not as if the media will stop their refrain of ‘too old, too white’ (conveniently ignoring that young whites voted for Romney too.

And, as a factual matter, 3/4 of my ancestors where here before 1870. And like other white Americans, there is only a 5% chance that I have any ‘black blood’. Whites are, in general, white.
someotherdude says:

November 27, 2012 at 2:50 pm

I grew up in strictly working-class neighborhoods in Los Angeles, the Harbor Area (Wilmington, San Pedro, and Carson). They were primarily white communities, the children of Southern migrants and ethnic urban transplants from the east-coast (Italians, Yugoslavians—this was pre-1980s). This was hard-core blue-collar folks. As segregated as the rest of the country was at the time, we were part of the Pentecostal congregations that were pretty racially mixed. Our pastor was a hard-core fire-and-brimstone Okie, with a racially mixed congregation, but whites were the majority. And everybody was staunchly Democrat.

White flight hit these communities during the 1970s. Black, Hispanic and Asians were moving in droves. Most of the whites in our congregation moved to Orange County and became part of the Reagan Revolution. The whites who remained, maintained their Democratic Party affiliation, but the whites who left, became Republican activists and part of the New Religious Right. They still came to services to see how the old church is doing (this is circa, 1990s). When they leave it is quite revealing how the old remaining congregants view them. Across the board, the feeling is, that they were more than willing to exploit the successes of the unions and government programs that helped them become successful Reagan Revolutionaries. The Cold War Keynesianism of the Reagan Revolution built their new suburbs in Orange County. They benefited from the practically free UC university educations and the technical training the unions provided for them and now they want to make sure that no one else could benefit from the government largess that took care of them.

Black, Hispanic and Asians believe it is racism that makes their co-religionists act this way. That their racism is so engrained in their psyche, that the love of Christ is not sufficient to open their eyes to this. The Whites, who have remained, believe this is the ugly side of capitalism that is as soon as someone gets theirs, they will stab their fellows in the back, to save on their taxes. The whites who have stayed are not hippy-kumbaya types, either. They have confederate bumper stickers, use the “n-word” frequently, and bitch about how “wetbacks” are taking over the neighborhood. They wear their racism on their sleeves, but still manage to gain the respect of their “colored” working-class neighbors, and they vote and fight with the union. Their economic lives trump their racial tribalism.

I think they are both right— racism and unregulated capitalism destroys communities.

They both seem to share this view, “Say what you will, but the majority of the government largess does not benefit “colored folks.” The military, SS, farm subsidies, go to, primarily, white men. Between 1950-1980, the Democratic social democracy helped more white men break into the middle-class than anything else. Taxes were higher, but as long as, primarily, white men were benefiting from American style social democracy, it was all good. But as soon as that political economy had to be shared…they all became pro-war right-wing libertarians.”

What has stumped me is what was different between the whites who left and those who stayed. Maybe this difference in this LA story can speak to the present day Republican Party.
EliteCommInc. says:

November 27, 2012 at 2:50 pm

Two caveats:

1. ooopss . . . so as not to think I am in any manner discounting the contribution or efforts of black female athletes . . . my his should have included a her

2. My commenyts about Miss Coulter’s book in no manner reflects anything less than my continued, respect, admiration for her keen insights, intellectual prowess,sense of ironic humorand , forthrightness . . . as always Miss Coulter: from deep to deep.
M_Young says:

November 27, 2012 at 3:03 pm

BTW, the CIS report on immigrant welfare use shows that 68% of Haitian immigrant headed households with children receive some sort of Federal assistance, versus 37% of native-born people.
The Wet One says:

November 27, 2012 at 3:14 pm

“And FWIW, my husband only recently stopped identifying as Republican. A couple of people were trying to recruit him to become involved in some newer republican outreach groups meant to appeal to younger, less ideological voters. After encountering blatant racism repeatedly on the groups website he went to the leaders and asked them to at least issue statements repudiating racism as “tertiary to the cause” and implement a policy of removing comments which used racial slurs on their sites. They refused saying they didn’t want to alienate people who could be counted on for support. He ended up so disgusted that he’s no longer a registered Republican. The party as a real problem and given demographics, the sooner they deal with it, the sooner we stand a chance of having a two party system again. As it is, the GOP is going to have a very difficult time regaining the White House for the foreseeable future.”

The fact that the Republicans couldn’t even do this for a fellow REPUBLICAN because “they didn’t want to alienate people who could be counted on for support” probably says all there is to say about Republicans and blacks. Which means that the Repubs will cede 10-12% of the vote without a fight. Which now means the Republicans lose all the time because they are the party of bigots (that guaranteed support).

See how that works in a black person’s mind (or any reasonable and fair minded person’s mind?)?

Anyways…

It doesn’t matter. Blacks are a lost cause for Republicans anyways. Lol.
The Wet One says:

November 27, 2012 at 3:41 pm

“Whites must be made to suffer as badly as their ancestors made blacks suffer.” – Rod Dreher

Rod, you just totally lost me there. If you think that this is what black people want or that this is the only way that blacks can be courted, you really need to talk to more black people. Seriously. That is a totally off the wall nonsensical statement.

I’m sure you could a find a black person or two who actually pursues this punishment of blacks as an endeavour. But if you think that person represents anyone other than themself and a handful of others, you’re living in a nightmare fantasyland of vast proportions filled with worse monsters than in an Advanced Dungeon & Dragons Monster Manual.

I’m pretty sure that not even “I hate America” Jeremiah Wright holds such views.

Anyways…

The vastness of the gulf between worldviews is truly something to behold! Amazing!
That is the weirdest and most paranoid thing I’ve read in these comments.
Polichinello says:

November 27, 2012 at 4:22 pm

But we seem to be runnning WAY off the topic of the original post. Although Mr. P. has ostentatiously declined to say, it continues to appear true that people sitting safely in the suburbs are pontificating about a black crime wave, while “white” people living in the city haven’t noticed it.

First, thanks to the blessing of Section 8, suburbanites do get a lot of blacks and their higher per capita crime rates. Indeed, for all the sneering at southern whites, what seems to be overlooked is that those southern states have a far higher percentage of blacks than the smug northern liberal states.

Second, when it comes to white liberals living in cities, you think they don’t know when to get off the El in Chicago? Don’t go past Comisky! Stay in the Green Zones! (Google it). You think they don’t know to avoid the 5th Ward in Houston, or the 9th Ward in New Orleans–or Detroit, Baltimore and Philly altogether. They sure as hell don’t live in South Central or Compton. That gentrification is best left to the Mexicans–another job Americans won’t do. Oh, sure, they’re moving into DC, and they vote Democrat, but their kids still tend to go to places like Sidwell Friends.

Spare me the moralism about how wonderful and inclusive you are. You move to whitopias, like Portland or Seattle, and then wave your finger at the rest of us who don’t have that option and have to live with the very real and dangerous consequences of the welfare programs you unthinkingly push.

[Note from Rod: Polichinello, I want to publish your commentary, but don't make me have to go in and take out the vulgarity, as I did in this post. It's easier just to send it to the trash. You can make your points without crossing the line into incivility. -- RD]
Polichinello says:

November 27, 2012 at 4:24 pm

…there are obviously still a lot of whites that hate their co-ethnics in the South and proper Midwest so much they irrationally vote against their own interests, but that is changing.

The day is coming when white liberals will know what it’s like to be a black conservative.
Polichinello says:

November 27, 2012 at 4:31 pm

I’d sign on for it. Not to get rid of affirmative action. As a white guy, I am not mortally offended by its existence. But as a way to actually solve these problems.

I can live with it for black descendants of slaves and for American Indians. However, spotting 300 SAT points to someone who just got here a couple of years ago (possibly illegally) is offensive no matter how you slice it.
Polichinello says:

November 27, 2012 at 4:34 pm

Anyone remember who ran against Obama as an Illinois Senatorial candidate in 2004?

LOL. Seriously, Bryan? Alan Keyes?
The Wet One says:

November 27, 2012 at 5:34 pm

Mississippi is a Republican State right?

Explain this to me:

http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/11/school_prison_pipeline_meridian.html
If Repubs came out against this kind of stupidity and racism, they’d help ameliorate their standing amongst blacks.

Absolutely nothing conservative would be harmed by calling out stupidity like this, but I already know, Republicans won’t act against this absurd situation.
John E_o says:

November 27, 2012 at 5:37 pm

You think they don’t know to avoid the 5th Ward in Houston…

5th Ward was pretty well gentrified when I left Houston five years ago.
Mark in LA says:

November 27, 2012 at 6:33 pm

Well EliteCommInc if this is important:

But when seen through the lens as a redress of grievance — paints a completely different hue. And it is really not that complicated. It took me awhile to get it. But get it I did.

Why isn’t affirmative action limited to people who are direct descendants of American slaves and Indians? Why is a black from Africa who steps off the plane an instant recipient? Why is a Mexican or anybody with a Hispanic surname – even if his family is 20th generation Castillian Spanish also a recipient?

As immigration has flooded the country with more and more non-white people more and more effort has been made to give them all AA and shut out the people who built this country. If the policy is so important why the laziness in administering it?
Mark in LA says:

November 27, 2012 at 6:47 pm

someotherdude, you don’t think the working Germans or Swedes get pissed every time they see an Arab or Turk who is obviously on welfare? It is always easier to say “there but for the grace of God go I” when it is your own tribe rather than another. This is human nature.
someotherdude says:

November 27, 2012 at 7:30 pm

Mark in LA says:

It is always easier to say “there but for the grace of God go I” when it is your own tribe rather than another. This is human nature.

Maybe its your nature.

Since whiteness seems to be of a more important “nature” than class or just plain human empathy and solidarity, for many on the right.

I suspect the “human nature” of many of those diabolical race traitors on the left, place class and/or human empathy and solidarity higher than their white tribal “human nature.”

Whiteness is just not as important as class for about %40 of whites. Why would wealthy Asians and Blacks feel solidarity with working-class Whites, Blacks and Hispanics? Why would wealthy Gay voters vote with religiously conservative Blacks and Latinos? Why would middle-class Latinos vote with working-poor Asians and Whites?

The biggest rejection I see in the last election was the rejection of White supremacy. Poor whites and working-class whites, or at least %46 realize that white privilege really only befitted as small minority.
EliteCommInc. says:

November 27, 2012 at 7:31 pm

Mark,

I think your position is really aimed at reparations. That is an entirely different discussion.

But the long and short is also very simple, I think. The discrimination that we are discussing was not based on heritage as to family, but skin color. So even if I arived afetr the Civil War, my skin meant less human.

I also want to very clear, I am not talking about anything related to how black people feel. How they feel is their responsibility (aside from direct physical contact). Only discrimination as it impacted a persons access to what is available to all citizens. Afterall, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, H. Rap Brown, the Nation of Black Muslims and thousnd more were not asking the government to make them happy. It was a very pointed. It was not about ‘bra burning, feminism, homosexuality, immigration, global human rights – it was about that group ostracized because of their color — a benign trait. The biggest mistake MLK made was to entertain arguments by white college students about the human rights of Vietnamese. He should have said, I will address that after we address, what has been done here- and we have jkust begun. By the way, there are some five million black youths who would love the opportunities afforded you. Do them a favor, get back to class, and stop side tracking the country with your personal vedettas against your parents.” But he chose to eat the candy. Whites have used ever since to distract from the elephant created first by DCI and codified into by the Constitution of these United States. I used to contend for women oppressed. But the historical reality just does not support oppresion, it’s supports a very complex role assignment and a shift predicated on instances of oppression as a standard for all women. A very astute ruse and very effective.

A black from Africa directly off a plane from Africa, is not part and parcel to this matter. This pertains to citizens of these Unites States.

Well, again, I have to lay this matter at the feet of the whites who implememted this policy. In a panic, ignoring the standards required, organizations began to fill there organizations with women (primarily white), asians and hispanics thereby claiming they had diverse work forces. One cannot blame blacks, who by and large, at the time, not part of implementing this policy — organizations were on their own. The quota system so envogue as argument just does not exist a argued. No one was required to hire X number of blacks. And if they were they didn’t.

Hmmm . . the influx of immigrants has little to do with AA and black people certainly cannot be blamed for importing and encouraging cheap labor and immigration policies which have undermined their voice and opportunities. Part of the mess of AA as to target is the result of an attempt to kill it by conservatives. It pains me to acknowledge it. I suggest that you read the policy — it’s not at all as it’s been debated. Immigration job displacement is not part and parcel to AA.

Blacks according to history were no less a part of building this country than whites or anyone else. They more than any other group are experiencing job displacement issues.
EliteCommInc. says:

November 27, 2012 at 7:31 pm

Mark,

I appreciated your questions.
EliteCommInc. says:

November 27, 2012 at 7:33 pm

I am more of a lecturer, anda lousy writer (proofreading needs a lot more attention). If something I said is unclear, let me know.
Sam M says:

November 27, 2012 at 8:13 pm

philosopher:

“SamM & Rod – The conversation seems to have taken an odd turn here, in that y’all seem to be lumping the problems of poverty & the black underclass etc. ”

I didn’t lump them together. Rebecca Trotter said she would trade affirmative action for real education reforms and economic development. She volunteered that proposition. So I asked the logical question: what counts as real reform?

Again, that seems like the logical place to take the conversation, no?
Mark in LA says:

November 27, 2012 at 8:39 pm

EliteCommInc you didn’t address my main point. Maybe I wasn’t clear. You talk about redress of grievance with respect to AA. OK limit AA to people who can document their ancestry back to slavery or to an Indian tribe. Create a government office to help them rather than just give it to every non-white who shows up. Everybody else gets nothing. Why aren’t we doing that?

A black from Africa directly off a plane from Africa, is not part and parcel to this matter. This pertains to citizens of these Unites States.

He most certainly is because he gets scholarships and admission brownie points all blacks who benefit from AA get.

How about first having the conversation about who and who should not get AA. Then we can see the total cost to everybody. Some accommodation can certainly be made to legitimate classes. The amount would be small compared to the ever expanding universe of people who were never part of the aggrieved classes cashing in.
Mark in LA says:

November 27, 2012 at 8:42 pm

someotherdude, when you start routinely throwing around nonsense like “white supremacy” and “white privilege” everybody tunes out.
M_Young says:

November 27, 2012 at 11:34 pm

Someotherdude, that is the strangest version of SoCal history I have heard. And I should know, because my own family background is similar. First, the people who left LA for Orange County, like my parents before I was born, were in legitimate fear for their safety. Think Watts Riots. Second, the “Hispanics”, meaning Mexicans, who have moved into such areas are precisely the ones who broke the unions. For example, the Teamsters have been trying to unionize the almost entirely Mexican truckers in San Pedro (yup, truck driving, supposedly another job ‘Americans won’t do’), they have had no success. I know from my own extended family that cheap Mexican labor played a huge role in destroying the construction unions in SoCal.

As for wanting to deny ‘others’ — whites (for the most part) were the ones that built and paid for those Universities. White union workers, through their dues, paid for the technical training programs. Why shouldn’t they want the social capital they built up benefit their sons and daughters and nieces and nephews, rather than someone whose parents spent most of their lives in Oaxaca or Taipei?
JonF says:

November 28, 2012 at 5:49 am

On replacement for AA in college admissions I would suggest: the Texas rule whereby a university would accept the top X percent of students in their class at any given high school (assuming a college-oriented curriculum on their transcripts). This would go a long way to end the automatic advantage conferred on kids who live in ritzy school districts.
JonF says:

November 28, 2012 at 5:52 am

Re: The biggest mistake MLK made was to entertain arguments by white college students about the human rights of Vietnamese.

Huh? Are you suggesting that politics must be single minded? Unfortunately life rarely affords us the luxury of confronting us with just one problem at a time, and the ability to walk and chew gum at the same time is very often required. That the Rev King was more than a one-note johnny is to his credit.
The Wet One says:

November 28, 2012 at 9:22 am

Sam M,

You ask what would be real reform. I suggest equality of funding in the educational system. As I understand it, in some parts of the U.S., schools are funded through taxes levied on the cachement area of the school. The result of this is poor areas have poorly funded schools.

To most other people in the western world, this funding mechanism is bizarre in the extreme. The state collects all the taxes and sets the funding level on a per student basis, rather than on the basis of the taxes collected locally. This should have a significant leveling effect on the quality of schools (both racially and class wise I would note).

I understand that people who send their kids to better schools can be sent to jail for some kind of fraud. This is altogether bizarre in the extreme. The result is that a parent who tries to do better by their children is imprisoned for taking entirely reasonable steps to improve their child’s chances in life.

A great many other things flow from this arrangement of the education system.

So I would suggest reform there. Level the playing field.

Or am what I am suggesting unreasonable? If so, how?
The Wet One says:

November 28, 2012 at 10:32 am

Sam M,

Another thing Republicans could try (which may be synonymous with “conservatives” though I’m not sure to be honest) is to not try to disenfranchise people with voting restrictions just before an election. Regardless of whether the additional measures to ensure legitimate voters vote were warranted or not, perception is reality in this arena and that just wasn’t perceived very well at all and appeared, for all intents and purposes, to be very racially motivated. This is especially the case when Republican party operatives crow (in advance) about how this will hand this or that state to the Republican candidate.

Stuff like this deals devastating body blows to the image that Blacks have a place in the Republican party (along with anyone else who doesn’t live in areas not targeted by such measures). It indicates that Republicans don’t believe in fairness or that votes and political desires of Blacks, whatever they may be, aren’t valid in a free and democratic society that the U.S. supposed is. To be honest, as an outsider who followed this issue, I seriously questioned whether Republicans actually believed that the U.S. was a free and democratic society. Thankfully, the U.S. is a Rule of Law society so the courts (even the elected courts I understand) shut down all that undemocratic nonsense until at least after the election.

Another thing Republicans could do is simply giving a damn about how things like this appear to Blacks. I don’t know how Republicans would be unable to understand how such things would be perceived, nor the entirely predictable result that blacks would come out and vote EVEN MORE to shut this kind of crap down (as they did in Ohio and elsewhere). It’s this kind of insensitivity and tone deafness that is killing Republicans.

In my own country, presently ruled by conservatives, the conservatives have learned that they simply cannot be this insensitive (not that they ever tried anything that undemocratic in my country). They have, as a matter of electoral success, simply STFU about views that are considered unpalatable to minorities (political, racial, sexual, etc.). I have no doubt that they still think the same way about people, but to the extent that these thoughts apply to impinge upon the lives of others simply going about their business, they have shut the hell up. They have also not been blatantly unfair in their mode of governance and largely responded fairly to criticisms about prejudice based unfairness (real or imagined). They have stuck to conservative principles as well.

If conservatives can do that here, I don’t see why Republicans can do that in the United States. Perception really matters, especially in politics. Start taking the perception of Black seriously and not simply discounting it or disregarding it altogether, and things will improve for Republicans. Don’t just say, we won’t take down racist prejudicial language in our online forums because we might piss off guaranteed voters to Black Republicans. That will guarantee that the majority of Blacks not in the party or who are unaffiliated will not vote for Republicans no matter their own personal interest.

For example, a reasonable, respectful and useful conversation is had here with some pretty enraging (but not generally racist IMHO) commentators here. Many or mostly conservative folks are in here. Why can’t the Republicans force this kind of debate as a norm internally for the purpose of not alienating voters? Is that so hard or so unreasonable? Free speech is free speech for sure, but speech has consequences and real electoral consequences. The Republicans might benefit from muzzling certain voices and ideas within the party. Electoral reality is increasingly demanding it. Politeness, civility and decency always called for it, but electoral reality (or at least not pissing away 10% + of vote right off the bat) now demands it.

Things like this go a long ways. A long long ways.
EliteCommInc. says:

November 28, 2012 at 11:39 am

JonF,

No I stating that the ‘the civili rights; matter as it pertained to blacks/african americans was misdirected and diluted via the post-modern arguments about universal human rights. And embracing that concept, did extensive damage and avoided — the destructive dynamic here. In my response to King’s eating the candy, I acknowledge that King himself certainly understood the concept —- but the civil war in Vietnam was a seperate matter.

It’s like sure, all of humanity is engaged in a struggle for dignity and self determination — but until we deal with indignities created by the DCI and the Constitution here — We are whistling Dixie.

Here were privilidged white kids caught up in thier post-modern theories, they simply missed the boat of the most significant battle taking place here at home. And that required a single minded purpose not ignorance about the struggles of others.

And I am further stating, that it was deliberate conflict avoidance. I tell a child, Your room needs cleaning.” The child’s response,”My friend Mike’s room needs cleaning to, shouldn’t I go help him.”

The civil rights movement of african americans was not about some theoretical matter of post modern thought. It was about bread and butter, police-black dynamics, participation — your own citizens would love to walk and chew gum right along wit you — let’s deal with making sure we remove articial barriers to our citizens get a stick.
Siarlys Jenkins says:

November 28, 2012 at 3:04 pm

M_Young, if you want to “identify as white” and associate with others who share that proclivity, that is indeed your right. Just don’t try to include all of us who have substantial European ancestry. Quite a few of us simply don’t share your sense of identity.

Until about 500 years ago, nobody in Europe called themselves “white,” nobody from Africa called Europeans “white men.” And, unless your ancestors were all really upper class from the very beginning, they probably do include some Africans, and some Native Americans, just as British “Anglo-Saxons” more likely than not include genes from the conquered Celtic population, and the Celts from the pre-Celtic inhabitants. A lot of our European ancestors didn’t care about “whiteness” until the planters and merchants pounded it into them.

Mr.P: I have spent perhaps 3 days of a long life in Portland, but many years in west Oakland, and I routinely get off New York’s A train at 125th Street, walking several blocks east from there. I take your word for it that you do not. I also take the bus and walk through Anacostia, keeping my eyes open about as much as most residents of the place.
Someotherdude says:

November 28, 2012 at 7:26 pm

Mark in LA says:
November 27, 2012 at 8:42 pm
someotherdude, when you start routinely throwing around nonsense like “white supremacy” and “white privilege” everybody tunes out.

I thought that’s what you believe is worth conserving?
Franklin Evans says:

November 29, 2012 at 12:04 pm

As many of you know, when the topic veers to affirmative action, I’m all over it. I missed its appearance in this thread — the crowd cheers — and I want to acknowledge the clarity of thought and vision (with only one personal caveat) of EliteCommInc. at November 27, 2012 at 2:00 pm. You covered every important point with impeccable logic.

Ann Coulter, I must dissent, is an intellectual stain on the American consciousness. She is as capable of making valid and important points as anyone, but her unrelenting medieval abattoir and garderobe rhetoric makes trying to find them beyond not worth the effort. Others make the same points with strength and civility, and her only advantage is that she’s nicer to look at. Thanks, but no thanks.
EliteCommInc. says:

December 4, 2012 at 1:21 pm

FranklinEvans,

as a person with limtted writing skills, your comment as to my comments
is greatly appreciated.

As for Miss Coulter,

I have read her books, I have them all I think. And over the course of her writing there is clear evidence of a transition of thought and motive.

She is attractive, but to be honest — I am always concerned she’s purging. Her thinness is just this side on enemic — I get concerned for anyone – especially her I have to admit — who is that thin.

I have great empathy for her — her voice and that of so many others has to be addressed, they are not going away anytime soon and I am not sure we want or need them to.
EliteCommInc. says:

December 4, 2012 at 1:52 pm

But maybe I am blinded by my heart