Straight Talk on Race
October 14, 2003
by Bernard Chapin
“When
conservatives identify policies that divide people by race, they become
‘racially divisive.’” National Review, October 27th
2003, electronic issue.
Last week I wrote a column about Rush Limbaugh and, within it, I explicitly discussed race in America. I received a firestorm of emails as a result–which I welcomed. Many of the messages were positive, some were negative, and some were hysterically negative. This latter group provided me inspiration to once again make race the focus of another column.
It appears that there are legions of politically correct enforcers out there who believe that by expressing their outrage (or mock-outrage) towards those who disagree with them, that they will succeed in intimidating the rest of us from speaking freely. It is our job as conservatives not to back down from these reptiles, but instead, to discuss to death the things that make them anxious.
Yet, aside from mad leftists, I did get some emails from people who just honestly wanted to talk about this verboten subject. I responded to these readers online and also clarified my views on Dino Costa’s radio show [http://www.dinocosta.net/]. I remarked to one person that “it seems we can only openly discuss race electronically as if we do it in person then we risk temper tantrums or termination from our jobs.” Unfortunately, I fear my observation is very true.
I think that if we, as Americans, had the opportunity I had this week for daily open dialogue, racism and race baiters would gradually disappear. Yes, the main reason our conversations were so productive was due to the absence of a race baiting third person preying on our nouns and verbs. Sometimes the media acts as this third person, or interlocutor, by adding toxic spin to otherwise normal conversations and thus turning a simple sentence into a racial slight.
Anytime we can speak without the presence of race baiters we should consider it an idyllic opportunity. For the race baiter, their entire existence hinges wholly on convincing blacks or other minorities that whites are their enemies. When we interact with one another mono e mono we often find there are no enemies at all.
My position on the question of race is that all of us, regardless of color, are extremely lucky to be citizens of the United States. As I repeated often this week, “American citizenship is the greatest reparation in the world.” Whether or not I “deserve” the honor of my citizenship is not even a consideration. I am a citizen and that’s good enough for me. The fact is that I, like most of you, was somehow lucky enough to have my relatives get here and I am most grateful that they did. That being said, I would like to make the following six points.
1. The continuance of racial divisions is largely due to the machinations of the political left.
I say this because your average leftist hates himself, hates his family, hates his country, hates the economic system he lives under, and thinks that “the people” are an inarticulate collection of baboons who much be condescended to on a daily basis. However, they outwardly proclaim to love minorities as they happen to usually know very few of them [you always know who the leftist is as he’s the one speaking Spanish to the clerk at Taco Bell] , and this lack of interaction convinces them that minorities are special and unlike everyone else he disdains.
Those of us who aren’t afraid to mix with the general population realize that minorities are not qualitatively different from anybody else. Some of them are excellent people, some of them are average people, and some of them you want to avoid at costs. Thus, they’re just like every other group of humans to grace or disgrace this planet.
Sick and intellectually bankrupt Marxism has formed the template for the leftist worldview that causes him to label non-Caucasians as “the other.” This is an unavoidable byproduct of their need to shame the majority. In their simplistic minds, there always has to be one group who is good (that’s “the oppressed”) and today the good are no longer “the workers” but “minorities.” This group is then juxtaposed with those who are bad or the oppressors. The term “oppressors” now applies to any white male in America, even if he just got off the boat from Slovenia and cannot string together more than two words of English.
You’ve met these clowns before. These are the ones who say that blacks have “no power so they can’t be racist.” Poppycock! Colin Powell has more power in his index finger than I have in my whole ancestral line. Don’t think so? Take me as a basis for comparison. If I began signing my columns tomorrow with the name “Colin Powell” who’d reject them? No one. Not even The New York Times. If I were Colin Powell the checks would be coming in with the regularity of water from my bathroom faucet.
This insistence on all of society being divided into “oppressed and the oppressor” is just another reason why the left’s celebration of diversity is a vicious canard. Their diversity really means “minority diversity” because, when it comes to Caucasians, all they want to talk about is Hitler or Manson (but curiously never Stalin).
This week, one person accuse me of thinking that blacks are the cause of racial tension. We know this not to be the case. Leftists are the major cause of racial tensions, and I am ashamed to observe that the great majority of these leftists happen to have the same skin color as me. In America today there are many Caucasians who have made entire academic careers out of defaming themselves and their ancestry.
Men like Noel Ignatiev, a Professor at Harvard, who is so twisted that he even has tried to change his own coloration. Indeed, Ignatiev has taken the drug Melanotan to cure the white skin he views as an affliction.
[http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=2771]
Susan Sontag even libelously labeled the “white race the cancer of history.” With Caucasian Americans making statements like these about their brothers and sisters, it is easy to see how white guilt has turned from a brush fire into a holocaustic conflagration that threatens our existence and right to be equal citizens in a country we founded.
2. If it doesn’t sound like racism, look like racism, then it isn’t racism.
If you need a telescopic lens to find racism then it in fact does not exist. That ridiculous Charles Wrangel quote from a few years ago about how cutting taxes is a form of racism informed his listener that racism barely exists at all anymore. If cutting taxes is now interpreted as a racist act then this country is about as close to being Utopia as any land in history.
How lucky we are to live in a land so plush that government benefits are considered by many a political right. It tells you just how privileged we are.
In Dissidents [2002], Paul Hollander gave superb analysis of today’s “racism” or lack thereof:
“[T]he conjuring up of ‘subtle,’ ‘unconscious,’ or ‘institutional’ racism, more and more divorced from specific, tangible or concrete behavioral manifestations, indicators or incidents. Such a promiscuous attribution of racism to groups, individuals and institutions has not benefited race relations. The mere questioning of preferential treatment is often treated as indisputable evidence of racism, as is any criticism of the performance or qualifications of any member of a protected minority. [p. 65]
The frequent bandying about of the word “racist” by the left serves only one function: to cower those who are labeled into silence. Allegations of racism in response to mundane thoughts or observations is an attempt to erode the pride of Caucasian Americans and humiliate us into accepting foolish legislation that will accomplish nothing except making the creators feel good about themselves.
3. Concentrating on an Illusory Racism Ensures the Neglect of Other Problems.
Larry Elder understands this truth well. He blames race shysters and victicrats for intentionally misleading the rest of us:
“The ‘black leadership,’ however, continues to fight racism, while placing less emphasis on improving schools, the rewards of hard work, and avoiding irresponsible breeding…Ignoring far more pressing issues, black leaders continue fighting against white racism as if conditions remain unchanged from those in the days of the Jim Crow South.” [Showdown, 2002, p.144]
The year 2003 should be a very bright time in America. I had one reader email me and want me to answer for people being fire hosed in the south forty years ago. That, of course, was a real event, but it has nothing to do with what is currently happening outside our doors. If everyone was as short-sighted as that reader, then we’d begin every political discussion with mention of The Hawley-Smoot Tariff. Thank G-d we do not.
4. Difference Does Not Equal Racism.
The average black American is not poor– far from it. The results of the 2000 Census indicate that blacks in America are doing better than they ever have before and, unlike the lies put forth by our press and anti-liberal leftists, they now have a 22.1 percent rate of poverty with a median income slightly over 30,000 dollars a year [http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/2001/cb01-158.html].
Of course, this does not mean that there is no difference between white and black. The same source sites the white poverty rate as being 7.5%. There remains a difference between groups but that does not prove racism. Indeed, the most important racial outcome of the census is to note just how much blacks have improved since 1940 in this wonderful nation.
The majority of today’s black Americans are middle class and our social rhetoric should be altered to reflect the reality of so many blacks “making it.”
If we accepted the “difference=racism” argument then we’d have to ask the Asians some pretty tough questions. The average Asian American makes 55,000 dollars a year which is 10,000 more than the average Caucasian. Are they discriminating against whites? Do we regard this to be the product of a mass Asian conspiracy to hold the white man down? Of course not. They are not concerned with holding my kind down. Instead, they spend their time working and studying and that’s why they are the perfect embodiment of the American dream. I say “congratulations.”
Individual variation amongst groups is to be expected and reflects individual variation rather than racism. Differences will always be present in our society even if we were to adopt a socialist system. Then we would merely exchange one elite for another. Paul Allen lives far better than I, but there is no reason for me to regard him as being my oppressor. He is not my oppressor. His affluence in no way keeps me down.
5. Black Failure Harms Whites.
Read my keyboard strokes, “Whites who wish to prevent blacks from maximizing their potential only sabotage themselves.” These whites are a rare group to be sure, but I am sure they exist. They don’t realize that no one benefits from a group of angry and resentful people who blame others for their “not making it.” I am rooting for all Americans to be content with they have in this country so we can establish a firm consensus that national security is our main priority.
Even though all the racist barriers that once poisoned our citizens have been lifted (other than those of reverse discrimination), I do not doubt that some blacks believe that the system remains against them. This belief not only harms them but every one else who lives among them.
I think that if we all work together and ignore political correctness and not brand one another’s views with hostility and epithets, it will soon become apparent to all that race, in the majority of instances, is a not an obstacle to anybody’s success.
I spoke of difference above, and, in my opinion, if there is any one thing that “holds blacks down” (from having a 7.5% poverty rate rather than a 22.1% rate) it is white guilt. These practitioners of white guilt perpetuate individual irresponsibility. They send the message that no efforts can transcend the biases of “Amerika.”
I’m reminded of the comical white journalist who was robbed by two black youths and said that it was okay because they had no other way to express their pride. I don’t know, they could, in a prideful manner, get off the streets and try going to school and profiting form the free education the state offers them. How does this “that’s okay oppressed person” attitude benefit blacks? It doesn’t. It holds them down.
6. Innocent Unless Proven Guilty.
What are these Caucasians feeling guilty about? I have never met a slave owner. If I wanted to meet one, I’d have to go to Africa. There aren’t any here. I also disagree with many black reparations booty hunters that our new immigrants will be more sympathetic to their demands. An immigrant from Mexico City would not easily understand why he should have his profits confiscated in the name of a slavery with which he nor his ancestors had any involvement.
How bewildered my grandfather, who was born in 1907 in Belfast, would have been if informed that he should apologize for slavery. “Apologize to who? The English?” he may have queried. My grandfather, nor any of my ancestors, ever owned much of anything let along another human being.
Asking a man like my grandfather, or any of his offspring, to apologize for slavery or offer reparations, is crazy, and should not be considered. I have made this point before on this site, and I will again. I do not recommend anyone apologizing for anything they have not personally done.
Life is too short to suffer for crimes you never committed.
We, and I am no exception, owe individuals an apology, and sometimes much more than an apology, when we wrong them. However, in the case of slavery, there is no one still alive to direct an apology to, and also no one alive who should issue one.
The folly of this mode of thinking is easily discernible when the tables are turned. Do we hold black Americans responsible for Rwanda, Idi Amin, or wars in the Congo? Of course not. Then please do not expect me to apologize for Adolf Hitler or apartheid. Do we ask blacks to apologize for The Wichita Massacre, Colin Ferguson, or the murder of Kevin Shiflett? No. So why expect me to apologize for hate crimes, like the murder of James Byrd, that I had nothing with which to do?
If we are to grow as a country we must end this double standard once and for all.
Slavery was a horrendous crime against all of humanity. We should study it, but to personalize it is to err.
Race is a taboo subject in America. When it stops being an excuse for extortion and accusation is when we will begin to heal as a people. Then we will move forward together as one.
Bernard Chapin
"Courtesy of toogoodreports"
Bernard Chapin is a writer in Chicago.
