James of Hobson's Choice jumped the gun a bit with this interesting comment. I didn't really address it in the comments because it was my intent to bring it up anyway.
I'm sorry, I must be an idiot. I cannot figure out what he said that's so controversial. African American leaders are constantly saying things like that, because that's what leaders do. Moreover, affluent African Americans have a surprisingly conservative outlook because they aren't embarrassed about telling others to "snap out of it."European Americans make much of it because many of us are relatively thin-skinned; we hear frequent references to racism or discrimination, police brutality and sharp critique of US treatment of African Americans, and we flinch. So when someone like Mr. Cosby says things like what he did, we jump all over it because we think it takes the onus off Whites to shape up. But I'm certain that was well known to you.
Yes, very well known.
There's no dispute here over the pathologies the Black communities need to address (you'll note I'm saying "communities" rather than "constituencies" here. Quite intentional; I'm discussing people rather than politics). But let me tell you how things look to me. Let me explain what I see as the issue raised. Conservatives will find my conclusion a mixed bag—they'll love much of my conclusion but hate how I got there and what the conclusion actually means.
Think. Why was the first executive order directing the government to act affirmatively to bring Black Americans into the economy issued? What was the order intended to accomplish?
It was intended to change the behavior of white Americans.
You see, at the time there were plenty of educated Black folks, college degreed janitors, because of racism. It certainly wasn't because Black folks didn't want the work. The order was intended to override white racism.
The response to the order was along the lines of, "I'd love to hire a niggra if I could find a qualified one." And when the underemployed college graduates stepped up, it because, "Oh, but he didn't got to THAT college like HE did. HE is more qualified that the niggra." And the niggra takes a lesser position because he's more qualified than any white person willing to take a job on that level.
Or the response was to just hire a colored person and show him as proof they were integrated.
Or the response was to drop someone into a slot totally unprepared and shake your head sadly when he fails.
Or a lawsuit, almost all of which were settled out of court, all such settlements saying there's no admission of guilt it's cheaper to buy you off.
And to set aside record numbers of civil rights complaints, so you can be rewarded with a federal judgeship…and who knows where that could take you…
And scapegoating.
And every time a Black person mentions there's still racism to be dealt with, he's reminded of how many Blacks are in the middle class, how much closer we've gotten to equal pay for equal work, like white people had a damn thing to do with it. Collectively, I mean. Some of y'all individually are da bomb. Most of you ain't bad and I really feel most of you mean no harm. But collectively "White People" have fought tooth and nail against leveling the playing field and everyone has been too fucking polite to just say it like that, to put the pattern together under everyone's nose.
I had to do it to explain that the controversy in the Black communities is, do white people get off scott-free for racism?
That is the question underneath the discussion. It's beneath the discussion in the white communities too.
And in my opinion, the answer is yes. White people get off scott-free, It actually comes down to a question of "what the fuck are you gonna do about it?" I mean, check this out, from Tacitus:
Seeing Slate's take on the morally abominable Jude Wanniski reminds me of our late efforts to secure a paleocon voice for redstate. Now, I could personally care less about paleocon representation, but my partners argued, and justly so, that they're conservatives too (if increasingly not Republicans), and certainly not all bad. Though a lot of them are bad -- see Domenech do battle with them, as "evilcons," here and here. As part of this ideological quota effort, we considered asking Steve Sailer to contribute, until I came across this squirm-inducing essay on football and race (note, please, that blacks have a biological advantage in "trash talking"). The problem was that so many of the prominent paleocon essayists have this racist junk, if not up front in their ouevres, then somewhere buried not terribly deep in their archives. It and bizarre revisionist history constitute a pretty disturbing propensity within that demographic. I'm actually not sure if we ended up getting a paleocon for redstate. If we did, I'm not aware of it, but I trust my partners to do the proper vetting. But if we didn't, that's all the same to me: I'm happy to consign most of them to the company of Raimondo, Rockwell, and the assorted odd corners that the American fringe retreats to.
Tacitus, of course, has the right correct reaction:
Braying fools barking about the rational basis of their hate aren't worth engaging beyond a certain point, and that point has passed. I'll doubtless write in the future about the conservatives who do too little to oppose and eject this crowd from our movement and our party. I definitely won't be further engaging those who think that conservatism is a form of identity politics for white people. One might as well try to reason with a mad dog.A conservative friend put it best in an e-mail about Sailer:
I realized maybe a year ago that when the paleocons talk about America being "under attack," they don’t mean by radical Islamic terrorists or by postmodern anti-family cultural values. They mean you and me. The people with ethnic surnames. The Mexicans and the Puerto Ricans. We’re the ones attacking this nation, just by being here.And if we were to tell them face to face that we felt accused, they’d disagree; they’d say it isn’t people like you and me that they’re talking about. Our skin isn’t brown enough, and we speak English.
Disingenous bastards.
But it's way too many of these suckers in too many influential places. Like Tacitus' partners said, they're conservatives too.
Myself, I hold to Derrick Bell position on the permanence of racism. I honestly don't expect the mainstream to come clean. I expect Black folks to have to deal with racism for the foreseeable future of the foreseeable generations to come, both personal and structural. Because there's no knobs on society, we can't just dial back our human reactions.
But we can learn the environment, learn to navigate and negotiate it, manipulate it as selfishly as every other affinity group out there.
What did Justice O'Connor say, twenty five years? Better get on it.
Posted by P6 at July 8, 2004 11:04 PM
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