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And here is the excuse:
"If you want to stop discrimination by race, don't discriminate by race."
AUGUST 6, 2008
Publius writes:
That's a very odd response. When trying to understand the roots of white resentment, you have to decide when you start the clock. One place is in the mid-60s, with the civil rights movement, desegregation, affirmative action, and the Great Society. Under this timeframe, whites grew resentful as the government, under the control of earnest liberal do-gooders, showered African-Americans with federal largess. Or you can start the clock at slavery. Under this timeframe, whites enslaved blacks, built an economy atop their unpaid labor, fought viciously to keep them as slaves, then to keep them as second class citizens, then to disrupt even minor attempts to redress the centuries of economic and moral injury they'd endured. African-Americans had been materially harmed by centuries of enslavement and discrimination, while whites had materially benefited from being the slave-owners and the ones with the power to discriminate, and something had to be done to help African-Americans make up the ground that they'd formerly not even been allowed to walk on. This did entail redistribution, and this did enrage whites. But let's be clear: White resentment didn't begin in 1965, when affirmative action was introduced. The end of privilege -- though of course, white privilege didn't end, it was only somewhat reduced -- hurts. Ending slavery meant destroying a lot of privilege, and it created a war. Reconstruction disrupted a lot of privilege and it produced countless lynchings and murders. Ending segregation destroyed a hefty amount of privilege, and it spurred societal tumult and vicious violence. By contrast, affirmative action was a relatively modest policy with fairly minimal effects on privilege, and it merely resulted in a potent political issue for conservatives. But to call white resentment the "poisoned fruit" of affirmative action is extremely strange. White resentment has been around a lot longer, and stems from people's desire to protect the fruits of a gross and grave injustice.
prospect.org
White racists have been trying to dismantle civil rights policies virtually from the start. And due to the race baiting that has gone on since that time, we now live in a country where a particular portion of the white community has come to believe a big lie whereby a zero sum mentality has them claiming they are being victimized by equal opportunity policies or agencies.
“Self-defined victimhood is a psychological state whereby, regardless of the etiology of the feeling or the truth of the matter, one who perceives herself to be a victim is a victim. The perception of being wronged is victimhood. We are not concerned with the truth of one’s victimhood. As such, concepts like intent to harm or genuine unfairness do not bear on self-defined victimhood. One must merely think of oneself in such terms, or behave in such a way, to be a victim.”
- Miles T. Armaly and Adam M. Enders ‘Why Me?’ The Role of Perceived Victimhood in American Politics
"If you want to stop discrimination by race, don't discriminate by race."
WHITE RESENTMENT.
BY EZRA KLEINAUGUST 6, 2008
Publius writes:
Andrew Sullivan replies, "This is the poisoned fruit of that poisonous, if well-intentioned, policy of affirmative action."
That's a very odd response. When trying to understand the roots of white resentment, you have to decide when you start the clock. One place is in the mid-60s, with the civil rights movement, desegregation, affirmative action, and the Great Society. Under this timeframe, whites grew resentful as the government, under the control of earnest liberal do-gooders, showered African-Americans with federal largess. Or you can start the clock at slavery. Under this timeframe, whites enslaved blacks, built an economy atop their unpaid labor, fought viciously to keep them as slaves, then to keep them as second class citizens, then to disrupt even minor attempts to redress the centuries of economic and moral injury they'd endured. African-Americans had been materially harmed by centuries of enslavement and discrimination, while whites had materially benefited from being the slave-owners and the ones with the power to discriminate, and something had to be done to help African-Americans make up the ground that they'd formerly not even been allowed to walk on. This did entail redistribution, and this did enrage whites. But let's be clear: White resentment didn't begin in 1965, when affirmative action was introduced. The end of privilege -- though of course, white privilege didn't end, it was only somewhat reduced -- hurts. Ending slavery meant destroying a lot of privilege, and it created a war. Reconstruction disrupted a lot of privilege and it produced countless lynchings and murders. Ending segregation destroyed a hefty amount of privilege, and it spurred societal tumult and vicious violence. By contrast, affirmative action was a relatively modest policy with fairly minimal effects on privilege, and it merely resulted in a potent political issue for conservatives. But to call white resentment the "poisoned fruit" of affirmative action is extremely strange. White resentment has been around a lot longer, and stems from people's desire to protect the fruits of a gross and grave injustice.
WHITE RESENTMENT.
prospect.org
White racists have been trying to dismantle civil rights policies virtually from the start. And due to the race baiting that has gone on since that time, we now live in a country where a particular portion of the white community has come to believe a big lie whereby a zero sum mentality has them claiming they are being victimized by equal opportunity policies or agencies.
“Self-defined victimhood is a psychological state whereby, regardless of the etiology of the feeling or the truth of the matter, one who perceives herself to be a victim is a victim. The perception of being wronged is victimhood. We are not concerned with the truth of one’s victimhood. As such, concepts like intent to harm or genuine unfairness do not bear on self-defined victimhood. One must merely think of oneself in such terms, or behave in such a way, to be a victim.”
- Miles T. Armaly and Adam M. Enders ‘Why Me?’ The Role of Perceived Victimhood in American Politics
